3871. FIRMER HANDS

FIRMER HANDS

Along the dim sunlit path, the hedge line

simmered. A few birds, startled, were ranting.

I paused for a moment, pretending to be a

camera just to see what I'd see. I winced

as the new sunlight caught my eyes.

Every roadside car was shining back.

-

Windows are like mirrors, are like reflections

intent on burning you back for what you see.

I never check my face, go for days without looking

at what I look like, brush my fingers through my

hair for neatness and never remember the reasons

I live. Simple, plain and honest. That's me boys!

-

Later, all hammerlock and folderol, I walked right past

the barber shop where Rachel is always looking out.

She says she'd love to trim my hair, someday 'make

it neater.' I nodded back and smiled. Someday, I'm, sure,

someday. Now, a year later, I can never look her way.

3870. IT'S SOME TIME NOW

IT'S SOME TIME AFTER THE

UPHEAVAL, AND I'M STILL DEAD

'Is that a Chap-Stick in your pocket, or

are you glad to see me?' She actually asked

me that and then began laughing her head off.

I basked in discomfort. Do you know what that's like?

-

There was no meaning like meaning to not be surprised,

but what could I do? I took out my harmonica and pretended

to play. Yankee Doodle, Ol' Black Joe, Sewanee River, and

all that. Feeling as morose as Little Lord Leroy, I wept inside.

-

If I ever had good intentions, I had them now : I wanted

to hug anyone I could, kindle a cheater's fire in a stone-cold

heart, make the dominoes all topple at once. I sat me down

to read a book. It was senseless and as stupid as me.

-

My engine was flooded, my carburetor had swallowed its

float, the warning lights were flashing on my dash. I

only wanted to run away, and hide from the love

I always thought I'd had. Now, nothing at all.

3869. PALOMINO

PALOMINO

I loved that horse. We rode from 

Desert Fields to Albuquerque together, 

and got there in a trot. I wrote my

arabesque upon the sands, and this

horse laid down to die.

3868. MAKING THE WINDS WITH A PIECE OF THE GODS

MAKING THE WINDS WITH

A PIECE OF THE GODS

Have you heard me once before? I spoke to

you through thunder. Now, I too am old and

tired, as angry as that volcano, but as spent

as the calmest sea. Once I awaken and reclaim

these dismal powers, well, then, watch out!

-

Have you read my words? Mine was the missive

cut into stone  -  remember? Many words (things

I do not use but for your benefit) about many,

basic things. You are of Mankind, and I must

somehow instruct. But oh, I am so tired now.

-

Yet here's a clue for now : my whereabouts are

everywhere. I am in you, and you are of God.

Me, we, all that. Those thinnest pages of tissue,

they serve alike for the grand book you try and

decipher, and - just as well - for the matter of which

you are made. Your tissue is my skin, and, in the

same fashion, my skin is of your tissue. All so

vast and confusing; you will never find out.

-

Just have faith, and seek Love and Understanding first.

3867. IN NOMINE PATRIA

IN NOMINE PATRIA

I know that makes no sense, but

they tell me anyway : soldier, sailor,

ferryman, fighter, grenadier, grunt,

each of them want to die for something.

Yes, yes, that's okay I guess. But which

is it to be? In the name of the Father,

or the name of the Fatherland?

You're confused, mon frere.

-

I love mixing it up with others  -  to

give back the same jibber-jabber

they give to me. Like all those

prisoners using new-found big 

words, it's comical to read and

fun to see : 'the demarcation of

my incarceration shall be forthwith

forthcoming at my revocation, or

the termination of my sentence,

allowing me, once more, my

freedom amidst other men.'

-

Ah, Cindy Birdsong could

never sing it better.

3866.CAULDRON (she's a scream)

CAULDRON

(she's a scream)

Entice me with your orbs of

love and goodness. Let me

go there, trembling. I see that

deep, rich land of your body's

harbor and want to dock my

boat, right now, in that wet and

major port of your best landing.

