3173. KEEPING ALL MY SECRETS TO MYSELF

KEEPING ALL MY
SECRETS TO MYSELF
It's a very limited engagement, and
I wouldn't count on it at all - lots of
lights go out, cars are targeted, and
- what's more - the gargantuan sieve
of altercations and lies takes its place
in front. So, anyway, be careful what
you wish for, as it all may come true,
or if not true than to be. Until then,
I'm keeping all my secrets to myself.
-
Walk on water, tie things down.
Keep the marker, mess the crown.
The tree-men, and the sunlight -
throwing green apples down to
the water below. I'm keeping
all my secrets to myself.

3172. NOT OF SOUND

NOT OF SOUND
I am not of sound mind. I am
of very sound mind. I am not
there. I am right over there.
I make no noise. My noise is
of sound and fury. I am full
of regret. I have no regrets.
No regrets at all.

3171. ROMANCE

ROMANCE
I went to Namen Brook to
drown you, and I failed. Yes,
you gurgled and you sputtered,
and I thought I'd done it right -
your pale, blue eyes rolled back,
I watched, you gasped, and that
fine, female chest, it heaved.
Thinking it was over, I guess I
stopped too soon. No matter,
even after all of that, you
claim still to love me dearly.

3170. LUCKY ONE LAST THING

LUCKY ONE LAST THING
From Syosset to Patagonia - how
far is that? The rooms are all cleaned,
freshly swept and polished. We've already
had our apple a day. Jesus Good God
too the world keeps spinning and the
yarns keep flowing. The man with the
heady drink, he keeps drinking. Over
at 147 e15th, even Susan Sarandon is
watching the clock, shining its face,
feeding the cat, and - lucky one
last thing - marching her
foibles to the beat of time.

3169. PLAYLIST

PLAYLIST
Gone run down stark-raving crazy
now you are was then I me. Got stopped
(just like that) when the message came.
To bear witness. I speak - as a survivor
last among survivors all and each of whom
thought to swear they too were last. So, so
we are not then alone. So what?
-
'We can't be silent! We must give evidence!
My God, we have been witness!' - so Barney,
worked up, said. And (yet) I said nothing in
return. Conclusion (they said) was - 'we've got
to face the facts. We've got to know what happened.'
(I said) 'Don't you know?' (They said)
'well..yes...and....no!'
-
It's never easy being a sham, Sam, though
they try. Run down stark-raving crazy.
Why don't you come down for ransom?
I've heard you like the kids.

3168. THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD (Courbet)

THE ORIGIN OF
THE WORLD

(Courbet)
Just like Courbet to show so
sternly the rights and the wrongs
of this place : displaced and watery
souls, still bloody, struggling through
space. It's harsh, like the black caw
of a raven, picking through trash
at the dawn of yet another day.
I see the familiar in so ordinary
a way. Oh, oh, leave it to Courbet.

3167. REALLY GOING NOWHERE AT ALL

REALLY GOING

NOWHERE AT ALL
On my cataclysmic affairs, on my
datebook of time, on my honor, on my
reprieve, on my insistence, I will never
aver. This is a distant nomenclature.
This is a rising anger. This is Despair.
-
There : I see. That small, young boy is
bouncing that large, round ball, which,
thrown to hoop, there remains at rest
for but a moment, a secondary space
of time, nay, too, an instant, before
failing and deciding then to drop.
Which the young boy retrieves.
-
Oh clouds like pterodactyls raging -
cut a'fly along the sky - roaring with
a snappish cut aligned to fear and anger,
as if suitcased all for travel but really
going nowhere at all. Really,
going nowhere at all.

3166. LIFEFORCE

LIFEFORCE

I structured my horizontal frame.
I structured you. I structured, thus,
the world. You are, at long last, the
enchantment that brings me forth.
Now, so derived, this riverbank
flows as its water runs : Gently
Sweet Afton or Bard of Avon.
No, no, I wouldn't know, and
both my sleeves are dipped in
it, my cape arrives in tatters,
and I am - sorely now - bereft
of any allegiance at all. Yet, once
more, you are the enchantment
that brings me forth.

