1212. NUREMBERG

NUREMBERG

They are setting tiles by the wildflowers near the

urns filled with seltzer and plain water, one's choice,

side by side. The peculiar lightbulbs throw a funny

light - downward, onto balding heads and overly

treated hair. Women too nattily dressed for anything

real find they have now no sex to reveal. There are,

everywhere, the pencils and pens of another age.

All things are relegated here to 'reality'

- take it as it comes.

-

Gentlemen stroll in, wearing the tophats of fez and

fedora. Ameliorating circumstances mix all these

races together as no one speaks for they all speak

at once. Microphones bigger than Pepin are scattered

about; large silver items into which people talk.

A certain form of awkwardness abounds.

-

Were these mere crimes of neglect - like an

overtime meter or a traffic violation - perhaps then

one could go for lunch, or take a drink, or dash to

the phone booth to talk. But, instead of that, these

mesmerizing items become a photo-shop of lurid

fantasy - all skin and teeth and emaciated people

standing off and staring out. All those violated women,

they too watching back, try now to remember what

they once sought only to forget. The world's a jumble;

and it hasn't really even started yet.

1211. THE REAL IS THE OTHER

THE REAL IS THE OTHER
How we make a pardon never wanders :
the world is in all things present. The
light is in the Heavenly stars. They
say this reality sings, but I don't know
a thing - and, if I did, what would it say
about that? Nothing much, I'm pretty sure.
What could any of this be? The Real
is in the other? Great moments.
-
The expanse of the world brings forth
a source, things which were not there
before : dead deer and crushed racoons,
carnage along the side of the road. Some
unwitting madman's car tires, pummeling
across the unknown. Even this tiara wilderness
now visits a settled death and brings it forth.
-
The real is in the other - but, having
now passed, and visited, and left,
the world is so much dead as well.
(And little longer with us).

1210. I WAS DOWN, DOWN BY THE SIMPLE IDEALS BUT NO ONE COULD FIND ME

I WAS DOWN, DOWN BY THE

SIMPLE IDEALS, BUT NO ONE

COULD FIND ME
There is another waning moon over my right shoulder

in the early morning darkness - nothing like the sun has

come up yet and the sky grows only slowly light and

thus it has ever been : some Devil entrapment lurks

'round every corner and the yellow lights of weakening

lanterns throw strange forms across the glass and every

window I see is partially shaded by something I'm not

sure of - amidst all the things for sale from yesterday

and all the shoes and coats and hats and cameras of

another commerce are figments of another imagining

- one of magnificent deals and bargains to be made

beyond the reckoning of these feeble cash transactions

and it is only when I STOP to determine what follows me

that I realize it is nothing nothing at all and the

indeterminate nature of my time and place reciprocates

and calls me back by names I will not reckon to :

insignificant wretch foolish cipher and the rest :

were I to actually listen I'd surely go mad but as it is

I'm deaf to the soundings of any Lucifer or Luther too

for that matter and MY theses posted on any doorway

would be addressed to the Devil I see more than the

Devil I don't see : 'you are miserable too you pathetic

little worm' and then I'd list a million things of issue

and consternation - how the world is really flat as

planar consciousness itself and only time enfolds back

upon time over and over how the light we see is but

a tangible manifestation of that which first conceived it.

1209. RANCOR

RANCOR

But rancor is what I hold most dear.

The sea-salt mist ran up and down the

coast, and by the water's edge the terns

kept running. Bright blue light, like Heaven's

very own, splayed frothy o'er the flying water.

We touched the sky in one reach and kept going.

Out, in the distance, the horizon seemed only to

hold some far-off and bobbing ships - tankers

and freighters bound for far shores. Like a forgotten

mountain on the edge of a Chinese sea, I'd painted

something broad and wide on the inside of my mind.

1208. THE DISEMBODIED HAND

THE DISEMBODIED HAND

I must have made you back in time

when things were not yet real.

I must have made you back in time

when things were not yet real.

It seemed like miles back, that then, and then

it seemed like miles back that then.

The man in corduroy was selling old toys.

He talked a blue streak and no one ever listened.

I saw a white hand extend out through the black curtain.

Up it went, and then down. It seemed connected to nothing

at all. A disembodied hand! I told her that when (finally)

the curtain opened and out stepped a beautiful young woman.

'I thought for a moment that was a

disembodied hand.' She laughed.

'I thought for a moment that was a

disembodied hand.' She laughed.

1207. ALL THINGS ALIKE

ALL THINGS ALIKE

Some so sure not so sure

sin not sin go ahead do not do.

