Monday, February 28, 2011

2066. INTERREGNUMS OF THIS, INTERREGNUMS OF THAT

INTERREGNUMS OF THIS,
INTERREGNUMS OF THAT
The parlor was filled with ice, clear cubes of frozen water,
like crystals awaiting drink. Two dwarfs lounged, in
an irreconcilable frenzy of papered animation.
Board games and cigar smoke. Golden drinks in
golden glasses. I sat alone, in a velvet chair.
-
Feeling very much the flush freak myself, I
decided leaning back to sleep could work. I drifted
away, like container cork on a sea-foam of brine,
turning this way and that in a dream. I couldn't
make surrender, I couldn't make it seem.
Nothing that well worked. A dark red corduroy
curtain came down, shutting out the light.
Laughter too subsided.
-
My mechanical invention had here cost me
dearly - an automated looking glass that
sucked one into the scene. Everyone fell
for it...and now they all were gone. Which
side of that mirror was I now on?

2065. ALL THESE REMARKABLE ALLOYS

ALL THESE
REMARKABLE ALLOYS
I am listening while I watch the Sun - hearing
its noise, a steady thermal hiss, a large cosmic
hum thrumming. It colors the spaceship I'm on;
stark blues ands raving mad reds. Elliptical shadows
thwarting each other, and the deep blackness of
Space as I see it. There is no end in this sight,
nor can this ending see. Ethereal as some leaden
mouse hiding frightened in a large room's corner,
I too hover and shake. I do not know where it is
I am, and my wandering eyes - to behold something
at all - look about and see only the ages before me,
and behind, stretched. Time in becoming, or matter in
decay. You know how it is said the 'past is proloque';
well it happens the other way too. 'Life', Samuel
Butler said, 'is like giving a violin concert while learning
to play the instrument.' I'd imagine he meant all at once,
at the very same time, learning and doing, in public.
Somehow I find a meaning there, and here - beneath an
obtrusive and settling Sun that wants to burn my face
but cannot. Instead, I swelter in the heat of thought,
realizing only faintly where I am, and where it is I
am perhaps going, and, alas, where it is - all - that
I have already been. I am listening while I stare at the
Sun; hearing its noise, all its steady thermal hiss.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

2064. METAPHYSICS ANTI-TERRESTRIAL

METAPHYSICS
ANTI-TERRESTRIAL
I am going blind. It's fairly simple. An effect
of overuse, visionary over-reach, what you will.
I can still see horizons, and the ends of big things,
mind you, but the fine print, the small things,
the substance of what passes for detail...no.
It's all over, diminished, occluded and accompanied -
as this Dr. Mariento says - by clouds of effusion
amid notions of doubt. Whatever. I asked him,
'can I still see Reading?', meaning, of course, the
Pennsylvania town, and he answered (like a jerk)
'Reading? No, it's the reading that's done this!'
No sense going any further than roadblock #1,
I thought to myself. And anyway, if I'm blind,
he's obviously his own Helen Keller already.
-
You see, the trick of vision is the visionary life.
None of this idle bullshit back and forth for me,
no grave matters about finding fault and who's at
wrong or right. I live cleanly and pure - straight
ahead, telling the truth and seeing the truth the
same. Which it all is, after all. No shadings of
matter to color what is. That's where the blindness
comes in. Staggeringly dense and stupid, what is
after all, darkness but a stubbornness of not finding
truth in all matters. We should cut the trim of
that fabric with a very sharp knife.
-
Anyway, Mariento says it's soon over for me -
all those lights and the glee and the fun. Maybe
so, but...ah...who really cares? Not me. I've
seen the future, and I'm not in it.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

2063. EPISTEMOLOGY AND GANGRENE

EPISTEMOLOGY
AND GANGRENE
And this devil has a way with words : those
cantilevered and spinning, wavering or about
to fall. He knows a few things about cause and
effect, guile and guilt, and the rest of that all.
-
Today is nearly February's end, and, in one
fell swoop, I am walking along 53rd and all those
other interior blocks which rest in this city's
crazed middle. Lights, camera, action. I
think of the people from a few years back -
those whose names are on walls and such -
and remember them now as, only alas, gone.
-
I've been called in once more to watch some films,
a few things by Warhol and one by Cornell. My
ancient friends, I listened to, and showed up with
dispatch. We sat and watched. Others, to whom
this was new, I found them laughing in the strangest
of places. Each spot in the films, evidently, we saw
differently. Two old people next to me stared steady
and straight ahead. The man had a walker, and the
woman guided him in, carefully - even though it
took him ten minutes to get settled in place.
Like watching a lamplight light.
-
Then I decided, in effect, that - all my life -
movies have bored me. Any movies at all.
I can't watch what I'm watching, can't
stop my mind from working, and can't
force myself to believe what they're
telling me I should be believing with
each scene. Somewhere else and far
away, I'm hanging, so to speak, instead
clouds on trees. Even these, sorry.
are better to see.