3165. YOU REMIND ME

YOU REMIND ME

You remind me of someone I met.
Someone I met on the couch.
Last week. You. Do. Near the
apple garden, not yet in bloom,
the 'orchard' the field-sign called
it. Like we didn't already know.
Right near to that, you may
recall, was the pond. But, oh
dear, I'm mistaken again.
That wasn't you. Rather, just
someone I met then of whom
you remind me of now.

3164. OH THERE WAS A MATTER

OH THERE WAS A MATTER

:I: sit back sideways. :I: am reading
John Ashbery once more. There's
never a limit to things like this.
Convex mirrors and the rest.
:I: drink nothing but coffee
around both man and beast.
Around that which once was
called the 'fairer' sex :I: most
often find myself drinking
NOTHING at all.

3163. TALLOW

TALLOW

Markers along the treeside, high atop the hills;
where crested woodpeckers yet sing and the
high-vaulted fly-hawks soar. A long and
patterned time below. The land rolls on
before us : rocks as old as what is said are
still lined atop these ancient heaps - old lines
and scratched marks of this and that entreaty
from a hundred years before. I can hear the
bold echoes yet running. A distant light
marks the curvature of this Earth.
-
My mind and my vision drip - as a waxen
image too close to the Sun; softening and losing
shape, sliding down into inconsequential forms
and meanings without meaning. My soul talks
back and somehow yet I know I am alive.
Far, far off, just where I can no longer see,
I sense the distant river curving away.

3162. ASHBURNIPAL

ASHBURNIPAL

'Well then you come do it - smoky sky on
a broken horizon. Have I ever told you how
I feel? Legal sanction now awaits me -
I can hinder what you unreel. The last
farrago at the final moment, and all that
foolish cheering for none. Go ahead then,
see if I care. You will do what you will,
whatever and a day.'
-
'Stop your stinking sacrifices. Your smells make
me retch - your flesh and your carcasses, dead
loins and fire-burned lambs. Offerings such as
these? I'd rather have Baal's lonesome daughter.
There are no words, really, for what you are.'
-
Then I will stop saying your name. The day of the
Lord is here. The readings must stop, the lists
are pronounced, and all those names of the
already-dead, that long roll-call of prisoners,
must we sit here and listen to it once more?
Grant me dispensation, oh God, to leave
your house and fade away.

3161. (ALL) PILED UP DARK

(ALL) PILED UP DARK
I went through Ealing, Epping,
and Slough, and Bradford and
Spalding too - all that old
Vaudeville circuit, now near
finished and gone, emptied of
clowns, and blackface, and
jesters, and cons. All the old
ballrooms had fallen down, the
tentcamps were gone - all that
were left were the surreptitious
failures of broken windows and
crumbling closets, the dives of
old Devils in Hell, carparks and
fractures and more : just one thing
after another, all piled up dark.

3160. MIS-FAVOR

MIS-FAVOR
Yes, yes, now the Gods are armed
with their many new charms. A
gallantry of novelty, long before the
new wears off. Electrons warding off
danger, neutrons slaking thirst,
dark matter, black holes. These
Gods have many arms. How
well they manipulate things.

3159. AND THEN I SAW NOTHING AT ALL

AND THEN I SAW
NOTHING AT ALL
I am so small - startled as well -
among all these tall and darkening
men; the ones with wishstones on
their brooms and carnage upon
each of their faces. 'We've lost
entire families to boom and bust,
to make and waste, the bombed
out billets of border and line.
It's all been maddeningly so.'
Saying that, once more he
threw his lit match onto his
pile of gasoline cuttings. 'If
you wish to continue believing
it's all been allegory and
apocrypha, go right ahead.
Your funeral, Bud!' The flames
shot wildly higher. 'The Damnation
Conflagration, I call it!'
-
There really was nothing to do.
I'd read all that stuff before - lists
and plagues and first-born slaughtered
boys - all gibberish to me as well. Frogs
and locusts and strange odors of Death
upon nightmares of dreams. Yes, I'd
been all there and done all that. Now
some crummy, waning Lordship wishes
to come right at me? I'd think better of
the chipmunk than the tree. 'No thanks!'
I said. 'I couldn't hear you the first time,
and when it finally came around, man, I
was really busy.' I noticed a hummingbird
buzzing the feeder. And then I saw
nothing at all.

