2065. DALI EYE IDOL I

DALI EYE IDOL I
Holding the leash on his Whippet,
the tall man signals me to enter
his picture. I access from across
his lake - me Natty Bumppo too -
and make this meager entrance as
people talk at me. The two shaved
women sit across the table from me;
they are bouncing words as predetermined
balls, everything without meaning and each
a set-piece in place. They talk of where
they are to go already, and already I am
gone. My feet step off into the muds of art.
No harm. The tall man, holding the reins
on his Whippet, bends and - as I watch -
he gracelessly lances a dream. I think back
to Summer, when, without words, I - and only
I it was - sat alone amidst the wedded trees.

2064. TRAIN FORCE LINE MARK

TRAIN FORCE LINE MARK
Scratching the surface of some other
horizon up close, seen as particular
things we are - without a fault-line,
dependent on nothing at all. What we
live is one free moment. The noise is
all on that surface, clackety-clack.
Isn't that what they say anyway?
-
Euro-cars, like nothing at all, where
glass is steam and steam is now
glass-electric. I left a wife in the
doorway crying, just as she was -
a faucet in full-drip, tears down the
face of a very-responsive world. I
am traveling to other lands. I
have left a lot behind me.

2063. JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

It was John Maynard Keynes who said

'in the long run, we're all dead'. Johann

Sebastian Bach is dead, and, now, so is

Keynes for that matter. Beethoven, I heard,

has died as well. Nothing is much worse than

yesterday's news, old and stale already. With

everyone else in the know, I wonder why the

morning waitress even asks me what I'd like.

She should have read it the day before. But,

nonetheless, I shrug : the shrug of despair, the

shrug of no-care, the shrug of the hospital

that just shuttered its doors, the shrug of

the doctor who overdosed on pills and died

by his own choice. The shrug of that lady,

peppered with buckshot and walking on,

wounded. The shrug of the old, soiled dog

chained harshly outside to the doghouse

at the pen. The one where the graffiti reads:

'In the long run, we're all dead; in the long

run, we're all dead.' I'll stand here a while

watching the scene, and then I too will

(most probably) just shrug it all off and,

thinking little of it, walk on.

2062. WEDNESDAY NIGHT

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

Once it was what it was, they opened

the oval and let the dogs in. Outside, at

the candy pavilion, under the dark-moon

sky, children were lined up - spacious and

broad the tents rang with feeling. I looked

up once, thinking to find meaning or some

philosophy of the little grace beneath the

graceful great sky. Found none, of course.

Setting in, a form of mental rigor-mortise

set my jaw to place. I watched the tiny

horse-cart going round and round.

Greyhounds and a donkey too. A long,

lean clown balanced popcorn on his nose

while braving the maneuver on stilts

as well. And oh, the crowd swelled

so with laughter, and oh the

crowd swelled.

2061. PROPOSITION 122

PROPOSITION 122

I shan't go away, I shan't avoid.

Nothing comes between : the harbor

is filled with little ships and the people

who use them. They swagger as they

shake the water off. It might seem

prosaic, but this tiny scene is actually

quite dramatic.

2060. BEHIND IT NO MEANING AT ALL

BEHIND IT NO

MEANING AT ALL
I washed my face in a legion of doubt and came
away holding a candle. The books we'd been reading
were still on the table, open, just as we had left
them. Aristotle on stasis, and some guy from the
middle east writing about Love. What a tale my
thoughts could tell. If you could read my mind love.
All these words; they get jumbled up like I'm
doing a puzzle my mind had made itself. I really
don't want that tree there, but there it is. Last
January 2nd I went to a cold burial on a wicked
hill. Someone had died, as they all do, in the
week between Christmas and then. It little
mattered anyway because, by the time we
were done, the snow had covered it all back up.
We drove away like pilgrims headed to a feast.
Hot food in a wintry redoubt, a roadside inn with
vast mountains behind it. I could never find it again.
-
I blush when I think of you, and what we did. Not
really, but whatever. My magazine mind can take
you all apart and put you right together again. I
look at your red lips and wish that they were mine.
Now, too late, that candle I mentioned is burning
down and hot wax is hurting my hand. I rub it out
with an old dry cloth : it too catches fire as I hold it.
-
Jesus Christ this is a wond'rous life,
with behind it no meaning at all.

2059. ALL THE WAY ON

ALL THE WAY ON

Just like, that is, any life you would

ever live. The car is in the driveway now

and all things are very modern. There

are metal reds and metal greens going

nowhere. My pitter-patter heart too itself

has died. Long ago, and already on the way

out, I wanted to find a feature : young boy,

and all of nothing too - wishing to be, FBI

agent, priest, provocateur, railroad guy,

tough man in a hoary little western tale.

Emily Emmet McCallister, a good woman,

living all alone and far out in the wilds, on

the prairie somewhere. Then the railroad came

as they laid the tracks - Union Pacific or

Missouri Central or Baltimore and Ohio,

something. Rebel flags and taunted horses;

long ago it was a troubled world.

-

Someone said I had the good sense to lose my

good sense and go mad. I'm still with that thought

in my mind : Emily Emmet McCallister? I built

her a cabin deep in the woods and there she

laid down to die. It was all things, everywhere -

Indian wars and then the Revolution and then

the Civil War, and with all that the railroad men

and the Rebels and the Indians with their squaws,

they all came riding through. Time had compressed

and folded over on itself - it was all over in a

blink that ended all of Time.

-

Just like, that is, any life you

would ever live. All the way on,

and then all the way off again.

