Tuesday, July 31, 2012

3812. LIED TO YOU

LIED TO YOU
I did. So what? Who cares?
You should have known anyway,
that I was not Superman or Jesus Christ,
two identities I tried to fake. How you
fell for me is worse than how you fell
for my stories. Now, the jailer makes
his rounds with that simple tray of food :
for me! Jail toast, jail coffee, a jail fruit-cup,
jail meatloaf, and the most wonderful jail potatos.
I truly have everything that I need. Now, let me
ask you again, do you believe that one?
I lied to you, I did.

3811. ANTIPODE

ANTIPODE
I am sailing on this wide-eyed water rising
in swells and fits; every heave of this craft
makes me nauseous again. How can I
hold steady when I feel like I'm ready to 
die? Near me, the two blue-eyed fisherman 
are boldly drawing in their catch  -  fish after
fish, as if it never ends. Feed the masses, then?
I would certainly think so. They smoke their
lethal cigarettes, clouding my air even more.
Have I mentioned I want to die?
-
This far out on the water, what can I see?
Only a distant horizon, traced gently with
Atlantic City buildings  -  the sick skyline
of hotel and casino. It's actually far enough
away that I can use the fixed line of sight
to see how high we rise and fall. This 
ocean water's always a gamble. How
high? (Have I mentioned I want to die?).

Monday, July 30, 2012

3810. MALVERN CAVERN

 MALVERN CAVERN
Deep down deep they went so far that
out what seeped was the blackest tar.
I'd never seen anything like this before.  
-
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer together
could never have made up this yarn :
Aunt Polly was really a man and
Becky did the whole entire town and
that's how the fence got painted.
-
I read it in the wagon, between those
two books Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn,
I'd seen it all and mixed it up enough,
and that ! that was my vagrant youth.
-
'Oh on the ole' river a'coursin' I went free,
'jes floatin' old Nigger Jim and me, and
them two crazy guys and the Shepardson
girl and the steeple that rang my demise.
An' I a-never know'd nothin' at all after that.
-
Say, Huck, ain't that my noose meant a'fer
your neck ? and how could they mix us up?'

3809. JUMBLE



JUMBLE
I suppose you came home for supper,
like I suppose you ever cared - the soup was
pea green and the coffee brown like mud. All
things made me so unhappy. Underneath the 
carpet, the runs of cracked wood were all
well-covered. I hid in the closet until you left.
-
Just as I never met my father, I'd never before
met my mother  -  both were strangers to me.
Used to being alone, disowned, I took no
bad feelings of whatever I was (not) given.
My life was a blunder, a slum. I really
should have died at seven.
-
Alas, I lingered  -  I grew too old, too soon;
I stayed at this fair until the tents and
carnival acts were all gone. The bare
ground, looking abandoned and worn,
was all I ever saw. My mind, too, was
but a sepia photo on a chipped and
barren mantle I seldom ever looked at.
Enough. I'm so tired, just let me go.


3808.SINGING A SPIRITUAL MUSIC

SINGING A 
SPIRITUAL MUSIC
Oh made of steel, oh you are not.
The cauldron at the entrance burns,
and your fury knows no ending  -  I would
never stay to watch. There are chickens
here, scratching at the ground. I sit back
just to see them go. On the wooden
post hangs a sign announcing 'eggs for
sale'. It's all silly and simple, but it
works; people do stop.
-
By the drawbridge, a few carousers
take their stands  -  a lady on a bicycle
stops, a man preens his crummy-looking
dog. Not far off, the river that leads to
Pennsylvania runs its steady way along
the border. Logs and wood float by.
-
I'm steady, and pretty sure of what I know.
I deem appropriate only the things that I
feel matter : the red rope entwined at the
door of the barn; that thirty-year old car,
still left here in the weeds; the hayrick,
now old and sagging on bad springs.
-
Down below all this, in the center
of the world, I know another voice
is singing. It is one I cannot always
hear, but when I do I understand
and heed, and listen for more.
My spirit is a pliant thing.

