3429. HONORE, TAKE ME BACK

HONORE, TAKE ME BACK

Strangely mechanical walks have

brought these two Mexican men

to this porch, where they are sitting

to smoke at 6am. I sense what I

hear : that strangely rattling cough

they each possess, that rangy slimy

tongue they spit and spatter, and those

white construction clothes they wear.

Yet, sadly, this is all. At the other

end of the same, soiled spectrum,

there are others who (I see) do the

same from their own separate vantage:

all those twisting Gods of money and

form, advantage and song, the egregious

dispensing of all manner and rule. Fix me,

oh one, your Dionysian smokes exhausted.

-

Let me explain things for a minute : I am

vague by design, for each time I deign to

define, some brusque, vain Aleck of mind

shoots me down; sharpshooter in a diction

spattered from a balcony on high. And I am

lost, of course, in a fog of my own creation.

-

All those books and papers and reasons

and motives and movies and facts. Honore,

take me back. Even at the bakery, I have

told your cornstarch off and turned and left.

Now listen to these things I newly speak :

air power could have won the Civil War; 

bad always drives out good; Evil exists, and

its vast and cunning reach enthralls us and

enslaves us; all things pass; beneath everything

you have been told is a lie of the telling; 

language is a divine infraction completely

affecting our world; and  -  lastly, yes  -  

the world itself does not exist, nor its

tellings or effects (and again I

stand as William Blake).

3428. UP TWO DAYS STRAIGHT

UP TWO DAYS STRAIGHT

Up two days straight, this rope is

stretched tight  -  spanning the gorge

and the garden alike. A wide and

crumbling pile of old bricks bearing

names is just across the way  -  dated

kilns and brick-baking companies still

seeking memorials in powdered red dust.

Oh quaint all things are, and we trust

those old ways will be. Up two

days straight, I'll have to see.

-

The water flows its way along,

filling those rental gaps of flash

and void in whatever fashion it

chooses or may. I decided to

stand aside and let it go; have 

it play its operation in the light

of natural time and day. Up

two days straight, I'll have

to see.

3427. INDIAN PATCH

INDIAN PATCH

America grabs fast the gargoyle

puking its pale blood down in

streams upon those over-valued

hearts and minds lined up. 

Numblessness, let's call it,

looking up, still wears its

stupid face while the 

hangman's haughty

hold never loosens

its urgent grip.

3426. ALL THE WONDERS OF YEKATERINBERG

ALL THE WONDERS OF

YEKATERINBERG

Mechanics. Welders. Operators of

the most heavy machinery. We have

come together to visit the Urals, and

I say hello. From one thousand miles

away, is Moscow watching? I will train

my whistle on elixir and magic, those

two, trained dancing-bears we all delight

in. Watch the dance and the jump. Learn.

-

Let us mingle the new tongue with the old.

You may speak of Revolution while others

will scold. In fact, so long distant now, the

others (all behind you) have entered the past.

All the forgotten members of Death, and all

its squads, are now gone. Sverdlovsk, I call

upon you not to run, in fact, Sverdlovsk polish

the gun  -  clean well the barrel and mark the

rounds, buff up the bullets and pick the one.

-

Beauty there is, in silver-singing rivers, high hills

and peaks, mountains of old and on-high. None of

this will go away, even as we may die. I dreamed

I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me.

Now we too must fight and try, or die.

3425. PYROGRAPHIC ART

PYROGRAPHIC ART

You're only kidding yourself : standing there,

peering over the ledge, looking down, far down,

to where the river long before has cut the gorge.

Those tenuous bushes you use for support  - 

I want to whisper 'be careful.'

-

You are not the natural type, and I can

so easily imagine you falling down.

3424. AMERIKA

AMERIKA

Have we wallowed in self-pity this so long ago?

Chopped down trees and cleared the plains in

pain, preferring that to living in the emptied woods?

