3620. COMMINGLING OF NATURES

COMMINGLING OF NATURES

And all that tumult. All that roaring.

I swear we see things that are not and

simply call them real : that time-worn

essence, now so all around us.

-

I walk 57th Street, end to end, and

see nothing but the striving for natures

of human form and silt  -  those miserable

self-portraits all lining the street. At the

Art Student's league I peer in to see

where I'm headed. Oh God, someone

recognizes me and I must say hello. The

lady looks like a frog, and she seems to

have grown so old. She goes to museums

on Tuesday to avoid the crowds?

-

Well, that's what she said and I'll

have to accept. And then the door

swings shut and she is gone. The

noise rises  -  streetscapes come alive.

One could not paint a still-life here

even if one tried.

-

Were you out at morning's light?

The tumult, the commingling of natures.

3619. LIFE

LIFE

The main material is made and already over by the

time of manufacture : like cars on an assembly-line

from the froth of darkness, things don't fit  -  doors

mis-aligned, windows won't rise, mirrors fallen

downward, seats without movement. Life is like

that, Life is like that. We breath and make ready

with a reason beyond comparison, and find out

too late our assumptions were wrong. Heaven

has no guided-missle showing us direction;

only those who claim they know admonishing

that we listen. Take it from where it comes;

a fair warning in the mission.

3618. NOT EDEN YET

NOT EDEN YET

'Trees like castles, and berries we can ride.

Sunlight that sings and water that glides, wetness

and glory, joy and every possibility, just fragrant

in the air. It's not Eden, yet (but we're getting

there?)...' The man was talking like that, up at

the head of the room : First Scientific Capillary

Oasis, a Conference for the Doomed. Something

like that; that's how it was billed in the lobby.

I paid the hipster dude at the front desk my

twenty dollars to get in ('no money, just the idea

of money'), and entered through Columbia's erstwhile

famous portals  -  a scum-college on the banks of

a make-believe Nile. Sat me down, and listened.

-

'In humankind's present day, midst all the joys

and sorrows, we find our selves trapped. Ten thousand

things going on at any one time, yet we can experience

only one. Not here! In this vast and thickly forested

future we are working on, all things, ALL I say!, will

be experienced at once; every notion, every possibility

at one time.' I thought to myself 'No limits? Just the

idea of limits?' He continued, about apparent presences,

about images and illusions and the hologram of life.

-

I watched this girl nearby  -  she was better than anything

he could say : tendentious tits, calling to me, awkward

flourish, beautiful sense of self, a presence to maim even

a matador. Then I began getting worried: what if this guy

stated 'No beauty! Just the idea of beauty.' Eden lost a bit

of luster with that idea. He began again railing against

limitations, there human mind and all its boxes, the rain

we let in to spoil our party. I found myself getting bored,

('No interest. Just the idea of interest'). I wanted out,

where I could yet be free. I went back to the Nirvana-

like front desk, asking for my money back. The wise-ass

kid had the nerve to say: 'No refunds, just the idea of refunds.'

3617. THE MYSERY OF MY STORY

THE MYSTERY 

OF MY STORY

I threw the evanescent angel overboard; I whitewashed

the gravelly house with boarded-over paint. Before I ever

died I swore I'd know every leak and fissure of the

universal light leaking through. In my defense, I did try

everything, though all to no avail. Here I still sat, ass

on the stone, head to the Heavens, seeking something

for which I do not even yet know the words to ask.

-

Anything not left behind I carried down the gangplank

with me : books and lotions, armchairs and clothes.

I came in with nothing at all, and that's precisely

how I wished to leave. Two shoes, both good, in place.

A nice warm jacket in case things got chilly, a snifter

of some sort for cocktails and drinks, and  -  of course  - 

all the requisite tools of this journey-man's trade;

essentially words to be used, not needing to be made.