Friday, July 27, 2012

3807. THE ORDINARY BEING OF THINGS

THE ORDINARY 
BEING OF THINGS
'Catch him on his way out, then he can't linger
to talk.' Amidst a hall of distorting mirrors, we
are given (somehow) time to speculate about
our place and being. Isn't that, alone, enough?
No, it's not, for you are seeking answers too;
and all these people who work in a halfway
house are truly in a halfway house.
-
I find that I cannot get anywhere, because
 of 'things' : the flowers on the mantle and 
their conspicuous vase; the leftover, shiny 
paper behind the used adhesive of the stamps;
the old, brown bag that the rolls came in,
the shoebox on the dresser - filled now
with old photos and cards.
-
How things change surprises me.
I really can get but little done.
-
You are always playing that same old
music  -  some adagio by Samuel Barber,
or another Berlioz dream of a witch's Sabbath.
I'd rather a Pavanne by Ravel right now - but
that's how so many things differ, and why we
walk about in awe. First everyone watched the
woodsmen rubbing sticks to make a fire  -
which they treasured and kept.  -  
-
and in certain characteristic ways, called
it God; just like the fiery Sun above. Now, 
at the end of a 10-second matchstick, the
flame flames out and we think
nothing of it at all.

3806. TALKS LIKE SO TIRED AND DREARY

TALKS LIKE SO 
TIRED AND DREARY
My reality is an expression of a set's 
expansion  -  a configuration wherein
all things exist at once; every facet of
was and is, could be, making a fabric
of the 'real' that I see. All is of 'now',
and it is temporary and passing. I'm
so happy we met this way - yet I 
wish things were more lasting.

3805. KINNELON, WANTING

KINNELON, WANTING
(a change of season)
Only the wild dresser knows the
things I'm seeking  -  Reality marked
in a flask, 'midst a vacuous shield,
erupting from things within.Don't ask.
-
It is early morning here outdoors;
the new light sings while the birds,
it seems, cheer as Summer carries
on. The food truck idles, and a
lone and solitary man is now seen
struggling with a cart of frozen meats.
-
No hydraulics lift the sun.
No dark matter shuts out the sky.
Everything is present at once,
and all is singularity.
-
I remember you walking in, past the
glass doors and the lamplight fixture.
You carried yourself with a certain
elan I could never attain nor reach -
a lovely doe, whose mother was gone.
This was really all a mystery, and there
was something about the time, the light,
and the idea now of a change of season.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

3804. MAGIC

MAGIC
I never harmed a flea, 'til a flea harmed me.
I never ate a cow, 'til the cow ate me.
I never dreamed a dream, 'til a dream had me.
I never acted blind, until I could no longer see.
My life was a magic moment, unfettered, free.
My life was a magic moment, 'til the magic
disappeared me.

3803. INTIFADA?


INTIFADA?
This is the sickening heartbeat I remember : calloused and
weary, only beating now because it has to. I don't know why
this ever came to be : outside the orphanage, 4-stories of red
brick with reinforced glass windows and a Jewish star in the
masonry above the doorway, I remembered your name, and
how we'd met and now what's come to be. A quiet tear rolled
down my cheek as again I dared myself to look up. This was
nothing like an infraction, though they could call it what they
wished. I'd heard that word before : a breaking of the rules,
a crossing of a broken heart. Maybe not. I never did find out.
My mind was too dizzy and before long anyway it was over.
I lit a candle and cursed the light. Can you figure that? I lit
a candle and cursed the light just made.
-
If I was a million miles away, or a hundred, or on the very
surface of Mars, I'd still be thinking of you, and this moment.
There are no Jewish stars in space? Or is that what they
all are? Beyond borders, even the ones we can mend, there
are always others, always, others trying to get in.

