3485. OFIL'S RENOIR

OFIL'S RENOIR

I own nothing, as I stand here beneath the

Brooklyn Bridge. I am on the Brooklyn side,

in fact, and  -  to my side  -  the rounded pells

of the old tobacco warehouse, armaments of

two-hundred years ago, call to me as if today.

Ah, when a port was a port and a harbor a

harbor  -  the spittle of men and the piss of

the hordes, accepted everywhere.

-

This place tries a comeback now with

stupid people. The young couples who

saunter the clubs bereft of a reference but

slick in their style and preference. The livery

car driver  -  I watch  -  some Lebanese fucker,

is banging out his dented door on a cobbled

sidestreet near the watery shore. He seems

as angry as Hell. All this, all this, is a harbinger 

of  all the pity to come.

-

Pity to come : the Lord from the sky is an

artist with a perfect eye, sublimatingly fiendish

and something strange, a writer of necessity

in a world to change. Like an Ofil's Renoir

or someone's Piss Christ, this art of new living

seems an ultra-hip shark in its tankful of Death.

3484. OH TOO LOVELY CATHERINE HEMINGWAY (1934)

OH TOO LOVELY 

CATHERINE HEMINGWAY

(1934)

They weigh the zoot suit running wild

on stage; all that Cab Calloway excess

over and on. Minnie the Moocher never had

anything on Mabel Mercer. This liquid crowd

drops flowers and applause - old, grand sticks

of chivalry sopping wet. And then the girls come

out : those Catherine Hemingway strapless gowns

bowing low bare the breasts to stop the show and

more and more. This exclusive crowd will roar!

Wisdom and memory and passion and lust!

While there, outside on Harlem's dark streets, those

trolling cars trump the oasis. Old men, tired, are now

wilting themselves on porches and stoops, while all

the old buildings come down. All the old wooden

buildings are now coming down.

3483. SANTA FE STATION

SANTA FE STATION

My girlfriend is riding The Coaster

out of Santa Fe Station, complaining

all the way : 'Two-decker train, runs slow

as ever, takes ten minutes to go half a mile.'

She adds as an afterthought : 'It is a historic

station station, very, anyway, with those big

letters on top spelling Santa Fe.' She signs

off with a few X's as kisses and 'I love you,

too.' Then she adds at the bottom, in her

own form of a promiscuous PS : 'If you're

ever going to Hell, take this train for sure;

it'll take forever to bring you there.'

3481.THIS THE CAMERA EYES

THIS THE CAMERA EYES

Nothing wavers, the wide wind wails. The stems

and branches of everything else, bent and taunted,

seem happy in submission. I am watching the old wood

on the sides of houses, old paint peeled, glass and

edgings broken and rotted. What yet sings are only

the tunes of other years  -  some nasty hit-parade

of memory. No one has lived here for twenty years.

-

It seems as if everyone has long ago died.

Stuck in old hedges, a dried-out, discolored

old toy, a child's bike, rusted, and a yellow ball.

3482. MY MISRULE

 MY MISRULE

I am made of sterner stuff or will be anyway :

going up-river, what they say is fair. The stateside

mountaintop clinic will call me back. I am not to

be writing any longer for communication; this

will be, instead, the unrivaled marvel of all words

and feats : magical incantations thrown straight

down for living to be read by those dying. There

are none exempt from this rule.

-

I will count your six yellow cups, your daughter's

better courage, the vestigial violence of each one of

your sons. They have parked their motorcycles in

the shed, but I have marked the doorways with some

paschal blood. And they will never leave again.

-

I am a mysterious monster, made up so as to play

to the crowd, squirming seat-sitters in an audience

before me  -  all of flesh and blood. No one is

exempt from this rule.

-

Everything is so powerfully unhinged; a misrule

of catastrophic proportions which pulls down even

the sun and the moon and breaks the arch of Nature's

back on tractioned rack of circumstance. Over and again

we do nothing but run from our shadows, which are chasing us.

Before us, the others, running on ahead, have already been

absorbed, right back in, by their own shadows which were

stretched out before them and which absorbed them back in.

It is all calamity in a devil's fool kingdom of disaster and strife.