3616. THE SEQUENCE OF FLAGELLATION

THE SEQUENCE

OF FLAGELLATION

First we cut your skin with a little pin-prick

knife, then we peel it back. Watching you

grimace, we stand in place just to see what

develops. It seems, as your skin is stripped,

that only then does blood begin seeping from

your muscles and tendons, or from around

them anyway. This could all be illusion, since

we are not fully knowledgeable of anatomy.

Anyone's, not just yours. I make a note that,

as you are screaming and we are chaining

you by the wrists to the wall, the blood is

pooling beneath your feet; the very pool, by

now, in which you stand, or try to, for these

your very final, and very few, I guess, moments.

-

Then, it is my job, incumbent upon me, to make

some sort of report on how you died, what the

sequence and duration of it all was, how we

followed what procedure, and turn it in to the

King  -  no, not his very self, of course, much

rather some dismal clerk or idiot emissary

representing his court. No, no, strike that.

Some apt agent sent by the King himself -

who is, after all, so interested in learning. 

3615. NOW THE CANTOS, BROTHER BOB

NOW THE CANTOS,

BROTHER BOB

I am thinking of airplanes again; those old kind, the

sort that came up through there 1920's - Blaise Cendrars

and all his friends, riding high the cresting adventure: 'If you

like we will go by airplane and will fly over the country of

a million lakes.' Ah, yes. So many people come out of

shadows that you begin to wonder where they've all

been. Never a cloudless sky, never a moment occurs,

in the same fashion, when there isn't a thought about

something. All those cantos, all those words. We are

steaming off our language like an envelope flap,

curling the paper with the glue still attached.

-

Fifteen hundred and seventy five : that's the amount

of things I did today. I counted, every last one, or

almost, as I did them. I counted the people with

whom I spoke, the ones not liking me and the ones

I love. I counted the times the wind made me lift

my hands to hold my hair. I counted everything

solid that I had to move. No gestation period

like the one of waiting for a life to end.

-

I saw her, and I saw her again.

-

So that, now, restful and bushed, I am sitting back

talking with my wife. She is watching TV. Another

ancient movie in black and white. Catherene Hepburn

and Lucille Ball together, both young and stupid,

doing things I hate, but I hate movies so none of

it matters. Why anyone else would waste their

time  -  hmm  -  however so, that's a different

story, which is all a movie's meant to be,

after all I guess and who really cares.

-

I want to get up, take the gun from off

the chair, and blow my own brains out.

Now the cantos, brother Bob, now the

cantos again, and will you think of me?

-

Ah, yes. All those cantos,

all those words.

3614. RALPH BRANCA AND THE SUICIDE MOTIF

RALPH BRANCA AND

THE SUICIDE MOTIF

Center field killer hall monster mash do them all.

Hart Crane Uncle Jed Marlo Thomas Mary Wilson :

every one a second, every second one.  Banner

star to the moon, deep black space calling back.

Little Boy Blue, pure confusion, where to go, what

to do. I haven't had a locket since you locked me

out. Call me comeback cunning, Ralph Branca,

whatever you like I'll answer to, any name want.

3613. RUMSON MAN

RUMSON MAN

That old fellow you thought you

knew, he's gone away to Israel

now, having left the table (and, I'm

told, having thrown away all his 

typewriters now, saying 'reportage

is beyond contempt.') He's headed

for kibbutz Yoch Joel. He's living

well, and has learned to have his

US pension directly wired and

deposited nicely  -  Army funds

from WWII. 'It's a dainty daisy

and I've got a wonderful life,'

I hear him say.

3612. KENILWORTH

KENILWORTH

I've tried a thousand times to win your heart,

but like fifteen ways to skin a cat nothing really

worked at all. You held the red paint so close

to your chest, you wore that red gown to the

movies. If I wasn't sequestered, then I wasn't

alone  -  I could never really reach out to you.

We once tried putting cashew nuts on your

peanut butter, but all the bread did was sag.