3158. THAT'S FOR SURE

THAT'S FOR SURE
Only by the glint of
both manner and
hard work are all
the things we really
treasure made.

3157. STATION IDLE

STATION IDLE
Before the extinguished day
dissolves away, that single light
will go out. It too has been on for
so many hours; a thin, yellow
bath on one, very old, posted
schedule signboard.

3156. SOMEONE'S UTTER CONFLAGRATION

SOMEONE'S UTTER
CONFLAGRATION
There are just so many ways to skin a cat -
though there are more than one - and we've
probably seen them all. Watching transfixed
at some late-night TV image playing, over
and over, that shot to the head, the assassin's
video, the long-range leap to someone's death.
Tall buildings pale by comparison, even if
they do gently bend down to swoop up
the jumper. It's more of the same, what the
eyes see or foretell. The contagion loop
of expectation, like that famed rock wall
surrounding Riverdale itself, where the
old 'Injuns lost it all, nay, gave it up,
walked away having lost - yet again -
right before the slaughter, another
parcel of land; something they
didn't know about at all.

3155. THIS IS MY JUMBLE AND I AM THE ONE

THIS IS MY JUMBLE

AND I AM THE ONE
Nothing like this : ruminate the floy, calculate
the chaos, bring home the source. The Mayflies,
long gone now, are dead as well. Listen - there,
the tinkling of that churchyard bell on the hillside,
it means another 7am Mass is being run. Some
cadaverous lecher of a priest, and his two altar boys
caking the magnificent for a few elderly women sunk
down in the pews. This goes on forever, all the detritus
of a lower world. I resign myself to nothing more.
-
Sink me down, just as well, in the cases of
mis-chanced fury I've witnessed here. The 7th
Street flowerings, the two cops beating a hoodlum
senseless, the pretty girls twirling their rainbows
on the Washington Street pavement, hollow horrors
filling their veins. I remember seeing Rudy Grillo,
just before he died, like a heroin ghost leaning on
Death's fence. He wanted to see, but could no longer
focus. It was just like the end of the world, for him,
and for me. Now it's all nothing but some Dalmation
story being told over and over and more. Jack and Jill
went up the hill and Jill, it seemed, came tumbling down.
-
I lost the story, I lost the honor, I lost my broken
arm, I lost my daughter. How far should any of
this carry? I look at those old pictures, all so well
and all so bright. I want to be somewhere else,
and then I realize, alas, I probably already am.
This is my jumble, and I am the one.

3154. AIR (first day of Summer)

AIR
(first day of Summer)
There's only so much I can tell - I've done my
Hamlet and my Tempest too. Perhaps Macbeth
and King Lear await, though I would not know.
As long as Andronicus looms not nearby.
No froth now, mind you, let us speak
strongly of those things we may. Your
cut-out clouds are lining the sky;
like paper formations, they hover.

3153. I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP

I REALLY NEED
YOUR HELP
(madness)
If I could just cut through, get
someone to listen; but no, no, no,
my words are dead on the wharf -
sinister movements and the
dead-heading sailor asleep
on the creosote post. And
I am sorry for that.
-
I bead-buckled my final cadaver,
lit my last torch and singled-over
my final double-indemnity, sitting
like Boethius in my solitary cell
for you and the rest of your sainted
Mankind all, going about your
wayward ways : now park that
car, now make that call.
-
It does seem, these days, that people
really are born already on the phone,
jabbering their junk all right from the
very start. By contrast, my pale
temperature boils. I miss, oh dearly,
my pleated shirt and all that it
brought forth; its glory, it solid
inattention to detail and form.
-
But now, having reached my own
impasse and crossed the station
over to my own mental ward, I
ask - do you know any of what
I mean? Why Dilling finally
blew his head off? Here, here,
I really need your help.
-
If there again was just someone to listen,
someone to hear me out, then those
thrumming registers of low sound
would be howling instead my own
forceful name - astound, absurd,
wastrel child me. They've made
a ring-coil from but letters of
my name. Let's try and forget
the doubt. Just go. I really
need your help.
-

Dandelion millweed tiger's paw.
Decibel departure Miami suture.
Everything like this, brought
together at last. What a ghastly,
ghastly world. I really, really
need your help.