The lines are crossed everywhere.

From hamlet to grove, not anyone is

sure they hear another : thousands of

ones on thousands of ones. This life, like

an island in a sea of islands. Adrift. Not adrift.

Anchored not moored. Nowhere to stand. Bored.

-

The Rabelaisian humor of that guy on the stage;

he hammers each line home with a mannered

motion. 'I am supposing this will be funny yet again.'

I swear I heard him say that before the lights went down.

We drank our drinks, watched morosely, and went home.

Home. Not home. That is. That is not. She slept I slept.

Not sleep, not that. I am supposing this will be funny again.

-

In the old days, the very old days, the very, very,

old days, parcels were never left on doorsteps.

The knockers were rung, and the arrival announced.

'I come,' or something like that. Not like that. Come,

not come. Here. Not here. There. Not there.

1206. ANGLED LIKE BENT STEEL

ANGLED LIKE BENT STEEL

And stronger I rage. Inveterate,

as a sea-monster of old lurking

beneath the roiling waters : wine-

dark sea, and all the rest. I pulse a

fist in the heart of mind and swing

wildly with every new urge. Circumstance

and matter and want mean little to me.

(I watch her, standing in black, along the

old, brick building. She's looking back at me).

I raise a mid-century hand to wave, and

she breaks out in laughter. God-damn, it

all worked! We spend the night together,

listening to the Velvet Underground beneath

covers on an old wooden floor. It's simply seen,

all this, in retrospect : the inner vanity of an

aging mind. (I am an old man now, one with old

metal fillings in old ground-down teeth. I've grown

nothing but wiser with age?). Or so it's said.

-

Replete with all the pinions of grace, my steering

has lost its control. I am wilder now than ever

before - a crusty anarchist standing 'midst ruins.

And what do I care? And what do I care at all?

1205. ON A GREAT BLIZZARD OF ICE

ON A GREAT

BLIZZARD OF ICE

I rode in on a great blizzard of ice, on

five huge horses oblivious to cold. They

stayed straight ahead no matter the

circumstance and, when we stopped,

simply ceased movement and stayed

in place as solidly as if they themselves

were encased in ice. The wagon in which

I rode was made of wood so prehistoric

it seemed in itself to herald an era all

its own : ancient forest floors, hardwood

growth on rolling hillsides of grass. Above

me, the linesman with his crop and riding

gear stayed motionless, realizing the coldness

of Death in the wan heat of human nature.

All alone we tagged together - no destination

ever meant, not mentioned, yet, compatriots

to the heart of each other. Waning moon,

black sky, a hoarfrost worth truly a moment

in Hell, worth truly a moment in Hell.

1204. THE MIND IS A MODERN POINT OF VIEW

THE MIND IS A

MODERN POINT OF VIEW

The sluiceway was opened, and the waters inundated

the city - old buildings crumbled and hundreds were killed.

Why this occurred, no one really knew. The civil authorities

blamed the military men, and they, in turn, blamed the

mayor's minions. Substandard experimentation with

governmental funds. Or something like that.

And then not long after, it was said instead to be

the work of God, or some God anyway. The random

Cardinal, coming down from his broken cathedral in

dripping rags, said simply that he would 'have to check'

before commenting. 'After all, God's not really been

around here for a very long time; why would he

re-enter now, and in this manner?' The big brass

went along with that. 'We note this absence of God in

oh so many things; that void will be filled at once

by the King. He will rewrite this episode, and you

will learn in this manner : this idea of 'Mind' is a

modern thing. Reality is essentially empty.'

1203. THE ABSTEMIOUS DR. MARCHANT

THE ABSTEMIOUS

DR. MARCHANT

'I am strongly of the opinion that nothing

is easier to hide than something

that is already hidden, and that nothing

is more obvious than that which is already

right before us. Also that we should

have more love and less law.' He said

that standing sideways, leaning on a

wall like only a rich man can do. He looked

pretty much like a man who did nothing :

BUT : opined for others, voiced his opinions

openly, found exceptions to every rule, and

then found a rule to beat even the exceptions.

A woman seeking a mate might say 'I like

that in a man.' A woman long married might

scoff. Either way, the proof would be in the

pudding, as is said. Yet...as I knew it would,

the world subtly changed this viewpoint.

Sparrows fell and clouds rolled over the sun.

The dark of an early evening entered midnight

way before its time. I wanted to ask him what

he did for the living. 'I bury the dead,' he answered,

'and those not yet dead, well, them I try my very

best to make well again.' His words sounded like

a Bach cantata in my head. I wanted to nod assent,

but - instead - seemed frozen in place by fear.