2062. AFTER BEING TURNED OUT AT WICK HOUSE

AFTER BEING TURNED
OUT AT WICK HOUSE
The gears that run the gearwheel turning are
seen to be always in motion. A grease, like a
spittle, is shagged about - leaking down,
running over, loosening its viscous hold.
All things run loosely, slobbering with
stealth before breaking down.
-
The grand foyer held a portrait of Lafayette.
Why him? I'll never really know that. I
think it's more as decor than anything else.
No chamberpot in the erstwhile bath
ever held his water or waste. The
chubby girl with whom I talked
pronounced his name, oddly,
'Lafiatte'. Who really knows?
-
He's never been heard on recording,
never spoken on a phone, never watched
movies in mourning, 'Gone With the Wind'
'Revolutionary Road'. This whole modern
jangle of nervous things would have
broken him down anyway.
-
I asked a few questions, and they
turned me out as 'profane and
rude.' It was quite alright with
me, I was late anyway. Checking
my George Washington-faced watch,
I saw it was 4pm and they wanted
to leave for the day.

Friday, February 25, 2011

2061. THIS GOD IN HEAVEN BEARS WATCHING

THIS GOD IN HEAVEN
BEARS WATCHING
It's really pretty simple if you think it over :
how, once, before you die, you should take
a moment to put things in order. That's all.
Put the pens back in the jar, the paints in the
paintbox. After all, it's true, is it not, you're
done with the making, you're done with
the paints? That long wheel of time can
be elongated no more. Turning back on itself,
it has somehow (Yes!) found your name. Go
then, get settled, and back whence you came.

2060. THE HEART DEVOURS WHAT IT CAN'T UNDERSTAND

THE HEART DEVOURS
WHAT IT CAN'T UNDERSTAND
I am far and away from Brooklyn where the climbing vine
climbs and seduces the sky. Standing next to one or another
glass building, I can only wonder why. Examination of the
particulars would afford me little : you are already far and
away from all that. Just like me. Two taps, and a selfsame
faucet. I really want to talk. I am up all night, from outrageous
dreams, and you are far and away the best thing I've seen.
Window panes reflect the sunlight above, strands of shading,
broken into filigrees of color and light. I shield even these -
my eyes - from some glory, something blistering, blastingly
bright. The father behind me is telling his stories : the usual
wartime hits, days of old glories, the things he never got over.
Wearing it now, like an old, worn coat, it's obvious to anyone
that no one cares, gives a shit, gives a hoot. But, alas, that's
how old men die, telling war stories beneath a wartime sky.
Some things just never change. The heart devours what it
can't arrange. Your fingers, I am seeing, are blessed and
lovely; not with jewels, but with the polish of a skin ivory
white - a porcelain charade of trim, translucent beauty.
How it's done is always beyond reason and I
surrender my arms to your charms.
-
I am duplicated at once by the shadow you cast - in the
background, that bridge, with all its wild graffiti. And that
makes two. Of us. As one. High over the water, where tugs
and fishers swarm. Nothing worthwhile there but water taxis
with all their dead people, skimming back and forth as if
to Hades. Ladies, take it from me. There is no better there.
The heart devours what it can't make disappear; and I
am probably lonely forever. A paltry charm 'neath a
gimmicky, festive sky.

2059. DR. DOOLITTLE AND MR. WEDGEWORTH

DR. DOOLITTLE AND
MR. WEDGEWORTH

He entered the room wearing plastic rain boots
and a safari hat - green khaki pants and a face
fell of glee. Saying 'I love the rain, always!' he
moved along. I liked his manner, but couldn't
place the song. At the other end of the room, a
dour Mr. Wedgeworth sat.
-
There are always funny things to remember -
how misinterpretations color the memory, how
information gets misconstrued. Like Thoreau
saying 'know your own bone' in his nineteenth
century manner, meaning - as Anne Truitt put it -
a writer should 'force himself to work steadfastly
along the nerve of one's most intimate sensitivity' -
now being pointed to as a secret masturbator,
these things are usually stupid and dumb.
-
It meant more about 'write what you know' than
anything else. The varied 'Self' we each are.
'Know your own bone, gnaw at it, bury it,
unearth it, and gnaw at it still.' What the hell,
I always understood.
-
Now Dr. Doolittle and Mr. Wedgeworth, I notice,
are sitting together. The newspaper between them
carries a dense crossword puzzle they seem to
love doing - together, in tandem, as one.
The usual harmonies of unity and oneness -
know your own scene, do what you mean.
It can't be more simple than that.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

