3382. MAGIC CAR

MAGIC CAR 

Yes, yes, arrive, come on, aboard, enter. 

This is all of the magnificence we have. 

Why is it all so specific? How do 

we learn the moment? Along the 

roadway, the landscape moves.

I see the passing of hundreds 

of shapes. I stand alone, 

face to the wind. No

one pulls me back in.

3381. IN PASSING

IN PASSING

I don't want to talk about Morreale. I'm here

to live and die, nothing more. I don't wish to

preserve the lines of that fence, make sure the

gate-latch closes, whitewash the pale, check

the shed door. I'm here to live and die, and 

nothing more; and that I shall surely do.

And that, I shall surely do.

3380. ETERNAL RECURRENCE AGAIN

ETERNAL RECURRENCE AGAIN

Everything around me is dark. I am seeing

things through a broken still-camera in my

heart. All things are dark and gloomy...

this darkness is looking good.

-

This big painting, by Velazquez, is

looming over my head : 'The Surrender

of the Dutch at Breda', or something like

that. Fires and pyres, the big, brown rump

of a horse, lances and spears, and then

that soldier, staring out at me. Brown

and blue, my heart again.

-

There is nothing more difficult to hide

than Fear  -  it makes us shake and

shudder, just with memories of our

days. I wouldn't know why, nor what

it's possibly worth. To be or not,

that question comes back, and the

fires seem still burning on Breda's

wharves  -  eternal recurrence again.

-

Instead. Instead, I want to be thinking

about 'Las Meninas'  -  'The Spinners',

also by Velazquez  -  the other picture

in my mind : the reflection of a King and

Queen in a stupid, awful mirror - who cares,

of that? - the painting within a painting - 'oh,

what is that?'' - the little, red jug held by

the maid, the little boy who kicks the dog,

and, the little girl, being handed that jug.

All this, like words; so much at once.

-

And who am I, that this matters? Traveling

time, five centuries near, to bespeak some

ancient and doddering painting : dumb Dutch,

bold Spaniard, doped Italian, all! Time stops,

and it happens again and again. Everything

around me is dark. I am seeing through a

broken still-camera in my heart. 

Eternal recurrence again.

3379. IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP IT NOW

IT'S TOO LATE 

TO STOP IT NOW

Nothing moves forward, all things stop.

Even the Jewish Islamicist nearby, by his own

definition I hear, wants new settlement stopped.

Yes, but 'no one knows how the women

feel about this (for instance, ask Jodie).'

-

'We've a need to find common ground, I

think, instead. My friend moved there, he

met someone from South Africa, as they

rented a house together  -  met, married,

and carried on. Later, she was killed by

a terrorist bomb in a market square. But,

hey, who's to say about anything?'

-

Phoenicians at one time ruled the nearby

sea  -  they traveled the waters at will,

transporting great cedars by limb and

by trunk and all cuttings. It has been

like that forever  -  even a long time

ago. Too late to stop it now.

-

'Oh, by the way, you can tell my father

that I finally caught that medieval lungfish

he was so long chasing after. With all

the bother and fuss he put forth, it was

really not too much of a matter.'

3378. LOTS OF CIGARETTE MONEY

LOTS OF CIGARETTE MONEY

I do not smoke, and Man does not

lightly alight from plane, boat or ship

thinking of continuance or pleasure

and pomp. Certain things lead to

certain things, while others just go

on. To tell you the truth, I do not

care and it does not matter. By chance,

there is a 'Quik-Chek' on the corner -

cars are parked and people mingle.

-

You are near enough, while others

are far away : Bakersfield, California

(is that the Central Valley?) and 

El Paso, Texas  -  both those places

hold folk eternal and people I know.

Those hinterland, well-topped hills

of Hollywood and Vine : crap-happy

scene stars, the dead and all the rest,

with their sad and droopy faces, watch.

-

I came through darkened woods  -  

where the paved road had long ago

ended. A few houses, scattered about,

with streams and ponds, led me to see

I was traveling on dirt, with nothing that

was paved or surfaced, and that I was,

really was, just living in a dream.

Really, just living in a dream.

3377. THE ART OF SECRECY

THE ART OF SECRECY

And all that Fargo noise : it goes 

nowhere, all this blarney and froth.

It keeps making sound nonetheless.

I can look forward to so many things.