3152. MIRABILE DICTU

MIRABILE DICTU
I wonder never long about anything
at all. It's amazing, it's a wonderful world!
Starlight and the sun, both together mixed,
are generated with my very blood and tissue'd
form. I am all that which I step. My feet are in
the Earth and of the land I walk - implanted,
to the land, as my head is to the stars. Mirabile
dictu and wonders of all that! Amazing!
It's a wonderful world!

3151. THE FUTURE WAS NOTHING LIKE THIS

THE FUTURE WAS
NOTHING LIKE THIS
I remember you went to Pittsburgh -
blue pants, a funny hat, sunglasses
and all that driving. You said it made
you feel young - 'being out on the
road, moving along, owing no man
no thing.' I liked that way of a phrase
you had - a glide, a quick and a glib
tongue. 'Owing no man no thing,' I
thought, was pretty unique. Most
people probably would have said
instead - 'owing nobody nothing'
or maybe 'I don't own nothing to
nobody.' I hope you understand
what I'm trying to say.
-
Blue glass, blue Pittsburgh glass.
'PPG they call it!' That's what
you said - craning your neck
sky-high out the driver's window,
watching things go by - wind in
your hair, wind in your eyes (which
the glasses hid). Funny to see you
steer, at sixty miles an hour and more,
with but the tip of your index finger.
-
'Mostly, I want for nothing. That
sounds great, yeah, I know, like I'm
rich and can have everything. No way,
man - it's actually the opposite. So
freaking broke that I've learned now
to want for nothing, 'cuz I can't have it.
Get it? Just to get by.' Yeah, the future,
back then, was nothing like this.

3150. MY HEART'S FIRE

MY HEART'S FIRE

I kindle my heart's own fire with love,
flighting fiery sticks like arrows straight
to someone else's heart. Kiss me world, I
kiss back. Open my palms, famed nirvana,
I start fires with my thoughts - tongues
of flame leaping my open hands. Heart to
heart to enter Love. Call me ever, call me
thus, bring me forth, cause my lust. I am the
blazing one, coming forth now to save the world.

3149. ALLAH BE PRAISED

ALLAH BE PRAISED

Marksman deadly accurate shot man head
right between the Nairobi eyes. The girl
with the blues, the one I love, just washing
her hair with some new-found sludge. In
my dreams, she's shattered by rocks while
sunk in the sand, like those Middle Eastern
Muslim perverts stoning broken virgins.
God almighty what a petty world you've
made - all those mighty assholes proclaiming
what they say. Rights and freedom gone away
in a death and slavery here to stay. Pigeon-headed
Gods come crying, all that Allah Yahweh Jesus shit. Look
at what they've done with it, just look at what they've done.

3148. YEAH, I CELEBRATE MYSELF?

YEAH, I CELEBRATE MYSELF?

Make no stinking rationale for where the street ends up :
willow tree sagging over the marsh, the end of the block
slimy with crud, the old metal swing set sinking in mud.
The old sanitarium, now a condo-set, makes me laugh
still every time I pass - Cherokee Arms, now it's called.
Big bunches of Puerto Ricans stabbing the park with
love; Jets and Sharks and Houseboys and Wrens.
-
I dare somehow saddle up this horse and ride, and slide -
East River metamorphose right there into me. Tugboat
pushing barge, sloop and craft, slighting, listing
pleasure boats. Two cranked girls in little white
bikinis, sunning their ass on deck. I went home,
and there was no one there. I went there, and
there was no one here. All my friends are dead
and gone. No father, no mother as well.
-
I find that I rot and stink with the rest of them all.
Laying back in the sunny grass, feet up on a railing,
watching birds and squirrels scuttle and run. I don't
care that I don't care and I don't care if I should care.
Or not. That rotten weasel apple-mazaneer, the
man with the plaid-silk hat, no I do not know him,
have never seen before. That dog he's walking,
Jeez, looks more like a cow. I smile, languid to
a fault, and celebrate. I celebrate, myself?
Them? The world around me? All.