1202. GO AHEAD BY THINKING THINGS THROUGH

GO AHEAD BY

THINKING THINGS THROUGH

Yes, I'm going to go ahead by thinking things through -

what is the real, the cattle in the pen or the pen around

the cattle? The water in the pond or the pond alone?

How well can I know what I know so well? And, for

sure, how much of a riddle, really, is a riddle I cannot

solve? Like the moment of envy, when we realize it's

a 'sin' to want what we cannot have but detest another

for having it, it's a realization that it's far too late to rue

the fact now, having already stepped into that quicksand.

And sinking fast. It has been said that 'Truth' is but one

perspective, and perhaps that notion I can understand.

-

I am nowhere, while being everywhere. I am a notion,

while being so real as to bleed. No satisfaction in stupor,

I stay awake nonetheless, hoping for something, anything

at all, to arise and haunt me, belittle me with rhymes,

make fun of everything I've tried. I'm hung from the post

in that huge, huge parking lot of the recognizably dead.

-

Finding myself somehow suddenly comfortable.

I do not want to come down at all.

1201. PICTURES OF THE PAST

PICTURES OF THE PAST

Once again I am looking at pictures

of the past; no reason, just pictures

of the past. My finger brushes along a

marking - someone's note in pen. A date,

it looks like, which someone has memorialized

in their late nineteenth century scrawl. An inkpen

writing almost too fussy to be right. There are odd

shadows and the broken faces of two people who have

- evidently - not stood still; or not, at least,

long enough for this exposure as needed. They're

both buried now, I know the names, in the huge

cemetery at the bottom of this awkward hill.

Where am I living while they are dead still?

-

Pictures of the past again. How sad or how

boring - depending on point of view. Like

the Colosseum in Rome, or some Punta

Del Vecchio heard of in stories, what matters

and what difference does any of it make? Broken

metal and twisted steel, old things replaced by

plastic, new containers of some fibrous matter :

everything's been replaced, and we keep on going

anyway. Like the old gardener girl I used to kiss,

it's a fleeting memory of memory's fleeting bliss.

1200. HERE I AM

HERE I AM

(Reading, Pennsylvania)

I'm a half-feint from Thursday and better than that;

living large at the top of some Reading hill, at Duryea

Road, beneath the Pagoda, and looking down on a city

decrepit, a city of shit, a hell-hole too vile to tell. I don't

know how I got here, but I wasn't looking for this. Way

up this hill, of course, the old hotel is long gone, rocks

are a shambles, and the only thing left, this tower and

that Pagoda, are but distant reminders of a vivid, dead

past. People up here are talking. Like morons. Some

kid is babbling to his mother about where he wants the

X-Box put in the cellar so his friends can come over

and play. She, like the crackhead she wants to be, is

nodding some crazy assent without caring - while gazing

out from this very high window on the white paste of

Shit City below. A lot she cares. Another kid nearby is

pointing out to his girlfriend how he can make out his

house far down below. A local denizen, hey! The girlfriend

just smiles, and says 'can you?' as if it mattered whether he

said he could 'make out his house' far below or 'make out

in his house' far below. My own personal goon squad is still

listening. I was bored like a swallow on concrete waiting

for some bread. The Peace Bell at the top of the narrow

stairs, even that won't ring. I go up and slap it with my

palm and, damn, if it doesn't ring. Nobody hears, and I

don't say a thing. I'm thinking of jumping, but I'd probably

expire long before I hit. What's the use of all this? I

really don't get any of it. But, hey, as I said, 'here I am.'

1199. SO LET'S SHOOT BOB DYLAN IN THE EYE

SO LET'S SHOOT
BOB DYLAN
IN THE EYE
What would he care anyway? That
stifling face purveying whatever it wants,
scrounging around to be something it's
not, nor ever was. Vaudeville charlatan,
pickle-poster poser, father of nineteen,
maker of many marks with a certain wry
false attached as well. A guy like a surreal
marksman, wearing a derby hat and pretending
to smoke a cigarette. Being something he never
was while making a publicity shot - but still
living home clinging at Mama and Papa's grace.
Forever like that. Living in a closet filled with
grime. Polishing the leather of never-worn
shoes. Traveling like a prisoner in a wagon
from town to town - and doing
absolutely nothing at all.