3376. WELL, ALL THAT'S GOOD

WELL, ALL THAT'S GOOD
(for helene grimaud)

And the sun will shine forever and your

lips will always glisten while your eyes

shall always smile, and I will be at your

side forever. Of such feelings is my felicity

made. I clamor for things of you. I harp

at your musical well. Let me listen anew.

3375. UNTIL IT IS THAT I AM LOST

UNTIL IT IS THAT I AM LOST

A little does not mean a lot, nor does a lot

mean anything much. Until it is that I am

lost I will be without avail : nothing to go to,

no rudder to grasp. Others tell me all that

is really the opposite of being lost. Having

a rudder to grasp does not mean not having

one  -  and the use of 'until' breaks the code.

Nonetheless, whatever they say, I am lost until...

3374. AVERAGE TITLE

AVERAGE TITLE

The average title comes and goes; we are nothing

without it, and it is nothing but for us. These are simple

items : disparage one, and the other is gone. Like at the

woods which line the old field, the farmer's trespass

and the wild of deer and turkey overlap. One day the

juncture works  -  water and corn and barley  -  and

the next day everything is barren and dry. We wait for

an average  -  the normal season to come which will

balance all things out. Until it arrives, we just go on.

3373. POLITENESS AND WAGER

POLITENESS AND WAGER

There are two flowers on the stairway, each in

a separate vase, on the landing shelf. People pass

and notice : the blue water  -   it seems, though it's

only blue because of colored glass  -  and the sunlight

throwing varied shadows of these items on the pale,

white-painted walls. Different dimensions all through

the day. Light passes and light changes, all that we see.

-

In dresses and gowns, some women pass. In cassocks

and beads, two priests go by, oddly. They are holding

a chalice, one, and a lit candle, the other. Liturgical

folk, for some reason here, going about their funereal

task. In the other room, as I see through, the deep

crimson back wall is crowded with more flowers,

funeral sprays and bouquets. Yes, yes, there is

someone's old body displayed, I see the open

casket in a strange half-light. Am I myself in

death or dying? Between two places I neither

really know or care of? Nay, I am well alive,

proven just by all these observations, no?

-

I wouldn't want this half-life ending to be blemished

nor  -  for that matter  -  abbreviated or cut short.

So, by those means, I am - I do suppose - placated

and made happy still. I see. I touch. I feel.

This is somehow living, and I will be

as nice as I can be.

3372. JONAH SAL

JONAH SAL

There won't be an ending and there won't be a

meaning : I promise you both of those. At the

wharfside, there shall still be ladies eating 

crackers with their soup, maidenhair ferns,

and daughters with rings.  As you know,

none of that ever changes. Way out, on

the far-side sky, if you were to look, there

would still be seagulls, moon and sun and  -

floating so flat and ephemeral on the ocean's

odd horizon  -  the one or two distant tankers

at sea. None of that changes either. And then,

of a sudden, in an instant, the fierce, fiery monster

will rise up its head, great noise will ensue, and  -  

stepping but like a figment over flaming seas  -  

the figure of all time and all fear will step out,

reach, and consume us, all and every.

3371. A COMIC TRIANGLE

A COMIC TRIANGLE

Two roads converged in a woods:

I took the middle one. Yogi Berra

was it said 'when you come to a fork

in the road, take it.' And additionally

it has been said 'nine-tenths of life is

just showing up' -  you see, you see,

I had no choice and I did not know

what else to do. It is grave

(though, no, not mine)

-

The circumstantial evidence now  -  

leading to a new land, bringing me to

newer places; my mind with my body

aches, even my crying-out teeth are

in terror. And so, just as it is, all

these same people are swarming

again : towards the middle, towards

the formative clay, towards their muddle.

-

I will not lead you on, I will not carry

anyone forth. Bring me your favor, 

carried on a tray, and I will give you,

back, yes, the head of a John the

Baptist. This comedy troupe beckons.

I can be, I really am, all things to all men.

3370. THIS EARTHLY BREAD

THIS EARTHLY BREAD

The bread is baking in this oven  -  

this uncut loaf, the still unsullied

thing, this marker for the morning

task. We watch the smoked and

colored glass turning  -  its small

window glaring back within  -  

something deep and

mysterious rises.

3369. WAITING FOR THE LIGHT (To Hit the Water)

WAITING FOR THE LIGHT

(To Hit the Water)

I am waiting for the light to hit

the water  -  all those torrid ripples

riding on the surface. This is the

'moment' I await, though it is ruined

by the noise and the presence of others.