Reading Poe by candlelight, that did nothing

for us either : before we knew it, we were - as

the Eagles once sang - 'prisoners of our own

devise.' I don't know why, I always liked that

phrase. Now, a few years later, it seems,

you are hell-bent on reaching your point,

making a scene with your leathers and

arms. All right, then, go ahead. I swear

I know how you will eventually end up  -

like that girl I saw today outside the

Alchemist and Barrister, crying her

eyes out on the phone in her smock

and blouse and black waitress apron;

and oh, it was all very sad indeed.

3611. WELL, MR. MATTERHORN

WELL MR. MATTERHORN

Tell me now, what is all that? Have you defined

the circular purpose of the Lazy Susan you depend

upon? Does your once-spinning world need now

to a stop default? All madness stops, it is said,

as sanity comes most near. And, yes then, we

all are made. R. D. Lang said that, some time

long ago. Ivan Illich, 'Deschooling Society', Rollo

May 'Power and Innocence'. So much, so much

to remember 'bout them very old days. March 1972.

-

I was crazy in love with words and symbols. My varieties

ran to varietal ideas, the vague mix-and-match of all

philosophy and school. All those other kids, jumping

off the cliffs at Taughannock Falls, while I just sat at

Cornell's hilltop retreat, reading my steady world.

3610. FOLLOWED BY APPARENT GOLD

FOLLOWED BY
APPARENT GOLD
Looking into a fogged-up mirror, a wet life
rolls me by. I am seeing things I recognize,
only dimly, and outlived only in haze. This
early in Springtime fissure; the maple trees
are opening their bat-wing like baby leafs,
spreading wet and gently, opening wide their
Summer pleasures. I am thinking what to say
as, beneath me, the girl writhes and wriggles -
you can figure out the rest, and it's more than
punctuation. She may be coming. It feels like it,
the tightening, the heave, the release; that thrash
of muscle, clutching me. Like Jesus, I have entered
a tomb I am now already leaving.

3609. THE LITLE GIRL FROM EL PASO

THE LITTLE GIRL 

FROM EL PASO

I saw her wince in the sunlight, as if the

power of illumination was cutting her up,

or the Devil was a dentist, or something like that.

And then the red sportscar passed by her. She

was only here for 9 days; the rest was travel,

on each end. A two-week and simply northern

vacation for this little El Paso girl. We'd just

met when I realized her mother had been my

neighbor in 1998. What does one say to that?

Let it go, or bring it up and then try to explain?

Oh man, I'll never get these things straight.

Like the worm on the fisherman's hook,

I squirmed from myself just to try

and get away.

3608. FRENCHTOWN MARMALADE

FRENCHTOWN 

MARMALADE

Attic, basement, stairwell, casement.

The guy selling decoys has got quite

the placement : people stroll by from the

old hotel, think what to gawk at, look about,

and then manage to grab some banister and

step on up. 'Man, you see this stuff, like gravy

with paint thick as an inch.' That's about the

heights of art criticism in a place such as this.

I like it all for what it's not. Garbled tendencies,

run amok. And then, some guy starts talking

about Marie Antoinette and some treasures

left here 'It's how the town got its name, she buried

millions here somewheres about, and it ain't ever

been found. Nor she. She got buried here somewhere

too; nobody ever found the grave.' I just love these

know-it-all types. Even if what he said were to be

true, I feel he's pronounced it all wrong.

3607. ALL THE COUNTLESS LEAGUES OF LEGION

ALL THE COUNTLESS 

LEAGUES OF LEGION

(nyc, circa 1925)

All the countless leagues of legion are

walking with me now. These streets, like

Dorothy Day or Jane Jacobs together, up

from Henry Street along, in all sorts of

weather, surge forward with power.  Even

Mabel Dodge is out walking her high-handed

dogs and  horses. Such gracious riches come

forth from her blood. We are scholars 

in all these things.

-

I am nowhere left but outside of your

circle  -  waiting, and now so far away.