3802. HIGH PRAISE

HIGH PRAISE
Reading again : all those tyrannical Popes,
their sisters and daughters and, now, right
at the present day, a hundred Internet scribblers
posting their God-flamed works. Every critic has
a brother, and every brother is a critic. Critical
acclaim, critical condition, critical situation, and
critical decision. I want to decide to get out, go
away, leave the flaming jackals to their own
devices. Cats and dogs lick their asses because
they can. I think Internet poets do it because
they really, really, down deep want to.

3801. MEPHISTOPHELES DOOM

MEPHISTOPHELES 
DOOM
'Them's the wonder they that wander o'er
many a stinking rubbish hole' - two drunks
were sadly singing what I thought could
actually be a pretty happy song; wobbling
along, clasping shoulders and each holding
a green bottle, filled I was sure with their choice
of slog. I just hoped it wasn't their own piss.
The building fronts were broken  -  a meat-man,
a marketplace, a truck depot, a baker. Everything
was closed. The lights of the night-sky had taken
over  :  Chelsea Piers, the big gas -station, the
looming towers and that universal television glow
we all live with, even the best of us and ever the
worst  -  and even those who won't admit to it.
I surely knew carousers in my day, but here the
girls themselves did all the gawking back to those who
gawked - tendentious blouses, high-heeled shoes, and
yellow taxis that matched their dress and cloak. My
God, what a marvelous world this shit turned out to be.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

3800. MICHAEL TOMES

MICHAEL TOMES
I want to disengage the grave, and
take the coating off the mountain -
and I used to see glimpses of that
everywhere : the future with no edge;
me standing near a fountain; and you,
with your head in your hands.
-
Now, someone tells me you are dead,
others hand me a notice  -  off in the
wilds of Afghanistan, the tumbled sands
something like this: narrow, blue, pulsing
with blood, scimitars, minarets and mosques,
proud camels, charnel houses, rifles slung
over shoulders padded and proud with War.
I always said you should trade your firebomb
gunfight-army days for the peace of a Jersey
shore or some more solid vacation in Maine.
Take up dance; Kalashnikov traded for Baryshnikov.
-
Looking at a paper now, I realize I know nothing,
and you were always a cipher  -  the long lost dead,
a penny between clenched teeth  -  or, as in old
early photos, the grotesque western bandits, 
bullet-ridden and dead, propped up for one last
photo, one last shot before burial; the boot-hill
cemetery, the pauper's field, or just a grave on
the edge of some dumb, useless town.

3799. ROOM FOR MORE


ROOM FOR MORE
Extending both arms, looking skyward, I said
'Buonarotti, come over here.' Michelangelo soon
enough came to me. I asked what he was doing,
and he replied, with a startlingly eye 'I'm painting
on my back! All the time long, this boffo Pope he
makes me do his biddings. With sticks and markers
I first have to line out all the ceilings; while he watches
he critiques my lines, that ignoramus. Knows nothing
of what I do, or what I want to do, only knows what
he thinks he wants. Ah! His church, it is crap, all
crap, and he's in indulgent hock to his collar; but
then so am I and so I must work, even for a fool
like this.' I agreed with him, saying 'yes, you do
look tired and worn; in fact, you looked stained by
work, the color of brown blood and bad frescoes,
no?' He groaned, to agree  -  a noise I knew meant
a certain satisfaction. 'This Julius, this Pope, his
Vatican is a cesspool, a vile vale of corruption
and wicked men. His sisters slander, and the
others  -  those not in the know  -  they just bow
and pray and bend and pretend. Oh woe is me
for just being here alive.' I gave him a chance
to recover and then I spoke : 'Michelangelo, you
are missing the point  -  this paint, these ceilings,
all that you do, will live, believe me, will live on, and
hundreds of years from now people will still be grasping
your name in wonder, and gasping for air as they see
what you've done. You are operating outside of time,
so be glad for all that  -  nothing works to stop you,
and all that glory still awaits. Even in your after-death
moments, people will regale you with tales and stories
of what it is you have done. So, be not restless, and
remain in place. Be still. Settle yourself in. A very
long haul awaits you ahead.'