-

Your daughters will be robbed of all their virginal matter

and I shall stuff them full with mine : the very legend of

the Earth and the Moon will carry them off, in a swoon - 

we will bring forth our giant children again, and they

too shall marry the earth; they too shall marry the earth.

-

I am a mysterious monster, made up so as to play

to the crowd, squirming seat-sitters in an audience

before me  -  all of flesh and blood. No one is

exempt from this rule, and they shall

never leave again.

3480. AURA

AURA

Sitting back at Manitoga : one

lark and a house in the woods,

with a pond, with elongated stone.

The time-warped features relegate

(already) the future to a past. I

cannot tell you what I drink. It

is now all past the party. My grand

quaff is over. Up ahead of me,

the long and hilly incline roves me, 

leads me on  -  by some strange

gravity pushed forward onto

something else. I am kept away

from that to which I was drawn.

3479. NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

Perambulate thou the hustings then  -  

holding hands with circumstance.

Energy is the higher power which

will hold you  -  all the rowboat men

together, and that funny-sounding

music guy alone and holed away

in some Alaskan cabin 'to mourn

his father's death.' I don't believe

in a nothing at all; winnowing those

wastrel people, we goad like Gods

the coastal shelf : look out and

see! Look out! Twelve battleships

and a tanker of oil  -  all I see.

I don't believe in anything at all,

afloat on that wide, deep sea.

3478. FOR DANIIL KHARMS

FOR DANIIL KHARMS

'This guy sponsored his own beheading. 
Forgot to wear a hat; everything

 was cancelled at the last minute.
 He'd sold sponsorships and

everything, the whole deal. 
All the deals later fell through.'

3477. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS (AGAIN)

THE MILL ON 

THE FLOSS (AGAIN)

(blank man on a 

withering oasis)

One times one times two : we make our

meek adjustments, we are sure of that.

Outside this distinct overture, the black

parking lot holds few cars : a man and his

companion sweetly walking hand in hand,

and a ten-year old Cadillac, waiting. It is

a courthouse, behind them, or so it seems.

-

A newspaper stand out front, so old as to be

over, holds a black man with a coin apron  -

just another thing I have not seen for fifteen

years. No one wants the news these days,

nor reads it either, whether paper or not.

Mouths talk and grumble far better than

do printed words. Everyone rushes on.

-

It is a month supposed to be cold, but not.

A black mark on the calendar, something

that didn't work, never came to be : no white

cover of snow, no pale mantle of ice and water.

'A very calm February, we've had, sir.' I nod,

and notice that kid looking back at me, as if to

whistle or sing. I realize he's holding a broom.

-

Life is like that  -  a slow and long decline into

darkness, into bleak black from brighter white.

I never knew why, but knew it, sensed it all

coming on. This day feels like Tuesday, though

it's not. And now, as well, this time feels like

another time, and well it is. I am past all that:

a blank man on a withering oasis.

3476. THEY MAKE PRIZE COPY

THEY MAKE PRIZE COPY

She is talking about the cherry blossoms

again  -  and it isn't even Spring. What

have you is totally running on. Yes, I do

suppose we can debate Time and its many 

things, but we cannot erase those marks and

lines which bring us forth. Back from Death,

past the last participle of becoming. Forgetting

her calendar, she is talking cherry blossoms again.

Music plays behind her  -  the high sounds of light.

Alongside the Beltway in this city of Death, this

Capitol of deceit, this lily-basket of filth and

corruption, this den of the beast, I am listening

to all the lost and laggard men, while she

talks cherry blossoms again.

3475. DEVERAH

DEVERAH

I have counted my time  -  it

comes up to now. Appolyon 

and myself  -  beast fighting

beast fighting beat. Let us

now walk together.

-

This mountain that reaches the sea,

it walks its own shoreline, it covers

its coast; most assuredly too. Now

the great monster harvests his fields.

-

Deverah, we are but kindling for

the great human fire to come, 

about to be, nearing, now.

3474. ALL THE RAMIFICATIONS OF POLLARD BAY

ALL THE RAMIFICATIONS 

OF POLLARD BAY

Standing atop this little hill, the road before me spreads,

winding its way down to Pollard Bay. I recognize that scene.