2058. IN SUFFOCATING THE LINDSTROM

IN SUFFOCATING
THE LINDSTROM
(a vignette)
There are one million varieties of the spoken word :
the singsong, the chatter, the ideal and the real.
None of them alike, they all can be made to work.
I watch carefully as I climb. I present my membership
card to the wild girl at DIA Beacon, and she accepts
with a smile that lingers. Two men nearby are suffering
the mood of the bookshelves nearby. Art books on
Joseph Beuys and Blinky Palermo. Imagine!
-
I enter the room where the Chamberlains are -
old twisted clumps of colored steel. Nearby, a broad
room of repeated Warhol motifs, like bringing forth
the Aladdin from its pedigree of damage - all things
sourced and frothy. I seek only Michael Heizer. I seek
only Smithson and Beuys. Myself, I suffocate
in the Lindstrom.
-
A few hours later, I am having some food at the
Homespun Cafe. I never eat alone, as I always have
a companion and she is always with me. We do tricks
with money. We drink coffee alike, sitting shuttered
like art in a crate, in this 10 degree cold.
Everything just seems right.
-
I've written before of these moments, so watch
and you'll see the repeat. The girls of the town
are strolling in. They whip out their breasts and
start feeding all those daddy-less kids. There are
one million varieties of the spoken word :
the singsong, the chatter, the ideal and the real.
I am left with these endless variations, these
modern Madonnas, adrift in this world.

2057. TOMORROW AND THEN

TOMORROW AND THEN
I am aghast at the things of Man : the sepulchres
that make the sadness, and the sadness that
makes the sepulchres. The outright lies and
posturings that go into the rooting of the
false pretense of inconstancy, of being without
control or limit. Here, here...it is all here.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

2056. ATLANTIS CAPSIZED

ATLANTIS CAPSIZED
I bet you've got money to burn, like the exalted
captain of some wheezy ship adrift on a wine-dark
sea; you look about, scouting wives and warriors
all together alike. And, by the way, those islands
in the distance disappeared a long, long time ago.
Atlantis capsized; the world turned upside down.

2055. HART CRANE PARTIALLY

HART CRANE PARTIALLY
When I was a young man in the dark New
York cold, I read my Hart Crane and swore
I'd never get old.
-
Now, windows have been shuttered with theCheck Spelling
planks of indecision. Reason itself mars the
table with its jagged knife marks gouging.
The swooning sun, the sunning moon,
everything out of kilter, fading soon.
-
I make my meek adjustments to the
world beyond my window. I do nothing
to disturb the frost and the cold. I remember
Jack Frost, when that name was given to
the spindly ice lines along the glass.
I caress the lost kitten found on the curb.
-
My poetry slams doors, opens doors, and
shatters walls and windows - all things
at once. I want nothing more than to be that
which best I can be : listen up! : 'Thy face
from charred and riven stakes, O Dionysus,
thy unmangled target smile.'

2054. WITH THAT, MIRABELLE

WITH THAT, MIRABELLE
There is, for whatever reason, a
new snow on the ground today -
and someone is telling me of it,
as if it wasn't self-evident already.
Curious, how the jumble swarms.
I live in a castle of glass, a pure
place, one where no salt stains
the glass nor discolors the mirrors.
There are (I must only admit),
so many things I see thus - with
a gentle backing, a silver like
that mirror - only by reflection.
Such light wavers and distorts?
-
An old, carbuncular man is looking
down at me, attempting to make
sense of my ways and means. He
does not understand poverty or
paucity, or - for that matter -
particles of any granular reasoning.
By the very same token, I don't
wish to explain, and, with that,
Mirabelle, I leave.

2053. ONE VERY PRETTY CAT-LIKE FACE

ONE VERY PRETTY
CAT-LIKE FACE

(three globes/Hudson Street)
'I'm not hankering for that moment -
as well as anything else that in itself
can keep my mind afloat. She's got
a tincture of innocence swabbed on
that smile, and I'm thinking back,
eagerly, to where I was when I
first saw that style.'
-
Three globes somehow pressed into
the surface, a roadway glistens nearby.
Yes, he is eccentric, and I cannot
stop him. Won't even try. She, on
the other hand, whets my interest
like butter on a well-tossed loaf.
-
The blue sleeve of a newspaper bag
reminds me where I am, where I sit
to sunder my means. All this pawnshop
stuff, and here comes Little Miss Broadway.