3865. NITTY

NITTY

You're not smart, you're not broken, you're not

able : you just are, that's all. Categories do not

here fit the car shed; where the wheels are off,

the exhaust is gone and the windshield has a

huge crack in it that reads back 'hate'. You say

it once said 'Faith' instead, but now I'm not

so sure. Have cracks been known to change

their stripes? Well, no, I should not think.

-

You're sitting on your porch, next to the

refrigerator, and you're holding yet another

beer. That car over in the weeds is still

on cinder blocks, and we both know

it will never move. Where'd that ratty

red couch come from. You're sitting

on one end, but it's the other end

that's sagging. How's that go?

-

You're sure to be the first one running

down the dirt lane when the mailman

comes. Like airplanes on a runway,

those checks just keep coming in.

The good life is the good life, no

matter how you slice it. Another

tomato fight? No, not me.

3864. HEARTBREAK

HEARTBREAK

(1871)

If I make a tolerance for the hazardous ship,

where the port of call does not yet exist,

am I lost then at sea, or just out for a while -

far oceans dividing the blemish of every intention?

Alas, I wait for you at this dismal quay  -  now here,

myself, I am only watching other rocking boats and

there is no real sign of you. I am sick to heart of

having come too late. Some time has passed, I

realize that, but so much has happened while

I was gone : the very boards of these wharves

and platforms have been changed twice over.

I have been gone too far and too long away.

-

If I make allowance for your needing to play,

if I think of myself so long and away, I

can understand  -  I should think  -  why

you are not here. That erstwhile chore boy,

Michael O'Shea, has stolen your heart

while I was away. Alas, I was gone,

on the sea, for one day too late, and

now it would seem I must pay.

3863. ATTENTION GETTER

 ATTENTION GETTER

Wet spot down draft harbor rat

landing craft. Mill man running

guy order taker mercy cat.

Trumpet player scatman singer

overseer big man thinker. Nothing

more than nothing more than that.

3862. TAKEN FOR GRANTED

TAKEN FOR GRANTED

(consequences)

I've been entered and lost, I've been shut

and turned off, I've been taken for granted

now once too much. I'm going home, no,

really. This Summer solstice bullshit you've

pedaled to me amounts now to nothing at all :

Transit of Venus, Pleiades, and still another

month of two full moons. Egads, enough, I tire.

-

I'm running off to Greece, or Madagascar;

somewhere where the police are just as

stupid as here but less corrupt, or the other

way around, whatever. Look up, do I really

need to see tall buildings for the rest of my

days? No, I don't think so  -  give me a native

chica doing all my biddings, bring me a local

beauty with which to end my days. I never

want to vote nor hear a politician again.

-

Line up the Jimmies at the executioner's wall.

Let's shoot them all. Bring me forth some

velvet slippers, a long tall lemonade, and

some biased newspaper to tell about the

carnage we have made. I'm ready enough

to listen and believe most anything at all.

I've been taken for granted, it seems, forever:

forever: now it's my turn to ignore it all.

3861. OATMAN

OATMAN

(1871)

The Oatman survives : evening subsides

around him  -  the dark sky glowering the

city back. A fountain somewhere splashes,

and the man from the carriage ride rounds

the small bend, there by Nassau and Chambers

Street. He is singing to himself, supple reins in

his Irish hands, calling out  -  looking for others

needing a ride. 'Ev'nin' Sir, I'm here to you. They

call me Oatman, but the name's Barnaby. You

can call me neither if you'd like. And where you

headin' that may be takin' ye?' I look back, only

once, to see that other fellow, in black, wincing.

He knows where I'm headed, though this driver

doesn't. 'I'm to go north, towards Adams Grill,

by Herald Square, though you needn't be fast

and my business can wait.' I see him nod and

we're off. 'I was called Oatman 'caz I once ran a

a big lot of them, every year we did, but the farm's

now gone and they've taken all my water too. So

I've got to drive this rig here, like I'm a'doin' to you.'

He looked ahead; the borders of a few great hedgings

went past  -  great homes of the island's landed gents.