Garnished the pay of native-dwellers, the indigenous

type who knew the forests and the skies? Have we

killed enough the sparrows and the hawks, and where

the eagle flies? Tell me, is this land emptied yet?

3423. NECESSARY TEASE

NECESSARY TEASE

The stars tease the sky, and Death

teases Life  -  or is that, perhaps, the

other way around? Water teases ice and

it goes the other way as well, as logic

teases farce and Heaven teases Hell.

These are all the factors of hearts and

minds  -  which tease each other just

as well, the grown man finds.

-

There are other kinds of tease and other

kinds of chase as well (and, no, we are

not just all projections in a very simple 

movie)  -  the sad tree jutting sideways

and trying to grow on the bar-room side

of 17th where, across the curb, the tar-side

oasis of some old and glimmered cab sits.

Yet, there is really nowhere to go at all.

Free or not, we remain in fetters.

-

 Freedom teases bonds, as bonds

tease all those fetters.

3422. EUCLID

EUCLID

(crazy to Hell, 1964)

That parallel postulate we sang of

in 9th grade  -  it is still going on. Joe

Vouglas and all the rest of the Michael

Simonet crowd with their gestures in

the air : 'infinite to infinite, these lines 

will never meet.' Both negation and its

non-Euclidean armor  -  all that roomy

notion in one fell swoop. 'You can't be

sure of anything, you know.' I always

assumed there was too much doubt

and dark matter for that. Your parallel

postulate is positive prattle. Oh then

how proud I was as a long 

sorry table grew silent.

-

In this elevated corner, alone and

nowhere at all, all the voices and

noises seem to converge. It is all

so maddening to me  -  enough

to drive me just crazy to Hell.

3421. THE PONTIUS PILATE GENE

THE PONTIUS PILATE GENE

The Pontius Pilot gene inviolate still

rules the roost where tales are told.

Why not, anyway, why not? Over 

and over those truthtellers and 

supposed fine burghers who've

brought us so much  -  what good

are they when balanced against

the light? (No good at all, but

that's alright).

3420. SOME SAY IT'S BETTER THAT WAY

SOME SAY IT'S

BETTER THAT WAY

'And ain't that anyway what it is all about?

Makes me happy, wears my smile, brings me forth,

has a meaning, makes me come.' I heard the two of

them muttering, whatever it was they'd meant to be

saying : two sputtering girls taking about making out.

'Making out?' No one does that anymore  -  there's

no more lead-up to any of that. Clothes come off,

and you just go at it; ramshackle and vague,

and any old style will do. Some say it's

better that way.

3419. UNDERWATER TOWN

UNDERWATER TOWN

I went deep : denizen diver down.

How come everything I saw was wet?

There, where the refrigerator should have been,

was a wild, twisting octopus, trying to float

away. I said something stupid. It turned

around, seemed to smile, and went off.

Davey Jones locker this surely is not.

 

3418. WALT WHITMAN AND THE CRAZY WORLD AND I BET YU CAN'T SAY THIS ALOUD

WALT WHITMAN AND THE 
CRAZY WORLD AND I

BET YOU CAN'T SAY 
THIS ALOUD

(the poet starts to sing)

Thanks for taking the crazy man away. He's been looking in, sitting 
at the window crazy as a loon. At first I thought I knew him, then I
wasn't sure. The next thing I knew, he was gone. It's all OK with me;
there's no nature at these bridges, and the sky has overflown its

limits and left town long ago. Now, there are others who speak the

same of me : 'He's getting stranger and more odd with each passing

month, little things I notice, they all add up. He had a birthday,

and didn't come. He held a seance, and no one saw a thing. Even

the ghosts, so meager underneath the tablecloth, were tired and

too withered to show. He said nothing, just stared ahead.'

-

'And it was then, back at Joralamyn Street, when he held that

battered loaf of bread in his grimy hands  -  sniffing like a

puppy, he was cursing artisan loaves. He pointed at fishes,

and said 'I will make these rise.' For even God's sake, the

use of a such a mixed metaphor was foul and useless."