2052. BLACKFRIAR'S BRIDGE

BLACKFRIAR'S BRIDGE
Saint Camilla and her Dancing Cups
are seen standing as they laugh and
smile. Holding markers in their
only hands - and so different
each from the other. Scarf-dance.
Ritual enticement. A fantasy beat.
The enhanced band plays for the man.
Lights go down at Brickfriar's Bridge.

2051. TOURIST

TOURIST
...Does everything thus then need be
a jumble of words : the broad, the sad,
and the funny? They've been inclined
since day one to travel. Happiness,
sensation and glee.

Monday, February 21, 2011

2050. CHICKEN WITHOUT A HEAD

CHICKEN WITHOUT A HEAD
Or like at least the farmers would say -
'running around like a chicken with its head
cut off'...I heard that stuff a million times; never
did want to visualize that, or ever see it happen.
Like blood and thunder, far enough away is
close enough for me. I always understood - on
the other hand - happenstance to be something
that could just occur, could just hit one when
one was not even thinking about it. Like a meteor
from the Heavens, one that takes out a town,
or a ballfield full of people. Smish-smash-splatter.
-
I grew up under the eaves of a garage, watching
big men argue while fixing cars. Drinking hard
whiskey from bottles in their hands, while the
other held a wrench - sometimes too with women
at their sides, they'd be feeling this or squeezing that,
and it had little to do with cars. But things got
fixed, all the time, nonetheless. One or twice, in fact,
I heard them say even LulaMae 'got fixed.' No matter.
I was just a country boy, and that's the I learned how
you learn. Like that chicken, running around without
a head - you never keep what you don't first earn .

Sunday, February 20, 2011

2049. A MARKER OF FLESH

A MARKER OF FLESH
I am honing in on something I know I can
never buy : a perfect reason for biding my
time, standing still, staying in place. Wasn't
it Socrates, I just learned today, who said -
'I go to die and you to live; who knows
which is the better journey.' Curious
to have to know that anyway.
-
There are willow limbs in the swampy
alley. They are awaiting a Spring which
will boost them back to Life. If only the
moisture holds, and the swamp stays
wet, and no drought again ensues. Yes,
these are all, then, conditional things,
much as is Life itself to us.
-
I think today I will wear a yellow
sweater. A scarf, perhaps, around
my open neck. Be a dandy, brash
and bold. Live like forever,
what the heck.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

2048. BROKEN GLASS ON THE AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

BROKEN GLASS ON THE
AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS
Only the pitfalls of other men and the wind that
cuts like a knife can bring me back from this edge.
I am walking sideways, beneath tall buildings and
overhanging ledges. Never knowing why, I move
along evermore. Clouds like inflatable balloons
skitter past my eyes, shapes and curls advancing
in an open sky. I'm looking for comedy, but it has
long ago left this tired and distasteful town.
Broken glass on the Avenue of the Americas,
what they still try calling it anyway - shards
and razor points flying through air.

2047. I LANDED IN THE SOFTNESS OF ANGELS

I LANDED IN THE
SOFTNESS OF ANGELS
Like dense down, like the feathers of a God,
someone or something who'd made all this
stuff - soft needles and luscious pins - I'd just
looked back to see the highway disappearing
when I happened on your presence. Glittering
appearance, like the suns of a million stars.
I took a moment to stop : stunned as I was
at this science. 'Never let me go,' I muttered
and then stopped still, realizing it was all but
a painting on the wall. White horse. Yellow sun.
Old brick walls with that drooping flag. And
there, in the lifeless corner itself, the ragged
girl whose image had just caught my eyes.
I felt myself bedraggled, crazy. You were
then but an echo - of something far away.

Friday, February 18, 2011

2046. OK SO WHAT?

OK SO WHAT?
So, what they're saying is that I am dead.
I've found my name in a newspaper of the
future and - yes - they're mostly right. 2019,
or somesuch date. Like Albert Pinkham Ryder
himself, I've passed the fig-leaf of life and gone on.
-
Death rides a pale horse? I've heard that before and,
lustrous as some cracked enamel with a shine,
my surface is now marred by disbelief. I am nothing
at all, and have never really aspired past that.
Anyway. Nothing. New. OK? So what?