I spoke: 'These men, you know, they're all bastard

crooks, you see. I'm headed right now, in fact, to

do one out.' Beneath my cloak was my blackened

revolver; enough powder and bullet to do my work.

'I'm rather sure you won't believe me, but keep yer'

trap shut as much as you do talk.' In case he had

a notion to tell Carmody or Byrne, those cops I'd

fled, I gave him a five for his troubles. 'I'll now be

off, you thanks, let me out. I got my own work t'do.'

I don't think he knew a word, nor understood what

I was doing. I stepped down, and then into Adams.

Just as I thought and was told, there they were. The

two - I walked right in, and emptied my pistol into

the one, and then one for t'other as well, just to keep

him quiet. In the hubbub of screamin', I got away.

The wagon was long gone, and thankfully now he'd

have nothing to tell anyway. I headed my way, on

a dash and a frenzy, southeast towards Tompkins,

and never looking back I did get away.

3860. DELUGE

DELUGE

The caper'd apple tree dwarfed now by

broken sways of time and hurt; twisted

limbs renouncing growth and faith, dropping

only reluctantly the lost forgotten fruit of

reddn'ing envy. Eve and all her ways, Adam

and his stumbling vice. Something walks

in that garden with them both, and they are

are sure, only now, they have done wrong.

They realize, yet don't understand. Then God

somehow comes Himself, strolling this crazy

garden and calling their name; not knowing

where they are? How maliciously vicious is

this tale? And who has written this deceitful

scene? I want to know the name of that one.

Three floods later, anyway, it is all over.

We are as useless as this story ever was.

3859. YER CHUNK

YER CHUNK

(reading, pennsylvania)

High, high, high on Windham Hill

I stood  -  standing back ten steps

no more from the edge of this quite

precipitous cliff. This old gravel

road was the test-track for old

Duryea Motor Cars  -  and the

Duryea factory was quite nearby.

Now, they test nothing but air and

trinkets and coffee and snacks, and

the schoolkid fantasies at the old

gravel pits. I want to disappear, go

away, dissolve in your old, fast car.

-

Michael, where are we? Mary, what

is this, and where are all our saints?

You call this town Reading, Pennsylvania,

and I know nothing more  -  there are

hospitals and medical clinics and plenty

of poor. Strange men are walking the streets.

-

I've kept nothing of your time in my head -

good God it is emptied out. Vacuousness

resounds on the cavernous outer walls and

I am  -  once more  -  seeking redemption

in shadows and grooves. Deliver me from

Evil, deliver me from justice, from

something, amen.

3858. SOMETIMES TENACITY

SOMETIMES TENACITY

There are moments that are more

difficult than others to share : I shut

down, and sit back, here. I need

to wait until my consciousness 

comes back : look at the elm trees,

with those leaves that don't match;

listen to the sound of all those crickets.

Heather tells me there's a worm-farm 

in town. I am baffled, and wonder

enough as to say : 'Do they graze?

and where do they frolic and play?

(My sometimes tenacity is going away).

3857. LOVE

LOVE

My dark cloak I have put upon

you; it covers your frame like

Love. I will never betray what

I have given to you. Let us sit.

Isaiah said 'come let us reason

together'. I mention this only

to pass my bad judgement on
 Reason, a thing I have never

liked. Let us, together, absurdly

dislike, and find Peace in

not living with strife.

3856. AMANU

AMANU

For any of those who would think :

the elephant has broken away, and its

design is but a semblance of the very

distant past. Now men have cars and

vast machines together. Every story

from before is immaterial now.

-

The wind, in its fury, touches down.

-

All that we can imagine, we have

imagined already. All the world

that can be, is in already being.

3855. NICODEMUS HAS MADE A RARE PLANET

NICODEMUS HAS 

MADE A RARE PLANET

Life is a haunted memory; I've already

lived it twice  -  on your iron seashore,

watching, 'midst all that toil and strife.

I heard no bells which, tolling, told of

times to come. Somehow, already, it

was all in the past. A portrait of the

Duke hung in the hallway, just waiting

for this time to cross it. Nicodemus

has made a rare planet.