-

"I am so tired of all this uselessness. Walt Whitman, was it,

who bequeathed to America the launching of piers and the

piracy of masculine ships; lauding men and boys for

dying with courage on the sad and savage field? Was that

him  -  I forget  -  squeezing fruit in the supermarket aisle,

swaggering like a lynched Nigger just before dying, pausing

for a moment at Lincoln's stupid bier, donning funeral-rags

for two long years, and then crying in vain to boot? Was it?"

-

"How awesome was that? Edgar Allen Poe sitting down

in Val Allen Park watching the fireworks overhead; July,

at night, 1889, something like that, near Baltimore's

inner harbour, way before a theme park or a seaport

raised its brazen head to mar the place. Wherever he

died, New York or Baltimore or here, no one ever

settled the really rambling question : what is mind

and what is body? The gay man's pliant plea, again

takes me right back to Walt  -  do I like the ass or

lick the prick, and why won't I ever know?"

-

"What is mind and what is body. Good Jesus,

what a crazy question! We are all the each

and every of each and every thing. Listen

to that crazy man; the poet 

starts to sing."

3417. RUN YOUR BREAK

RUN YOUR BREAK

Come in at the edgings, go fast to the

ends. Never leave a marker behind.

Yes, that's how it's done.

3416. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE CLEAVER, MAY NOT TAKE THE TABLE

YOU CANNOT HAVE 
THE CLEAVER, MAY

NOT TAKE THE TABLE

...and you are not the butcher's son. Now get that straight. 

I do not care how many legs of lamb are holding up 

the table, (you facetious idiot), nor do I care, or would 

I if they were. It's always the same with you : a non-conditional

response to things that really aren't, as if you're willing to

live your entire life in a nether world of things that cannot be.

That might work in the forest, where in darkness, it is said,

the wolfs and leopards still can see. But not here in this

world of bleak things, this mantelpiece of blackness,

this kingdom of the long-lost and utterly dead.

3415. SO WHAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH ME?

SO WHAT'S THE 

TROUBLE WITH ME?

Edwardo Santiago Bulimay  -  he was a cowboy

fellow I met long ago, the sort with the wide leather

chaps flapping around walking the pampas. All that

stuff was very funny to me. He came from somewhere

in Mexico and, apparently, never went back, instead

ended it in San Jose. Took cyanide, the note said,

right before he shot himself  -  just to see which

worked quicker (or better). Umm, apparently he

never found out. Once he told me about his

woman  -  he called her 'Miranda' as if I cared.

He said she was so spiteful and yet so very

 powerful as well, that one day (for example)

after he'd really pissed her off about something,

when he came home she had made garter snakes

come out of all the faucets in the small, two-room

house. Exaggeration on his part? Probably  -  how

many faucets in a two-room house can there be?

Anything to inflate the story, I guess. He was like

that, claiming to once having ridden Santa Anna's

horse, another time his woman. All bullshit, and

I knew it. It's like that in poverty places  -  the stories

get bigger and more outlandish as resources fall away.

Another time, he did his William Tell (with a twist),

though he didn't know it. He'd stood his twelve year

old boy up against the monastery wall and placed

two small apples side-by-side atop the boy's head,

saying he'd whizz a bullet right through the middle

of them. The only way anyone would know, he said,

was by the bullet hole left in the monastery wall.

Trouble was, there was already a hundred bullet

holes just like that in the wall. Anyway, he shot

his son right through the head, the son who - right

before he fell - said 'So what's the trouble with me.'

It was always like that in the Bulimay family, and

then Edwardo fled, never to be found again.

3414. OH SO MUCH ON FIRE

OH SO MUCH ON FIRE

Being prone in Princeton all this

time has brought me very little  -

a harvester at a glum oasis perhaps,

or a single, sorrowful man splitting

hours in a room. I have ransomed

my emotions for a dollar. Outside,

in the trash cans in the early morning

air, overflowing milk cartons, shirt boxes

and ribbons tumble down.