I have been here many times before. Yet, now, in this late

time, all the ramifications of Pollard Bay seem different,

seem broader, seem heavy with new meaning. 

-

I read nothing more than what is : into this place come

all the natural elements, everything one would so plainly

expect. I have light and matter and air and water and

view and visitation. I have angels on the wing, things

hovering on limb and branch. Watchers watch with

me, alongside that same place, walking my same pace.

Birds and wisdom, light and air, all of morning and

matter together. To be this specific is to realize

how general all things truly are. I manifest the

fact that I may be, perhaps, and nothing more.

-

Far off, enough of a distance anyway to be 'there',

the white and blue of the water sings its tune and roils

in sunlight all its happy fare. I watch gulls as they

turn in the air, and I see the few boats as they are

rocking there. And  -  farther off yet   -  the 

beginnings of land rise up again; summer homes,

cabins, a distant lighthouse and an inn. I know

these things, not readily seen, as they exist.

-

So much like all the rest of life is that: knowing

things unseen, surmising the map of place and

understanding the graphic fragment which

outlines the remainders of all that we live.

I know, I know, I must be content with

this : for there is no magic in the land,

there is no magic in the world. Nothing 

to really take me from here. All the

ramifications of Pollard Bay? 'Accept

what you have' they seem to say.

3473. CHALICE

 CHALICE

This chalice has a title, and it is spinning

'round its name : Anti-climax, ambidextrous,

ancient roto-gravure. Nothing of this at all

exists, as we too  -  in the same graft  -  are

found to be present and yet gone. There

is a message in the gravel beneath my

fee. I notice it is written by a holy paw :

'I am writing scripture for you all, that you

may see and recognize the moments as they

pass, the srings of circumstance and matter

which bring together in one pass the simple

factor of the real, which you all see. In fact,

nothing at all exists. We, simple fools all, are

reliving this drama from memory whilst

imagining all which it is that we see.'

3472. ON SPOON-BIRD HILL

ON SPOON-BIRD HILL

'I don't have no money' said the

man on the street, holding a sign

which read 'Give me a dime.' Burning

up the thoroughfare like it was a simple 

fact  -  in such a way as this! 'In fact,'

 he reiterated, 'I don't got anything at

all, 'cept this rancid guitar which, if ya' 

don't watch out, I'll start playing again!' 

Could have been, instead, quite the comedian.

-

I'd been watching this bird since long before

now  -  I almost knew his every move : the

bounce-inflected, come-hither voice, so 

perfect for jack-hammering passersby into

a submission  -  finding money where they'd

forgotten it was before. This life, being a

realistic illusion anyway, I well can understand.

-

A mile from here, the foggy bay bells bristled;

distorted tones, twisted by the wind and the hills.

I took a moment to listen, on Spoon-Bird Hill.

3471. PINK

PINK

The pink of the Earth has been

holding me forward. Old times,

new times, so many things forever.

Like a newly-formed blossom in

Spring  -  all expectation opens.

3470. FATHER MALTHUS

FATHER MALTHUS

In those days, we were all supposed to die : fever, plague, dengue.

Then someone came by and washed my house, whitened the walls,

cleared the well of filthy water, and opened even my own eyes.

To all that was going on, to the world of filth wherein we dwelt.

-

I knew very little. You searched my soul without a warrant,

even then  -  walking off with things you took, stripping my

moments of any moment or meaning alike. You called

yourself a Cardinal and a Priest among men. All that

balderdash and the village let you be  -  big stupid hat,

vestments like a King, and a know-nothing brain with

a mouth that wouldn't stop. Horses should have 

torn you apart. And everyone knew it.

-

There was no allegiance to peace or to love,

and everything you did was evil. Killing the

blacksmith and taking his wife. Burning the

commons in the guise of removing a Devil.

Something had to give. Us or you. So many

simply wished you were dead.

3469. ALL NEW REQUIREMENTS

ALL NEW 

REQUIREMENTS

Now I've made my madd'ning peace with nothing at all. 

I want to sit. I look around, I look about : everywhere, 

everything seems all the same. I can understand, perhaps, 

the lightning, but never quite fathom the thunder. Yet, 

as in all of life, one (thing) leads to another. I am annealed. 