-

Wednesday brought forth gloom  - 

an ice storm in its path. Far out,

along the Heavens, moons and

planets are twirling with the stars

of all creation. The only sound

heard is the solar wind.

-

One sweet Genevieve was drinking

her tea as I stumbled into the room.

This was 1882, and I was living, then,

at 19 Gramercy Park. My hands were

steady and my legs were strong; and I

drew portraits for a living while old God

Pan played his whispering song.

Nicodemus has made a rare planet.

3854. TALK

TALK

Re-position this light for the

morning to come? Watch as

the workmen go about their

tasks. This torrid silence is

deafening and (as the writer

once wrote) all darkness is

now visible: Milton, William

Styron, one of those goons.

And I am watching Earthmen,

humans, blindly toe their lines.

They've parked their truck on

the morning grass - stepped out,

and stand there, smoking. An

endless flurry of words leaves

from out their open mouths.

3853. ABSTRACT TO THE TITLE

ABSTRACT TO THE TITLE

Diamond sky, wide open light, everything

all at once. I gaped in my open-mouthed glee,

too happy for anything else. 'No, no, here let

me help, although I do forget your name.' That's

the way this day began. Now, ten hours later,

what the hell? Men are shouldering missiles in

Gaza, Assange's still in his hole, and three girls

in Russia are making new plans.  I like things

just the way they're going. Professor Marleybones

steps over, then asks to shake my hand - again. He

says, 'I read your latest piece. Not good. You

know, you can never be too topical; be more

specific, let all that other stuff ride.' I had no

clue what he really meant to say. Fame is so

fleeting, like a young girl's sheer slip: first you

think you see it, then there's nothing under it.

3852. POSTCARD TO AKRON

POSTCARD TO AKRON

I am counting high numbers, what

are they all? Like the stars in the

far-off heavens, these places are

all without number  -  June, July,

and August together can only

amount to nothing. On the tables

stretched before me, stuck like 

spears, the folded white umbrellas

of the art museum's outdoor seating

makes me think of process : like

Art installed by concept, some fey

fellow's umbrella-pastiche of a

now Warholian proportion. Hey!

Sorry than to have to lick your 

stamp, but even this postcard to

Akron says nothing special. 'I'll

never hold a candle, I'll never hold

your lamp, you're always a better

artist than me.' No, look around

you Bumptious  -  nothing is art

if everything is, and postcards

to Akron know better than this.

3851. LAUREL ARMS

LAUREL ARMS

'Saying one thing and doing

another  -  a run-on sentence

of stopping and halt. My man,

this table wobbles and you'll be

my waiter tonight? What is this?

-

Anyway - 'was saying' - came back

that day just before midnight, the

door was already open when I

arrived and someone was there

crying in the vestibule alcove.

Couldn't make out nothing else.

Went upstairs.

-

Isn't it funny how we skewer

the truth though, when it doesn't

fit our purposes? And in that

early morning light I really

couldn't see a thing  -  the

rainwater making all that

noise, the woman crying

in the corner. Sorry.'

3850. INTENT TO DERIDE

INTENT TO DERIDE

(a trip through old time)

This ride will never stop. That was the wrong

dollar you put in. Poor fellow, so faithful, so

glum. Outside any bounds of reason, I would

have to say that you've outdone yourself this

time. Putting pudding in the cup; over-cooking

the recipe batch. Watching the flies descend

upon the shoo-fly pie on the window-sill's end.

-

I came back from home ready for a fight. I was

fight-weight ready, I'd bested the previous nine

men in a somewhat illustrious career. One broken

chin later. And I looked around : where were you?

-

Nowhere to be found. And I mean nowhere. I'd

looked under every grass-skirt I could find, I'd probed

with my tongue every set of open lips offered to me,

I'd ridden shotgun on every fondled branch and bush

that came my way. No sense in pretending. I was

a Zorro to anyone else's swash 'Z'. The real thing, me.