The steamboat and the tug, pulling off

from the Twelfth Street dock, would,

were I to let it, take me away. We

are scholars in manner and thought,

so I will stay. I stand here, now,

conflicted, watching the ripples

patter the wharf. I have so much

to do, but cannot bring myself,

right now, to do anything at all.

3606. ON SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE

ON SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE

Round rock standing steady, always.

Oh, the Shakespeare Gardens, in a birthday

honor, they are everywhere today!. Finay!

Araho! Who makes up a word when any 

word will do? It's all new! The ancient

language in a newer tongue: 'But m'lord,

should I thee find but sitting here, wouldst 

I know thy home, alone. Solely by my

selfsame sighting? This senseless, idle

bower wherein ye dwell, all your hopes

and dreams within this tidy hospice?

Fie? How then?' The man, I saw,

sat back and laughed, to say: 'Ha!

Take ye then this idle pence and  -

anon! - now go away!  -  This be

only now and singly here my pleasure.

Then get thee hence from me.'

Round.  Rock.  Standing.  Steady.

3605. THE BRUNT OF MADAGASCAR

THE BRUNT OF 

MADAGASCAR

(1979)

Oh, I'll find something  -  that speeding car,

off-register, and spinning across the landscape,

neither stopping nor dawdling anywhere. The

high windows on the stuccoed apartment house

where the Kerbuniac Sisters kept their time.

It was little in Winter, mostly in Spring, and

then my penniless six months were over.

I returned to something much different  -  the

rifle-butt to the chest, that machine gun gunner's

coy eye as he scanned above the crowd he was

so brazenly shooting into. They told me, in that car,

could have been two fleeing agents; what or where,

I was never told. Some Soviet malarkey, back then

it could have been, or another typical anti-American

screed: people in bad-off Africa screaming about

time and gold and weapons and caches of lost

money. I never knew about any of it. I stayed

in place hoping to stay alive. Pretty simple

stuff; like big flies in my morning soup, or

something runny and yellow over my

evening's goat-meat meal plate.

3604. THE MARKSMAN CALLS IT DEVIL

THE MARKSMAN 

CALLS IT DEVIL

(Mephistopholes Dragging)

The somber two-lipped wandering man, the 

card-player with his extra hands, the chiseler with

his chisel, any one of those things  -  taken alone  -

would  bring me back to times and places now

better left unmentioned. The purloined whiff

of bodies, dead and staggered, blind.

-

Where teeth are shattered and shoulders are

torn, there this man of action tries to dwell :

thinking that, by dint of Man's exertion,

the plight of Humanity will be lifted.

Never do I know. For to me it seems

they simply plunge instead, mere drudges,

insipid walkers, social tourists, 'midst their

yapping tongues and useless words.

-

These are the men who build traps;

sitting two-deep at the carousel counter.

3603. GEORGE

GEORGE

George is walking the street again.

This is not Brooklyn, mind you, but

some other, more settled, place

where he can walk alone, scanning

the streets and curbs for wanton profit

and small change  -  which does seem

strange to me. He is a Catholic priest,

you see. I'd wonder that they all already

have a place, all these parish priests and

missionary men, not needing change or

money. Not wander, pray! Speak the Breviary:

all those crazy words and codes. Single,

wandering man George, Adam alone,

is out wandering again.

3602. TARAMAN

TARAMAN

Debenture policy broke in

debt negative flow pricey outlay.

Wherever one turns is trouble.

I sit with Renzo Piano sizing

up buildings. He says he'd like

to build something up to the stars.

'Go ahead and try' - I say - 'I bet

it's not been done before,'

 knowing full well it has.

3601. THIS RELIGIOUS MANTLE

THIS RELIGIOUS 

MANTLE

I have a gnostic headache right now.

Right now, with my stupid savior

nailed against a tree. One guy

says he brought new life. One

guy says he ransomed me.

How was it I lost awareness

that I needed either?

(Let it be).