Thursday, February 17, 2011

2045. SPONTANEOUS ERUPTION

SPONTANEOUS ERUPTION
Oh the heave and oh the ho of it all!
Silly and simple, things meander. Getting
to nowhere, like getting to know you.
What sort of leather is that chair? You
are bent down, in it, as it seems to swallow
you up. Looking for a pen, or what?
-
The sign on the wall, some self-made
paper, says something like 'Things are
looking up for me - after the fire burned
down my house, I found I had a wonderful
view of the valley below!' Effusive optimism
and motivational placement - have I ever
told you? - really makes me sick.
-
The other morning, in the waning of the dark,
I was startled while thinking about dreams and
the world around me, by the rapid crossing of
three ghostly deer - bounding high above a
roadway as they silently passed. I was astounded
by their eerie grayness in the smoky thin light.
I really wasn't sure I was present, or - if I was -
where it was I was present at. I know it all sounds
confusing now, but at the moment the thought was
crystal clear, and I knew where I 'might' have been.

2044. MORNING GLORY

MORNING GLORY
She is there having her tea.
A mulatto blemish, a secret blend,
some mix of the herbal and the
maladroit. By the glass, at the
window, arms crossed - only
something Sphinx-like, that
makes me think - sonorously
I suppose - of mystery.
-
JoJo wears suspenders and is
whistling his happy tune. I hear
the talk of the town, going
his way soon.

2043. FURY THROUGH THE FAMILY

FURY THROUGH THE FAMILY
There is not a public policy
statement to be made : I have none.
She perished in 1931; some form of
plague and fever - and she was
not alone. This is not as bad as
1917's influenza epidemic. People
died there in droves. There is an
old, neglected cemetery alongside
Tonnelle Avenue at Jersey City -
now vastly under construction right
there - where stone after stone
denotes family burials, each within
10 days of each other. Fathers. Sons.
Daughters. Mothers. The fury
swept right through the family.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

2033. VOUCH FOR THE CHAIN

VOUCH FOR THE CHAIN
(very fast)
That thing is finally over and good
tidings for that - maple tree and willow
both down by the pond. I can't remember
a thing except what I was wearing - those
same dreary clothes I wore everyday for weeks
and the shoes from under the pew and that jacket
with darning for holes and no pockets. I called it
my lucky one, for all the good it did me.
-
Overabundance never killed anyone - least alone
not me. And I never had it to know. Your cigarette
racer and your devil cabana. I slept for days in your
'hood. The old lagoon, where once grandma and
Aunt Mill had lived, that shambles of a shed, and
those boys with nothing in their heads but ill will.
Never got tired of that one - violence and adventure,
hand to hand. Like a dog's leash, tied at the neck.
-
We finally swam away - as I recall , swearing to reach
Brisbane or Canberra or one of those joints on a
good Australian current. How much more stupid
could we have been? Not much, Charlie, not much.

Monday, February 14, 2011

2032. EXPERIMENTAL #3. 'And To the Wife of Bath'

'AND TO THE WIFE OF BATH'
(part 1)
This battalion loves you, this entire army of subterfuge
is here at your feet. The fir trees are waving in the wind,
for you. Let's not pretend (any more) that you do not see.
All this love amasses at the silliest of borders : where the
rivers twist and the men decide who owns what, or shall.
We may decamp for the night, our little entourage. But I
cannot, by myself, think of other than you. I cannot see
without you. I want to suck your toes, caress your limbs.
Oh God above us, how has it come to this?
-
I am not alone, mind you. There are fourteen men right now,
just like me, under darkness and night, thinking of just you.
Granted, all this is crazy, but so what. Listen! Listen, as I
spoof to be a contender in some future, modern age. How
different all things will be: I shall see you (naked) on the
back of decks of cards. Somehow, this occurs, as men hold
the cards, sitting around strange tables. Others, it seems,
are viewing you in pictures that really do seem to be moving.
How time elapses whatever may have occurred, I'm afraid
I simply do not know - nor the time or place I find myself.
-
We had no schooling, remember; everything we did we did
ourselves, lance and hammer. Sword and driver. Whatever
did not die, we bludgeoned until it did. Oh, Wife of Bath, now
please can you here help me? I am rigid, and alone.