-

Now I would struggle my way to fight the truth,

push back at the manager, slam dunk the fire-chief,

split the skull of the principal. Before it gets dark,

I'll be at your place, ready to light the new campfire.

-

Nothing ever made me cry like Civil War songs and

men who wouldn't die. You know the ones, twisted and

grimaced with sorrow and pain, lying on the bloodied

field howling for hours before they expired - and only

after hours or days of that. How could a man sustain

himself through of all that hurt and pain? What good

was this shit-pan of war then, anyway?

-

I was Lance Corporal Eidermeyer, I was Joe Trane.

I was the emancipated slave-guy, Barboe, I was

Sergeant O'Baine. We all came down from New York.

We all caught the damned death-train : Chickamauga,

Spotsylvania, Wilderness and Gettysburg. I don't care.

I don't know; and it is now this modern age. I am here

again, kissing your daughters, waltzing your dames.

The new, entire world is my daisy chain. This ride

will never stop. No. This ride will never stop.

3849. UNCLE UNIVERSE

UNCLE UNIVERSE

Unbuckles the stars, climbs down the

stairs, see past all horizons, knows

what's there. 'I haven't been in the

cabbage', he says, 'but I know

what's growing there.'

-

Oh, dear. I'm as perplexed

by all this as you are. I will

sit here, not recline, and

have another beer.

3848. HIT OR MISS

HIT OR MISS

Having brushed the daughter of the sky with my

hands, I looked back at the fire. No one else saw

a thing : the sky was ablaze. From where I sat, it

was all just shadows on the side of a big, white

building. A girl walked by eating candy  -  the candy

bar still in its peeled-back wrapper, she nibbled the

exposed portion with a hand to her mouth. How oddly

curious that whole scene was. Where was the

smoke? Where was the heat. I decided there

was something I much have missed. Wishing

I had a dog, I imagined walking it here.

-

I am always most curious about things most

abstract : unexplainable phenomena which

enter and ring the mind - the source of solace,

the aim of a disconsolate tear, the reason

some lone policeman would walk in fear.

-

There are no answers for things like this.

My sixth-grade memory book hides nothing

but the most obscure : John Glenn, Alan

Shepard, Gus Grissom. Crazy Amerikanski

astronauts chasing some dream-time Yuri

Gagarin to their own private Hell. Who cares,

and how far have I ever wandered. Everyone

else is dead, not one of those psychos yet

exist. Even Walter Cronkite bit the death pipe.

-

I realize I don't care, don't even give a shit.

Now sunlight hits the building-side instead :

bright, almost yellow, creeping shadow, lines

of a tree, light glinting off glass, blinding me,

two Mexican gardeners sitting around, quiet

leaf blowers finally dead in their hands.

-

This life, this life, this life, a life like this :

a crazy Mexican hat-dance

always hit or miss.

3847. ROTUNDO'S ITALIAN CAFE

ROTUNDO'S ITALIAN CAFE

I cannot undue the seamless dwelling where my

thoughts and emotions live : I am squandered and

cast away, spitting a momentary blood, venting a

second's ire. 'Put the dominoes down, Dominic.'

The Italian guy named Rondo said that, serving

coffee to three huge grunts who'd just sauntered

in. They were so obvious, it was funny. Leather

half-boots, where you just know a pistol was

tucked, one guy had a silk Yankee's jacket, with

what appeared to be, for sure, a false lining that

covered zippered pockets for waltzing out with

cash. They were here for the pick, their monthly

allotment of mob-money-rent, a part of the take.

'Hey, Angelo, how's the wife and baby, everything

good?' At which point you just know poor Angelo's on

the line : the well-being of kin and business depends

now on his ponying up the racket money, the protection

dough, the take that's not even his. Bad business, all

Rondo gets up and spills a cup. There's a tussle, a few

punches are thrown, and Rondo's down. I saw this all

from behind The New York Times : big paper, wide open,

in front of my face. 'No, Bud, I don't see a thing.'