3600. A CRAPPY TURNAROUND FOR ONE LIFE

A CRAPPY TURNAROUND

FOR ONE LIFE

So you've got me, Harry Jones : I lost

all the memory so very long ago. You

sped the bullet to its target, you laughed

in the face of death. Inquisition; Correction,

and Rehabilitation.

-

 I went back to Plainfield bearing Van Wycke

Brooks. And why not? His historic district and

all those pleasant houses. And now, today,

in this disgusting world, it's not as if

anyone knows of him.

-

The little park that ran across the library: Hideous

shock and Marshall Fieldman. All those vast,

old Jew homes, all that joy of Manufacture

and the management class, now replaced

by thuggish blacks and transponders of all

that noise and the shouts of vile venom.

-

Where have those who know this put

the grace or hid the chains? Is a master-

puppeteer here somewhere hiding? Oh,

you've got me, Harry Jones. I lost all

my memory so very long ago.

3599. BILLOWS

 BILLOWS

My little piece of place, to the moments I love, 'neath

the skies I inhabit: the lackluster command of each item

in a hazy dream, a still-life of atmosphere and smoke. Up

high, the elm trees with the oaks rage on, while the blizzarding

wind upstrokes a tick upon the atmosphere. Two people sit

back, hazarding a guess as to what the next move will be,

while around them the gale rages and all things are blown

about. An furious storm of leaves and papers rushes by.

3598. WHY ATLAS THE DWARF AND LADY EUROPE

WHY ATLAS THE DWARF

AND LADY EUROPE

....they both were climbing down a tree : one to be

loquacious and the other to be free. It's been said, and

I've heard it so, that neither of them are to be what they

claimed, but it never mattered in Wonderland  - where

everything different turns out to be just the same.

-

So go on, ye rousting minstrels, ye freak-faced clowns

and jesters, find the land you once had left and get back

home for vespers.

3597. BOXER

BOXER

There's nothing to it at all : the good

sense of staying away is what really

counts. I stood in the boxer's ring just

once, not to box but to say a prayer

over the dying boxer in the ring : down

on the surface and dead. Battered to

death by the winning hand. 'How like life'

was all I could think to say, even with

God looking over my shoulder and

the entire crowd looking up.

3596. IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK?

IS THAT WHAT 

YOU THINK?

I can't read the comatose letters  -  the

ones the man in the iron swing has written.

Some old Irish bard, younger than I but

whatever, has written the words never meant

to be said : wisdom and wit, crackling mirth,

all that junk science of the industry of poets.

I am so tired already, and I've not yet even started.

Let me bring beck the past  -  how's that? All that

whistling, wheedling and wheezing all together,

like old men, post-stroke, playing cards for paper

money and metal. They know little, and pronounce

nothing right. I may have been to that place once before,

I really cannot remember. My eyes are tired of marking.

-

The lady reading Tarot cards, I realize, has my name

mixed up with someone else's  -  all those predictions

of dire fate and happiness, were they meant, in that

order, for me or for another? A separate fellow with

a grander past and a wilder future? Or is that

all my fate to see? I thought I was blind

already, but now it is truly growing dark.

3595. MARCUS : WHEN I LOST EVERYTHING

MARCUS : WHEN I

LOST EVERYTHING

I had no money for paint or canvas. I could

barely find bread to eat. There was no rent

to pay, for I had no place to stay : that solid

bench in Tompkins Square Park, well it just

had to do. Back then there was a band shell,

always filled with annoying Spics and

all their God-damned drums.

-

Colossal, all this was  -  the Slocum Disaster

had a place of its own  -  a monument of sorts

at my end of the park, over by 10th. I never had

really figured it out  -  a pleasure ship that had

burned in the East River nearby, watched by

those on shore. Helpless to do anything, they

stared as some big number of Germans died.

-

That was all it took to move Little Deutschland

uptown to Yorkville, where they've stayed since.

All those sad immigrant Germans, with family

members, friends and kin dead and burned.