3147. BAUDELAIRE'S ALBATROSS

BAUDELAIRE'S ALBATROSS
Why here in these crazy, frozen wastes?
Why now in this ice? What makes me think
now of these sudden and remembered things?
Like the albatross of Baudelaire's poem, tethered,
and with those big wings drooping deckside while
captive and tied, the sad and awful paradigm of
limitations holds me down as well. I am as if
frozen in some cumbersome block of ice.
-
'Its great white wings drag at its sides like a
pair of unshipped oars' - that's how he says
it exactly. Broken, defamed and unsettled
spirit, hold still. I hurt by just the thinking.
-
My mirage, as well, it would seem is solid
and heavy; holding me down the same.
The ice and the mentor'd fantasy, they
are both working to rule me, settled,
broken, defamed. Unsettled as well?
Yes, yes, both myself do well define.

3146. ORION'S MIGHTY BELT

ORION'S MIGHTY BELT
As difficult as right now though all may seem,
so in contrast my lightened spirit soars. The
nighttime heavens above, Orion's mighty belt,
the roaming, wielding, shooting stars, the
asteroids and planets - all that rich, thick and
textured blemish of my conscious life - brings
me out, lifts, propels, takes me with it. I am
off, to such a gloried atmosphere as no one
pale astronomer, none, has ever seen. This
is a rich and brilliant happiness, one to wish
for, gloat over and strive ever towards,
(as difficult as that all may seem).

3145. NIAGARA

NIAGARA
(search results for Niagara Falls)
I'm sitting at the rainbow window watching
water fall down - colored mist and white sky
flying high, Good God! And here come a
Troupermania Trio singing on : some putrid
folk songs last heard in 1964 - 'freight train,
freight train, goin' so fast...' Old Libba Cotten
herself couldn't have sung it no worse, and
that would be 1905 'til now. I'm sitting at
the rainbow window just wanting to smile -
freight train, freight train, to 500 miles.
-
The mist fogs gladly the gadfly glass -
sends shimmers and ripples along, all things
glazed, it seems, with something; akin, that is
to this : folk songs in an old time lodge and,
below, the Maid of the Mist! Please don't tell
what train I'm on, so they won't know I'm gone.
-
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast,
how did I come to this at last?

3144. NEW PRESENCE AND NOW

NEW PRESENCE AND NOW
I have entered the unfound world :
syllogism silence logic and sense.
How often the lone bell ringing sounds,
bereft of the ordinary context; a cuckoo
without manners, a vane without any
suitable wind. I have entered the
unfound world : syllogism silence
logic and sense. What things together
coalesce. I wear a cloak as finery and dress;
and humbled such a servant is. I carry
the new reality all with me as I leave.

3143. TYRANT (he is not a one, but a many)

TYRANT
(he is not a one, but a many)
Yes, yes, the tyrant sounds!
It is good to kill - most times -
what things need killing. Do you
now understand? Arise for the
ramparts to slay this new King.
Yes, yes, the tyrant sounds!
And yes, in a spite, he must die
and his voices, all, must fall.

3142. AND NOW THIS NEW OVERTURE BECKONS

AND NOW THIS
NEW OVERTURE BECKONS
We set out for the open sea,
in a leaky, shitty craft. The
journey was 70 years long,
so they said, and we steered
wherever we were headed.
Winds blew fierce or sometimes
not at all. We took refuge in a
million shoals and narrows;
illusory, not really there,
and - always - gone
before tomorrow
arrived.

3141. RIMBAUD

RIMBAUD
I've waltzed like a retard covering
'Last Year's Man' - strumming along
with Wind At the Oasis playing chords
blindly insensate. All these mannered
rhythms going nowhere, and I am not
myself, I am someone else.