3846. LIFESTREAM

LIFESTREAM

I have stepped out of that. I am sourcing the cosmos,

coming through loud and clear all through space :

edges and endless solar winds and radiated light

fierce and burning I shall see right through things for

verily I say unto you : Nothing exists and all is nothing.

-

This morning at dawn, a small bird 

was singing high up in the tree.

There was nothing else present,

just that small bird and me.

3845. OBLIVION CALLS

OBLIVION CALLS

I am spending most of my time

and space alone : next to you but

alone. Yes, there is milk on the table

as there are cheeses in the refrigerator

and meat on the stove. That is not the

problem. It is more like Oblivion, calling.

The semblance of world outside  -  the 

red-tailed hawk watching, the cowbirds

you've found, they almost all amount to

nothing. Willard has planted his 15 acres

of corn, now stunted already, and dry. In

June, at least, thankfully, we did get the

hay cut and in - bales of baleful labor, that.

Now, I court the spark of waiting  -  to just 

hope that something will happen. I am spending

most of my time and space alone, and just

not enjoying sitting home. I really want 

to flee, and Oblivion is calling me.

3844. HARVEST

HARVEST

The headlines are harnessed like loads of

hay and the small peat fires still burn on

the fields of Essen and Ruhr. Everywhere

across the continent, people are finding bones

and relics : blood-kin to carnage and war.

Two hundred years ago, as they were

changing the course of the Rhine, all those

Romantic fellows sang Nature's praise

and praised Nature's time. I'll never know

what happened to this life. The shacks and

the cabins, like everything else, are gone.

-

I slept in your Swabian countryside, just

as calmly and sure as a  badger or a weasel

lurking in the shrub. No man could find 

me and I was afraid of nothing in the world.

Believe me, people, I had come here

from another place : the fires and rockets

and brimstone and ash of a celestial face.

-

Now it is all grown, and I take it all in.

3843. ENKIDU

ENKIDU

The most furtive plea, the ancient of

days, somehow left me behind. My back

is arched now, on some treeside hard bench

in City Hall Park. I sit amidst soda cans and

visitors from Dubuque. I remember, it was,

Nathan Hale who was just here : hanging

from the Thom Paine tree. My God, the

ghosts are thick today  -  that blasted and

heavy white still lingering. The hand in my

notebook, even that no longer looks like

my own. What has gone on here, what?

-

I change identities like you do pants.

I walk through storms and happenstance.

My men are legion as we walk along.

They are building a city while I write a song.

-

An old God, an ancient God, a form of

iceberg and brick  -  breaking through walls

and all barriers of time. Force majeur, and the

invention of Thor's Hammer. All this is everywhere

the same: some pantheon of Gods we lift up and

exalt even as we wither and fall, running out of

time to do it all. No matter the dreams we may

hold or treasure. Life arranges for different things,

and we are so often left behind. Yes, it may be

that these men are building a city, even one with 

the names of God on their lips. But it too will

crumble and fall; their intent they shall miss.

-

I change identities like you do pants.

I walk through storms and happenstance.

My men are legion as we walk along.

They are building a city while I write this song.

3842. MOVING DAY

MOVING DAY

Your unwarranted obfuscation only

makes for confusion. I am lined and

weary, and you - I hear - must now

leave home. Thrown out, as it were,

like a badger to the cold. Take down

that cabinet, remove that bedpost, that

chair. All trace of you must disappear.

I am (oh) so sorry and saddened for what

occurred - if Death rides a pale horse,

and if the apocalypse has its swordsmen,

what's left, and what have you or I? Nothing;

nothing but these pennies, excuses, and lies.

3841. MANY MILES

MANY MILES

(I am home in the USA)

I have traveled the quays and

the Zuider Zee, old Kabul and

all the murder-mystery ramps

Czechoslovakia once offered. No,

I am nothing, and without my keys.

From Lake Baikal to Chittendenny

have I wandered - rifleman, squire,

dandy, lout. Now I am an old man -

just as well; I survived, cornered in

a dying rage, holding a broken gun.