Be ruined? Why should it not : prattle is

prattle, and what is not (what we've got)?

-

I notice the little oar bobbing; how it

looks like an arm or a leg on the water  -

who has lost what must first be determined,

and - do we not - anyway all lose ourselves,

apart, piece by piece? Thus is time, and thus

is Life determined.

-

I think of you, in memory, though not

that often : things bleed and merge, meld

and mix  -  the sleeping, tired face, the

joy of lips and trace, the hand upon your

breast, I place  -  and all that crazy pleasure

which it brings. As the Roman God Priapus

asserted : 'Grant me a flowering youth! To

please with my naughty prick, that I may

chase away the worries that harm the soul

and that I may not fear too much the growing

old!' Anyway, why a God would say that,

I'll never know. And I am waiting for

the light to hit the water.

3368. EVERY DAY IS SOMETHING MISSED

EVERY DAY IS 

SOMETHING MISSED

Alabaster Nefertiti morning glory wine.

And all this memory has a tree. Along

the winding ridge at Waverly we are

picking riverbed fossils while, along

our back, Route 17 buzzes away

like a wild child  :  75 frantic miles

back to Binghamton grows. John

Gardner and Joe David Weil.

-

How easy need it be to judge others,

to choose and select and grade? It

would never be my place, the lording

over of what is seen. I've pre-supposed

my own reticence long ago, and put it

to the fore: like movie idols resting 

their rest, it all seems just to go on.

-

Blind man in a tub. Doctor on a limb.

Parson with a skate. All these bugs

and mollusks, all frozen in their

muddied time : picking fossils

in Waverly, seeking the rhyme.

When everything else fails, and

fails again, why not just give it up?

3367. ORIGINAL THEOLOGY

ORIGINAL THEOLOGY

The world is alive, and our great space

has its consciousness  -  the one which

holds us and embroils us and swaddles

and watches us  -  and hurts us too.

We call it many names, we have called 

it names. We call it many names.

-

Machine pellets and machine-gun wars,

broken friezes and shattered dreams, and

all the things that make the war of words.

3366. ONLY MY EMENDATION

ONLY MY EMENDATION

Particular matter is sometimes abhorrent :

(to'eba) let us call it. When the radiated sky

turns to red, when the green grass frizzles.

Rivers run as blood and men dress as women.

-

I walked proudly on, even as Judah and Tamar

wrestled of old. We know (now) Tamar won.

That battle was good as gold. 'I am just a

dry tree. I am just a dry tree.'

3365. MY FREE ITERATION

MY FREE ITERATION

I will make my associations as I

may and where I wish  -  the abstract

fault of a precipice. I will know no

man but those I stress, and leave me

alone with your angles.

3364. LIGHTS

LIGHTS

The wind is whipping bare the

trees  -  early morning light struggles

in, the street-signs stress and turn and

twist. Odd metallic noises make 

announcements - a garbage truck,

the street-sweeper, slide by. It is

the week before Christmas, or the

week after, again  -  it never really

matters, these chafing things. Someone

has put colored lights up along the window

glass. They dangle on their strings.

-

 We soon will have to move to another

year  -  the announcer says  -  begin

another circle, start another tear; while

those amongst me, taking their leave, run

to Ireland or Washington D.C. or their

own Buenos Aires. Circumnavigating

globes like idiot-savants in outer-space,

going out, coming back, returning safe.

-

It is the cold England or Norway of 

another year  -  and some newly meager

Christmas to return will re-appear, while

within my head still burns the heat of

Summer and all of its light.

3363. 'I AM A WHIRLWIND'

'I AM A WHIRLWIND'

Once entertained by desert winds

the high, fierce God comes down.

He walks upon the ground, 'midst

pines and willows, looking for more

to do : maniacal understanding,

insatiable force for energy and

growth. With that idea, everything

else is false and shallow. 'The Devil's

Kingdom, I'm willing to bet,' says this

strange, unfathomable force. 'I am a

whirlwind. I will boast to myself.' 

All at once, again, the fierce wind

comes through, and all

things disappear.

3362. DOUBLE JEOPARDY

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Schooner sail-force sail-on windfest

harbinger hauler; five brave men on

the big, bad sea. 'If it was done once

already, we can do it again.' And with

that we make aces and faces, with

the high-hand salute. 'Around the world,

boys, we're going around the world again.'