3140. LEICESTER TROLLEY

LEICESTER TROLLEY
Until the robin's egg runs dry
and silt fills up the borders,
that's how long I'll stay to wait
for you : holding air in a watery
palm, forsaking other moments
for now and only this alone.
The Leicester Trolley Bus
just went by. I should
really take it home.

3139. PENNSYLVANIA DUCKLING FARMHOUSE

PENNSYLVANIA

DUCKLING FARMHOUSE
I can't write more than my hand allows -
ragweed ragamuffin chandelier doctor.
These aren't just figments that play on
the wall - flowers and carriages and
one old, red barn. Why, why, why then
do people continue : homily to heritage
and all that nostalgia for what's gone,
when nothing will really do at all, nothing?

3138. WITNESS

WITNESS

An unwrapped gauze of circumstance, he held tight to
the green-painted railing. Some blood was trickling
from his mouth and his small hat had fallen from
his head. Next to him, a man with a ukulele was
stupidly singing on, as if nothing untoward was
occurring. Some standard of sub-standard uselessness
was making itself felt. On the ceiling tiles, the light
was refracted into false rainbows, a scattering of broken
light and rays of indistinct texture. Learning long ago
to have nothing and live with that, I offered no resistance
to what appeared to be fighting back - a variety of
useless and awkward bile. Thinking to myself, in a
telegraphic fashion, 'was this the way things always
are?' I ascribed new meaning to the moment : disgust,
disfavor, and a dissimilitude of want and need - neither of
them representing, really, anything at all. I watched
another man spit as he sauntered by. More waves of
revulsion swept over me. Short of Death, only a gun
would do justice to this scene. Calamity, I saw finally,
now had a nation, a land, and a kingdom of its own.

3137. THE GARDENER'S GOOD TRUCK

THE GARDENER'S
GOOD TRUCK
It was morning, and the wet grass was flooding
my shoes; the lone sentinel of a hawk looked
down from atop an elm, beseeching the world
below to deliver Death to it. Never bidden,
Death arrives; just another roadkill bird to
remember its cry. All was peaceful and still,
and then the gardener's good truck rolled by.
-
We are so bemused by things, and we just
keep going : the Ferris Wheel round in the
sky, still lit up, turning, from the night before.
The abandoned fairgrounds, now quiet and still,
merely dances eerily, its fabrics and tents
blowing in the wind, with not a word from all
those sleeping carnies in their drowsing tents
and trailers. Why, or why not? No difference.
-
And then the gardener's good truck comes rolling by -
trailing a flag and a container of spray poison, and
something else alike to fertilize the ground and
kill the weeds. Ah, so, then we should all reach
such lucky a station : the gardener's good truck,
the riven tents, the slaughtered bird, and the hawk.

3136. A BETTER FIT

A BETTER FIT
That train, with its black and charcoal tower,
moves through the air with smoke and power.
It pushes things around as it slices through
this world. Huddled all atop it, and all along
its sides, those crying hordes of Calcutta
and Delhi, the hunched and broken forms
of distant lands : they stay in place, wailing,
as they are dragged through this swirl in
time. I watch from a platform at that which
I cannot partake. Squeamish, I blanch at the
image. My token time, this iron before wheels,
is made - by contrast - of skyscrapers and
grime, of window glass and riches and
returns; great bevies of money and tables
set with crystal and gold. That contrast
is striking (truth to be told), and I can
only shudder as I walk away. The clinging
men, I watch them in their robes and
colored silks. Their mouths, in a grimace,
say something, but I cannot the language,
ascertain, and my silence is a better fit.

3135. OVER

OVER
I am in a foreign land. I am outside, without
language, without understanding. I am wop
kike, nigger, hunky, chink. I am all the rest.
My words have no effect and no one - not
a one - understands what I attempt to say.
I am distant. I am kraut. I am spic. I am frog.
What can you lend me? What can you extend
my way? I spread out my hands to you, to
ask, to beseech, to beg. I am loser. I am
dying. I am dead. Will you remember
these words when you yourself are
gone? Will you take a moment to
think of me, in absence? Wash the
sick? Clean the sores of the dying?
Before it is all over, it is
already too late.

