Monday, April 30, 2012

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.

Friday, April 27, 2012

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.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

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.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

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.

Monday, April 23, 2012

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.

Friday, April 20, 2012

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.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

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.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

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.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

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.