3361. HOW CAN I SAY THIS : HOW CAN I NOT?

HOW CAN I SAY THIS : 

HOW CAN I NOT?

(this still-life holds a table)

I am supposed to have kept you -  

catalogued and noted and punched -

to remain in my notebook. This will never

be. Expansive to a fault, remnants and ideas, 

parts and places, they burst their bounds and

announce me out. Had I but the notion to

remain, (so off-putting, this being in place),

I would have done so. As it is, alas, without

you I go; but you are free, and - yes - that

is all we can be and, yes, all this can remain 

and you can go, or stay, as your whim will

dictate. (We then are all free beings to 

choose who or what to engage. By this

measure, so many engagements are enacted).

-

This still-life holds a table : 'It's anyway, like,

away from New York, you know, and we

have to pull all this together for her by

Saturday morning.' How can I say this:

how can I not?

3360. ALL AT ONE TIME

ALL AT ONE TIME

At the ellipse one stood out above all

the others : but who was it? A vagrant

personality, to be sure, alive and asleep

on the sewer grate and fencepost together.

Ron Kovic John Cheever Chevy Chase John

Ashbery all rolled into one. 'My dear, this is

such a key city, I must address its regression,

must I not? And oh, so many things just do

not work!' I am tired yet I am sleeping,

together, all at one time.

3359. 'THE BODY OF AN ANGEL, THE HEAD OF A GOD'

'THE BODY OF AN ANGEL, 

THE HEAD OF A GOD'

Many of the things I remember the most

have really no meaning at all. Anterior podes,

these things as arranged, they ring twice, they

ring steady. Between ('Thusly') the forces of

Nature, I stand unopposed. ('outside that

small town, we stopped, so beleaguered on

a cold, wintry night. All the shop-lights were

glistening upon the snow  -  yellowed reflections

on an iced-blazing white'). Where the bridge

crossed the shallow river, an old ruined warehouse

stood  -  it seemed a shambles and a wreck;

one thing alone, but many all together.

-

'For the body of an angel, the head of a

God'  -  the old parson was telling me that,

in Rutland, Vermont. I never knew what he

meant, yet now, I do suppose, I should have.

All that brazen church lust, so many these years

later, so makes sense : my thumbs were broken,

but always at the ready. ('The streetlight changed its

color  -  a yellow to a red  -  and what few cars there

were rolled to a stop. Everything seemed so ordered.')

-

In the frozen midnight air, the Proctor Marble Works

stood out : all the strange and awesome white stone,

cut into glazed blocks and ('now') slumbering like a

weird ice itself beneath a strangely straggling moon.

Off the fenceline, even in this midnight cold, I did

notice a few deer still grazed  -  how they had not 

bedded down instead, deep in a nearby woods, I'll

never know. ('And then from Proctor to Florence, to

the old Hubbardton Battlefield, I squandered on.').

3358. MAN THE MAKER

MAN THE MAKER

I remember reading 'Homo Faber' in 1974, Max Frisch,

I believe, 'Man the Maker' in translation. It was all OK

with me  -  that guy on the jet plane  - as it taxied down

the runway  -  the gleaming of the glass, the metal all

below, and, far off, the vision of that crazy field. Looking

back on it all now, I don't really know why I bothered.

Christina Rosner, the girl from Berlin - we visited regularly,

often and between classes. I asked what language they

spoke in Bonn, that 'temporary' capital, as she called

 it, that backwater, disgusting southern town. She

answered, 'Why, they speak Bonn!', in some disgust, as

if southern yokels would know no better and speak 

the same. It made me realize, and then wonder 

some more  -  for just like us, all those regional

differences rose to the surface - Alabama to

 Boston and Berlin to Bonn. We knew no difference,

 we spoke the same. (And what was this civilization

 then built upon anyway?). Now, long these far

years later, so right she was -  Bonn is long

over, all those yokels are finished, and some

redefined Berlin now rules the land once more,

and I am finished and she is gone and what

relapse remains is a memory lone, something

forgotten yet  -  here and there still  -  vaguely

recalled and remembered and thought of.

Where she is now, I do not know.

 

3357. LOCARNO

LOCARNO

Waters, and skies. The one or

the many  -  no difference. Like

papal hills made of a papier mache, 

standing but for a moment, 

this moment, today.

3356. MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH

MANY WATERS 

CANNOT QUENCH

Rhapsody in Blue is playing over my head.