1198. MUMFORD

MUMFORD
I am reading once again 'The Brown Decades'
and think I've found its key : a strident
diction with a point of view and grand
grammar - strong and straight with no
hesitation at all. As once in Elmira, I
am sitting around a Civil War graveyard
thinking alone about the dead and all their
names. Those places of battle where they
died. Those strange coats of arms and
memorial insignias, and the way towns and
counties and states would proudly identify
their own men - the boys they'd sent off
to be killed...or kill. As if there's a difference.
It was Rossetti who once said to me : 'These
peacocks in groves of their own seek shelter
and shade, where they can be alone'. He had a
few himself in his great old yard. He knew, I
assume then, what it was he was talking about.

1197. TRUTH FITS

TRUTH FITS
I am not interested in dwarfs.
I am not interested in folk singers
or carolers or bangers of ancient drums.
I seek no remuneration for turning cards,
nor do I listen twice to stories told by old
men about their wars. Women's lingerie, alas,
doesn't really interest me, nor its fit or lack thereof.
All of this will have to suffice, as I am in clear in saying -
'Really, I do very little of anything at all.'

1196. SAME TIME LAST YEAR

SAME TIME LAST YEAR
Nothing stands still.
You're not what you were before.
The fallows have ended their siege.
Come back home with me.
I've rolled up the lawn, so as
to see straight to Hell itself.
And oh, it is so much better this way.

1195. SYMBOLIC REALITY

SYMBOLIC REALITY
Those numbers are always running;
remember, you have nothing. There
is no essential difference between your
fraction of 'Time ' - what you call
the oasis of the real - and the factotum
of what presents itself to you; symbolic
reality being all the rage. Take your
pole to the sideline; just stand and watch.
I will stand in for you if you will stand in
for me. Those numbers are always
running, or do you still not see?
-
I will speak up for all the lost and maimed,
the dead sheep and the lambs, the oxen and
all the other beasts who have stepped these
pains. I will shout a'high for Mankind too,
evolved from a cosmic rubble to a new
and ever-present low. I will shout aversely.
I will not let it be. The bottom is the top,
the top the bottom, or do you still not see?
-
For all the things not done,
it is the things done that
have hurt me the most.

1194. PERENNIAL BESTIARY

PERENNIAL BESTIARY

(Gullible's Travels)

I went to the monuments. They

were not there. Wreaths of accolades,

all the honors of high births, and I'd

most apparently missed out on them

all. I went to the highest mountain.

There was a castle at the top. I spoke

to the Castle-Keep, in his hut by the

side of the moat. Not moat really,

more like river of flames. I asked him

why it all had to be like this. He arose,

and said : 'Fine fellow no. It is not as it

appears at all. All these things are

temporary, even the fires and the flame.

And up high on that hill, there is really

no one at all. You see, you have made

all this up.' I pointed to my feet and said,

'Then why then do my feet hurt so?'

He smiled, and said back, 'And oh,

you are so gullible'.

1193. I WENT TO ELDREDGE

I WENT TO ELDREDGE
I went to Gertle's but it was not there.
I went to Eldredge to see what I could.
Nothing there left but baritone hammer-men
building scaffolds to make a new front and
install new glass. Paint cans abounded while
some old truck rumbled out front. Along
the street, newspapers and rubble. Free
like cats, things all blew along. The winterized
wind was rubbing the panes and the corners.
I hunkered down in my feeble jacket, in
a vain attempt to stay warm. Why now,
and how could they possibly work in this
weather? I went to the Seward Library,
Rutgers Park, the old dairy bar by The
Forward. It too was gone - some Chinese
joint now, big deadened fish swimming
to die, lugubrious in the large, clouded tank.
People eat this stuff, but first they pay.
-
I couldn't remember the streets any
longer. Everything had been taken
away. I wanted to go. I wanted to stay.
Jarmulowsky's Bank? Well, OK.

1192. HERE'S MY DEAL

HERE'S MY DEAL

I manage to scale the walls by payday and then right

after that my job is taken away from me in a pullback.

So soon I'm broke again and back to riding shotgun

for the taxicab medallion police. Up and down the same

gross avenues for seventy-eight-fifty a day : the selfsame

photograph might be the same. Hookers. Pimps. People

dying. Runaway kids. Criminals and muggers. Beaten

mothers and exiled fathers. Cops on the take. Cops

on the prowl, thinking they can do no wrong. It's always

like the moment for someone really big to arrive has

arrived but no one ever arrives. A funny feeling of

lost potential and missed opportunity. I never

did get used to any of that at all.