Well, anyway, it had nothing to do with me

back in 1967, but that's what I learned from

1909. The park was my wayward home.

3594. HAPPENSTANCE

HAPPENSTANCE

I am not the one to enter your cavernous

atmosphere : there is plenty of room to breath

and room to sit. Outside your crusted window,

I am watching Van Cortlandt Manor and all the

forms which pass. Like some weaver's awkward

abstract art, being viewed backwards and from

behind, I recognize little and recall less.  All I 

can think of is the manner of your leaving.

-

A fire truck seems rushing by. Its noise

enters by itself some strange Doppler Effect,

dropping and fading both as it passes. My

own mind, noticing little, makes no sense

of what occurs. Instead, far off, I am thinking

of the Delaware River, miles and miles away.

-

Do you understand, then, how this mind works?

It tears itself apart in trying. Every offer, every

word, every something heard rings forth a

hundred bells pealing of something other.

Something different or far away. My own

disconcertment becomes painful to me.

-

Beyond the passage of a window glass

two hundred years old and wavy and blurred,

another world which has dawned and stayed,

the one into which I am stuck, in place, for

now, presents its pressure and place as mine.

I can do nothing, really, but accept this

blunderbuss, assume its stance, and

continue on, going forth to

who knows what.

3593. RIDGEFIELD COLONY

RIDGEFIELD COLONY

Don't you see how then you drop things and

they fall all over  -   wandering minstrels of

disdain and mis-repair; you speak of rumors

as if no one was to care. I stepped into your

library today, looking for something to see of

your small town's history : what I found was

single enough. Art colony, bohemian grove,

Summer encampments of all those bizarre and

crazy free-love artists and free-thinking men.

One book had it all; small story, briefly told,

so I had to go see for myself. And did. Those

varied, lengthy condos now that drip the

Hispanic hillsides instead  -  nothing left

of good sense or knowledge or learning.

Just hordes of the dense, the Mayor of

Stupidtown himself, I noted, was first

there in attendance. Ah, what a sorry

world it is, now, we live in; what

a sorry, sorry world.

3592. HIPSTER KETTLE BLUES

HIPSTER KETTLE BLUES

(Red Rocks, Colorado)

Derive the derivation. You see more

than that. Ho! Don't I! Unleash the

lovely laces of the butterfly's fly wings!

Ho! Don't I! Ramkettle where the last

fencepost was. You can't go there!

Outland. Look! Look up! Yon purple

mountains majesty still calling you.

Daddy-O! Man you just gotta' go.

3591. MY MIND FLOATS FREE

MY MIND FLOATS FREE

My mind floats free, and I seem a

broken man  -  one of whom it can

be said 'everything now reminds

him of something else.' A broad 

summer-camp breakfast dining hall,

massive in volume and sound, things

fading off and the constant throng of 

people coming and going. There was

back then (as I see it now) something 

so liberating about a wide, open

breakfast and its noise. Now, that's

all gone. I sip a close coffee

and eat nothing at all.

3590. ALAYSA AND RUYON

ALAYSA AND RUYON

Had I not been there ancient and alone I

would have never seen it : the carrion rock

diving fiery hot from sky to earth in the instant.

Before I could react there was nothing to react

to. The time that stopped, I was able to get

that back. The time that went on, I lost. No

be-ribboned towel came my way, none of

those awards for prescient stamina. I was

lifted up by a force unknown and entered the

space between time and place we know not

of, yet  -  though I can tell you clearly.

The island in the mind is called Alaysa,

the place it brings you to is named Ruyan.

Simple and simply, names. Our mind

makes the map.

3589. IMMATERIAL MATTER AGAIN

IMMATERIAL 

MATTER AGAIN

The fencepost read 'Roger' in tall green letters.

I had no idea what it meant : calibrated for shame

or sharpness, the dog on the end of the leash was

sure to keep barking. Five other people were looking

on. It was auction day at carport 39.

-

I rode in on a steamer, force fed across the sky.

The man in the front row seat had said there was

nothing to fear 'these things have never gone down.'

I hate experimental aircraft, and still swear 'never again.'