3798. NEW CAREERS FOR LETHARGIC PEOPLE

NEW CAREERS FOR
LETHARGIC PEOPLE
I ran into the fence-line running. At face-level, it gouged
my cheek and took out an eye. So, saucer-faced for the
remainder of my days, I lived a dog's life in this New
York City gutter : bumming for fleece and cigarettes,
stealing every wafer and water I could find, making deals
with both crooks and cops to stay alive. They called
me 'One-Eyed Alcatraz' and always seemed to find me
when needed. I couldn't hide, but I was so much out
in the open that no one knew exactly where I was.
Sweet deal. I took to horses, and groomed many a
mare in the side-street stables : where the workhorses
were kept  -  drayage and cart, food-wagon, water-tray,
firemen's-wagons and all that. I smoked ten billion cigarettes
in the run of this ample life, I bet. Nothing ever stopped me;
power, stimulation, energy, they all were my own. And
every woman I ever had never left without asking 'once
more, again, please.' Just the way I liked it. My birth
and anniversary days were held under docks and wharves
where I slept; kindness and the gentle paid me visits, I ate
whatever I was given or whatever I stole. And whenever. I
kept no hours for nothing at all. Until Death, until Death,
it affixed me, put me in place, stopped me dead, and here
I am alone to tell you - one more orphan, swirling. 'I would
not stop for Death, so Death kindly stopped for me.'

3797. IN THE DIPLOMAT'S HOUSE


IN THE DIPLOMAT'S HOUSE

His wife was a  bitch, and already his
foreign-tongued daughter was whoring.
I knew that and so did he  -  it doesn't
take a foreign intrigue to smell wet panties
and protein-infused breath. He was just too
stupid to realize, or step in, or complain.
Dumb shit, always the ragged diplomat.
-
I sat around their house plenty of afternoons;
east 53rd, doorman, crystal doorway and, down
below, the fucking east river in all its pounding glory.
I stayed whenever, and they let me be : some sort of
American adjunct to their foreign-education outreach
program was I. Complete bullshit and illicit crap - it
let them launder money down a trap, and all I ever saw
of anything was, here and there, a crisp fifty and all
the food I needed. Plus of course, her; OK, I admit,
both hers. Again, he was too stupid to know.
-
I should have been President of something,
all the knowledge I picked up along the way.

Monday, July 23, 2012

3796. AND NOW YOUR WORDS PASS

AND NOW YOUR WORDS PASS
I have grown so tired of the melancholic
gloom  -  look, look, I am aces and funny!
Nothing can stop me now - only, you tell
me, how green is the other grass? Madmen
make marks, and their stentorian tones make
me snarl. 'We've done a lot out of thin air.'
-
The girl saying that to me had strayed this way
from somewhere else. I decided to say nothing
back. This man with no voice - a real person  -
pulled her over and flashed her a paper  -  to write
her a note. She willingly sat; I don't know why.
But, oh, it seems, so many things are
different in the light of day.
-
My fellows, my girls, this is Poetry's world.
The broken quotation, the truncated swirl,
the fractured quatrain. Don't take more than
a moment to stop where it stops. Keep going
on; your life is the adventure to laugh at, and
I have grown so tired of the melancholic gloom.

3795. AS THIS ANONYMOUS MR. MELVILLE

AS THIS ANONYMOUS
MR. MELVILLE
I am often found waiting, and like
this I wait - silence, exile, and cunning
together. The sled of time, my seaward
dogs are pulling, and I watch them go.
Goodbye old land  -  it is good to see
you pass. I hear tolling bells  -  Trinity
and Church, any of those harbor streets
around me; yes, I am ever and always
your stranger. In this tiny prison of things,
I am kept, but I am not guilty.
-
Call me what you want  -  I am gargantuan
like the whale. I seize, and thrash about. I
seek a comfort among the something : windlass
scurry, ribald aces, dogged sailor aloof at sea,
regurgitate again this sorry tale to me.

