Wednesday, February 29, 2012

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.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

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.

Monday, February 27, 2012

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.

Friday, February 24, 2012

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.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

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.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

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.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

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.

Monday, February 20, 2012

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.

Friday, February 17, 2012

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.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

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).

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

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.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

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.

Monday, February 13, 2012

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.

Friday, February 10, 2012

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).

Thursday, February 9, 2012

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.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

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.

Monday, February 6, 2012

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.