-

Tall guy swings the gavel, gets down to business.

Davy Crockett's rifle, Madame Curie's laboratory

notebook, medical instruments from Parkland Hospital

in Dallas. Everything going for twelve, fifteen grand starts.

-

I sat back only to watch; my only configuration was in

biding my time and betting for low numbers. No, they

never came. I got beat on everything   -   Einstein's watch,

(I wondered, does it bend time still?), an original Eisenhower

jacket, and two hand guns from some Meerpool guy.

The next thing I knew, it was Tuesday morning and I

was back from Minnesota already.

3588. THIS FAUST

THIS FAUST

This Faust has fallen  -  from his

doomed departure to a clockwork

orange little known by man. The

long, crooked nose, those spindly

fingers, the wearing of cloaks and

scarves, jackets and capes, beneath

the dark, bleak moon: this Faust

has fallen. In the glen, along the

valley, anywhere that dark, ancient

cave beckons, he is hiding  -  his

fame alone lights candles in the dark.

3587. ALL AS ONE

ALL AS ONE

Easy to circumvent the lamb, run across 

the meadow, outfox the fox. No, you say? 

Easier than to curse the darkness for lack 

of a candle? Every stupid emotion roils, 

wrapped in sentiment and gauche with 

want. Look out, afar, the sun beckons.

-

I awoke to blinding light on Walnut Street.

Noise and its mayhem, all together  -  

15 black suits praising a new Muhammad,

10 American men, brazen with briefcases

and suits, 5 darling women daring their

own colorful shoes. This, this is now all

the little world has to offer. Meet me

at Rittenhouse then, just after ten.

-

Around the edge of the square, 

everywhere it seems where once

stood grand and stately buildings,

now only stand motives for

profit. That little old lady, being

walked  -  her white-clad nurse

holding her arm  -  now seems

like an eagle from another, 

past, day; surveying the

damage of what once

may have been.

3586. AT CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA

AT CHRIST CHURCH, 

PHILADELPHIA

Within this loamy surface tension really not much

is going on : people pass, battered groups of

Pennsylvanians idly seeking  -  either way, here  -

to visit History or visit God. Either way, again,

praise for something goes on. We reach our

vista's end so soon.

-

I walk away, off to Ben Franklin's grave  -

some adjoining graveyard a block or two

off. Quarters, nickels and dimes, proffered,

are strewn all over the ground; as if Ben now

needs small change for his five-and-dime.

-

I remember Ben Franklin's on the corner

in Troy, Pennsylvania  -  one over from

the Troy Hotel. It was a store, a chain of

cheap ten-cent shops which once were

cluttered all across Pennsylvania. Simple,

quaint, and rural; with really no more

to be said.

-

Inside this church though, it's real :

the pews are sedate and simple  -

no one joins the light coming in

from the windows and lighting

the white  -  but at the same time

no one wails in a black man's prayer.

-

It is all so polite and just and plain.

The generations of slavery about,

have they not yet left? And this steeple,

above, was built by Franklin's plan of

subscription  -  perhaps already a

white man's scheming early on.

-

And so I am visiting historic Christ Church,

and why? To watch dry leaves, just

now opened in Spring's fresh face, fall

already from dryness and death

in this place? Even Nature, it seems,

is here in revolt. Historic Death is

everywhere. Look! The girl with

chestnut hair is eating her Chinese food

from a tray; she sits outside, enjoying

the day. And, across, I watch someone

else avoiding a panhandler's approach.

-

With a story, or without? With a truth,

or no truth at all? A woman asks me, 

where is Campo's?' I answer I do not

know and let it be. Only later I see it is

not far off  -  a small dining spot. If this

is the tray of the Lord, then this is the

tray we are given. Accept this bread.

-

Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, Elfreth's 

Alley, Christ Church, Campo's  -  but

five simple matters  -  conclusions still

out in this torch of a world. Five simple

matters, indeed. I am visiting Christ Church.