2031. 'THEY'RE EXTREMELY INTERESTING'

'THEY'RE EXTREMELY
INTERESTING'
I've seen them before and my imagination is kept.
Not knowing where, I must abstain from telling more.
I look. I look about me - watching the morning arise,
the ice pass from sidewalks and the thin crusts of
graveyard snow fall from stones and markers.
It's all I can do to keep from laughing.
-
Time is such a tendentious thing : gravel in the
throat, bad air in yellow'd lungs, succor at the
sight of disaster. I can't translate the cards
into any winning message. As interesting
as they are, hangman, urn, trickster, all
the rest just fades away. I realize, truly,
that there are no 'things' anywhere to
behold. Life has its answers, and keeps
them, damningly, to itself. We stand
aside, and must let things pass.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

2030. FOR THIS MOMENT I OWNED THAT DREAM

FOR THIS MOMENT
I OWNED THAT DREAM
(non-existence, again)
(Inconsequence : like jail, like a fixation on counting
days down. No meaning at all. I pale by comparison.
-
Now there is nothing less than that famed 'zero' - the
piper's own ticket to the flute factory, a one-way ride
back to oblivion, steerage in the schooner Mayhem,
pants with the legs sewn shut. I am lost in a thicket
of everything with a 'de' - delusion, despair, despondency,
desperation, you know all the rest. It's demeaning to me.
-
I walked the ice-clogged river, listening to the groan
and croak of every slab. I want to find one, to ride, to
ride, far, far out to sea. Somewhere I will never be.
-
No more, no more, no more, for me.
Yes, for this moment I owned that dream).

Saturday, February 12, 2011

2029. MANDIBLE

MANDIBLE
I was once there. I was not. Gone. Looking
out for anything - long since past and done.
-
The service revolution seemed most certainly
'over.' All kindness had already left. The table
of girls, they filled with babies. A lot.
-
Every girl smiled at everyone. I kept watch and,
sure enough, soon my turn. They haggled and
they laughed. Beauty wears a human face.
-
Coffee and some grapes.
Water in a pitcher. Sweating
bottles of beer. All these things,
in one place. It seemed, I swear,
a total human party.

2028. SAVAGE DELIGHTS

SAVAGE DELIGHTS
And they make them welcome too. I am the
in-between man, standing at the corner of
17th. My brim hat, wide-floppy, seems right
to protect me from the rain. It falls around me,
and puddles beneath the building. I am just under
an old window-eave. Something from 1917.
Curious is that, no? Men say on this site one
hundred fifty years ago was a thriving brothel.
A whorehouse to the stars, in effect, of its day.
The rich, the fat, brocaded men with diamond
stick-pins in their lapels, standing about for their
cherry delights. A hundred choices in a velvet lobby.
-
It's all, of course, nothing now, and all those men
long gone. They died, at least one would hope -
just to give them a gentlemanly break - with their
dicks in their hands and a girl beside them. But
probably not. Counting-thieves, like pennies these
men encumbered nothing; small-change nonentities
in a far-larger war. The thriving might of Manufacture,
and the throbbing pulse of War and its productions,
led them on to the rich and comfortable life.
And then dropped them like Death's very own
hag herself would be dropped by them.
-
I am standing under this building, still and steady.
It's the site of a million past emotional couplings.
Now, the rain falls without even a blink,
and the gentle, wet world goes on.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

2027. EDITOR (Very Orange Indeed)

EDITOR
(Very Orange Indeed)
"This goes on for a very long time seemingly
forever without any pause and without any
punctuation as well - and we gather around
to make sure it all gets talked and heard. These
voices, having visited other places, now come
back to tell us where they've been. Matthew,
headed for Vermont, tells me first of his two
years just finished in Turkmenistan, where
he 'dispensed pharmaceuticals' to the local
Turkmenis. And then in the background and,
for whatever reason, the second time today, I
am hearing 'Orpheus In the Underworld' being
played on some classical channel. Not the jingle
we know from the media, mind you, but the
real tune itself. And then, just to my right,
someone only recently met tells me how much
she likes my artworks on the walls. Paintings.
Collages. No one ever seems sure what they are.
I should be as rich as my heart is in the wealth
of hearing kind words. Magnificent compositions;
and the sun is going down, just outside this window.
Very orange tonight; very orange indeed."

2026. MY COUSIN, AT THE TABLE

MY COUSIN,
AT THE TABLE
Yet only now I chastise these intentions :
my cousin, sitting at a table, drinking wine
and listening to nothing in particular.

2025. INTENTIONS

INTENTIONS
Not to delve too deeply, but I am caught at this
moment within the cave of a dream of my making :
tendrils and vines of wish and intent, twisting and
gripping my every exposure. Light itself furrows my
arguable brow. I wince at distant things, ignoring
what is close be me. The sound of the yellow canary,
at home in its cage, breeds such familiar intention.
I know precisely what is meant. I understand each note.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

2024. HART AND REINSTEIN

HART AND REINSTEIN
'Wish I knew what to do. Love to hear people
say this is good. Can't seem to exit my mind.
Thinking always of you.'
-
There was nothing more on the back of the card.
A picture of Albert Einstein wearing a very funny
grin. As if 'King of the World' knew all things of
the world. Unified Field Theory, the hell with that.
-
I remembered you (I'd thought) years back
wearing white linen and sitting in the very rear
of that little room. You never spoke, and we only
loved from afar. Oh well. Unified Field gone to Hell.