I have a chiseled heart. I seek to understand. I remain conflicted, 

vented with fury, adrift without any real reason at all. All new 

requirements, these things are to me, all new. I am still 

surprised by my understanding that I am 

somehow yet here on Earth.

3468. LINDISFARNE

LINDISFARNE

Omega. Alpha.

The end of things.

Quarrelsome achievement

on an island in the sea. Five

terns turning, the broad

sky swooping in dive.

Up above, the stubborn

coastal mews of an odd,

errant day. Hotel Lindisfarne.

On the far line of sea horizon,

out, far off, a low smudge, a

broad tanker, lazes skillfully

on the watery edge of sky,

where all things meet. Where

Alpa and Omega together come.

3467. OCCASIONAL EFFERVESCENCE (MALAGA)

OCCASIONAL 

EFFERVESCENCE

(Malaga)

Occasional effervescence has left me in sync;

I am laughing my ass off over here at the sink:

Malaga and me, together. On the one hand,

she holds all the dishes in front of her face

while is swearing never to eat again. We are

exchanging straws and mixing spit. It always

seems to go like this : I am once again in love

with something, over me and above. Life, Liberty,

or  -  shit and all  -  the pursuit of happiness again.

-

There never moves an issue as does the wind of

emotion : a wispy feeling passing by, encouraging

all things, influencing the cuff.  The daylight brilliance

shines its way in through a window, glinting now off

cups of a blue Delft China. Why? I'll truly never

know; it all just is. We can acknowledge whichever

motives we may wish, but what comes through is

only one certain, distracted, momentary version

of Truth  -  the same Truth for all things and

for all time. Malaga, still standing near this

sink, seems willing now to understand.

-

Before long, the daylight wanes.

Just as soon, we too are gone.

3466. ANGELINE

ANGELINE

It will soon be morning, Angeline,

my bird of wild love, my swoon

of distaff allegiance. Awake!

I love your every move. Outside the

window, some crazy Euro-morning

blunders in. Let us watch the

people making time.

3465. FOUNDATION CONSPIRACY

FOUNDATION CONSPIRACY

Being at the spectrum again, I am at

the edge of knowable light  -  matter

resonates wherein people talk as the

world's all-matter music plays (that

which we hear). And I have arrived

(now) but to announce to you the

new coming. I will fire aflame all

things and the matters of a sensuous 

world will come to an end. You are

trained to be engulfed by the loft in

which you live. Yet I shall free you.

Given your choice, you shall be freed.

3464. CAN YOU?

CAN YOU?

Can you be very pretty for me  -  as I

hear your song it is singing my name.

Can you? Can you ever wear this cloak

for me, as I am silent and quiet, waiting

time for things to be. Can you be in

two places for me? Your old functional

'Democracy', as is obvious by now, will 

no longer work at all  -  over and dead

will you still be alive for me? Will

you wear my open arms?

3463. CONSISTENCY VARIES, I REMAIN

CONSISTENCY VARIES, 

I REMAIN

Yes, and it is all too real and

has not been so before : the

Cavalier with his fiery deck of

cards and all his broken bones,

the frenzied maiden seeking her

Peter Piper. I lived a fairytale

long ago and once before  - those

oily, slobbered streets of Amsterdam

and Brughes, and all those shipping

rats walking at night; on broad, thick

ropes and twinings. Now, all this time 

later, there is no turning back. I am long

and settled in. I am at some national

variance with the place I may have lived - 

yet no matter now : Man without a country,

man in the iron box, all the same to me.

Consistency varies. I remain.

3462. JEWBOY

JEWBOY

I have to understand the little

bastard as I watch and listen :

He is one and he is twenty.

All this slime the same; stating

the same thing over and over, yet

seeking money as a central cover.

3461. MARSEILLES

MARSEILLE

In Spring, every captive nation in the world

decides to flee : to places unknown. That

includes you and me. I wallow in the want

of each new bloom, every willow strap, each

skunk cabbage piling. Even the brackish

water has (suddenly) great things to say.

And oh, do I listen.

-

Right now, I sit back, eating French pastry;

things brought to me by a sweet young girl.

She thinks I'm humble, a nice old guy. I'm

sure she's working for a minimum wage, a

barista's take, a tipster's beneficence being

sought. That's OK. I give all I ought.