2058. MY MOST GENTEEL ROUT

MY MOST GENTEEL ROUT

My brother, my brother, I've lost so

many things standing here at the

border while still my heart sings.

Having never learned a trade, I trade

my learning now for a hundred other

things : nail-biting, the way the boxer

falls to the mat and does not get up,

the fair and distant horizon where

that faint green light yet beckons, and

I am all alone; thinking of someone

equally fair at the 'fine, green breast

of a newer world.' (I've never felt at

home, all things made brutal by this

world you see). But oh to you my brother

I owe no strife; we co-exist, and that is

life, so different and yet the same. The

fireplace has its fire as the flower has

its flower. On the mantle, the dim

yellow of the sitting-room lamp shines

on, illuminating (almost) nothing at all.

2057. AARVO GASTINARRD

AARVO GASTINAARD

Soft on the sofa and heavy on the meatloaf,

they were teaching mnemonics in the schoolroom

while forty kids yelled out something obscene. I

wasn't really there to tell you about it, but I can

make things up if that helps. Up high, along the

ceiling, someone had spray-painted 'ape-shit rat

bastards', saying it was a memory device to help

on tests. No one batted an eye - the last one they'd

used had to be replaced anyway, having been all

battered and soggy by now through vast over-use.

The teacher (a dumb-limbed man from Elberon)

was reading aloud from 'The Memory Palace of

Matteo Ricci', but no one listened. In that book,

the author relates how some 600 years ago or so,

this fellow in China found a means of memorizing

the placement of every item in a room (way before

photography, y'understand) by using memory

devices to situate each item. Not sure what the hell

that really meant anyway, not one of the kids

showed to care. One Molly Bloom had lifted her

skirt to show boys her twat - 'Memorize this, it's all

I've got!' she sang to them. Another fine lad named

Jimmy called out to his Aunt for a gimme 'Give me

five minutes with your hundred pound cunt - never

again will you call me a runt!'. Yes, yes, he was heard

to say. Anyway, that's how it went. A long, long time

ago, and I made it all up, but I bet you'll never forget it.

2056. THAT POUNDING ON THE TRAVELER'S HEART

THAT POUNDING ON

THE TRAVELER'S HEART

Make sure of this you fucking fool : carnal space is

no space at all and travel in a knapsack sucks. Yes,

right there, they were all lined up - sick travelers

and wild pilgrims, guys with ticket stubs coming out

their gay asses, and thirteen fabulous women, each

one with a knife stuck in her back. The ticket collector,

the man with the black eye, was standing by.

-

By the time we reached the terminal at Cincinnati

it was all over. Every little crestfallen nip and tuck

had told its story and led its owner away. Now,

instead of two hundred we were a paltry thirty

nine. And the skyline, that skyline of red and rouge,

was turning cartwheels in the sky. Each one told its

story and even I had mine. Circumlocution with

beautiful lips, and nothing more to be said.

2055. STACCATO

STACCATO
Once we broke the bank at Villeneuve, we
kept on running for our lives; fork-handles
and tophats chasing us everywhere. As if
some cartoon villain, our sweat beads
turned to bullets and whizzed past our
heads. Our dogs turned to dragons, shooting
flames back at us. Nothing was steady and,
instead, everything wavered like flames
in the heat. I wouldn't wish this on anyone
else but me. The fact of the matter is,
if I knew how to extricate myself from
all this soily matter, I would. As it is,
I'll stay in place - if I can - and simply
relate these crazy tales to all of you.

2054. THE BOX OF THE BUS TOOK ME ON

THE BOX OF THE

BUS TOOK ME ON

Did I then run away just to be heard?

Was I fleeing from the grimace of my

own faint invisibility? I never was to know,

as before I thought of it all I was already

gone. The box of the bus took me on.

-

Traveling west, Pennsylvania called its

Ohio, and I stayed as they mingled. The

twist of the river brushed across my shoe,

anxious yet ready to move. Scanning one

strange horizon, I settled my gait and

got set to walk on. And walk on I did.

-

Travel's adventure, duration's mishaps,

each of them entered my fray. I sat long

mornings eating chestnuts and corn, things

taken or grabbed from wherever they formed :

the wild grace of wild food, a natural bounty

aiding me on. I smiled at the grace.

-

A traveler such as me had not before been

seen. Empty pages in an open book. My

pen was my heart and all set to write.

Geography I learned as I went. All my

Life was before me, my power was

push, and in use before it was spent.

-

Do you know what I mean and that which

I say? Can you hear me, oh loud folk,

oh millions, oh crowded city-scape's

growls and dogs? I am not silent, for

I speak to you, in all that I am

and all that I do.

2053. HOW I GARBLED THIS TRANSLATION

HOW I GARBLED THIS

TRANSLATION (2010)

(from Ernst Jule, 1931)

Darkling through night in the deep, dense woods,

catching no shadows in the blackness, of course I

felt alone. The woman beside me, Althea, poised

herself strongly aside a tree. She lit, with one

vague, unlined hand, the cigarette, for me, with

a match - the old-fashioned kind - that she

lit on the tree. A simple stroke, the strike along

the roughened bark. I think, because I didn't

see much in the dark until after the flame had

ignited, its simple red roar momentarily lighting

both our faces. There was a trace of a smile on

her lips. I understood all that and, yes, surely,

felt Belgium to be just around the bend in the

road. I never understood travel very well,

and never borders either - now, traveling

by foot like this through the woods, we were

attempting, instead, to sneak across something

unseen. Life has its dark and its matter too.