East Street love affairs are never this easy; 

unsound and unfounded, they are never like

this. I think of Naomi and Ruth. 'Seduce me 

Boaz, uncover his feet'  - a Hebrew euphemism,

that, for exposing a man's genitals  -  and then

I think (there, there, that music again, almost

biblical itself, in its scrunching, eastside larch):

The Song of Songs and Solomon, together:

'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth',

as the lover proclaims, 'I come to my garden. I

eat my honeycomb with my honey. Open to me,

my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one.'

-

But no  -  and more; nothing is ever perfect.

Not that scent of her juices nor that pant of

her breast. All the heave and fever makes me -

as well - shudder. (And, anyway, this world 

is so filled with ugly people). And fright is

its recompense as I gather, in this corner

of Spring, the snows of the Winter.

3355. THE IDEA OF MIND

THE IDEA OF MIND

The idea of Mind is to circumnavigate this globe in a

wordless fashion while yet still being able to retell

the tale of the journey  -  that voyage burned in like

a tattoo on a broad, wide forehead. Words mince

no meaning in their silence. The eye scans the

page for something to grab onto.

-

I once read that Russians  -  the ordinary, the

ones in the street  -  in 1957, after Sputnik went

up, wondered fretfully if it would discover Heaven;

even to them, I suppose, an ever-present wonder,

or something to wonder about, at least. Nothing

like that ever happens now. Jaded and bored,

we sleep, or, fretful and scared, we weep.

-

In the end, all of this is the one same thing :

an osmosis and wearing of the fabric of time.

3354. THAT GADGET, AGAIN

THAT GADGET, AGAIN

Oh Ariel, I love you so! Not for once or

not for twice but  -  just like this - forever.

My friend, spirit, fire-maker, mate, walker

of the great ground 'round, seeker of the

same and ever oneness world-like world.

3353. THESE ARE MOMENTS (Newark)

THESE ARE MOMENTS

(Newark)

Inside the Salvation Army Store, poor people were
buying glassware. Outside the doorway, just above, 
on the brown-stone rock trestle, a train slid slowly by.

Above that, and near, a take-off jet pierced the sky
while, above that, still, the daylight moon somewhat

stupidly stood watch. In jackets and gloves, someone

nearby stared; seeing nothing at all he hunched

away, thinking the same, small thoughts as ever

here before : that single, shingled roof in need of

more repair, the lamplight at the curb, broken

open and dangling on high. I tried to tell him

something, answer to his hunch, but he was

long already gone. A finished moment,

wordless before and now, wordless

after, all again, and gone.

3352. YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO SAY WHAT YOU FEEL

YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO

SAY WHAT YOU FEEL

I have stood firm. I have run out of time and

life, both beckoning their ends to me as would

some drug-addled minstrel on the other shore:

the rock-star kind, the asshole with the guitar

strap wedged in his thigh, harmonica-frame

bent 'round his head, noodling some stupid

electric trill in a fading e-string lead. And, to

speak truthfully here, the fact of the matter is,

sensation-wise, I'm bored to tears by it all and

not even sure of what I speak. The insects

are flying the air; their Summer days have

waned as well, and now they slow and die.

-

I me a girl once, deep in the underground

bowels of a Paris hotel. I'll never forget the

moment  -  we rode that little crested wave

in place, right there, until it crashed and

burned around us. I've never experienced

such momentary passion like that again.

The fiery burn of quite truthful lust both

staining and soiling our lives and clothes.

With goodness. With cheer. With all of

that there. We gathered things up, and

simply left. I've never seen her again.

-

Sometimes, it seems, Life runs its own

days, and courses its little river wherever

it wishes to go. The only obstacle is

you, yourself : watching the warp and

weave, thinking you somehow have

every right to say what you feel.

3351. HARD RIDING GENTLEMEN

HARD RIDING GENTLEMEN

Ten hundred moustaches wagging, with

fifteen walruses singing away, and the priest

from St. Anselm's dwarfs by. He is singing

a Kyrie with a bottle in his hand. Bent over

from cosmic fatigue, he says he finds

Jesus still carries intrigue. The last

coach just left the driveway ramp.

-

I channeled Nelson Eddy from some

Eden in the hay. I bungled Joe DiMaggio

with a heater. These are not the things I

would confess to, mind you, but just

the things I say. How many sunrises,

really, am I supposed to withstand?

-

My father was from a captive nation.

He died with freedom in his hand.