-

The glass-cutter's shop, even at this

early hour, is always busy  -  the Silica

Brothers themselves dicing sand with

all their early musics  -  and oh, we

are all so much on fire.

3413. A'TALKIN

A'TALKIN

I was slighted and looked aside, and all the

angels from Heaven descended. 'From men'

they denied. I scant looked back but walked

away  -  two Magnolia trees blooming, some

songbird singing. I opened my old white book

to John Brown pages : 'John Brown's body

lies a'moulding' was all I read. Freight train

just then rolled by  -  like an old blues man's

grave on some open grassy plain. All I heard

was the sad refrain, some slave man's plaint,

some gypsy train. So sad, so tired, I walked.

3412. OH THOSE TALLAHASSEE BLUES

OH THOSE 
TALLAHASSEE BLUES

Poor tired Charley and then poor tired Charley :

robbed his bank and shot his Rosie down.

Don't know why; didn't know then and he don't

know now. Look at that boys, look'a.

-

Poor tired Charley and then poor, tired Charley :

went away and never came back. Had to keep

running, police on his track. Poor tired Charley ain't

never coming back. (Oh those Tallahassee blues).

3411. TRUTH BEAUTY BEAUTY TRUTH

TRUTH BEAUTY 

BEAUTY TRUTH

The same coin having two sides holds 

within its reference two coins to coincide

each with the other side. There is simply

no alternative, it is the way things are  -  

reality is self-referential alone and, amidst

all other things, it brings forth its presence,

into which we roam. Our grip? Our baggage? 

What we take? Assumptions, reactions, opinions

and ideas  -  all the shingles of a poor man's house.

-

I can't exactly make love to the moment, for

when I reach to embrace it, it is already gone.

And, once gone, it ambles its way through the

dense parlor of moment, which is exactly - and

really - what Reality is anyway. We are stuck

and fraught with our own peril.

-

To my left, tall buildings resound  -  the steel

might and riveted strength of matter imagined

holds them up, upon a bedrock of common

assumptions. All those things that, yes, will

stand wherever it is they may  -  and if it is

all done right it is automatic. Truth to beauty,

and to beauty, truth.

3410. TAKE MOONBEAMS HOME IN A JAR

TAKE MOONBEAMS 

HOME IN A JAR

Yellow things to which I need tend : I have to listen

to all these voices of men on their missions. The

cacophony of cars and planes and boats falling over.

Those people who seek their own ends, failing in

wisdom but feeling intense. Their endings? 'Let us

dine in Jerusalem. This is all a commentary on the 

Kaballah - and it was over already, and incredibly 

so - by the time that Moses was gone.' No, no I

cannot listen any longer and it is all one world,

the now and the then and all those ancient Jews

with their primitive stories and their God: today's

modern Shylocks making one more insider's deal.

3409. SPEED FILLED WITH NOTHING

SPEED FILLED 

WITH NOTHING

I am going to say that you must arrive, heading

downward, your face in a filter, your hands in

the grave. Already all this is surmised by anyone

truly in the know. The capsule within which you 

are riding has long ago capsized and is rolling

over, pitch and yaw, over and upon itself. There's

no choir in the loft : above your head only an old

and raging highway roars; cars filled with speed,

speed filled with nothing.

3408. LASH OUT AT THE GENERALS

LASH OUT AT THE GENERALS

(Satori, the end of desire)

When it seems like nothing wants to work, like nothing

wants to go, I walk away and start backwards my rambly

trek. Along Tillary Street, buildings tarry and seem to wait -

great, arched legworks of bridge and cable, high in the air,

to be seen but only between other buildings  -  like some

sneaky, secret eye, ever-watchful and present. A distant

water vista beckons, but  -  it seems  -  only diners scurry

to and fro, Rive Cafe this, River Cafe that, and I am oh so

tired of all that I see. What use, this awesome life?