I hunkered down in my thick coat, as we

walked amidst a silence enough for two.

2052. THOSE SHEEP IN THE MANGER

THOSE SHEEP IN THE MANGER

All these things as one : those sheep in the manger

banging heads, no room in the inn, wise men on

sleds? I think it went like that. Dark Winter night

that made no sense, and a bright moon or star

looming intense. Every possible accommodation for

a winsome, sweet fantasy has been made here.

We've given you the perfect story, if you'll just

now follow up. And, please, keep it quiet too.

-

I've spoken to mothers outside their churches - all

that obvious drivel. 'I know I don't believe, myself,

but I do it for the kids. I want them to have a

tradition, some set of beliefs to live with.' I roar

back like Rintra, and exclaim, 'but lady you're

crazy deluding yourself, rolling right into this trap.

The kids don't care, and what you take away they'll

never get back. Anyway, isn't it all about the truth

and the real, or what else are you giving them but

another in a long line of crap? Let them read Blake

instead if you mean it.' But of course, she doesn't.

-

Fine fellows and gals one wide-world over, it's all

drivel and pabulum, something to get over. Like the

fine-arc'd line of the meticulous arrow, life does go

on, following its own, and gently arrives at a target

you've set. Be wary then of all those chary things

you set for goals. Remember, what you set out

may just as well all come true. (With that, I realized

I was setting off wrongly, so I turned around and

walked it all back). And, oh yes, those sheep in

the manger, they each wore a hat.

2051. OK, NO LIMITS NO KIDDING

OK, NO LIMITS NO KIDDING
You are looking bad, you are starting to look crazy;
losing limits, running ragged. The decal on your
fencepost no longer says 'Welcome to the Homeland'.
Now it reeks of anger instead : so far and so vast,
like a Plains Indian seeking his revenge. The
fixed star in your little manger has fallen away,
the Maypole of Merriment, a certain smallpox
has destroyed. These girls, these girls you harbor,
they are legion'd now with the very Devil himself.
Salem Witch Trials, for them are just a prelude;
they're having crazy sex beneath your staircase.
Behind that door, I swear, a fortnight ago I saw
General Custer leading his horse. And the crazy
band behind him, as if leading the charge, still
played 'Barbara Allen'. But I felt then too,
deep at the well inside me, that there really,
really, really, was nowhere to go at all
(and such emphasis leaves me bare).

2050. INTERNATIONAL SAFETY YELLOW

INTERNATIONAL

SAFETY YELLOW

Don't (1.) have a clue (2.) care for a second.

If that's all that you can do, then go ahead

and wreck it. Stupid rules and regulations.

Safety zone and traffic cone. Who cares

how many the lives are saved? And for

what good are they anyway? As I look

either way, each direction, I see Mr.

Policeman staring back - up and down

the idle road. Cars come by as trucks

unload. Oh Savior Jesus Happy Lord

Safety International Yellow your passage

will afford. Afterlife. Muscle strife. And

all the angels of that Lord wearing Safety

Yellow we implore : "Save us from this

weary Hell; save us from any more.'

2049. ALL COME TUMBLING DOWN

ALL COME TUMBLING DOWN

Coxackie and all those other small towns groaning

from just before the volcano blew : soft topped

mountains smothering old people in death and fury.

Hudson hesitation, concrete boats from WWII,

log-cabin ruins and a castle on the hilltop

left without a keep. I noticed bibles floating

through the air. I did nothing about anything,

and knew not what to do, if anything could

be done. The jovial fat guy played classical

music at the restaurant bar. No one laughed,

as I noticed they had already all passed on.

2048. MY INAUTHENTIC PROFILE

MY INAUTHENTIC PROFILE

My inauthentic profile graces that coin

in your hand - it was done a long time

back in a town called Reading, at the foot

of a not very big hill. They told me to

look out, and stay still. Along the path

beside me, the sorry miners kept

trudging by. It took about three hours;

the master-craftsman working quite

hard. Behind my head you can see the

line of trees and that hill which they've

turned into a mountain somehow.

I guess it all goes with the storyline :

how I came from nothing, worked hard

and prospered. None of it's true, you

realize; it was just all my money that made

them think so. No one mentions all the

men who have died in my employ, doing the

work I demanded, digging the soil, cutting

the rock. This isn't even my hilltop at all -

they just say I live here, high atop my holdings,

to make more of the story than there really is.

I am a wizard of nothing, a merchant of death,

and a doctor of drudgery for others. For that,

I'm worth a coin? A coin with the face-value of

something like two-seventy-five? I'd like to

think my breath alone was worth that much,

but maybe, as it goes, it's not worth much at all.

My inauthentic profile only goes to show.

2047. ENSO

ENSO

And so you've left your old life behind and I'm here now

sitting around reading Visions of Cody or Big Sur or one of

them whenever I can but you keep distracting me with

your stuff which of course I don't mind and it's all great

stuff stuff I can really make use of handle fondle have a

go but instead I sit back and just rejoice relax and remember

too to back when I had nothing and was living on the streets

and someone like you someone like you I could have really

used and put to a good advantage to make me whole and

get me really going but all that that was so far along back

that I can't hardly remember no-how anyway and I've grown

tough and rude and nasty besides since then don'tcha' think

I think anyway but not everyone does and some say I'm

the nicest guy in the bunch or could be if I just cut my

hair and cleaned up took a shave dressed nice and started

just oh my God keeping quiet but really I'm not so bad

I curl up sleeping at night crying first and I never hurt a

thing nor wanted to and I cried too whenever I saw

something die and I value animals and people just the

same higher than high and probably better than all

the unseen angels that never been 'round too but as it

is that's it I just really don't say much just go about my

way and try and keep busy amen hallelujah and

I'll be damned to that!!!