-

This is airtight living, this fatal American act.

Couch cushions askew, some shitty art up

on the walls; local spinners plodding out

their crafty pastels and oils. The usual

dog/cat/farmhouse/flower routine. I look

askance at all this chance and thank my

my lucky stars once more for Marseilles

(and having been there just the other day).

3460. HEART ATTACK DOMINATION

HEART ATTACK DOMINATION

Bruised feelings and traffic flows : the crazy saunter

of a nervous horse magnified five thousand times. This

is the pulse of a new modern age. Let me list  -  two

guys with construction pails smoking cigarettes at

the fence-barricade, three trucks at idle, rumbling  at

the loading corner, four groups of passersby stepping  

in to peer, five women, nicely dressed, rushing by, six

moments of aggravation as noisy clumps of street

vendors rudely sound their roars, seven carts of

food smoking the nearby air, eight statues of this

and that, scattered around the plaza, as if anyone

were to care or stop and look. One, back to one,

dizzying, outlandish world seeking a word to

describe its madness while I watch.

3459. MIND YOU MIRACULOUS THINGS

MIND YOU 
MIRACULOUS THINGS

Beneath the cover of our feelings, arms will linger

and hearts will stay. What moves along is the mind:

which tends toward outreach, toward miraculous

things  -  the angel with the hovering wings, concealing

both fire and ice, the reflection of some certain glory

from within. We've known these ancient tales already

for thousands of years and more. Deciphered into

what we are, they so often, and with ease, lose meaning.

That is why angels come forth. Mind you miraculous things.

3458. THE SOURCE OF ASIAN POTTERY

THE SOURCE OF 

ASIAN POTTERY

The high top of the distant mountain,

lingering through the wispy clouds.

Below it, the roiling stream cuts.

Would that I were there once

more, my love's face yet

lingering in my hands.

3457. IN SALEM

IN SALEM

To the sidepiece that avers to nothing at all, nor

to the rumors of wars and insurrections we

seem always to hear, I say I will kill this man with

menace of my own. I've taken the rail to Beacon,

dined at the Marble Arch, sat adjacent to

Zelda where once she roomed with God, and

even  -  to this I swear  -  walked a tightrope

with Philip Petit over the top of Mount Beacon.

Everything has left me breathless and broke.

B-b-buddy, can you spare a dime?

-

Reduced to my most simple motivations, I

am the fellow who whitewashed the bench,

painted yellow the orange door, and washed

the Sunday windows all backwards with lye.

-

Once there was priest who came into my room :

he muttered beneath the table and asked to see

the painting on the wall. I walked him towards the

window and pushed him out. That was 1968, and that

cat's still as dead as they come. Black wastrel

bastard frock-coated collar-wearing Saint Infectious

that he was. And his brother, I know, still lives in Salem.

-

B-b-buddy, can you spare a dime?

3456. WHAT IS THIS TRIVIAL MOMENT?

WHAT IS THIS 

TRIVIAL MOMENT?

(AND WHO ARE YOU?)

I secretly pine for your open leather coat - with

nothing beneath it, I know you will stand for

hours just to show me your breasts. The posture,

well, really, who cares? Behind you, that sovereign

wall where the locals have painted pictures of flowers

and greats  -  civil rights, jazz, and television faces.

Off to the right, the underpass where the local trains

pass : a total Philadelphia of lying eyes and broken

zoos; painted murals and paid-up dues. The Masons

and the Mummers, somehow all together rolled as one.

-

(One day the shopping cart lady came up to me and

said simply 'I need some money for things.' Made total

sense to me and, though I gave her a mere fifty cents,

I felt she had it coming. I said 'don't tell my your blues,

lady, I got enough of my own since you came to town.'

She laughed, and cried, and then laughed again. Goes

to show, you never can tell. I asked her to tell me about

William Blake. She recited the Auguries of Innocence

back to me by heart and said I should try just as well).

3455. THE ACHE OF RETRIEVAL

THE ACHE OF RETRIEVAL

How it comes and how it has passed :

all that lethargy must know something.

