3751. A'KIMBO

A'KIMBO

Surrender at the hostel.

Separating the jeopardization

infringes the abridgement of Hell.

Handy things to be doing at this

end. I was cupping your breast

when the fire broke out.

-

Just like the illustration on the wall;

an old erotic picture of a guy from the

far east holding his woman's tit in the

swirly and colored style  -  gold-gilt

and swirls  -  of his hands and arms.

3750. CONVERSATION COMES FROM CHINA

CONVERSATION COMES

FROM CHINA

Nobody knows this or when

and what becomes of that.

Fifteen ice-ages of man have -

already - come and gone and

here you are crying over another!

Or, what was that, over heat or

warming? I truly forget. Your

new sarcasm is unbecoming,

but you know that. I can tell

by the smirk on your face.

-

So now, like gigolos from a cave

in Dundee, you all go on spouting

your lava mouth junk. Conversation

comes from China. Lessons learned

from it? Yes : panty lines tell nothing,

underneath it all she's naked; the child

is father to the man; it isn't itself, hot

like this, it's more the angles and the

rays. No, no, I say ; 'It's not the heat,

it's the memories. it's not the heat,

it's the memories.'

-

All that stays with me  -  a very long

time, or an instant's inflection instead.

I just never will know.

3749. SEEING IS BELIEVING TOO

SEEING IS BELIEVING TOO

All those skulls I see among us,

ringing their peals for the ages aloud :

we cannot see out of the eye-rotted

dead sockets, yet we proffer allegiance

to what we view  -  how curious and

how encumbered, then, all that we do.

Seeing is believing too.

3748. DILIGENT TRAVEL ITEM

DILIGENT TRAVEL ITEM

The diligent travel item of who we are

and what we wish to be  -  yes, it comes

to us in legions. A simple mind (even the

most simple) can comfortably circumnavigate

the globe, and every water has its endings  -  

river, gorge or ocean. How many years,

since Adam's time, have we walked

the fractured glen?

-

 Are you looking for something? Can

I help? The bottom of this land is rich,

a farmfield, a paradise, and everything

grows in a such grand profusion. A

Babylon to the Gods, but a simple

Eden for us.  I cannot keep from

running; one sainted foot before

the other  -  an ancient travel

that cannot keep me still.

3747. TO RECONCILE LOVE

TO RECONCILE LOVE

(the fire of all his purposes)

To reconcile love with death is

very hard  -  nay, it cannot be

done and I shall give up trying.

Listen as the voices sing - fey

and level, high and trapping; a

regular chorus of light, in the

chambers of the trapped, and 

I will give back nothing in return.

-

There comes a time - I think - 

when one needs to admit the

import of every single thing. 

Difficulties abound, yet every

particle matters and our place

and consciousness are made of

millions. Like the inland Strella

Mountain of Portugal's major

internal lake, the hulks of old

seafaring things bob up. We

too are alive on a sea of our 

own. To reconcile this with

death, all this, is oh so

difficult to do.

-

(I am sorry to be sad and 

always untranquil  -  and I

take my odds from where

they come. 'Ye shall not

recognize them.'

-

Neither tranquil tropics nor

Cape Horn's swells shall leave

my dark den, so desperately

trying to break through to a

blessed light and air.To 

reconcile all this with 

love and death is

very hard to do).

3746. STEEL THAT BENDS

STEEL THAT BENDS

Rails stretched over the land, taut and

sloppy together; the rise, the hollow,

the flat plain. Steel that bends by never

bending, alters by not altering at all.

Upon the train seat, amidst raging noise

and a morning's fury, someone has left 

a book. A careless astronomy tome, no

less, and just as I am watching this Summer

morning's sun fat bob upward along a

fading horizon. I am watching at speed -

some train-pace never marked by numbers,

so I know ever not how fast it be. 

Past tree, past tree, past tree.

-

The astronomy book, so heavy like

a brick, sits mute in reference to

anything real. This train is pouncing

over the land. It is morning again,

'neath Heaven's celestial band.