2046. FERDINAND AND ISABELLA TOO (at the Escorial/the words of Philip, 1586):

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
(at the Escorial/the words of Philip, 1586)
"Hen cloud distaff water waiter waiting.
(Oh how I hate the cold). Hen cloud
distaff....Ferdinand and Isabella too.
I don't know why I built this palace,
though it's not really. It's a monastery
in which I can also live. I am Kingly sort,
after all. Oh, Torquemada, kill them,
each and every. Make the Maitre'd come
home, with nothing on his back. We've
planted outside gardens now, inside.
And inside, we've planted outside gardens.
It's a quizzical, wonderful world."

2045. HERE'S HOW (THIS IS HOW)

HERE'S HOW (THIS IS HOW)

I dream of tending a yellow lake of gold.

This is how : cows come around from the

meadow meander, lowing and mooing their

way. A morning light with handles of jewels

traces forth the path of the day - things then

run to follow the lead. It all goes quickly away.

-

You think I live on a farm? Am crazy with delight?

Do sing the singsong meadowlark with me all along

the forward path? No, no, not that. I am simply

mad with joy. This is how : I bow to every cow,

both then and now who's sought a fair recompense

from the man who takes its milk. To each according

to his ability, each according to his need. And the

rest, like the Parson says, is prattle.

-

A billion peasants are dead on the lawn; ages and

ages of them all along - wired for speed and worked

until death, they've taken their moment and left all

the rest. Their world, now, is (finally) like some

eternal Sunday the Pope has decreed. 'You have

worked 'till you're dead to fill the Lord's need.

Now you can rest.' And (you know what) that's

all he really means. One Lord, in such medieval

ways, is just as good as another. Here's how (this

is how) we stay to stay and live to die. Put the

pie-post on the platter, let us eat until we are done.

2044. YOUR TEETH GONNA' STAND ON EDGE

YOUR TEETH GONNA'
STAND ON EDGE
I am living under the bridge. In all these
expectations of tomorrow there has to be
a way to forge ahead and then - as much
as that - forget. Forget this measly life.
Forget this moment, this time of strife.
I am living beneath the bridge.
-
I am living beneath the bridge, in a tomorrow
somehow not already here, while the shaman
is rustling, already, his beads. For here is
where things grow, beneath this bridge:
wildly, in profusion, in colors and rows and
rows. So much here is jumbled together as
to make a show, a stage, a place of exposition.
People come to view, yet they never stay
nor listen. 'Businessmen they drink my wine,
plowmen dig my Earth...'
-
Legendary fanaticism has beaten me to the
end of this line, but why? I am living beneath
the bridge, where the accolades incline - towards
the others, the dead and the finished. Those no
longer vital or trying. Like that prophet with
no honor here at home, I've lost whatever I've
had far away. Butterflies get better deals than
this one : those with pins and under glass, with
all those beautiful colors. 'None of them along
the line know what any of it is worth...'

2043. CHRISTMAS NIGHT

CHRISTMAS NIGHT
And what shall they bring me? A last
night of life? Or a year filled with strife?
The candles somehow burn beneath the
city tree without really burning a thing
I see; the mettlesome mettle of mettle,
hard like some wiry politician's words
skimming for a vote - hands out, with
holes in them, sharkskin suits, only
worn by sharks. And how these
plebeians still believe all these things:
That a baby was born and that angels
did sing. Rubbish like that has no
handholds on either a stairway
to Heaven...or to Hell.
-
Now, as I watch, at another table the
workmen are sitting about, talking of
their tools awhile while on break.
It is still a Christmas week day.
They talk of how this shaft blows
upward while that one powers down,
reciprocation, the hammer, the spike,
the force with the pneumatic sound.
-
And, altogether, we know no things :
just the idle curiosity of talk. And,
somehow too, this new-born salvation
never falters, just rings. I hear that
tapping at my ears, I feel the ringing
that I hear. It is another Christmas Day.

2042. THE DEMETRIUS CLOCK

THE DEMETRIUS CLOCK

The words are mine; and ideas are

like fighter-jets scattered in the sky.

I'd wished to say John Ashbery said

that, but I really don't think he did.

-

I am, instead, sitting back, reading again

'The Autumn of the Patriarch' and wondering

where things are leading. Dead dogs in the

street and a promontory on the ridge. It is

like page 210 or so, where that girl is talking

about fruit being eaten out of her pussy or

something. You can read it yourself, I don't

care. Cats and dogs, let's say, they are not

here; and those 'par-boiled malangas up the

behind,' they leave me without speech.

-

The way I see it - a smart thief goes to

Locarno to hide; a dumb thief goes to Rome.

He can, in his stupidity, be apprehended and

hung with the Pope or the Bank Ambrosiano

brothers from some stinking London bridge, no

longer among thieves with nothing to give.

-

And anyway, why travel so far to be duped

by a goon? Once the money's in, there's really

no need to worry, and you can cover your tracks

behind you. The Demetrius Clock in the old

central tower keeps ticking its bells and whistles.

One need only but listen to learn of the hour.