Yet here, where the cemetery bends to 

the river below, all things are lost and

forgotten. The highway past Newark 

rounds its bend, a crumpet old Rt. 21, 

and all these old graves stay asleep. They

crumble  -  these ancient mausoleums  -

by our standards anyway, and amaze yet

the eye as they sink and tumble, haggard

and lost, with old those old family names

etched upon them. The very ground here

is parched where once it was rich with

water and a lately-arriving immigrant blood.

Small animals scurry while not much else 

at all occurs. And  -  in fact  -  we've been

told it's a dangerous place; been told to

not go there untended, or not to descend

to these lower sections (where it is we are

now) for fear of crime, or someone with a

knife intent on taking us down; for here it is 

where the oldest dead dwell. Where many of 

the names I see are recognized simply by the 

fact that the old city above has streets named the

same. These are founders. These are the ones.

And, then, if I were to die here, by a deathly

mugging in an old and forgotten Newark

cemetery  - Yes! Yes! How apt would that

really be. I would sleep the slumber of

ages, perhaps right there where I fell, where

my last earthly breath would come to be.

I would be saved; I am salvaged, I am free.

3454. WHITECHAPEL

WHITECHAPEL

They drove me to the endings of each world  - 

right where things overlap, as the physical gestures

of trying time and the overhangs of truth together

congeal. I was no Devil in disguise, though brought

to that idea many times. Looking around, I realized

a deadly circumstance. Want and age together.

-

I drove a hard bargain, but he had the upper hand.

Pillaging even the cadavers left along the old medieval

route, he kicked stones into the eyes of the dead as

I watched. The feeling was of a sometime-awe, yet

mostly a dread. We made hatred into a cloth back then.

-

So, you see, I've been around so many years it seems

real time to me : now landed in Whitechapel I will

sit back to doze. I see so many people these days,

yet understanding none and recognizing even fewer,

though they say we are all in this together again.

3453. THE MOON AS A FIGMENT OF OUR MINDS

THE MOON AS A

FIGMENT OF OUR MINDS

And all things else. Abstract finaglement.

Errant mind-matter. Swatch the sourcebook.

Seething. I wouldn't ever look away : all those

cheerless people, up again and ready. While,

over at Mike's Garage, the wrenches are laid

out for their sockets : 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, et al.

-

The moon, moo-moo-moon, looks over the

horizon at the salty sea-level land. I watch

it grow and glow; a certain variant, an orange

glow, and then a move to palest white. At the

deep end of night, even then, it seems a

few dark birds still sing moon praises.

-

I am alone at midnight, and alone in

this crowd. A ferry-load of people, a

wet-stain grease pool of fools : all the

ones with stories talk, all the ones

without just sit and listen.

3452. DOWNPLAYING THE PRODIGAL SON

DOWNPLAYING 

THE PRODIGAL SON

I still want both fire and vengeance along

to go see Pagliacci, but - oh lord - all this

luggage is wearing me down, twisting my

spine and bending my back; all tired and

so much useless as well. I've seen the fire

on the mountain and it's gone out; the 

woodshed is vacant and the cows won't

come home. Outdated machinery

makes this harvest a chore.

-

The man in the suit of a tragic clown?

I've known him, together with his

double. Soulmate. Voyager. Alike.

My duality hinders my handling.

My hands do not fit the door.

My gloves  -  no fingers left  -  

now go unused. That mark, that 

mark beneath each my eyes, you ask?

That is the mark of fire, all scars.

-

Old remnants of a flame that used to be.

3451. EARTHRISE

 EARTHRISE

Some mornings, like this one, I awake on

a planet where it seems I've never awakened

before  -  in a strange, new situation, in a place

never before trod. Everything is new and I do

not know, cannot find, the reasons or the  meanings:

all vast echoes I cannot neither decipher nor hear.

-

The yellow light inside that truck the bread man

drives. Delivers. He stumbles out, huge boxes

balanced on his hands. A certain form of skill

presents itself unto the forlorn world : a declitude

of new arrivals underscores his richness. Seeing

distance and nothing more, I watch now as he

straggles back; big truck rumbling on.

-

Perhaps to say it takes me, time again - and

again - to fit once more within my clothes; all

manner of earthly garb, of time, of space, of

meaning. Of things so site-specific I can no

longer say. Nonetheless, I find myself a

mangled tongue to manage still what

words cannot fulfill.