-

Beneath a sidewalk tree, I see a wine bottle, broken off

at the bottom, blunted, like a glass-weapon ready to throw

its shards aloft. It was not there yesterday, this I know  -  so

only to assume some drunken midnight reveler has thrown it

down, like so many other things. The one, black leather glove,

the woman's panties somehow hanging from a tree. What goes

on these drunken nights? Things I never see? It really does seem

that nothing wants to work, or, at the least, work as it should.

-

Brooklyn, all night, beneath those crazy awnings and the

barrel-fisted buildings beneath the two sublimes : bridges

on ahead, over-top, soaring and gorging where once the

ferries stopped and all their Whitman dotage ambled.

I know now I'll have nothing of it  -  this stupid, bloated,

modern day, the couch store with its leathers, the book

store soiled with its sex, the clothing that only fey watchmen

would ever wear. I pass on everything. I pass, and wonder

why I'm here: not for the momentary drizzle of this cold

and so disgusting rain. Not to seek some Hart Crane

blunder chasing men and all their gain. Remember,

as I've told you, I want for nothing, and never will.

3407. FIND BUT A WAY TO KEEP ME GOING

FIND BUT A WAY

TO KEEP ME GOING

I have never really learned how to love, though

I'm pretty good at hate. I do love you though.

I'd have to say: 'without compunction, sunk to

my knees, down in the hollow, lost in the swamp

of my heart.' It seems like all that is true (enough).

-

Do you remember, that one time in the dark of night,

when we stumbled onto that carousel in darkness  - 

all closed, no lights, and all those happy horses

seeming frozen in their jump? I laughed for ten

minutes as you lifted up your dress to pee at the

horses' feet. Don't know why, to this day. But it

was ever so funny, and led to our great romp in

the summer grass. Girls still crouch? I guess.

-

My magazine slumber, my days against your arch,

my open hands for your love and magic, my open

eyes, oh, just to watch. So long ago and all so over

now. My love, I've grown so old, even my decibels

of sound are feeble. Help me, help me please.

Find but a way to keep me going.

3406. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

If you had to give it a name, you would. The name

would come to you  -  as whether gloomy or with glee

I do not know. Nothing of that nature ever surfaces.

Great and enormous eyelashes, put on with such an

excellent care, do well their appointed task. They

elicit response, make someone like me look twice.

-

As my friend Joseph used to say - before he

painted the windshield red with his blood and 

brains - 'What are people thinking? All you

need is a little when a little is a lot.' It never

bottomed out, this idea. From that point,

we just sailed on.

-

('Pleasure invites me, and I wear love's crown').

3405. J'MAINTENANT

J'MAINTENANT

This guy was speaking some Creole French I couldn't ever

understand  -  even here in the French quarter, of brazen

hippos and over-the-hill whores. He wouldn't shut up and some

Molly Bloom type, I swear, was puking on his shoes. I reached

over to tuck at his lapel  -  'I maintain your feet are wet.' I actually

did try to say that in French, but it came out a slobbering mess.

-

Third floor balconies held sunshine hookers. Two fiends from

Missouri were drinking in the street, sitting on the curb, settling

accounts with Monsieur Constabulent, who'd just flown in from

St. Petersburg, filming a documentary on biological variations.

Everywhere above us, the pale sky was shimmering with its

elixir of doubt and wonder soon to pour down upon our heads.

-

Thursday, the Virgin Mary arrives; done up in robes and

ermine, she stays in place along the edge of a singular wall.

The locals come to visit, scrounging for change to throw

in her cup. 'She looks more like Lady Bagatelle than anything

I'd ever do. I love the way her nose dribbles a holy drip.'

Creole religion, masterful mysteries and bayou suicides,

all wrapped up in one big, swirling enigma, j'maintenant.

3404. DIAMONDS

DIAMONDS

She is viewing a weather map over the land; watching

as that green blob of rain moves over the Alleghenies  -  

watching, for no reason at all, what I can sense to be

anti-climactic for sure. Her delicate diamond hands

trace a line along across the screen. To show me a

something or other. I want to mention, as her hand

passes over, that I once lived here, I once lived there;

curiously, beneath that green blob signifying rain.