2041. PATERSON

PATERSON

That's a very beautiful picture you made -

a certain somber, deep and dark, earthy red

color for all those mill and factory bricks. The

workplant with its wheel, where the water

would rise and fall : those patterns. You've

captured it all. The dazzle of that old, ripply

glass - gosh, how it must have dappled with

a lovely light those workmens' places. And that

tall, dark roof with that creamy grey sky -

Oh! How wonderful indeed. What you've

shown me of it, we can only talk in a

very, respectful silence.

2040. A CAPACITY TO JUDGE

A CAPACITY TO JUDGE

Where camels drink in a desert mirage

the oasis of all things dwells. I am as if

horse-kicked in the head - dizzy with

something I cannot see. Eidolon. A

phantom apparition, an ideal original,

a something of shape the shape of which

I cannot see. Leave me wheeling in this

lurch? Vortex? Vacuum? I can see

nothing and, if I am left alone, or to

be left alone, I myself will surely perish,

though that all may be to the good,

though that all may be to the good.

2039. THE GRAND MAGNIFICATION

THE GRAND MAGNIFICATION

(the foundations of Alex)

My heart has grown so big it bleeds now down my

shirt - watching all the others falter and pass, reading

the words of their logistics, understanding their ways

and means. I see the lame attempt to walk, their trails

are left in freshly fallen snow. In the etchings of a

notebook, I also see a man, bent and broken harsh,

trying to be what he cannot be. An endless-lie,

a vast contusion on reality's face. Vanity wears,

on its sleeve, a tattoo of lies and subversion.

-

You can only walk away and leave the leavings behind.

There are those who believe anything, and those you

must find. The grand magnification that is this life

allows, for all things, a fruition, a growth, and a death.

We can do nothing other that travel along that current.

-

And so somehow I've been beaten and bettered by

hucksters and cheats, liars and fakes. Alien marks

on old native pages, the smiling hand of some local

boy lies, illicit accreditations and men who surmise.

The swarm knows it best : the one who does

least is the one who most tries.

2038. GENDARME RIMBAUD

GENDARME RIMBAUD

The plodding hipsters have all fallen down;

they lie in their own waste, spittle, and puke,

while before them some form of music plays.

I can't determine the reason for these things,

but - sure as ever - those advancing French

police will let me know. Scuttlebut. Cheaply

printed handbills, thin girls swirling in lace.

-

I came here for the desserts and the jelly.

Now, my face is filled and I want no more;

but the streets are clogged with fighting

and I cannot seem to get away. A faint

fog covers the alleys, their entrances

only marked by the curious yellow

signs denoting street and place.

-

So little like home is this.

I can't find a trace.

2037. NEW CONCLUSIONS

NEW CONCLUSIONS

The whistle of a new air had colored upwards

the small half moon. Cheap, like a scuttling,

cloth curtain one buys at an auction, it was

already falling on its rod. Moon and star.

And sky. Everything together in darkness

conspired. Tiny Winter night, my aims are

so great. What is that flashing before me?

Shooting star, delirious from Heaven,

wrapped in circumstance, and shedding

its cloak in the midnight air.

-

If I was tradesman, I'd build me a boat.

As it is, I will walk to the ends of this Earth.

2036. YOUR LIPS ARE GOOD

YOUR LIPS ARE GOOD

(In Memoriam for Kathy Acker, 1997)

Your lips are good - labia-faced slut whore

open-mouthed lover gawker queen. I put this

pen down just for a moment, to squeeze you

between the thighs. You sigh. I die.

2035. NONETHELESS

NONETHELESS

I demand this will be twelve twenty at the old ferry slip

across the Delaware right there where New Hope falls

into Lambertville or (perhaps) the other way around.

My first girlfriend came from there; her name was

Lucinda Cravien, and now she's an artist in Taos NM.

Never mind how all that occurred. It shouldn't occur

to me to tell. Springtime renews again and again -

all those flowers draped across Bowman's Mountain,

the little farm at the water's edge - gaggles of geese,

sheep, cows and pigs. Goats and dogs abound as much

as anything else. Plus (like the skimming arrow in

flight, like time, like light) the narrow gauge railway

just chugs along. It's only got one place to go, granted,

but it goes wherever it may (nonetheless).

2034. UPSTATE

UPSTATE

I was upstate at the water factory, I was upstate

at the cider mill, and the gunnery and the yacht

club too. I met the lass with silver eyes parading

naked before Count Ives, the man whom they call

Mr. Upstate. He sat on a regal throne made of

antique barrels that once housed rum. Pirate's

booty, yo-ho-ho, and all that. Now the same

place is a private cafe for gents with money.

I wasn't alone for long - mind you, not that

I wished to be. They send along anything

you could want : marvelous slab steaks the

size of a house, watermelons quartered and

dusted with a powdered glaze that frosts

the sweetness. All these things that

upstate money brings. Everyone

living in enormous, ramshackle

houses facing a hill

or a mountain.

Where, just

over there,

the river

runs.

2033. MEMORIAM

MEMORIAM

The one it was - as always - that got away.

The one that disappeared. The figment in the

reflection, the water at the piers. The old

country guy, so old to die, with the

turkey-wattled neck, singing his heart out.

Some ancient love who died as he cried.

-

It's always like that somewhere : Death

rides a pale horse, swings by momentarily,

sweeps out the arm to catch whomever,

and swiftly keeps running on. We lose our

mettle in the best of our avoidance. Too

late, too sorry, too sad and too soon.