3450. NO LONGER THERE

NO LONGER THERE

Well I brushed off my Honegger and

my Heidegger too  -  my year of living

as idle ended with the poems of Frederick 

Seidel. High on a horse, I clutched and 

hung on  -  tightly  - for the heave was 

both great and heavy. Oh the chest that 

rises and the chest that falls, like a nun 

a'swoon for Jesus' balls. I grabbed 

my heart : it was no longer there.

-

I was once an idle stallion, a man of

mark with a pure sensation. Now, by

contrast, I bristle instead with a faint

elation  -  of being here, of having been,

of passing by that room. There is nothing

more than what more can be. I see women

holding hands; holding hands is all I see.

-

I find now that I can understand

time passing, time displaced. This

curious reverie of relativity is all

that's left within my space. I am 

over, with the bells still ringing, 

I have run my race.

3449. L'ORIGINE DU MONDE (COURBET)

L'ORIGINE DU MONDE 

(COURBET)

The art world goes crazy. Goes crazy 

still. Pudenda and all those hairy things, 

open to a realized fault. We love it, 

don't you know. Only so much time 

exists in front of us to make us stingy 

looking back. Mother and mater,

sister and daughter. Been there,

done that...as painter Courbet 

would necessarily say.

3448. INERTIA?

INERTIA?

It was never this humbling before,

all the matter I have to endure.

The illogic-logic of life leads me

on, to an unwilling adventure

and a tired old song  -  as if a

mutilated body, thrown back

in the sea, still floating inert,

thinks it yet has to be.

3447. HENRY J

HENRY J

I haven't had to fool you in ages; you, the one in

the middle of this traipsing photograph, this old

and folded page, as if  -  in some cylindrical

weight of drive  -  your stance was ready and

always able to go. As I remember, I always

carried your hat. Those, for sure, were the days.

-

It was not always like that : before  -  the windswept 

plaza, the harbor where the bridge went over, the

ferry-boat junkyard twisting in the water on the other

shore. Tugboats and barges, rolling by Uncle Milty's,

all that Staten Island garbage spitting back to Bayonne -

a silent war of steely matter across the Kill Van Kull.

-

And only now I remember myself : a young boy,

too young in fact to recall total things, watching the

big, gray Plymouths go by, seeing the parked trucks 

 slanted at the curb, watching the hatted postwar ladies, 

too loud and too dull, as they sauntered by with ice cream, 

black stockings with a line up the back, and black, netted 

hats on their heads. It seemed a reverential, too-soon kingdom

already of love and lust together, into which I was already gone.

3446. SEASCAPE

SEASCAPE

There is glass in the water splashing the shore;

glinting off light and reflecting much more. The

entire world seems like a diamond magic mirror.

-

I try to stand up. The sand tries nestling me in

place, sinking me and grabbing me back. Even

the toes grimace at this obstinate opportunity

of another's control. All measure of mortals

would know. We live amidst this petty surf.

-

Can I interest you in my own new, constabulatory

control? Over there, in that car lot, the blue one

standing off is mine : extremely functional,

multi-port, well-cam'd engine, just ready

to drone on with horsepower and verve.

-

Let us go then, you and I : so many perils

call us, so many distant stars for us, each

one evoking voyage and travel and space.

There is glass in the water splashing the shore
(glinting off light and reflecting much more).

3445. THIS IS ROY

THIS IS ROY

Not that it always works;

it doesn't always work. 'We

were just talking about you -

hello, Roy!' A few lightbulbs

are out and now this corner's 

dark. 'No, no, it's not the

lightbulbs; this entire section

this morning has no juice.' 

'So we're living in the dark

once again,' says Roy.

-

'Jubilation came to me today in

an envelope  -  something postal.

Large and white. From that place

where the girls play. I have no idols,

but if they were here again, perhaps

I would. My big contract arrived

today  -  all covered with Jewish

names. Can't talk. Can't mention.

Can't say. It just arrived today.'

-

'The trainer I once knew now has

disappeared. All his horses are

left in the field  -  items now just

strewn about.' So many people

will just not stop talking.