Friday, July 20, 2012

3794. YES THEN, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

YES THEN, THE 
ANIMAL KINGDOM
I have seen your shoulders watching the
Kalahari, egging one thing or another over
the desert sands. You bring all things along
so well : kingfishers, the way it's said, the
curling, blinking, lit-up sign which somehow
avoids all records and definitions. I am not you
and you are not me. Sit next to me; let us share.
-
Human footprints, human hair,
human moments, human fear - holding
things together, this human capacity;
and I am, as yet, so afraid to move on.
Some say we should evolve to other things.
I am staying right here, while my happy heart sings.

3793. SHRAPNEL

SHRAPNEL
What is this shrapnel 'neath my
skin? It's festering, it hurts. It 
is a wound that I still must carry -
a heavy loaf of really bad bread,
now coated with postules and sores.
Oh so sorry for me, I am.
-
What is this shrapnel beneath my skin?
It is happiness in pockets beaming.
And of well I remember the wounding
and hold it dear still. And, and so
happy for me, I am.

3792. SALAMANDER DWELLS IN BONES

SALAMANDER
DWELLS IN BONES
Too many people ask me for good sense; I have
none really. Too many people seek to find my ways
out; I have none really. I go about my means, forced
by myself to function  -  first this, then that. What
works, works well for me, at that instant; and then
it's over. I don't stay around.
-
I'm standing between two buildings: one of a
yellow, painted hue, and the other solid with
hundred-year-old brick. This is an old spot, here,
and I like it  -  it reminds me of, and I can sense,
old industry and hard-working men. Block and tackle,
trucks and tracks, nails and hammers and labor.
None of that ephemeral stuff we deal with today.
-
Right over here, some jokers have landscaped a
very strict garden; a grove of flowers and seats,
molded chairs and a plastic-wood table. All crap,
even the plans for this must have smelled.
Distasteful as all, for me, this distended
parkspot dangles and gapes, tries hard
to be something it never can be - a real
and authentic place. Jesus God, do
I want to run and hide from this
pathetic waste.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

3791. PUTTING FORTH WHATEVER YOU WISH

PUTTING FORTH 
WHATEVER YOU WISH
Sheep and goats must always be kept with 6 miles
of water - the distance they can walk to and from 
twice a day. How do I know that? It's like the
old struggle between pastoral and farming as
ways of life : the fixed circumstance, the moving
tribe. Cain and Abel again and again. I just know.
-
I was struggling with pen to paper. Even
before language, and then after, I understood
that most of mankind would not understand
whatever it was I meant or was writing.
The very first message, or signal, I
suppose, was fire. Burning bush,
voice of God, fiery stylus.
Whatever you wish to say.

3790. OUTSIDE OF YOUR NATURAL BLUSH

OUTSIDE OF YOUR 
NATURAL BLUSH
Don't think too hard, it stresses your face;
and all those lovely lines of solace and grace
keep calling me in. I've read books before,
just like this; right to their very endings.
-
Everywhere I go, there are moments bringing
things forth : the French guy in Marcus Garvey Park
calling for his dog to be leashed once more; the
two boys at the water fountain, arguing and pushing
each other for access. It was all so uncomfortable -
they were simply hot and cranky, each.
-
How can we ever co-exist? Like this, to a
man, we grow so weary of each other, en masse.
A company is known by the company it keeps -
outside of your natural blush, I don't think there's
anything really right with this world.