3745. AND SO, REPUTEDLY SMALL

AND SO, REPUTEDLY SMALL

The face here wears a thousand disguises  -

things I see and things I do not. Take that

lip, for instance, the upper; with what joy

it seems to smile and glimpse and glimmer

at things. My veritable circus of reaction,

you can be. The red-cheeked love that is

all of yours, that too can be cloaked in

Happiness. Ah, what a fine portrait I see.

3744. SPARROW

SPARROW

How the sparrow lives, how.

Where the sparrow lives, where.

Neither more nor less, everything

acclimates. There, the world  -

good for us all -  is one big nest.

3743. PRODIGAL

PRODIGAL

Something like this should never happen : he came

home with his tail between his legs. Dejected and

forlorn, bedraggled and clothing torn. I never saw

a smile less authentic. The small wind which blew

through his bones, even that presaged a portentous

despair. From years out on the pampas, now it

was all soon over.  Man makes bets on the legions

of moments  -  wins some and loses others.

-

'Pull up a chair, and have a beer.' I heard the guy 

say that from the end of the rope. The lights were

dim, but no matter. Near to him, the other fellow

sauntered off. 'No man, I've heard that story

before, and I really have to go.'

3742. NEAR THE GRAVE OF ALLEN GINSBERG

NEAR THE GRAVE 

OF ALLEN GINSBERG

Not being quite I the one yet

standing athwart train-stop

cavalcade, I watch! The open

trestle bends to shoddy Newark

as the Hackensack River flows

to Newark Bay. Entreat at the

Robert Treat Hotel, once Newark's

best, and now ask: 'Why?'

-

Just but more than a mile from here

I can sit at Ginsberg's grave to say

'Oh Allen, what was saved? Oh why

these days? We sing of them, long

and lonesone and ragged and raged.'

-

The railroad tacks run along 

here too; stupid and decrepit 

beneath the Budweiser sign.

3741. AS NEEDED

AS NEEDED

Robin's egg blue  -  just as the morning

broke. I was walking the curb near the

big, gray house when I saw again the

sign in the sky  -  a big, curvy moment

for me. What is it you now want?

Not enough mystery?

-

Mystify me : throw me your pellets like

a dog gets thrown the things around so

as to eat all moments. I too shall scurry.

The man with the Audi coupe comes

out once more  -  another morning for

him  -  carrying on his shoulder those

sleek and so modern golf clubs anew,

in his brite-blue golf bag too. Robin's

egg blue, or not, still I sense blue.

-

Just like his medical suit, his scrubs,

his daily subscription to Everyman's

crime of time (same as mine, this crime).

And, just like a million other things no one

needs, the situations bring themselves

forth: the rank offal of righteous control.

-

And sadly too, no one heeds what

no one needs, so it all just goes on:

all those fallacious and windy deeds  -  

art and medicine and sport and death.

I specify this moment for one reason

alone  -  glaring, forceful source, father

of love and money, an old Nobodaddy 

himself  glaring down. And William Blake 

was right, I bet, when he wrote :

'Mercy wears a human face.'

3740. NO, YOU'VE NEVER MISSED

NO, YOU'VE NEVER MISSED

(Some king of crinoline slip, some kind of ivy)

OK, brother, then, things I know nothing about :

let's start there. The way the faded peak you erected 

twenty-years ago still stands over Dad's old barn;

the farmstead, yes, that lingers. In this old country,

good fiction is no fiction at all. Everything's true,

if you want it to be. Cows moo while hawks fly

overhead and a few dogs are always baying.

No one ever talks, any more, about speed-reading.

3739. DON'T

DON'T

I wanted to say : don't touch my stuff, don't

give me any better ideas. They're yours, or

can't you see that? However you see things,

it's not the way I see. You can mark and mar,

you can talk and critique, all you want. It

won't matter. My meanings still come forth

from the words I receive, in the manner and

the means that I'm given. So sorry to move on.

3738. PENETRATE

PENETRATE

Long ago and distant : caves and fires, pure

red pigments, clay and shards. Everything was

so different, and even the sunlight was glazed.