3444. THAT MAJESTIC FUNGUS OF TIME

THAT MAJESTIC 

FUNGUS OF TIME

-(gentlemen sit back and laugh)-

I have to listen to a hundred new

things all at once, and I'm tired. All

that momentary force slides by me

again and again, but all I see are

the people who come and go : 

sidewalks full of dreck and matter,

distracted men with their eyes flying,

or with faces downcast as in a bucket,

girls suiting themselves to a tee. This world

exists in tatters, while gentlemen sit back

and laugh. There is no one to disagree.

3443. MARVELOUS TANG

MARVELOUS TANG

(Imagine Every Boat Stops Here)

I have no memory at all.

Any longer. Everything now is

gone, and once that Mary comes

again she will have no clothes.

I effect illusion, and such is the

illusion I effect. So much now

has gone dark, in this little

village we imagine.

3442. NOT ALWAYS GOOD

NOT ALWAYS GOOD

The trumpet notes are coloring your face,

and I want to watch  -  the transformations

are startling to see. Love and affection

somehow, in this crazy candlelight,

bring forth so much more : we harbor

thoughts of each other that tremble

the very recesses of heart and soul.

-

There's always a certain magic in the

idea of self-generated feelings. Not

always good, we construct images

and figments by which we then find

ourselves living and in dedication to.

No meanings really, just feelings.

-

Someone once wrote about the

'eternal validity of the soul.' I do

suppose the case should be made :

'we live forever'  -  or some part

of us does. The part that now

touches you; the part the

lives now, on and on

forever, within me.

-

Once more, the candlelight

dances your face alive. The

the trumpet man, blaring,

brings new light and hue

to the very face of you.

3441. MY FOUR WONDERFUL GADZOOKS

 MY FOUR WONDERFUL 

GADZOOKS

(PT. 1  -  SECOND BANK OF THE U.S.  - 
PHILADELPHIA, PA)*

I slipped silently across the walkway,

hoping not to be seen. All that I'd learned

about situations such as this led me to realize that,

by working only in the shadows, I could probably

remain totally unseen. Circuitous reasoning such

as this was, I remained confident nonetheless.

Few people remembered I'd ever been here

before, and this old hulk of a building really held

little meaning in this more modern day : Gouvernor

Morris, as it were, had starved himself dead in a

little cell, a pauper in his poorhouse - once wealthy,

now savaged - for funding a revolution. I had read

once how he'd gone mad for ice cream in his very

last days; wishing for something cold and truly

American in his miserable cell of all those declining

days. How sad. Ah! I'd finally reached the walkway

landing. I slowly lifted up the heavy, steel-black latch.

It gave, the door slid open, and I walked in. So dark,

in these after hours, the portrait gallery seemed eerie.

All those long dead, early American faces, and

the Park Service people would never even know

I was here. I slowly made my way forward, carefully

peering through the dark  -  banks of paintings and

scenes met my stare. Dusky and dark, everything was

as I remembered it, as I knew it would be. Past all

those portraits I crept; stealthy, quiet and sure. Finally!

Finally reaching my goal, I approached the painting I'd

selected  -  a winsomely bucolic scene of some old

American farm, set in the side lee of a dusty, twisting dirt

road 'midst trees, a well, a house and barn, a wagon,

and even a broken down old fence. I'd reached my goal!

Now, the moment  -  I hunched down, bent over carefully,

and lunged, throwing myself headlong into the painting,

forcing myself into another realm, one I was sure I could

enter - with nothing more than a major, mental concentration

and intensity. With that, a whirring rush of air, a cold, weird

feeling, and then, Wham! I landed awake, on the hard, dirt of

the roadway! I realized my place, got up, looked back, and

began walking off. Success! Looking back once more, to be

sure, I knew it had worked. Receding behind me, all that

muck of the modern world through which I'd come. I was free,

dusty again and unharmed. I walked off, happily, into that

world from which I'd once come. A rugged place, still unknown,

and still full of promise. Gadzooks, I'd done it!

*The old Second Bank of the US, at 420 Chestnut St., in
Philadelphia, now houses the National Portrait Gallery as
well as other paintings. The grand, old building itself, still
open for visitors, is operated by the National  Parks Service.