1191. MERITORIOUS SERVICE

MERITORIOUS SERVICE
('come the revolution')
For meritorious service he was suspended
by his neck until dead, hanged like a hanged
man from a rope draped over support beams
in the grand and spacious central square.
(Where, evidently, he had no support).
Just before death, as further honor,
he was given the key to the city, a
complete transit pass - anywhere,
ever, at all, anytime - a lifetime
gold-card National Library pass
and a full-expense paid portrait
sitting in the Atelier For Grand
National Artists. Apparently,
and unfortunately as well,
this all came his way just a
little too late, as the late
Great General is dead.

1190. SHAG BARK HICKORY

SHAG BARK HICKORY
Going the straight way is not always
the most direct : it is said, mostly opposite
of that, that there are various ways of
(what they call) 'skinning' a cat.
I wouldn't know the farcical
point of any of that - in fact I've
NEVER considered skinning a cat.
Be realistic, would you please? The
shag bark hickory, most lovely of trees?
We line the mountain roads, if you
notice, with rhododendrons - whether
native or natural, wild or cultivated,
I'll never know. As with so many people,
that is a trait that doesn't always show.
-
Memorize this : 'I shall never go where
I'm not wanted to be, I shall never plant
myself, in the same vein, solidly, like a
tree. There is nothing here in this life for
me. Consider what I'm saying;
shag bark hickory.'

1189. NOT ALWAYS ABJECT

NOT ALWAYS ABJECT
Walking a board - one thrown
over a swamp, moving on mud-soup
of a sort - abject thoughts glide by.
Always, but not always.
-
Man on a swing : rocking his chair.
On a porch. The old, orange car
is parked alongside. Huge oak tree
glories in its age and shape. From
the side kitchen window,
a head is seen.
-
Wooden steps, with a too-much distance
between them; slightly rotted. Platform
boards above that, solid and sound. The
feeling is 'we've got to get out of here, go
someplace else, and now.' But no one
listens or moves, and those who did
stay in place anyway. Abject thoughts
glide by; always, but not always.

1188. MANFORKIND

MANFORKIND

MAN FOR KIND

Kindling wood makes the best fires;

deep in these woods we de-camp

as we tire. They tell me the year

is, somehow, 2181. I know no more

than that. These tall dark fir trees

above me are whistling wildy,

in a very strange breeze. Indeed.

1187. MENDINGHAM FICKLEPOST

MENDINGHAM FICKLEPOST

We sat at the edge of the quay, and I was

so distressed. Twelve years old, in a foreign

land, and going crazy with the realization

that I'd never get home. The singers kept

walking by, two guys and a girl, practicing

these inane park-like songs, things you'd

hear on the carousel or at some Twickingham

Park somewhere. Not here. People laughing,

not at me, I hoped. Funny little tourist kid,

taken by force, to a foreign land, by two creepy

padres thinking they owned me. Father

Flim and Father Flam; I called them that.

Boy's Town, my ass. They were having chocolate

drinks now, on the table nearby - two silly

men, sucking yellow straws to draw up a

brown liquid. I sat there, transfixed by the

idea that, soon enough, they would die. If I

didn't kill them, I was sure boredom would.

1186. EL CARMOSO

EL CARMOSO

I wanted to tell you about this:

The riot down by the waterworks;

fifteen hundred people with candles,

screaming for some sort of justice, and

the police on horseback riding through.

They split skulls with mallets, smashed

people in the face with their hard-rubber

truncheons, ran down children in the way.

A sort of dismal, nightmare carnival of

twisted faces and bloodied heads. The

entire town square of El Carmoso, later

that night, filled with people screaming

- all over again - for justice once more.

Was it all to be the same? Justice? Revenge?

You know, squalor has many companions, and

the dead are mourned for only so long.

-

I came upon this story in the

Mexico City Journal, buried

deep on page 24. Nearby, there

were a few ads for mortuaries and

embalmers and mourners for hire.

What kind of world is this, when such

curiosities are to what we aspire?

1185. NO OF COURSE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO

NO OF COURSE

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO

Need my heart stay inside

my chest, or can it come

out for you?

1184. LINDISFARNE IS NOT LANDISVILLE

LINDISFARNE IS

NOT LANDISVILLE

From Runnemede to Blackwood to Berlin.

A really simple stretch of nothing, and one

where I used to live. I left all the wet towels

in the closet to dry. I ran for my life. I left

there screaming for mercy. Now the highway

runs everywhere through it. The bird and

egg hatchery where they sold live chickens

and fresh eggs before they ranged range-free.

No sort of marketing like that back then.

Fred Kretz would just look and say 'It's a

fucking chicken, boy. Nothing more.'