I swung around once, just to understand depth

and vision  -  I was learning, and all of this was

new to me new. Amazed, unsettled and raw.

My tongue tried to speak, tried finding sound

that had meaning : most difficult, yes, and new.

What a world : an entryway portal where things

seemed heavier and more slow than ever, where

each thing had to be stipulated and spoken, where

first the creatures who stood had to agree on a

meaning for all of what they said. Nothing was easy.

 

3737. LOOK! MEASURE AGAINST MEASURE!

LOOK! MEASURE 

AGAINST MEASURE

'A tree will drop leaves to weather a drought, will take

measures against bad times to come. As for us, nay;

we wantonly consume, and go mad with excitement,

to forestall the horrid day when we shall have to be

without. By any other definition, 'tis Madness!!', they

would shout.'

3736. ONLY A FREEDOM COLLIDES

ONLY A FREEDOM COLLIDES

Now marksman, now preacher, look

up from your tools : only a freedom

collides with intention, disrupting the

millions of gallant fools. It is we ourselves

who are sitting in this harbor, don't you know,

not our lone reflections. The wind comes up

from the water, moves things about; all the

paper-cups and leaflets blown about.

Only a freedom collides.

-

The men who are in the window, the

cat who sits on the stoop, the twisting

fact of light (which can never twist in

truth), each of these things stands apart

and  -  real enough  -  stands apparent

and as truth. I can only watch to observe,

and only a freedom collides.

-

The long, dead wash of old times, I say,

yes, does all seem ever to continue  -  look,

see, Franco gone, and Tojo gone and

Ceacescu and Selassie too  -  all those

mighty names of the past now gone. Yet

everywhere new names arrive and arise.

Only a freedom collides, even here.

-

Even there, only a freedom collides

with slavery and only a freedom collides 

with war and only a freedom collides with

bondage and ruin and frozen will. The way

it has always been, and the same way

it will always be. Only a freedom collides.

-

The gulls are seamlessly spitting  -  they

gorge and yell, they throw things back

into the harbor grave. We know their

leavings and we know their gleanings.

Outside of that, little else comprises our

matter : the little man, the apron'd one,

comes out sweeping something, to push 

away matter. To haul his moment scurrying.

His moment is free, and yet only 

his freedom collides.

3735. AND NOW THE BIG ONE

AND NOW 

THE BIG ONE

As I write, as I swear, as I utter:

now is the moment before me  -  on the

curb nearby, that woman is buying wine

in a paint can. I do swear. It's true.

Near to that, a $4000 BMW motorcycle

is for sale on the sidewalk - a 1992 K

something or other. Not bad at all, nicely

kept, mileage not much. Across from that,

the Tickenor Art Gallery shows nudes as

clowns and still-lives with trains going by.

The walls are made up as faux-distressed,

as if we (all) lived amidst a revolution.

I am beaming, for I really do love all this stuff.

Winsome girls in Summer clothes glide by, to

sit for coffee or small lunches. Overly-strange

dude'd men, with tattoos and heavy-frame glasses,

a tophat or two, they too pass, alone or together,

or hooked to some woman or man. Who knows?

I want to scream out for something, anything:

'Does anyone here know me? Would anyone here

give a damn?' A singly scary black guy does sidle

up, asking for 'small change for water?'  -  enjoying

his odd integrity, I give him 50 cents. He takes it,

in an abject, humble way that makes me,

already, sorry for nothing

so much as myself.

3734. INTEGRAL TO NOTHING

INTEGRAL TO NOTHING

I am a distant wanderer, walking with a stave of

greenery bunched from a tree - I walk yonder hills,

streaming ideas back at me. It takes no intention

to make all this work; my days are unseasoned,

each new, and done without rancor or pain. I have

a starry heaven above my head, and a place at

night for same : I place things down as dreams

surround, and awake with a world for a bed.

Intentions are as simple as wishes.

All things should be well.

3733. LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN

LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN

The King of Malevolence is wringing his hands,

dire prophets are snapping at his iron heels.