3789. OWING TO THE MOMENT

OWING TO THE MOMENT
Catch this will you - the tradesman in the Pirates
cap is wearing his sleeves rolled up, pulling on
his pants, and smoking a cigarette  -  all three
things at once. And you thought your life
was complicated.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

3788. FENDER AND BRUSH

FENDER AND BRUSH
'The entire time I was here we never
found the meaning, and that thing
was always bent  -  like Nefertiti's oasis
it just shimmered and was lost forever.
I must first make an example of you.'
-
Even on this wide, hotel porch, I noticed,
people gravitated just to talk to each other,
as if the silence of being alone was just
too much to bear. Waiters carried out their
sand-soup and coffee while carrels of baked
goods slumbered in a rack. Along the horizon,
beyond the pounding surf, the ocean sagged,
its boats and tankers long drooping in a haze
beneath a wavering and distant sky. The silence
uttered its noise, the noise its silence. Casino
voting was the topic of the day.
-
'I must first make an example of you' - I had
heard the man say that, I was certain, but couldn't
glance the meaning nor the context. As it was, they
were just words  -  weird, distant, and evocative
of something, wildly floating around.

3787. PORGY AND BESS

PORGY AND BESS
In Wintertime, these mornings are freezing
cold no matter what  -  ice wind off the water,
always blowing in, white caps curling like a
sneer, the thin snap-spray of a wispy salt
on everything. I know I can never escape
these days; every pillow and blanket wet
or damp and even my dry heaves run to
soggy. This beach-life sure is a test -
there's just nowhere to go in this room.
(I live alone, with Porgy and Bess,
my pen, and the rest...).

3786. CHINATOWN

CHINATOWN
The nickelodeon was spent, the screen behind the
glass was gone, and fifteen chivalrous soldiers led
the way to both time and reason. Not knowing what
a capstan was, I never ventured forth to see. The
flowering Chinese woman at the old Mayflower Cafe,
well, she was a different story : Tong War maiden,
Nationalist Party lackey, fevered yellow whore - I'd
heard her called many things like that in my day.
At the end of Mott, or one of those crazy streets,
they had a chicken in a booth. For a quarter in the
slot, that chicken somehow would dance and peck,
and out would tumble some sort of crummy prize.
I always wondered how long the chicken lasted and
how many they had to replace. It all seemed
so callous and crude.
-
That's the way it is and was  -  not much changes
in the realm of the sorry and sad. I think of a hundred
things at once, and realize they're mostly all sad.
Especially here, in Chinatown  -  or at least some
nutty old Chinatown of the mind : ducks, glazed,
dead, and roasted, hanging on hooks from their necks
in the restaurant windows; piles of hacked, webbed feet
for sale; stupefied, fat fish, rolling low in a tankful of
bad water; diners selecting their things to eat while turtles
play on their death-watch in small, plastic tanks. I have to
move on, giving thanks, I guess, for the smallest of things:
-
the light shining off that puddle, glinting its way
back to me; the little girl, shyly blowing bubbles off
a plastic stick, while her brother plays, nearby, in the
open tenement doorway and along the stoop, rolling
small toy cars along the three bottom steps.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

3785. MY DELICIOUS YEARS

MY DELICIOUS YEARS
Some semblances of fast things yet haunt me: the
wicker basket at the old club line, the quick, stiletto
kiss while awaiting new judgment. All that was now
so long ago but not forgotten. They can outsource
everything but the mind.
-
I still have all those shallow items we left at
Mariner's Cove. You taught me how the city
girls would wrinkle their noses when trouble
was nigh and who to trust with pilfered arms.
I liked all that  -  the rent was cheap, I was
young, and no one had yet really invented law.
-
Did you mind those minutes as little as I did?
I always spoke my words in truth, though now  -
only so much later  -  we learn that such things
as truth never really existed for anyone at all.