-

Those nasty-ass Salvatorians with their black

hip-side beads. Swinging them forward and

back like gay hips. Clutching the rugged cross

to use the beads as whips. I know. Got the

lashes to show. There was no God at the core,

I found out. Only multiplication of rules, rites

and strictures, and that stupid Catholic math :

one equals three one equals three one equals

three; Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

-

I swam those shores to get to this island:

my own alone, a place of study, a cot

where the wise man sleeps. I wish

only wish I could be there alone.

All this remonstrance gives

me the creeps.

1183. NOW ANIMATED BY WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY

NOW ANIMATED BY
WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY
Escarpment. The lawn was folding down -
an old green, now tired and dying, the
color of Fall. Everywhere, things were
dropping. Bird voices tried singing again;
last attempts to cheer up the gloom?
-
Upcoming, we too rise like larkspur and
other floral charm, watching magics and
illusions prance the solid expanse - one
of dirt and place and room. We are not
leaving this place too soon, for the wind,
it calls on us to stay, and the light -
some solar-powered force of now -
elects that we will play, here, with the
living and not with the dead.
-
A harsh, chalkboard cough, like the kind a
dull teacher would give for silence, now
pervades this garden space. Water through
the fountain splays, as some personification
of Grace or Truth or Humility or Wisdom
or Love. One of those things we try, in
granite or stone, to have chiseled into
form, as if from above.
-
Alas, too deeply this heavy world
wields a hammer of its own.

1182. COLUMBIANA

COLUMBIANA

Across the great desert, across the vast

field, 'midst rains and waves and waters all,

they kept coming. One after the first and a

million more for seconds - by such steps

a nation was made. Slathered in wooden

ships, tyrannical in sea-swept fury, buffeted

and killed by storms and sickness, nothing

but the arrival mattered. Little else; the end.

So many fragmented matters arrived, so

lost to little but time, aware of the oasis,

and ready to salute. 'Your teeming hordes'

seemed like nothing, really. Across the

New York streets, they stumbled, forlorn

and lonely, brave and stalwart : turning forces

into forces of what they turned. Hoodlums,

wastrels, gents and crooks. Or, to be more

precise, 'the other side of everything,

Greenhorn!' Columbiana is watching you.

1181. PARADOXES

PARADOXES

There is so much I do not know,

there is so much not to know.

The bridge goes over the water,

the water runs under the bridge.

There are so many places I have

not been; as many as there are places

perhaps not to go. There are so many

shadows in the light, and so many lights

in the shadows. I can't handle everything,

and there are so, so many things I

should not handle at all.

1180. TESTAMENT

TESTAMENT

The softest part of seeing is in your face;

those little people of night, coming out from

the trees. I see them, sparkling, with their

eyes all aglow. Fearing nothing, I walk forward,

hoping to climb to the far Heavens above,

on something like the coattails of Love.

1179. CLOSE HIS EYES AND SHUT THE SHADES; HE WAS DELIVERED DEAD AS THEY COME

CLOSE HIS EYES AND

SHUT THE SHADES;

HE WAS DELIVERED

DEAD AS THEY COME

Death by grimace. Arterial sclerosis. Deadly

Nightshade barbecue tea. Off the sauce and

out to sea. It's over; every Raisenet in that kid's

box is gone. I was reading the headlines, and

then they fell over. Wampun Bristol Macademia.

Wampun, an Amerindian using wordplay.

Macademia, nuts attending university.

Bristol, what it costs to pay a moyel.

1178. COMA-INDUCED DALLIANCE

COMA-INDUCED DALLIANCE

'Come away with me' and all the rest; the billboard

graces the Van Allen belt. Stars high, resplendent in

their small-town sizzle, extirpate everything in the

way. ('I'm sure I heard the music ending, long, long

before it started'). Like this was Jurassic Park.

-

We ate the medallions of beef while standing at

the oyster shack. Behind us, the fat Brooklyn surf

beat itself to death on the sand. A signman strolled

by, in a Chaplin bowler hat. 'Eat twice at Neremans!'

it said, 'Once for pleasure, and once for fun!'.

In the basket, an old Jew was throwing dice.

-

'It never was like this before!', the guy said. 'When

I was a boy, we could stay here all day, for a nickel!

And I mean all day, and I mean a nickel!'

1177. AT ONCE

AT ONCE

Here comes everything together -

a consort of great apes and voices.

Sounds ringing; the salamander

at the bottom of the basin, like a

soiled old penny, is found again

at the bottom of the ledge. Again,

and again it slinks steadily upward

from the slime it inhabits. We

really must sort this out.