There is nothing left for him beneath the sun -

this death and destruction has already been done.

His cards (I noticed) had all been marked, and

the hangman had already colored his tree. At

the nearby saloon, the girls were taking odds

on how long it would take : would he linger writhing,

would he piss and crap his pants, would his neck

snapped once be enough? These were all good

questions of the moment. Over at Boot Hill,

Jardot the Snake had already dug a fearsome

hole and filled it twice already with his own

spit and venom. It should be a lovely day.

No guns would even be needed, though

Marshall Bleek and Sheriff Tawdry would, 

I'm sure have their arms at the ready.

3732. HERE AT THE GRAVE OF GENERAL MEADE

HERE AT THE GRAVE 

OF GENERAL MEADE

What was this Gettysburg stuff if not death and

destruction: a cause worth defeating, for whom

and what cost? I don't know  -  and now, on a

Philadelphia hilltop I stand exposed in a blistering

Summer heat, looking down at a grave I've never

known. General Meade, at my feet, is dead; his

bright flag waving yet in this breeze. I don't know

why, or how matters are, but it little matters,

really, how this world runs its course. The dead

are their own, and all their silver and coins have

their cost. I won't even look down.

I just walk away.

3731. TRAVELING (barnyard of doom)

TRAVELING

(barnyard of doom)

Like like, like me a late starter on the

Mississippi Delta, I want to wring your

favored hands over the broken sides of

the ruddy pool at the old Warwick Hotel.

1315 Gravier Street still will have to do, and

we'll roll our carnival dice together, me and you.

-

The hunchback shall wear his fragrance and

slime and outside of the jagged window edge

will pierce the nighttime sky with light - a

purloined light which has pilfered night -

the light of morning and morning's light.

Take me to your taskmaster, 

like me a late starter.

-

And there are too many herds

in this barnyard of doom.

3730. WHAT ALL THE YOUNG FOLK BELIEVE IN

WHAT ALL THE YOUNG 

FOLK BELIVE IN

'My freedom is unbound, I know no

fetters, the law cannot hold me at all.

I go where I want with whomever and

listen at will to all things.' Like an

armistice call and a treaty for some

Robert E. Lee, every connection

brings something back. 'Do you not

know,' he was heard to say at Appomattox,

'do you not know that my father rode with

George Washington and the rest?' The

silence, there too, was deafening.

3729. MORN

MORN

It benefits us to arise, to seek that

winding finger that slants the horizon.

Look! Look!, dear amigo, the white

splice across the sky, it is here, this new

morning's sun, arising high. How soon

before the mid of day is it now?

3728. UPDATING MR. HIAWATHA

UPDATING MR. HIAWATHA

Your sure swig swing-hat semblance,

a nomenclature so vague from the 1700's,

and before that, the stories ingrained,

they make me sure I am here. This land

had nothing, and no one came from here

who came here. Interlopers all. We had to

mythologize a thousand stories to make it

valid and sure. The waves no longer break

on Plymouth Rock. Instead, some new form

of Portobello Mushroom Cloud keeps the

feeble masses occupied. Happiness grows

like candles on a cake of excrement -

seemingly chocolate, folks, but the joke's

on you. All around the land, just under

the dirty ground, the bones of all your

dead and famished Indian bodies.

Now, 'ain't you proud' for that alone?

3727. WAINSCOT

WAINSCOT

I want to go, I have the heavings and intentions 
of finding out - where the lady-land vespers 
disappear after they are heard, how the

running robin skitters and turns over this 
the bounteous land like a thundering herd
of very quiet birds. This, this is presented: the

first morn of Summer the year's longest day. 
The radio voice that presumes to tell tall 
tales of all of these things, the smattering

of small-talk that moves such things along.

-

Yet, no, this morning sky is not like that at
all: the train whistle shrieks, and the tiny
red car, all noise and blather, yet storms 
down old Nassau making its riot of sound 
and smell - the ancient odor somehow of 
burned and wasted fossil-fuel brought up
from a million years to remind me of the

tell. Longest time - longest day; all together

and just as well. That little Spanish fellow,

I see him drive glibly along : unknowing in 
his malfeasance, a dumb-struck smile 
upon his face, listening to song, staring

straight out, his longest day forever, 
just rolling along.