Monday, July 16, 2012

3784. FARRAGO

FARRAGO
Yes then it was - in the park, I had my fingers on
your touchpad; we were discussing Darwin's
hallucinations and it came to be that you said
'he was stoned.' I looked around, trying to
decipher the who or what you meant, and I
realized there was no one there.  At that
moment, the funny man selling Italian ice
began singing to himself. A tourist with a
Leica around his sweaty neck same over
to ask if I've lived here all my life. 'Uh, not
yet', I replied, 'at least I hope, not yet.' He
walked away with a funny, checkered gait.

3783. CIRCLE

CIRCLE
There is a great, magnanimous circle in the
heart to be filled by the love of Mankind.
As all circles are, this one is endless, and 
rolls about, back over and upon itself, to
infinity's endless end; to the place where no
man has been, to the seamless circle, within.

3782. MOMENT

MOMENT
I haven't a moment to best my own circumstance:
the bread, the filler, the leavings, all gone. Birds
have eaten these seeds from the ground. Nowhere
but where I have strewn them, of course. And
now  -  before the chilly wind of Winter arrives  -
I throw back, in the same manner, all my caution
to these changing winds and give up care. There
is nothing more but monsters in the moment. Now
we will see what things win out. Alas, my friend,
the world is over - if it ever was at all, if it
really ever was at all.

Friday, July 13, 2012

3781. POST-MODERN DELIVERY

POST-MODERN DELIVERY
Skip two beats, one falsetto after
pauses, enter staccato and drone, all
syncopation gone. Variable timing
notwithstanding, hold meter and tone.
Jump phrasing, end rhyme.
-
Two cups of flavored tea, cinnamon
oasis onion bun, padicule the mannerists
humming. 'I've never been so embarrassed
in my life! My God, imagine the nerve of
that man!'
-
Outside by the picnic table, but still within the
ring of fire, some poor men were barbecuing 
pork. Soon there was nothing left. The chickens
had come home to roost; the barn door, someone
had left open. Three fine horses were loping away.
-
Skip two beats. Use falsetto after the pause.
Enter staccato, end rhyme.

3780. UNDER A SEMBLANCE OF THE FORGE

UNDER A SEMBLANCE
OF THE FORGE
There are no stars, no stars in the sky
tonight; if any, there are five. What have
we done to ourselves to live this way?
An how are we complete? Divorced as we
are now and separated from everything that
ever was, we claim our Now to be ideal, a
pinnacle reached on the heights. I cannot say,
but know I will. Distracted and dazed, a forced 
face of Mankind just keeps running on.
-
The sky is black with a blackness here of
its own, by our lights. We have made it so, here,
anyway  -  dollars and finance and the stipple-toned
men with ledgers and counters and dodges and
tricks. They make their designations, they plot
their ways. By contrast, I stand by silently
watching as they all miss their mark.
Aloof is my only manner.
-
I cannot tell you a different story, for
there is no different story to relate. The
far sands  - of Eden, Mesopotamia, Babylon
and the rest  -  we've left them all now, and
they are gone. There are no stars in the sky 
tonight. If any, there are five.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

3779. FAR MAN

FAR MAN
There are no rudiments; nothing
basic to be seen. William Blake
on the catamounts of desire wailing.
Someplace odd, the Ferris wheel
and the carousel can only be seen
spinning backwards alike.



3778. MY FRANK MEMORIES

MY FRANK MEMORIES
Oh fuck! I am so faraway and wasted by
everything gone. I just don't live here anymore.
This world has no more parasol  -  just fast
endings, loose pieces, and disjointed
enclaves of loss : madmen sunning
themselves in duplicitous words; all
those cloying wives as one atop a
sunstreaked porch. I can't even
marvel at things any longer. My
jail-term is a biography text.
-
A Summer breeze at the window
is a daughter I never had. The wildlife
in the gritty park is the mark of all
my drowned intentions ; slight
piggishness, lust and labor in a
bushe-basket of need and want.
Rumor has it we all get a claim.
-
This chiseled sunlight is a subterfuge.
And I am so living on borrowed time.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