-

November is cold and hard and harsh;

a very serious month decked with grey,

and those low, running skies. Not a

month for dreaming, to be sure
(yet still I am dreaming of you).

1176. WE HAVEN'T HAD TO DO THAT YET

WE HAVEN'T HAD

TO DO THAT YET

I am heavy with symbolism tonight.

The dark beard of doubting I tug.

Regard me but for the instant, the

stars and moon astride my window.

They reward the watching in a silent

brood of detail and place. Just as all

the Heavens are arrayed, so my own

Life is listed : squarely, solidly, and set.

It seems things are like this always.

So many, many items to do, when all

one really wants to do is watch the

setting moon, (a sight not seen before),

which I've never seen go down.

1175. VANDALS AND HUNS ARE COMING TO DINNER

VANDALS AND HUNS

ARE COMING TO DINNER

'And then we snapped his fucking head off with a

crack.' The hordes, the hordes were taking back

whatever they could - cranium mountains and

those rivers and streams. Horses, red-eyed horses,

sweaty and pumped, pacing to prance at their own

fiery breath. Eyes bulging! But more than that, the

piercing force of those on foot. Lines and lines across

the land where blood alone dwells. No company

like this before. Land and space, together, and words

without words. We are growing tired, too, of all

their Christian ways - gutter-prancing pagan-induced

half beliefs. What is the difference anyway? No time

for this as we cross these doty but savage civic squares.

Bells and encampments are everywhere. You seek

compensation? There is none, you vassal cunning serf.

'And we snapped his fucking head off at the neck.'

1174. EXIT PLAN

EXIT PLAN

I've minded these manners for 100 years,

with nothing to show for it now but old date

books filled with the complaints of whiners

and hacks. I can still see their faces, hovering,

like ghosted images seen late at night. The ones

who would complain, even in Paradise. Those

whose motherboard has always been loosely

connected : liars and apes and chimps and

twisters. Wrestlers with the Devil itself.

I finally said this to myself: 'put down

that pile of crap, place everything

ever touched down on the table,

get up, look around, and walk out.'

1173. SCRUM

SCRUM

Deficiencies alike to domination,

and the caterwauling along the roadway.

Look out, just see, peer easy from your perch.

These are five million eyes looking back at you.

The one man, rolling his sleeves, the other five

looking on. The woman, adjusting the strap on

her bag and then slinging it back to her shoulder.

Like ice on an already-frosting, she brings her

cold aim to direction. Reflected in the lights

above her, a glimmering reflection of a

Saturday sky. Everyone passes quickly.

Far, far above, the jet stream follows

a tiny, pinpoint plane.

1172. A RANK SATISFACTION

A RANK SATISFACTION

A rank satisfaction from this seventh-year itch

would be colluding with policemen and doctors.

'We can say he's dying, and he did the crime.

Set up the circumstantial evidence until

we have him crying. Send him up for life

and then send him a pardon. It will all

be a big joke and it'll drive him crazy.'

-

Who in the world are they talking about?

I wonder to myself while I light the last

match in this final pack. They're gratis

matches from some machinery shop

way out in the Bronx. How I got

them, I really can't remember.

-

Before this freaky donut shop, last

night late, I think I was at a party

on the piers - an artist's bash for

a west-side show, or something.

The people there were nuts, I

remember that; lighting flares

to Jersey on the old rotted wood.

1171. AND I LIKE THAT AS WELL

AND I LIKE THAT AS WELL

We have men and ladies shopping at the

Proto-Garage for small and lacy underthings.

They all seem so candy-like, the caramelized

surplus of plums and cookies and creams.

Nothing worth nothing, to be almost concealed

but not quite. 'We only want to suggest coverage,

you see,' the fey one is saying outside the store,

smoking a brown cigarette and leaning on the

bus-stop post, 'a nipple is still a nipple. whether

it's partially covered or not - even for the girls,

we merely want to titillate, leaving things only

quite unseen.' I think to myself, 'they must

teach this shit in some lingerie school.'

I really think Victoria's Secret was that she

wore nothing at all underneath her heavy

clothing. How else to pierce that darkness

of night of the era which now, obliquely,

bears her name alone?