My mother was a house-nurse,

carrying forth a torch for the

homeless and infirm  -  all that

slick valuation, and not a

thing to show for it now.

 

3350. SERGEANT BIMINOFF

SERGEANT BIMINOFF

(my blue Pennington model)

'I can't find nothing to write home about

and don't have a thing to say : bluebird

redbird robin chirping from the tree. Can

I look around you, to see what you do see?

That cultural oasis you inhabit, it's blinding.

-

The funny guy with the trumpet is blowing

a taps  -  he wants the girl in red to go

upstairs with him, but she won't. We all

laugh, lugubriously slowly and loud. It's

almost a truly sad scene  -  these military

guys, always so horny, get really 

hard-up for sex.

-

I wished once for always more than

I got. She was bashful and baleful and

a beauty. Long ago, anyway -  that

was all disappeared, and now I remember

nothing but her name. Amy. Amanda.

Or something.'

3349. WHAT A LASTING CROCK

WHAT A LASTING CROCK

The red light was blinking numbers

at me through the morning rain. 

The old men were talking a history

of war  -  and then I realized I was

probably older than them. '29, Cold

Spring, I heard  -  battles of war

over and over again. What's all

the use of this anyway? 'Move

on' the white man said. The 

gray hair was nodding off.

-

Eisenhower never took a vacation.

Truman was holding his cards.

The best years ever were the ones

when Lon Cheney impersonated

Lyndon Johnson  -  and no one 

knew. Six years in the White House

and we all didn't know. What a

lasting crock of everything

this soiled life is.

3348. JOHN BUNYAN WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME

JOHN BUNYAN WON'T 

YOU PLEASE COME HOME

All the pace of this is like running through mud;

things dangling from trees, birds hitting your

face. There's no logic to the magician's moment.

Slough of despond, Pilgrim's Progress, John

Bunyan won't you please come home!

3347. THE PICTURE

 THE PICTURE

Hounded by the maelstrom of time still snapping

harsh at my heels, I can only wince and try to

stay ahead. Motorcars and constables, men

with blue eyes and their slithery umbrellas, they

tend to keep me tense. Yet, no  -  that is not the

real reason for this moment. The wind rakes the

East River harbor with something else instead:

the seagull cries of ten thousand losses, the young

men never back from the sea, and the lines of

immigrant masses, their cries and laments.

-

I take but a moment - if that, it would seem  -

from the ever-long face eternity wears. Stretched

without limit, endless and roaring, its own line of

time only has doors that open, while mine, about 

to snap back, has a harsh spring that closes. 'My

friend, my friend,' I hear someone say (a dark

man in a shadowy coat) 'my friend fear this not!

All pictures have frames, and all framings have 

have edges. Arrive where you're going, 

and you'll know you are there.'

3346. I AM DEAD : YOU ARE LIVING YOUR TIMES

I AM DEAD : YOU ARE 

LIVING YOUR TIMES

In talking to a captive audience of

one but one then words stay long

and linger on. I am leaning on a

bookcase in some dead-draft room

made of wood. In my hand is a

bio of Anne Sexton  -  of which

I am paging and read, I page and

read. Ah yes, aimless as anything

else can be. I am dwelling beneath 

a roof with a surfeit of sorrows. The

clock on the lacquered wall, I am

beginning to think, stops running, 

should not run at all.

3345. JUPITER'S COMIC INFIDELITY

JUPITER'S COMIC 

INFIDELITY

I (yawn) so much enjoy you.

Here then, just let me touch

this, and this, and  - oh well  -

that. This morn is so splendid,

no? Is it not? Oh, listen up!

I forgot. What? That then, a 

kiss? How do we handle this?

No dear, do not let me go  -

you see, dear love, I truly

love you so; and must hold

you this way forever.

3344. BLOOD STONES BROTHERS

BLOOD STONES BROTHERS

And beforehand the lethal weapon toning, ringing its

loudness ring from kettle to drum  -  fade bullets

resounding off echo'd walls, small alley, dark cave,

The two fine fellows running, black boots and a

craven dark jacket, wide-upon at the waist, fat

handgun toting. Down upon the ground one

mantle's other bleeding, lies twisted upon the

hard cold ground. Soon Death come for to

claim another  -  no paperwork needed, just

come on down. This, this is some old

country of the pillaged and the pillagers;

a fast-talk nether world of sauce and

gander, destruction and doom. Walk

slowly only and with care those

darkened puddles near. That is

not water, my friend, but blood

your feet are splasing.