-

Somehow I know it has always been thus, 
and I shall make never no difference

no how. My small card of time, already

punched, is running along and down, sending 
its palest vibration outward - see this, see that, 
I was here, I did that. It all matters very little in 
the end. I want to go. I have the heavings
and the intentions of finding it out.

3726. CALIFON

CALIFON

Now you have that marvelous look - you get to keep it,

it's yours, I'm hooked. I'll run it backwards over and over,

well, forever - just to make it last. Purloined apples, and

that bottled water at the bridge. Every principled edifice

we ever imagined can be ours, together, for the taking.

That crazy man, over there, he's said he's selling his

entire collection of vintage slot cars. Amazing that

some people would want nothing more than that,

nothing more. I stare back  -  your eyes are

a frothy, wet mix of wonder and awe.

3725. PRIME-TIME BATTLE

PRIME-TIME BATTLE

They fought the war untended, doing what they pleased.

The men lost legs and arms as if they were candy bars,

easy to dispense and easier to replace. Why men do this,

unwittingly and without even asking, is always beyond me.

There's not an upper-level officer alive who will tell them

it's shit, all for naught, there's no freedom involved.

Like clouds filled with murk, that's an indecorous concept,

that men die for principle and fight with valor for goals and

for honor. It's all dog-eat-dog and enforced control. Rank 

and serial, level and command. The very opposite of 

Freedom, no matter where you sand : not worth a lick,

and no going back. Every man for himself and the other,

dead bodies litter the illiterate field. 

They fight their wars, untended.
-
(Why do you fight for 'Freedom' as a slave?).

3724. ARTIFICE AND PLACE

ARTIFICE AND PLACE

Having jammed the window up, I could not

get it down. Of course, yes, a friend laughed at

that, saying 'better than not being able to get it

up!'. Gallows humor of the rest-home sort.

All around us, the shorebirds made their

popcorn noises, and the slow surf steadily

pounded  -  its language soft yet not, and

all beyond my comprehension. I took the

old rag and walked away. At least that

window was clean. Peering out, what was

that I saw? Some silly man walking along,

metal detector in hand, and a pleasure

boat near the coastal wall  -  coincidently

named 'Up and Ready!' - OK then, I

laughed and went along my way.

3723. NICE DAY

NICE DAY

Man washes his car with lust and dreams as I,

passing, observe. I come upon his workmanship;

he's beneath a tree, working in the shade. I don't

wish to see anything, really, of his day. A hubcap

shines his face back to me  -  some 'classic car'

crap from another day. Cars and mufflers and

exhaust and mirrors. All that decays.

-

I want to see this dude's dreams : I want to

catch that picture of his love that dangles

from the mirror  -  some topless Spanish

babe with a smile and a phrase. Anything

to help him move along his days.

-

I remember a play called 'Equus' :

the lesson of which was, essentially, 

that if a young man isn't grooming and

brushing his horse, it will be his car

to which he's doing the same - someday.

If the horse survives as dream, if

we survive Decay.