Now, I don't know how I live in this world at all.

-

Once, a long time ago, I lived beneath a bridge.

The bridge ran over the Kill Van Kull; across

the way, at all hours in those dark, drear' days

ran river traffic of tankers and tugs, steamers and

scows. Everyday, there were things being towed or

salvaged, old ferries being taken to rest, bent tankers

to be washed out to sea. Above my head ran the lines

of the bridge, as everything, through the Narrows

was silently dragged out to sea.
-
I don't know how I live in this world now at all.

3403. TWO GUYS

TWO GUYS

Two guys like a Jack Kerouac and his

buddy Dean are huddled under the hood 

of their car  -  yes, it's a Hudson from a 

long time ago, a Hornet or a Wasp (they

made them both in the  early 1950's), 

and what a stupid joke was that. These

two are changing a generator; the one

guy has a simple black belt in his hand,

the small and simple kind, like they used to

make, not the serpentine fan belts of today.

They've also, I see, dropped the oil-pan

and will be replacing the gasket. Yes, yes,

I realize in my travels, there are some men 

who do nothing but talk like ladies, on and 

on  -  I see them everyday  -  while others,

with their hands, will work things to the bone.

-

Out along Fifth Avenue, by the church at

Twelfth Street, in 1967 there was a Hudson

Hornet I remember  -  big and heavy and black  -

that sat at the curb, abandoned it seemed, for

nearly an entire year, right through the four

changing seasons  -  snow and grime and leafs

and slime  -  just waiting for something at

the Church of the Transfiguration.

3402. I'M WORRIED ABOUT SYMBOLS

I'M WORRIED 

ABOUT SYMBOLS

(Ianthe)

Closing the book, I look up to

see lights  -  they are broad and

yellow, as if enforcing sunlight and

warmth. Golden Gate Park comes

to mind  -  all that crystal and silver

light, like water, dripping down 

from Geary Street. What are

things anyway, but ideas?

3401. THE GIVENS

THE GIVENS

(2012)

Everyone wants to live forever, or at least not die -

though there are probably a few they wish dead.

Everyone wants traffic to flow their way, as and

when needed, and then scoffs at jams when traffic

for others is stopped. Each wants the roadway

running right to their door. Everyone wants a

certain light when darkness comes, and some

darkness as well when it seems way too light.

The limelight when it's quiet, and the quiet when

life gets too much. And all that stuff about money

being evil, the love of, the pursuit of, everyone seems

to have a thirst that's never quenched until they get

it, then they start bawling about how crummy it is.

Park that large car right where the gas station ends.

Leave it to others, and then make amends  -  and

everyone's got a gimmick they're trying to sell,

 even if first they need sell to themselves.

3400. HOW NICE IS ALL THAT?

HOW NICE IS ALL THAT?

Somehow, the overnight full moon is on my left at

5am; I am swimming around in memories : my napkin

exfoliates, there is a perfect stillness in the darkened

trees, the air holds secrets and Time itself is leaving

new messages and running on. I stand alone, here,

to entreat an entry into some newer life. How akin 

to nothing at all, how different really, is any of

that...How nice is it actually at all?

-

I shouldn't know, and I never will : carparks and

carports, garages and lots, everything all jumbled

together. This wild world sleeps, silent and stable,

in its slumber, while I take these messages back.

I once walked the stars in my own cosmic twinkle.

Now, new lines bring me back and keep me on

this Earth. And how nice is all that?

3399. CANTILEVERED CAVALRY

CANTILEVERED CAVALRY

How can I make lightness from your damned and heavy

presence; crossing out words on paper, eliciting no response

at all from crowds of hundreds with ears and eyes. I look around

me, sometimes just to check that there's not some hateful yet

marvelous bird of prey about to swoop down onto my head.

I miss the heat and the warmth of early summer mornings.