3134. ONE LAST VISIT

ONE LAST VISIT
One last visit to these highlands intact,
before the brazen light of day hits the
painted wall - the sad surf tumbles,
leaving its trail behind, shining shards
on darkened sand. High above, some
leftover daylight moon witnesses
silently this oceanic parade.
-
I am here, in a cubicle of dark, of
my own. I can sense the departure
of each wave, every breaker pouring
forth, in the same way words flow.
Now if I can only listen. For what
reason only they know, mad gulls
emblazon their time with noise.
-
So many things matter.
So many others do not.

3133. DAYBREAK

DAYBREAK
I saw two deer at daybreak dancing -
as light they stepped across the road,
just ahead of me, in a balletic frisson
of stately grace and a very composed
inner fury. Eyes lit, ever sentinel,
looking. For that moment, in the grass,
they stopped and, with a graceful
twist each of the neck, stared back
at me, over their shoulders watching,
while the sky, in a gentle light,
transformed itself slowly to day.

3132. SO TO RAISE THE HACKLES

SO TO RAISE THE HACKLES

...And pump the fucking post, mail the water
in hats, generate the overflow which winds
up in the gutter. Where the rubber meets
the road. It's two-twenty-nine, I see, and
yet again the old guy is sitting there reading
the newspaper from Trenton : "Man screws
rubber ducky hidden in child's hand! Three
scrawny cops in whorehouse scam! High
school proms run amok!" It's almost
always the same - all those high crimes
and misdemeanors in a ten-year-old's
game. I merely note the time of day
to show : nothing ever changes, and
we are - ever - all the same.
(No, no, I take it back. They
can all go to Hell!).

3131. SOUTHERN GREENFIELDS

SOUTHERN GREENFIELDS
Mount Holly and a million words
and new South Jersey towns, all
between nothing at all : clams and
glassworks, each betokened thing,
over the ages, alas, and now gone.
The last of the baymen's huts, they
just told me yesterday, were burned
in '83; nothing else, no one else to see -
in this empty town, in this empty, barren
place, in this awful vacancy. Someone
is playing music, way out on the sand.
I hear that awful racket like it was right
here in my hand. This modern day, so
much to see, they have so much to say.
This awful town, this awful, barren
place, this empty vacancy.

3130. THE PLEDGES AT GREENWARD

THE PLEDGES
AT GREENWARD
Standing straight like trees,
in uniforms and stripes, these
soon-to-be oligarchs and routed
little soldiers take their pledges,
salute, and shine; and insist
on marching away.

3129. THE TREND OF MOLLY

THE TREND OF MOLLY
(reasons for Molly seeing)
Molly paints, Molly pants.
Molly faints, Molly glances.
Molly has a million good
reasons for being.
And, alongside that,
everything pales
by comparison.
(More reasons for
Molly : seeing).

3128. PIPER, PIPING

PIPER, PIPING

Having been baked in your Vicarene, I lost all
awareness of place and time : carnage and murder
meant nothing to me. The lost wages of sin, or
whatever that was I'd read in your viclactic book,
escaped me now. Looking around, I only saw clouds
and, from them, the distant birds in and out. My mind
had lost all sense of time. I wandered, aimless myself,
just as any one of those middling clouds. 'Piper, piping,
sing me wild, sing a song both fair and mild.'

3127. FOR CAMILLE

FOR CAMILLE

Jeez no Jeez almighty. Don't
say stuff like that - too much
bug spray in Avenel. Goodness
gracious not. I remember times
as well, just like that, rolling an
endless ball down Livingston Ave.,
chasing the Ford Diamond along
Clark Place, writhing with the
simians at Demorest and Pike.
Remember, I want to tell you,
remember, even if it's deep like
good coffee, you might like tea
better. I'm sorry for that, Camille.
You know, it was Abe Lincoln who
said, in a crappy Virginia hotel, to
the waiter who brought him some
really bad brew: 'Sir, if this is coffee,
bring me tea. If this is tea,
I'll have coffee instead.'