 

3343. OCCUPY PRINCETON

OCCUPY PRINCETON

I have landed two feet away from something

I cannot recognize. My own fair Heaven now

has fallen from outside my hands. This is

a town I recognize, and a place I've come

to know : the white of the daylight forces

me on, where people are lined in the square.

A few catcalls, no more. The new motif

is gather and protest and noise. I don't

know. I don't really hear the roar  -  but

for the closing, incendiary and wild, of

those great, iron bank doors slamming

hard, slamming shut. Everything that

is claimed is stolen, and everything

that is stolen is claimed.

3342. I HAVE FOUND GOLD

I HAVE FOUND GOLD

'Midst the silence and the solace alone, I have found gold.

What it is, and why, I cannot say  -  and the where of it

is now far within. Were the language found, I would make

effort by grimace, the attempt to retell. As for now, I s

sense to leave well enough alone and just go on my way.

-

 Yet. Yet, I sense : this thing is bigger than it ought to be;

a monstrous redwood in some tiny grove, a whale where

that fishtank should be. Attend to my manner, you watchers,

for beneath the changing skies I ever-present be. The same,

unchanging, mindful of each moment as they pass. After

all, recall, this Time is but a fiction you invented.

-

Shapes meld and change, all reality drips like a

really bad faucet, a torrent of madness, a stream

running wild. You may take your pick on that

crazy notion. Words fail...as do all your own

preventative measures. You find your

hopelessness then forlorn? Take heart,

for you are not nor ever have been, alone.

-

In this, I give you my word, 'midst

the silence and silence alone.

3341. THE CONTENT SEEMS PRETTY THEMELESS

THE CONTENT SEEMS 

PRETTY THEMELESS

My idea for the illicit contact extends outward - 

like distant things, touching of hands, intermingled

hearts and minds. No Cambodia, no Ankor Wat

ever had such wings. Under a million locks with

a million keys, I would still open the door for you.

The ancient tongue you are speaking, I speak it

as well : lost in the fragrant spices of a universe

of memory. A thousand years old, these temples

stood, yet now, by the works of Man, they

are crumbled and fallen to ruin.

3340. DECEMBER

DECEMBER

Among the midcoats of a Connecticut day,

light lighting, bad boulevards, and a shopping

strip covered in false snow, I wandered roughly.

Espying names, price tags beyond recall, and

all the pretty ladies with their Henry Bendel stars

and bags and medallions as well. They would

smile as their lipstick would flake. This sullen

season of the swollen shopper only made me 

sad  - some children dreaming dreams,

nothing but bad.

3339. LEXICON OF DEMOLAY

LEXICON OF DEMOLAY

Fifteen thousand immigrants passed through here,

seeking a solace in their Southern European

overlapping dreams  -  of Jesus and his whitewash,

of Ephesus, St. Paul, that Virgin Mary, and all the

rest of the old Thanksgiving Parade. Steampipes 

yet coughing with tubercular blood, faint ladies

passing their fluids over sewer and drain. A few

clerks and guards with keys would scan the

passing jumble and note the needs : nothing

like a steadfast world existed. All nerves

and fear; a perfect place for God to appear.

3338. CAST OF COLORFUL CHARACTERS

CAST OF COLORFUL 

CHARACTERS

Like the Oakland A's of '72, handlebar moustaches,

Rollie Fingers, and all the rest of that perturbed

malarkey running on, I too stood on a mound

and threw: fastballs to the face, and a broken head

from where the bat hit me square. There were

people in the stands, screaming, I swear,

obscenities at me. What could I

do? It all had to be.

-

I was borne by my mother's hand, thrown out

to this foreign land  -  and now, only the same

various uglies yelling, with all their various

vanities vain.  The wedge-shaped writing

at the edge of the cave, it read : 'Abandon

all hope, ye who enter here. No one is saved!'

-

The sacred harp and the river tree, the holy

grove, and all that which places a goodly light

on all the world  -  I note that it remembers

even me, betokens a holy smile, brings forth

a redemption tree (of wood, of branch, by 

which the Son of Man is brought to Death is

brought to Life, that Death should never be).
There should never be such a salubrious

nature as this, and I should be, nodding

 by acquaintance, on great and holy

terms with all things. (for hark! this

Herald Angel sings!).
-
We dance on, living, in
spite of all the fears.