I have nowhere any longer to sit in the cold  -  pre-dawn and

all its pretty lights are nothing against the frigid air. And the

brightness I'm waiting for takes way too long to arrive.

The rightness I'm waiting for takes way too long to come.

-

I'm walking the planks of an old railroad bridge.

Abandoned now, and forgotten, it goes nowhere at all.

There hasn't been a train here for decades. All the old

sheds are hollow and zero and fallen and crumbled.

High, high above my head, and high above this soft

and marshy ground as well, the New Jersey Turnpike

roars. It roars with all its stupid people passing, going

as swift as their shit will take them, past the old rocks

of Laurel Hill, now mostly gone as well, blown apart

by dynamite and road-builders intent upon destruction.

-

A long, long time ago, atop that pile of rock, there was an

asylum, a crazy house, a sanitarium  -  whatever cheating

words they use to describe such places. Nothing was left,

for years, except a very tall and skinny, brick chimney.

The old graves were moved, and the charnel house too

became merely myth  -  some nasty old Hackensack

Meadow punchline, pig-farm joke, marshland metaphor:

'The crazy dead died crazy, until they were not any more.'

-

We moved them all, and took them away,

we moved them all away. (How could we

make likeness from their damned and

heavy presence? The rightness I'm

waiting for takes way too long to come).

 

3398. OK THEN, YES

OK THEN, YES

Once I lived in far hills and distant climes,

playing the piano to cows and horses at dawn,

watching the run of sunlight on the face of two

ponds, with geese and ducks lining the weeded

banks while turtles and bullfrogs squabbed and

tittered  -  whatever it is those things do in idle

time. I've never had a crayon like that in my life

again. Now everything's changed, the clouds

darken and lower, the wind brings itself up to 

speeds unknown, and even the whippoorwill

once fond of me enough to sing, now

does, by contrast, nothing.

3397. STEEL GIRDERS

STEEL GIRDERS

I have been trounced by steel girders; there are

steel girders in my mind, squeezing my loins,

they run through my eyes and they have now,

already, broken both my hands. I am trussed

on steel girders, onto which have been stenciled,

(by someone), 'logic,' 'rationality,' 'presumption,'

'good sense,' and hundreds more. These are

small, little words somehow extending out past

the girders' ends as they, in turn, go on to

describe concepts, very large concepts, broad,

and vastly bigger than themselves.

-

Today I passed a Lotus dealer once again.

Out front, and inside, piles of expensive cars -

Ferrari, Porsche Carrera, a vintage '56 Lincoln,

numerous new Lotus cars, and a few old

sports cars as well, all in perfect shape. It

seemed the only people walking around there

were wealthy folk : especially some older,

capsized hippie type leftover from '71, in

perfect 'worn' jeans, a nice pair of boots and

a weatheredly haggard hippie face anyone

of that era could be proud to have. Yet now

he shopped for expensive cars, and what's

that tell you, you tell me. We agree?

-

I have steel girders pinching all my nerves,

extending out my crotch, piercing my innards

with pain, and bursting my spleen. I don't even

know what that is, actually. Baudelaire? or Verlaine?

3396. NOW AIN'T THAT SO VERY SWEET

NOW AIN'T THAT 

SO VERY SWEET

Eagerly awaited anticipated advance breaking

all barriers  -  all those background voices

chumming : eagles and angels and ladies

and lords. And oh so little I ever really knew.

They painted the old building a light shade

now of blue. It looks like Heaven in its own

pale manner. Oh, damn, just another place

I never have been. Now ain't that

so very sweet?

3395. PROBABLY NO ONE NOTICES

PROBABLY NO ONE NOTICES

I'd like a good, stirred woman, naked to the waist, 
stretched out on velvet, just waiting for me. 
Someone to love, someone to touch. I'd like

 jello on her chocolate, ivy on her vines, 
water on her pasture, and all the rest  - 

those sinewy, soft, lentil-like legations of

all those crazy l's  - love, lust, licking, landing. 
Hats off t0 Larry, and all that magical matter 
that transforms a life of death to a life that matters, 
or, at the least, figures for better, for something at all.