3722. RINGOLEVIO

RINGLOLEVIO

Read on the porch, while standing up. I went all the way 
out to Portland New Jersey for that one, just looking for 
things, finding old me who could tell me what's up. I found an 
old man in a ragged antique store, selling anything leftover that 
came his way and, apparently too, he thought would sell. That 
usual assortment of dead-beat shit  -  glasses that magnified for 
reading, old records albums of Vic Damone, tea cozies and 
bottles of milk from long-gone dairies. I didn't know anything, 
was just looking for this commune's old farm. 'Oh yeah, you mean 
that one, that guy who wrote, I think, what was it, I'll Sleep Where 
I Fall. Christ, yeah, we knew them all back in the day. What was 
that, '71, '67. I forget. They had them girls, sprightly little things, 
they'd walk around here to get groceries and stuff, nearly nothing 
on, or then nothing underneath anyway  -  these great big floppy 
gown type things, with nary a stitch underneath. I remember, the 
light would catch them in just such a way and we'd all get a show : 
those little mounds  of tit, that hairy clump of bush. Yeah, don't 
sound like much now, but then - whew - the town council 
meetings on Tuesdays, they get all a'flutter. All for nothing 
anyway, them girls never did a thing 'cept, I guess, fuck hard all 
their commune men. Beats me, now, and so did then.' I laughed 
back at his face, telling my own stories : 'I was there, yeah, some 
of that was me, yeah, all together cool enough. We came up from 
east 3rd, Christ Almighty with them girls in a bushel!  All they 
ever wanted to do was to fuck and suck for free food and a 
baby!  That was  '71, exact; we was among the first up here, 
setting up for free, on Peter Coyote's family farm. He made 
that name up, by the way - and you probably know that.'

3721. LINEAGE

LINEAGE

I've got a black closet full of memories of race : my

North African forebears five generations back, that

old swarm of compatriots ending in the south Italian

maelstrom without a tongue to speak. And on the

other side, Bari, and all those Albanian seamen

running back and forth to that Italian port. Ah, yes,

my life is a mix-up of races and people long dead.

I had a crazed father, with even a pillow for a head;

and a way-too-sensitive mother, never realized until

dead. I only hazard a guess about all the rest.

-

And now? If it was Keats or Shelly who said 'Poets are

the unacknowledged legislators of the world,' they were

only partially right. I am tired of being ignored. I am sick

of this silence. I want to be acknowledged. Everything

else, to hell with it all. I am writing a new scripture for

those who can read. For the rest : those effervescent

cat-callers and dreary dweebs of their  ordinary times,

they can all rot in their days, for all I care. I know what 

the words 'fuck them' mean, and they are said.

3720. ABRACADABRA BROTHERLESS SIS

ABRACADBRA

BROTHERLESS SIS

'Wearing the bio-tribe, we eat nothing that

contains meat or animal. We drink only

fresh water from Montgomery Spring.'

Penciled in a chiseled stone, these

words did little to secure my hunger.

'You know,' said I, 'you know at all

I seek for nothing to eat. I am never

hungry, and drinking only adds to my

woes. I am not of this Earth, and those

problems you have do not enter me.

Anyone who would harm another

life, of any sort, in my book is the

Devil's company anyway. The truly

divine body can subsist on but

sunlight and air, yes, I said,

but sunlight and air.' 
-
'That cuts, out of the equation,
all need for money and power,
all forms of violence and hatred.
Or don't you see that, stupid,
vile Man? Do you
not see at all?'
----

3719. ANGEL OF LIGHT AND ARMOR

ANGEL OF LIGHT 

AND ARMOR

I am kneeling at the cellar door, where the

slim light enters the room from some other

space. Living here, like this, as it's been for

years, I never tire of these special

circumstances : the angel that comes

to visit, the moving coat of frost on the

solid, lightened doors. I can scratch

things back, I can write the words

from another realm  -  a lit torch of

good intention, a lingering fire-patch

from still another distant Heaven.

3718. TANGLEWOOD

TANGLEWOOD

All that figurative matter, all those ideas of power and

lust : I am thinking of you in the backlight, sheer and

shimmering, some white cloak over your shoulders.

No more than that, blunthead, this is 'art'. All those

fey fellows clamoring, all they do is sketch you with

charcoal on their coarse paper boards.

-

The key, I notice, to good landscape painting is a

progression of colors off to the horizon. That line of

distant mountains, arrayed in rows receding outward -

the farther off they are, the lighter their color and tint.

Those things closest to the viewer bear the most color

and strength; things farther off can fade out and be faint.

-

I like the idea of that. In every aspect of life, that can

be worked into whatever occurs. I am still watching

you, fortunately quite up close. Near to me. And,

oh, so vividly colored. You are as unlike the

Berkshires as a cat is unlike a dog. For these

small favors, I am quite happy.