2032. COUNTING ON A DEEP AND CENTRAL WORLD

COUNTING ON A DEEP

AND CENTRAL WORLD

I have a hundred little feet, running through the

graveyard, coursing through the lanes. I have men

in motion, fleeing, looking nowhere back. I have ten

thousand south-sea merchants screaming for their

cut. I have nothing at all, and I have everything at

once. It becomes amazing, as I think on this,

that such a vocabulary exists to tell it.

-

Nearby, in a shuttered little cut-in, sits the

screech owl sleeping. He barely moves at

all, except to flutter in his sleep. Until his

time for waking is upon us both, I too will

sit and stare. Nothing else is smoother

than that, not even air.

-

I awoke from a slumber at fourteen, and

they marched me away - high, high up

to the mountaintops, to places I'd never

been. I looked for men in cascading robes,

reading. They turned around to speak to

me in a silence I'd never known. It was

like that a very long time; few letters home.

-

I am determined to let this Winter night pass.

The half moon and that star so near it, I think

I know them. In fact, in representing as such

the Heavens, I think I've been there before.

Long passage, dark world - deep and central

space, in a deep and central world.

2031. AND ONE TIME

AND ONE TIME

One time I forgot my status as landed servant

and walked all the way home alone; another time,
as landed gentry, I flew skyward on a magic cloud of

dust. Enscripted acolyte, same thing - months of

plodding work, cows, pigs, fieldwork and labor.

Horseshoes. Repairs. As if I was born to toil while

also being born to royal. It never mattered, my

soup was always the same as the soups of

all the others; a forced gruel filled with bread.

-

I went to school, to try and tell them, but

no one listened. I trod long paths to far-flung

cabins and roists, to find a guide or a master;

none was ever found to make any real sense

to me. I clapped backs with the hands of scouts

and masters, but found we shared no tongue :

I said one thing, they said another.

-

It was always like that.

Then, (I was told), I went crazy

one day and simply began to shout

and scream, so they had me taken

away. In a winding cloth of sorts, with

with laces and clasps they'd hurriedly

made. And the one time I got here,

the one time I stayed. It was

just like that, yes, just

like that.

2030. SUCH THINGS (1954)

SUCH THINGS (1954)

Remembering at ten; a doily on the back of a chair,

homemade cigars, and that boxing uncle with the

cauliflower ear. So many things, it would seem,

were kept under glass. That enormous red carpet

in the sitting room, the dimness of the lights. Blue

patterns on large dishes. Stemware.

2029. SEEMING TO NOSTALGIAIZE, THIS IS HOW THINGS STAY WITH YOU

SEEMING TO NOSTALGIAZE,

THIS IS HOW THINGS

STAY WITH YOU

I have drawers for this and that. And, yes,

perhaps, though only perhaps, I made that

word up. A penchant to see everything from

the past with a very golden glow. It never

truly works that way : spending time winnowing

out the doubt and all those things that Grandma

said that Daddy never told us. How the rat

in the kitchen died. How the saucepot, filled

with water leaking from the ceiling and the

apartment above, went right into the cooking

of that night's meal. I loved those tales back

then. I love them now - in retrospect. We

lived like pigs on some linoleum avenue of

spikes and perfume. A 1948 Plymouth parked

sinking at the curb. A buckshot wounded window,

a depth-charge from the countertop, the

icebox that never shut off. Two bums,

outside the doorway, incessantly plinking

lead weights into steel buckets, just to make

their noise all night. Yes, that's right, one

night Dad went down at 2am and punched

them both right out. Cold-cocked, jaw-shot,

punched into a deep nighttime sleep. My

little-boy mind digested all that. I thought

of it forever. Is that how old men die?

1228. LONG NOTES FROM THE STAGECOACH

LONG NOTES FROM

THE STAGECOACH

Invariably, the tribes reach the western terminus before us.

We sit back, entrenched in our magazine wars : Sioux and

Apache. Or Comanche and the rest. I wouldn't know, and

you certainly can't tell by the handwriting. They say we will

die by daybreak - scalped or shot, or a few well-placed

arrows. Who was it died that way? One of those ubiquitous,

crazy early saints? Peter, Paul, St. Stephen; I think that's

the one. A hundred arrows piercing his willing breast;

all that holy blood shed for the Father, or the Son, or -

there wasn't quite a Holy Ghost yet, that came later.

So, whatever - does any of this old rubric carry over

to the new world? Can I die like a martyr? And why,

oh why, are there no Saints from the early settlers or

the first colonists or governors and the rest? They too

fled persecution - so as to set up their own. But, I

digress. Here again we are - in the stage coach, reading

bloody manuals about frontier first-aid and how long

it takes to actually bleed to death. The dirt trails behind

us from these really skinny wheels - and isn't this the

most rickety, jarring ride you'd ever imagined? No one

could shoot back from here, even if they tried, with any

accuracy. Maybe that's why we're gonna' die. Was that

Joplin, Missouri we left, or Jostlin'? I'm homesick already

for all that porridge and the silver spoons of Boston and

New York City. Oh, Caroline, what are we doing here?

1227. ABSTRACT, BUT NOTHING DIED

ABSTRACT, BUT

NOTHING DIED

The turnstile was the place in the morning from

which I took the faulty scrimmage, the broken

jabberwocky, the entire lost engine. We survived

ice and snow, holding hands like boll weevils on

a slim piece of land. Fires raged, and the horizon

was sunken, made three-dimensional by waves

of rippling heat. I took my turn at the bucket line,

passing nothing but foam and empty water. The

last I knew, they were still paddling forward in

a raging, reverse current. Over there, to my high

left, above the canal waters, the morning star

fiercely shining. And then, in the evening of

the very same day, high to my right, the new

arc of a slightly befuddled Moon. Black night.