3777. SANSKRIT

SANSKRIT
Don't bet the last dollar, unless
you're feeling extreme. Don't dodge
the taxman, nor - I suppose - don't
tax the dodger either, for that matter.
A simple cake has complicated icing,
(or is that the other way around?).
The swami was eating free-range
toast he'd made himself. I wonder,
how did Kali like that one?
-
There's a new white fence around
Cemetery Grove. And along the
perimeter now they've gone and
built new homes. You know they're 
not going to call it that, 'Cemetery
Grove' of course. No. More probably
something like : Lone Pine Estates,
Weeping Willow Gardens, or maybe
Wailing Oak Hollow. Yes, yes -
Wailing Oak Hollow, how apt.

3776. ANTS ON THE APPLE

ANTS ON THE APPLE
I was surprised to see ants on the
apple core  -  someone had thrown
it down, once done, and now it was
swarming with ants. Somehow just
as well dependents of an Adam and Eve
once more. I make no connections, mind
you  -  merely a comment so as to reflect.
How jagged these reflections are; straight
lines broken, hitting from mirror to mirror
along the wall. Eventually, yes, even
letting us to see around corners.
-
Oh dog, I am so silent. 
The ants are swarming the core.
A thin, malic acid nectar, sweet
and rich. People eat apples for
hundreds of reasons. I once read,
in an article on same, that they were
very good because of their 'vigorous
cleansing action on the teeth' (always
liked that phrase thereafter). What's
that tell the ants, I wonder?

3775. HALLOWEEN AND DEMONS

HALLOWEEN 
AND DEMONS
In the resourceful fell of a late October moon,
those crazy, loopy kids in costumes are now
genuflecting before their idols : character
dolls I never know, wizards, whores, bakers,
chiefs. The low smoke of someone's new fire,
billowing out of a rooftop chimney, curling around
the neighborhood's now funky sky. Little demons
parading with bags. Everybody wants to be, something.
We have the Druids lolling on Nature's hay bales. The
archfiends, with their knives and sabres. The mad
witches of Halton Grove, riding their proverbial
broomsticks. Why not, these nut-kids say, why
not; every hole is fit for something. I can only
nod and agree. I can only nod and agree.
 

3774. MADRIGAL

MADRIGAL
Leaving the entrance at bright of day, the
telling dawn, the beginning of something :
catcalls and the sunlight, the noise of
many birds. All those sticks of granite  - 
the cemetery markers before me  -  all
those I can do nothing about. Every
tag a storyline with an ending. And I,
of little care, pretending.
-
I am so lonely. I want something to
latch onto. I hear a door slap, the only
manmade sound I get. Someone else
scrapes by in a car  -  same Malibu
crap in a beat-up paint job. Just the
way the poor-folk do it, so do I. Let
me learn a language  -  something,
anything  -  by which to converse.
 
 

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

3773. I NEVER SAID THAT AT ALL

I NEVER SAID THAT AT ALL
Only right now is it time best to
consider, so many things having
already turned : that Carnival time
in Rio, that Opera House in the
harbor at Melbourne, countless
little things in the gulleys and
shores of time. I sit about, reading
History in little bits and pieces.
-
Someone tells me the Civil War
ran at a blistering pace. You'd have
to prove that to me - I see instead
a more pure and languorous idea,
of slow battle in so many pleasant
places - a Battle of Wond'rous Hill,
a thousand men dying of wounds
amid a beautiful picnic grounds.
People eating cole slaw, sipping
drinks and telling stories. Children
on the field across the ditch, all
spinning hoops and chasing balls.
-
You then wonder, may I be confused?
No, rather so a hopeless romantic that
I demand a sense of right in even the
worst of times. If it is my own blood
flowing, then at least it shall be pure.
-
There is a nomenclature inside of
Nature that makes all things right :
the good comports (somehow) with
the bad as the lovers, in fact, embrace
the haters and all things come together.
-
As one? No, no, I didn't say that.
I never said that at all.