3126. THE SIGNIFIER HITS PAYDIRT

THE SIGNIFIER

HITS PAYDIRT
(down at tompkins square park)

Long tall Sally and the little red Corvette,
they're both sitting 'midst weeds down by
the dock : sick of everything and just
wasting away. The game is in overtime,
the crowd's beginning to trickle out, and I'm
watching movies on the infield wall.
-
Helene Krempa and some Nicole Kidman
lookalike doing gymnastics on the schooner
Mirage. High seas and misdemeanors too.
A couple of miles off shore, and, damn, you
can get away with anything at all.
-
The guy in the Big Beat sweater, that's me.
It's 1966 again, and once more I'm down by
Tompkins Square; kissing four-eyed angels
named Margaita and Rosalita. They've got
a nasty brother they call Pabolito, but he's
away in the Vietnam War. Lucky me.
-
I pick up the loaded dice.
Somehow (beats the hell out
of both them AND me)
I roll a twenty-three.
Down at Tompkins
Square Park, just
them and me.

3125. TWICE (in the ring they flipped, and the mind was unsettled, like America)

TWICE

(in the ring they flipped, and the
mind was unsettled, like America)
1. People work while things happen
and the massive tree houses a squirrel
as the sunlight rights itself through these
branches - or as much of them as I can
see. Rough bark torn and scarred still
shuddering with some rude shock now
so grown over and forgotten, like our
own bedeviled birth. Oh the Earth
is our loom as the fabric is doom!
-
(In the ring they flipped, and the
mind was unsettled, like America).
-
2. People work while things happen.
The massive tree houses a squirrel.
The sunlight rights itself through the
branches, or as much of them as I
can see. A rough bark, torn and scarred,
still shudders with some rude shock, now
grown over and forgotten - like our own
bedeviled birth. Oh the Earth is our
loom, and the fabric is doom.
-
(I see Marienne with two fingers
hold open the slipping door).

3124. MADE TO STAY

MADE TO STAY
(henry street settlement, nyc, 1970)

These things are made for fondling;
the entire patchwork quilt of it all.
Listen decidedly hard, transient one:
the night is made for crying, the milk is
made for spilling. Outside the Ken-Ken
Dairy Bar, where three old Jews are
still smarting from their memories,
a new form of consumption takes
over their eyes. 'We shall have this
land, now as it is, or we shall have
nothing.' The other person - her
name was Mara Kein - barely sat
down on the steps to weep before
the others walked away; not a
dry eye in the house after that.

3123. THE QUERULOUS

THE QUERULOUS
'Mind you, faction; all
those listed and adumbrated.
The wild bridge crosses an even
wilder river, and the sunlight
now grazes the two. I am here,
standing beside myself, watching
and questioning all that I see.'

3122. PALATINE (the mystery deepens)

PALATINE
(the mystery deepens)
As Rome was built upon Palatine Hill,
so too shall I stand sparsely and only
later grow atop my own ruins. Eight
meters deep, perhaps, and more,
these ancient soils amass and pile,
deepening both the mystery and the
ruin. The abject and the flaunted -
a white-marble enclosure around
the rim of a fuller disclosure.

3121. I AM NOW IN AMERICA

I AM NOW IN AMERICA
Tease me, taser, televised all,
from Tulane to Tuscaloosa. I am
- just like that image - ten new
feet tall. And out of joint as ever.
All the old caves and by-ways are
gone. That forest closes me in.
From the straight road (yes) I
woke to find myself (yes) alone
in a dark wood. And I say (yes,
yes!) what wood that was! Its
very meaning gives shape to fear.
-
Damn Dantean scowl, kept wrapped
and cloistered here at home: for whatever
reason we ride, those selfsame voices be.
They speak of rogue and habit, neither
of place nor strange. And, ah! how
ordinary now all things have become.
So rank, so rank, so arduous then,
this wilderness left behind us.