1170. IMBROGLIO

IMBROGLIO
Everything was hazy, journeying back.
Maybe my arm had broken off in your hand,
maybe my Mom was in that sling, maybe you
carried the breakfast we never had. The entire
world was washed in a sepia light, things were
moving slowly, in some staccato fashion I'd
not seen before. We'd hatched some plans as
we trekked, but - again - we already knew
nothing would come of them. That old miner's
camp at the bottom, in the valley where the
Perse ran into the Boto, the place where the
warriors lived : a sort of invalid camp for
old, wounded knights and horsemen. So many
men, in one place, with only one eye. I was
almost wishing it was a nightmare instead.
The horses whinnied as we walked along.
Ah, the slice of life, the places where people
live, the mildewed paint, the peeling stucco.
All those tarnished incidentals of an old,
tired existence. A hundred small
villages, broken at the core.

1169. AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF DIAMOND DUST

AGAINST A BACKGROUND

OF DIAMOND DUST

Against a background of diamond dust I have

nothing worthwhile to say. Things are piled up

everywhere, and I seem insipid to a fault. The

heavy mantle of the sky rings low my hollow

head and things begin to fail, to falter, to droop.

I capture me a waterfly by only the most

sumptuous means. Placing my head down on

a most comforting rock, I close my eyes to

see if my head will fit. There is a crevice

seemingly perfect in shape. A fly fisherman,

so to speak, would never have a better day

than this. My joy should be in a magazine.

-

You have wondered what I was talking

about, what elixir I drank to get this

way, what tablet, perhaps, I ingested.

No, no, it was nothing like that.

Rather, oh bystander, it was this

more than momentary feeling

that I shall, truly, live forever.

1168. AUTUMNAL

AUTUMNAL
I am walking through
leaves ankle deep, things
fallen beneath a waning moon;
one that now seems upside down.
The stars and the planets around it,
as well, seem errant in their hanging.
Suspended and skewed in the fairy sky,
white with wisps gone passing by.
-
Rough spots? Hilly? Stones and
rocks and all the things of Earth,
they now make second-drawer of
all the rest of the world. And now the
men are talking too : bold colors on
the hillside, broken limbs and branches,
leaves, ankle deep, on the forest floor.
So much to do, and more....

1167. TYGER

TYGER
[Maybe we get tired of the symbolism,
yet on it goes nonetheless - things
speaking for us, like that tyger at the tomb.
Tyger, tyger burning bright, in the forest of
the night....what fearful hand or eye.
-
The artist draws lines with both hands,
one into the other in a row by row.
-
Creation is a myth circulated by all.
Shadows are repeated over and over
by all those passing in the dark. Rather
this scree, this projected picture we
imagine (each other imagining), should
be talking about us - and yet, as it
grows apace perhaps it is. Tyger,
tyger buring bright....].

1166. IT IS STILL UNKNOWN WHAT ANYTHNG MEANS

IT IS STILL UNKNOWN
WHAT ANYTHING MEANS
Fuzzy starry sky I cannot see you.
Too far for sense and logic, I suppose,
and I am gone forever : the deep
distances make your yesterdays my
tomorrows. The lights waver and hide.
Everything new is old outside.
-
Like leaden gold it came down hard -
all the chariots and fires and angels.
No one else said a word as, after all
the whole thing took but a minute.

1165. DECIMATION

DECIMATION

(my father said 'keep your

head up when you write')

This being the smartest fire ever, I am

slaughtered by a million cuts. I am burned.

The swivel chair has hit my head. That

toilsome burro yet chases my figure, and

I have nowhere left to turn; beset by

rumors of high tide and low rent.

I listen to the rumble-roar beneath

the ground and realize - only too

late and with sorrow - that I was

destined for other things of no

import. The blind boy in the

leaking bubble : perhaps,

yes, maybe, that was

always me.

1164. NORTH AMERICAN GROUNDS

NORTH AMERICAN GROUNDS

The checkered flag grows wild on Grand Street,

as the Chinese girls are smiling. No one really

knows why. We all withered in the kitchen

for a long, hot Summer now gone. The dumpling

cart, like some frosty cake with icing, swirled

round and round, every hour anew.

-

No one left. No one ever came home. We loved

every moment : the businessmen in suits who

would come in to watch the horse-races on TV,

Asian guys between deals, loud and laughing.

Throwing dumb money around. No one ever

won anything at all. It was light and airy.

-

When I met your first cousin Hua-Mei,

I knew right off she was related to you :

somehow same dimple, twisted smile, and

those wandering green eyes. You both

said something about your fathers being

the same, but first-cousins nonetheless.

Not in this land. I didn't follow at all.

-

When the sugar-berry fell to the ground

everyone rushed, praising Buddha, to

pick it back up. You all lit candles in the

bowl, with twelve oranges around it.

Odd customs, and this North American

land. Old, old stories on this

North American ground.

No one really knows

why.