Open lands. Deer and wild animals. Everything

seeking shelter from the cold - the cold of

routine and habit and trite old age. I want

nothing more, when I land, than to land with

you at my side...just to be able to say :

'Is this Eternity yet?'

1226. EMANCIPATION DAYS

EMANCIPATION DAYS

Emancipation never stopped me crying -

blood deep over those sodden fields. Men

broken and battered. Crying loudly, about

to die. Emancipation never put a leg back

on a man from whom the cannonball tore

it or refilled a chest perforated by shot.

Every morning that dawned was a torrid

morning of death. No playwright's scansion

could affect these endings : widows and

girlfriends in shriek on muddied ground.

The cobbled mess that was that man - the

one in pieces over there - is now a feed

for carrion chasing us down, eager to

peck as quickly as we die. Emancipation

never stopped the seed from sprouting

in the socket that once was an eye. There,

those white bones, that skull, on the field

so free across that pond. Emancipation

never hid behind a tree, nor did it

ever do anything for me.

1225. SCOUNDREL NOTES

SCOUNDREL NOTES

I may have coaxed you to walk the plank, I may

have wired your neck and eyes. I might be the

one who listened too hard at what you were

saying - as if something important was to be

heard. Now, my hands themselves are

microphones, and my stemware has no

device. I followed you to the little

cities. I stayed overnight, twice.

-

This is my personal story : disdain,

despair, distraction, disintegration,

detoxification, dementia. You

can take this trolley wherever

you may. I leave an opening

for you to bow down in, have

a picnic, lay back and nap,

pray, sleep or die in. In all

that you do, I offer you

this space. I am, truly,

yours; (yours, truly).

1224. MEMO TO DIPPY

MEMO TO DIPPY
'Wait while I mail my corpse.
It's only going two towns
over, but I don't want

to drive it there.'

1223. WHILE IN VENICE

WHILE IN VENICE

What is it after all that I had to do?

'You can do this or you can do nothing.'

Oh crazy wizard take me far from here

and move me like a Venice watercraft in

hiding - two paltry sums of music and song

gliding beneath canal bridges and women up

above. I look up to see recognition and all I find

is you : magnificent bile living by wits and guile

the strength of all equations being bent and

broken. 'People stopped talking to me in 1963

and I haven't had a conversation since' :

it was true enough then and it's true enough

now. I figured since people say nothing much

anyway and what mattered little had therefore

no consequence . Here's the catalogue I'd

make if I had to make a catalogue :

two guys standing right near the gate

when the gate blew up, blown to smithereens,

their bodies went flying; three people selling

newspapers by the kiosk in the middle of the

square when two Italian kids come running down

- swiftly - push a man over, and run off just as swiftly

with the cashbox of one - they don't get too far, are

tackled by the crowd, and then are mercilessly pummeled,

nay, beaten to a pulp, by two big gents who had come

rushing over in the melee. Obviously some sort of enforcers.

The money perhaps was their cut? They wrenched the kids

brutally, and smacked them with deadly force. I guess that's

how you remember not to do these things again; four women

walking the cobblestones - most obviously whores down on

their luck - they are each dressed in comic clothing too formal,

too self-important, yet revealing in an old woman sort of way.

They stop for a moment while one adjusts her stockings.

Another lights a cigarette and drags on it from a holder she

has in her fingers. The woman with the stockings is done,

straightens up and, laughing, they all walk away.

Smoke lingers on the square, from where or

which event, I'm not sure I really know.

1222. PHANTOM CHAPARRAL

PHANTOM CHAPARRAL

Face it, it's all innocence, the things we might

have done or missed. That kiss at the stove, the

wandering hand on the backside, that wrinkle

in time where meanings have changed. There's no

Devil in the matter, mixing tapes and rhymes;

rather, it's all instead our own malfeasance and

slant of mind. The simple fact of lust, some

driving sexual divergence between different

portions of the same old world. 'I love you

for how you are not me,' is how we'd see

it phrased in some new age guidebook of

blather and air. But, as much as that is,

it too is probably true enough. What is

this life anyway, except an alternation

between moments in flux? You see

things one way, I see them another.

Aye, there's the crux.

1221. ADVENTURE IN A MITRE

ADVENTURE IN A MITRE

My crazy head broke open,

broke open spilling yoke and

everything spoken and unsaid with it.

Over tables and chairs, high on the

ceiling and over the walls and, kneeling,

I said a prayer for - at the least -

some newer form of continuity.

1220. STRAIGHT TO CHIRSTMAS HELL

STRAIGHT TO

CHRISTMAS HELL

Doctors treat the world as reality, a system of pumps

and internal levers, the stuff of ties and papers, the

assorted mess of innards and gush. I wish for a

moment we could talk - consciousness has a bearing,

it both wounds and heals, it carries the sublime to

ridiculous ends. Doctors portend an aggression but

they see nothing to lessen. 'Let the system run

itself out, and you'll die. We must interdict this

process, or at least try.' Well, I do suppose, as

interesting a concept as that has its merits.

-

It is Christmas now in every city I go. That rank

and portly overflow - garbage cans littered with

red and green mess, streetlights adorned with

candles and stars. Nothing makes sense. Those

with their wish lists and shopping bags pounce.

They expunge any grace from their booty;

yapping by hand on photos and phones -

phoneys indeed! I sense the end of everything!