-

I may soon swoon. Your vivid pinks and

idle flesh-tones are enough, I say here,

to make me shudder and faint.

3717. GOAT-MAN

GOAT-MAN

The amateur goat-man has sure got my goat : 

leading to a fair Harry and a lingering suspicion. 

He's a Jew-cat on top of old smokey, and a 

wandering Arab in a mosque of Paralay, the old

Arab quarter of Rome. I see him standing athwart 

ashes, shouting out, 'It's me! It's me!' while tourists 

take his picture. I never sit down, and I can only 

catch his shadow. Every six months, it seems, all

somewhere else again. 'I'm so tired of London! 

I'm so tired of Spain!'

3716. DO IT LIKE TODAY

DO IT LIKE TODAY

I really mean it. Make that noontime

swagger fade, come out to the dawn's

own early light. Going past anything

before, you will clearly see: the grass

in the cemetery is white with wetness,

a glistening gauze of raiment now signalling

the dead to arise  -  a semaphore-vision

of fear and trembling. In one part of the

sky, a thin sliver of new moon shyly fades,

while, in another part nearby, the newest

sun begins to blaze. I am nothing, and

I am a part of all this.

3715. MAGNIFICENT OASIS

MAGNIFICENT OASIS

('ain't nothing like the real thing, baby')
All the portents of the best to come,

the wildest wager, the mountain's best

scent  -  they hang low on this sullen

horizon. I am in an 11th Street tenement

of mind, only now trying to break away.

Next to me, this place called Paradise Alley 

hides too its hordes. The Chicago Outlaws 

are lined up at the 1967 fence  -  they have

come to New York, with all these motorcycles

and girls, to try to take over the city. My own 

list of people grows outward: Andy Bonamo,

Billy Joe and Holly, and the rest of all those

hippy hanger-ons, who would mostly all 

soon be dead. That crazy Mexican giant we

all called Frito, he'd just killed his wife in

Colorado and was hiding out here  -  or 

so he said  -  he'd thrown her out of a

moving car, passenger-side front door,

speeding around a curve on a treacherous

cliffside road, got the door open and

just shoved her out, at 50 mph. He 

said she was 'dead at the bottom'. Yeah,

that story just went on and on. I remember,

he would talk to us in front of that stupid

factory freezer in Rappaport's Ice Cream

Shop on 2nd Ave and 6th, while, behind

him, on the cheap AM radio, Marvin Gaye

and Tammy Tyrell sang a duet. Well, he

was there most every day, until one

day he just wasn't.

3714. I SWEAR, NEVER AGAIN (the Olde Town Tavern)

 I SWEAR, NEVER AGAIN

(the Olde Town Tavern)

'I never boasted of all the harlots who've had my

big dick. I never yet toasted the whores I've roasted.'

The sing-song man was clearly drunk, or well on

his way to filth and destitution. All the same, he

paid for everything he dumped, and even paid

for mine. I'd let him talk all day  -  if we have 

to listen bum-fucking Presidents at their whim

and time, I'd see no harm in listening to him.

Like a priest or a minister sublime, this guy

was poised for a rebuttal not mine. 'The women

I've known, whew, man, I could tell you stories! Here,

here, smell my fingers kid, and that was just last night!

You, you think I'm old, right? Fuck, she was 27, and

still as tight as me right now. My golly, what I time.

I brought her in with my knuckle, and Christ Almighty

wasn't she a'smilin' then.' He never stopped. He

used the Daily News for a napkin. I swear he

was pissing his pants. I threw a five down

on the bar, and got up and left.

3713. GUNNERWALL

GUNNERWALL

He took the oath to never bother anyone

again : walking past the doorway of the

firing-squad's lounge, just sticking his

head in to say hi, and keeping on his way.

He bought five tickets to nowhere, train,

rail and bus, and a package for Bombay.

'Mumbai', said the clerk, you mean 'Mumbai.'