2023. THOR HAMMER GODS

THOR HAMMER GODS
Just like that; the long stretch of
possibilities, the summoning of endings.
Watching (once) the guy with silver hair,
spray-painting iconic images of Jesus
onto canvas, I was reminded of a play:
the long-lost sailor, now home from the
sea, cannot get the image out of his mind -
five maidens cast on a rock, illusions to be
sure, yet singing in very beautiful voices
the praises of all creation. And now, the
sailor on land, weak with his own diminished
mind, seeks them out once more - every
corner bar, every alley, every warehouse
entry. He leans on buildings, captivated.
He smokes away his time, lost in reverie.
And then, just once, he sees a glimmer:
somewhere, rounding a corner, he sees
them. Then they are gone. Nothing left,
he knows, but the guy with silver hair.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

2022. GILGAMESH

GILGAMESH
I am reading my fingers where they enter the womb,
catching the sunlit rays of glory from far-off ancient
days. We roam the Earth this way, together - building
walls and breaking clay, running with a brother and fighting
bulls. Wild things abhor us, and we sanction all the earth.
Encompassed by such, I hug the Earth while scanning
the sky. Cedars roar back at me, and, all over, the gate
to another world is opening wide. Not walking on water,
I instead slog beneath it, peeling mud from angry faces,
realizing Mankind in my ways, seeing Death and finding
an end. I cannot escape what it is I am. I go forward,
unto Death, and then I, passing, die. With my one
final breath I say 'I want to live forever!' And in
this way only - by my works living on -
do I myself so live forever.

2021. ANABASIS

ANABASIS
Marvelous, this nomenclature, like science and grit :
words tied together, supple and sound. One word
suffices. This high up, I see the entire valley as it
is spread before me. All those old, shuttered mills,
the factories, where once the water-wheels churned.
Everything now shuttered and forgotten. Looms to
no end, spinners, tanneries, acid pools of runoff.
The strange figure eight far below? Nothing more
than a tangle of roads, leading 'round in circles so
shoppers can park.

Monday, February 7, 2011

2020. HOMETOWN SUBMARINES

HOMETOWN SUBMARINES
They came through here picking at the small
things, those fiery men in jackets. Toothpick
tassles and wire-rope bales; with their faces
aligned, they all looked like toy soldiers to me.
Gadabouts singing their singsong lines :
cadets on an abbreviated, quite local patrol.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

2019. GHOSTS (a very true story)

GHOSTS
(a very true story)
I call it like I want it and leave the pickings for
the others - the ones who scratch and save, snare
and wonder, watch and remark. Journalists and men
with pens and snark. Disease filters through the
aisles where hundreds of others have sat. A
pilgrimage to a sacrilege, and that, my son, is that.
-
Today I was snug in Chelsea and left for dead in
the Village. On Perry Street, and then Charles, I
took it upon myself to saunter in where I chose.
An old lady had died, and left me all her clothes.
Her acting jewels, from 1967 and before, all still
arrayed upon her Broadway bed. Robert Preston,
Ed Gwynne, and more. I sat at her piano. Its
sickening sound made me abhor all else:
old, tired keys, so out of tune to be fired.
-
When I turned to see, there were only ghosts,
dragging through the kitchen, pretending to
play in the parlour, and, there, on her outsized
walls, all the posters and kettles and pictures
and rings of her eighty oldtime years. Those
ghosts were just staring to space.

2018(a). SHEEPS AND SHEPHERDS

SHEEPS AND SHEPHERDS
Just as I heard it I report back to you : 'the state of
health care today is a media medicare entertainment
frolic; some sidweays squankling over nothing at all.
The dead stand in place and the living willingly die.
It's that simple so very simple.' OK then, we leave it
at that. Scalpel, knife, blade and suture.
'Sheeps and Shepherds, head to the future.'

2018. MY MINDS ARE BROKEN

MY MINDS ARE BROKEN
I'm at the point where I've reached astral ends,
my minds are broken and my heart amends.
These are quality things, of which I must be aware:
the signification, the edification, the purpose I wear.
Looking up, the false full moon I notice it throws its
cloak over doom - the light and its shadow, the halves
of each other, duality soon. I shrug and I wander.
I've left that room.
-
Place my hand in the ether - a wide-open sky,
darkness and blemish. I wonder not why.