-

There isn't a doctor alive who can say

I will live forever. All the rest, lest I

can find that one, they can all go

straight to Christmas Hell.

1219. JETTISON ME

JETTISON ME

I may have blinked as it went by - the line of
thousands in passing. Forlorn and sorrowful,
elated and joyous, the gay smiles of all those
happy features. And I wouldn't have minded
a thing. At the corner of Wry and Wisteria, the
red stoplight was blinking but no one stopped.
Whatever it signified, that signifier was gone.
-
I'd wrapped this Winter coat around my head,
and now I was suddenly hot. Wet at the brow,
whistling a tune, yeah man, that was me. From
every angle, there was glass and window, each
with something reflected upon it. Weird and
broken angles, like a steamy lagoon.
-
I punched the air for effect. Wanting to
blame a President, I realized there wasn't
a one I could find : Jackson and Truman -
all the rest of those mess-head bastards.
I took off after some girl on a bicycle.
She'd looked my way in passing; only
then did I realize again - that old coat
wrapped around my head.

1218. AS SUCH IT MAKES ME CRAZY

AS SUCH IT MAKES ME CRAZY
To see the seams. To sense the ending.
Mirabile dictu, to re-write the passage to
better the message. 'Make this stuff more
easy to read' - the guy saying that spoke
like a trucker. I guess he drove 'more faster
than speed!' It's all like that anyway.
I face a monstrosity of jumble : passages
with clues by Will Shortz, written in ink,
not pencil, so I cannot ever change a thing.
I cannot ever change a thing.

1217. I HAD MEMORIES (in memoriam: Larry Walker)

I HAD MEMORIES

(where the newly dead meet

those already long dead)

I had memories of the future - why is that?

I recalled every item in precise detail :

the marmoset and the beaver, those villagers

wearing furs, the axe-man, picking his way across

the frozen river. I was there, and all of them, together.

The texture of the world was old, but the future

looked better than ever. Same place, different

picture. Alexander Hamilton, meet Alex Graham

Bell. Benjamin Franklin, meet Franklin Pierce.

Like textbook greeters at the edge of a crowd,

we cheer them on, they hear us, loud as we

can be. It's like this for you and it's like

this for me. I had memories of the

future, and they came to be.

1216. REQUEST FOR ARMS

REQUEST FOR ARMS

Savage beast quelling inside me

within me within. Fires burn on

endless lanterns, capricious urges

lend me their guile. Savage beast

dwelling inside you. Oh, let it then

just be. Trust confidence, and all

the fires of God within. Let go.

1215. JUST AS IF THE DOOR WAS CLOSED

JUST AS IF THE

DOOR WAS CLOSED

There shall be rain and wind and snow. There

shall be ice and cold. Just as if the door was

closed, we shall be protected. The stars in

the night reject our sorry openings. Listen up,

there is something else still in the air:

the sound of other times and places.

-

That was chapter one in my mind's-eye inkling :

warblers sunning themselves on the sailboats

of the air, bright yellow flowers dancing in the

light. I was dreaming again, of apples and other

trees with blossoms. Close by the horizon, I

imagined a setting sun. Foretastes of eternity?

-

I sat down by a Summer fence to weep and rest.

Overtaken by events, I realized in an instant that -

no matter what - there is but one way to treat

all fellow men. They each call out for love and

what it gives. Woman, child, man and creature.

Together, twirling immensely as one to the sky.

1214. DID NOT, WILL NOT

DID NOT, WILL NOT
This pitiful, little homemade sun is
enough to get me mad. Phone message
on the mantle piece, stretched-out words
written by some braggart in heat. I've
tried to live like this, around the corner
all my life, yet somehow I've never made
it work. Pitiful, little homemade son.
-
There's Chinese writing on the window.
Not that I'll ever know what it means to
say, but this sign-guy came by with his
letter-forms and stepladder, and went
right to work. He said it's 'really solid
matter, man,' which I only pretended to
understand. Pitiful, little homemade son.
Light's on in the alley, bright yellow :
pitiful, little homemade sun.

1213. BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

BY HOOK OR BY CROOK
'By hook or by crook,' she said, and I was
hauled off stage. My mother used that phrase
a lot, and I never knew why. She also often said
something else, like 'I'll bet you 10 to 1 that
won't happen', or whatever; using those '10 to 1'
betting odds often - as if she was a gambler
or an inveterate oddsmaker. Never got to
the bottom of that one. Strange to say.
-
Nowadays, by contrast, they talk of other
things. Absolute rubbish having become King,
words are said that - as much - don't mean
a thing. 1940's claptrap could probably still
stand today; and I'll bet she learned all
that lingo on the streets of Bayonne.
-
One day I walked in where she was busy,
and saw what I saw. She was gluing plastic
Jesus's onto plastic crucifixes. 'For the Sodality
fund raiser' she muttered. A sort of catholic
church beanpole-stupidity ladies club, I think.
Filled with all the usual morons - women who'd
rather stand at the sink and pray to Jesus than
go home to fuck or make love. 'Mother Mary,
you who conceived with sinning, I pray let me
sin without conceiving.' That may have been
meant for me.
-
I turned to her and said, 'you know your Jesus
was a rotten criminal hung on a deadly cross,
ragged as Hell and bloodied to a shitty death?
You know that, right? He sat down, playing cards,
with a bottle of gin and three wise men sitting
across from him. The cattle were braying, the
stars were all lit.' It went on for a while, but
really now I forget all the rest. God bless her
soul, I guess.