3394. RUTH CARRADINE

RUTH CARRADINE

...As biblical as they come, your righteous form

will drop me dead, you and your picnic lunch on 

an oceanfront rock, some ancient boulder-stone 

from aeons past you never recognize. Sitting there 

like some half-reserved yet deadly stupid diva 

gazing out to sea : the dividing line drawn between 

you and me. I'll never have the courage to lose 

this last reserve I'm keeping. Absence makes the

heart grow longer; fat muscle, doomed-pulser

to the sun and stars above.

3393. THREE KINGS DAY

THREE KINGS DAY

I don't care what today is. You say it is 'Three Kings

Day' - as if some worn and tired religious convention

would make any difference to me. Orthodox, Greek,

Catholic, Armenian  -  any rite you'd choose  -  they

are each as equally stupid as putting shoes on a goose.

High-stepping through shit, avoiding rubble along the 

way, arguing  -  with the guilt of some sick medievalist  -

about the number of angels on the head of a pin.

3392. GATES OF ALTOONA

GATES OF ALTOONA

Marvelous hings, like benefactors, arise out

of nowhere to carry you home : the small noise

in the yellowed harbor, pale in moon and dark in 

sun, is nothing but the slap of water on an old,

tired wharf. Everyone has left. You are once

again alone. That solo lets you see.

-

You remember other times : the girl by the

wavering pine, with her glitter and chafe, all 

that silk of scarf around her neck. She

let herself become yours, and then, over

time, it all disappeared. Now, back to

that persuading gulf again, you sit up,

late nights, staring out to the harbor boats.

3391. LANDSLIDE

LANDSLIDE

Rocks and rubble, all this beneath

which we lie  -  don't disturb the

lay of this land, even as we search

it : a fossil tone that reminds us of

something else. I could have warned

you of fifty things, and even if ten

had come true my chances of

being right were probably valid.

Beware then the rub  -  the

mountain now sits on you.

3390. CHOIRS OF WORMLETS

CHOIRS OF WORMLETS

I have chastised all to the fore

and beaten them down and made

chase of shadow and rivulet and

runner and run. It is nothing very

populous, this popular delusion.

I will harbor your heart in my

hands, and hold all of your

hesitant hopes within these

moments of my making -

all of your dreams in my

drama. My blood shall 

pulse your heart, and I

will spill new seed on

your lily-white belly.

3389. SOLDIERS

SOLDIERS

If murder is the measure, that leaves

off soldiers and military men  -  they

can go on and live their stupid lives

forever; without a thought of guilt or

the troubles it has caused. After

all, one must say, in their view,

'we just did what we were told.'

3388. RECOLLECTION

RECOLLECTION

In this first cold of Winter  - nine degrees  -

the ice is hanging from the loom, and a mother

who died in the kitchen now sings in the other

room.  A tea-cozy, hand-knitted, it seems, 

of one shape or another, is at rest next to

a toaster on the pale-green counter-top.

'Anyway, Death be not proud' the

embroider reads. A thin light crosses

from another vantage the view across

the yard. My eyes wander and,

 again it seems, I can't keep them
down, or at least it's hard.

3387. WISE AND GENTLE WISDOM FOR LIVING A KIND AND GENEROUS LIFE

WISE AND GENTLE WISDOM 
FOR LIVING A KIND AND
GENEROUS LIFE

(deeply spiritual life)

The man is reading Henry Nouwen in a very

considered manner  -  he is blessing his bread

and coffee, holding his book in a caress and

(I sense) feeling forth for a meaningful life  -  

while, just next to him, some retired professor

in a straight-man's smock is railing about

Venezuela's nationalized oilfields. 

Pipelines and revolutions, to the

heart or through the soul. 

The first man, I notice 

now, is leaving with his

butter-pad knife.