Friday, February 4, 2011

2017. POET MAN

POET MAN
(Joseph Stalin was a people person)
I sat down with the poet man and a major one
at that; knew his name, he doffed his hat. Had
rim-shackle hair and an ice cream cone face. Said
his 'name be Paul' and said it in haste. The point
he made 'a poem shouldn't be long. Who wants to
hear or read all that stuff?' Then, quizzically, he
turned and said - 'at least that's the way I feel
about it. What about you?' I laughed and said
'well, yeah, sometimes maybe but on the other
hand I like to think 'let it splurge' just throw it all
out there, line after line, grow run and sputter
until you're done.' We left it at that. He said 'later'
and took the stage. Everything was fine, except
I couldn't hear a word he said after that.
That crowd never did shut up. Only
thing I remember, he said, 'Joseph
Stalin was a people-person'.

2016. MY LIFE IS A DOSE OF SICK

MY LIFE IS A DOSE OF SICK
I'm getting crumbly around the edges, and
I don't know what to do. Eyes well up with
tears just thinking. Cosmic infanticide. Eternal
euthanasia. Selective breeding, dogs, cats,
angels, turtles and all the rest of that
bio-structured crap. I'm looking at pictures
of the Cassady family - Carolyn and her
daughter, the one in ballet form. I can't
fucking stop from crying. Good God,
I'm so measly gone. It's not as if I
haven't lived myself; I've done all the
rest of that matter. It's more like the
pregnant pause that's about to explode.
In sirens. In fury. In fire.

2015 YOU'RE GETTNG FAT

YOU'RE GETTING FAT
(live from Duryea House)
Better be satisfied with a brick.
Happenstance has its own constellations.
The essence of of all things is a certain
form of Love. (Valerie wears no hat).
-
I took a jimbro to the Brothers Four.
Max and Mike and Evan and Steven.
Their sound together was - it is true -
harmonic, sensating, sweet. Satisfying too.
What God has joined together, let no man
take apart? I think that's how that went.
-
Reading a Shakespeare under a limb.
Bare, ruined choirs, where once the
sweet birds sang.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

2014. THE SHIP MAY YET SINK

THE SHIP MAY YET SINK
(but at least there are no passengers
in the lower compartments)
Which of course makes no difference at all,
has no bearing on the end. The ship goes
down, and everyone, to be sure, goes with
it - topside or bottom, no care.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

2013. AFTER THE FIRST OF THE COFFEE

AFTER THE FIRST
OF THE COFFEE

Once the tree limb fell down onto the black
Mercedes, I looked up to see : the crack
and sizzle had caught my attention, all that
ice and its sound descending. The wide fan
of the very big branch kept it from thudding,
but it landed on the car nonetheless. Slap. Crash.
-
A few minutes before, I myself had driven right
over a branch large enough to cause me woe.
The car swallowed it as an ant swallows a dog.
You get the gist. No damage, I don't think. A
bump, and a scratch. All the crazy ice again.
Everything coated as if by glass, and I want to
list my mentions : doorways glazed, sidewalks
as killers, roadways lit like ice rinks in the early
morning streelamp glow. In all, lots of fun to be
had but only if one sought it out.
-
I mostly ignored the adventure. Everyone else, it
seemed, was scurrying. Running to the window to
see what they could see, ('My God! There are two
people in that car! You sure they're OK!). Then the
cops came, those message radios blaring. Down the
street - but from other places and on other cases -
the Princeton ambulances ran their long, loud run.
Sirens and lights, tight, fast turns in slush and ice.
What a morning, and wasn't it nice!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

2012. I REALLY THINK I'M MOVING IN (Feltville)

I REALLY THINK
I'M MOVING IN
(Feltville)
I have lost many things over the edge of fear and
panic. Like the dental-phobic patient screaming in
the chair, I want to run and disappear. There is
little more that I can do, having to stay, and live,
for you. Thirty years of schooling, and a union-card
to show the devils I exist, can keep me, no matter,
back from nothing and just returned. Go figure.
-
I ate my own nascent children, swallowed my
cat-gut fire, doused the flames in lemon-lust
before realizing it was merely desire. I played
cowboy at the fenceline just to keep you sunny.
A million magic spaces, a hundred thousand times.
I finally learned silence, but only after I'd lost
my voice. I used my hands in a pantomime,
and it was, always, all by choice. I have lost
many things I've forgotten about, and now
all I can do is aimlessly walk, thinking of you.
-
There really is an abandoned town I've found,
called Feltville. I think I'm moving in,
I really think I'm moving in.