Even Rudyard Kipling wouldn't know the

answer to that one. 'No, no, well maybe,'

he said, 'maybe I want Kilimanjaro, or

the Darjeeling Express. What's the

difference, really?' The young girl behind

the clerk looked up and smiled, 'My

mother's family once hailed from

Gujurat. Back then they were quite

wealthy. Alas, nothing now. Katjiawar, 

Madhya Pradesh, places like that. You

should see, maybe, Lothal, Dholavira,

Golo Dhoro.' She went back to her papers.

Everything seemed right in its way, 

and he smiled back beaming.

3712. THE ECCENTRIC FACE OF THE WORLD

THE ECCENTRIC 

FACE OF THE WORLD

The eccentric face of the world has its miles 

and centuries while I have my none and nothing;

yet, my sleeve is a smile and my leggings are

pleasures and joys. This bomber-wing-like

faction, so extreme in its manners and ways,

can take down a town or a city in time.

'I have nothing so much to do as wait.

I am Ozymandias myself; look upon

my works, towers stand to falter and

mountains tend to sand. All things

amount to nothing at all.'

-

The five grand acres of Carnegie Lake

are now shrouded by fogs of the

morning and ringed by the wet

trees of June. The geese and the

ducks  -  as well as the four-legged

dwellers of this water and wood  -

come gingerly out to the shore 

to wager. This morning fog at

dawn, so thick, protects and

grants them cover.

-

All things amount to nothing at all.

3711. AND OF CLEVES

AND OF CLEVES
The most beautiful laurel leaf, barely in place, just
hanging. I stopped for a moment, surmising my place.
Nearby, the small fountain gurgled, its water spitting
forth a gentle stream. As if a sky was overhead, the
great blue beckoned. As it was, instead, a few girders
and a light-long pole had to suffice. Indoor fir trees, never
right and never at home. Why, so displaced, is ever this
world of plans and constructions? And, yes, people pretend
to be living here, well and at ease, in full.

3710. HAVE WE?

HAVE WE?

Have we yet marked the end of our days with a

pleasure of mayhem and haze  -  the thin, leftover

smokes of fun and passion and frolic and zest?

No, not yet; for there are so many more before

us : I scale high the Monsey hilltop, I look for

the boards on the ledge. This overlook is

called scenic, by some, by this ridiculous

Parks Service sign, by the last fool who

looked out in his time. I myself now

see nothing much at all except the

shadows of a dark deep past : That

Inness landscape, the trestle-train

slowly seen smoking its way over

the fair and distant ridge; those

Delaware River rocks, high and

mighty, still so far above 

our heads.

3709. THE CRACKUP

THE CRACKUP

The crackup, the Hayden viewing stone where

they store the molasses and water. I will rein

you in, I will suffocate you. I will razor-wire

your face into a hundred little pieces, raw

fellow recondite mouse biscuit, leveler of

houses. Now let me talk : give me that old

black desktop phone, let me sing the ages

in a broken mouthpiece where even old

Methuselah manages his own mimicry.

I am the biscuit man! See me here again!

It may be high Winter, but it is warm, and

I am sitting at the Brooklyn Waterfront Cafe

where the coffee is made from blood and that

waitress is running size 6 in decay on white pink

buttocks with a maudlin candle-top double-breasted

spindle-top bed. Work your magic on me! Put now

your legs behind your head and let me see the

Union Jack  : in the dozens, when time gets slow,

I see she gets busy reading 'The History of Rain'.

-

Over at the library some translator is giving his

event; a 'translated' talk about translation, they

say, but I can't tell. 'La Rondure Returnez Vous.'

Very well then, and Alsace-Lorraine to you.

-

I turn around three times : the old ruins of a beat

tobacco warehouse from the Civil War days  -  when

everything else on the harbor-front became a hot

ammo-drop ready to blow : big frothy ships with

billowing and tandem sails filled with briny soldiers

and dirty men  -  survivors!  -  and then the ironclad

that was tested in the waters, made right here at

the Navy Yard. Gone and gone and goner and then

the vicious war was over. I sit regarding nothing. I

think regarding everything. Take my hand and

I will waltz you away, right now.

('Let us go then, you and I').