-

My mother is long dead, and my

father's a faded memory; something

creased, like an old print in my coat's

chest pocket. He went mad in '98, nothing

much else to say - all that's over. And now,

and now, I am a revolutionary. My country

is dead or dying, and I am in for the kill.

-

Yes, come try stopping me. I already

have the knife to your daughter's throat.

Men say that I am dangerous; I am not.

I am a leftover Minuteman from a revolution

gone sour - and truly, truly anyway - it

is they who are the dangerous ones.; those

who cal me that from spite and envy.

-

But, it is Death I am looking back from.

I smiled my last, and they gently

closed the box.

3840. WHAT'S THE DELAY?

WHAT'S THE DELAY?

The hold-up was holding me up; the fire

was burning my ass. The man with the

bandanna over his mouth walked into the

bank demanding cash. No one not even

looked up  -  useless shit this bank-robber

was. I took out a dollar, and offered it to him.

He shot me, straight on, in the chest. I'm dead

now, yes. You probably read about the rest.

3839. GAINSAY

GAINSAY

Tying the high tree knot, the simple rope swing

was in place and steadied. A few boys, already

giddy with delight, huddled and swarmed  -  climbing

to jump. They swing forth, 2 at a time, standing on

the rope-swing as it blows wide over the water...

where they leap, let go, and fly, to land with a

grand splash in the muddied and turbulent water

below. If that's to be joy, it's the joy of a blood-brother

cut or a sacrificial punch taken in friendship. Go figure.

Boys to men, and back again, soon enough.

3838. INCENDIARY FURTIVE

INCENDIARY FURTIVE

In speaking in tongues, in talking to a

cousin, in learning those needed angles

for ricochet and bump, in all of those

things so much that is needed is an odd

classy silence. Even then, when the light

comes on, when the lick of flame flickers

over some lost apostle's head, there's no

room to maneuver and no need to reply.

Words alone can't do it. That bright,

shining blast of light comes through,

cutting the welder's world with its fire,

the mechanic's sure toil, the salesman's

glib knowledge. No, no, in such moments

as these, I walk away. I sense the light

and I sense the feeling. And I walk away.

3837. MAKING CALIBER

MAKING CALIBER

The fine-faddled fish are swimming away.

I look down into their strange world of water

from above  -  a simple, human height looking

down into the small river below. These curious

slips of being stand still for a moment, seem to

wiggle and peer, and then dart off, disturbed

perhaps by my shadow and noise. Who knows,

and I don't. In fact, as I think it through, they really

go nowhere, in that sense of leaving. They swim

the same streaming, moving athwart whether this

way or that. They are, in turn, as limited as me in

leaving the Earth or sourcing some new form of air.

We're all captives, it would seem, of some element

or another  - wind, water, vessel or wish.

 They can't stand, and I can't fish

3836. SINGLY

SINGLY

I have no reason to be here. I am bewitched

by space and time : commingling me with these

massive moments. Eyes that blind, ears that deaf.

All the others in this loaf, much as me, they see

nothing, and they hear less. Astonishingly, for

the entire world is a huge cyclical sounding board -

phenomenon, miracle, wonder and awe - connected

to the cosmos within. We create the moments as

we create the time. I will go nowhere else; I can

not run and I am too heavy to lift. Relativity, to me,

is just one huge One, a unity of all moment, all words

and languages and time and understandings. Like

fire, the world is a blazing thing and - like fire - it is

oh so soon dissolved and gone away. Singly,

as one, in an instant.

3835. LORDY, LORDY

LORDY, LORDY

So let's rattle and go for the reach:

just as the bat flies what we call blindly

so too shall we ourselves define what it

is we do, kindly. I won't shove, You know me

and I know you, and consistency is the

hobgoblin of little minds. Here we go,

here we go, Ralph Waldo Emerson or

Henry David Thoreau. And either of them,

if it was for sure was beaten out by

Whitman: 'Yes! I contradict myself!'.

-

Let me take the edge off your drink.

The edge off your cold? What's any of

that mean? I'm not sure, only sure I

don't know. And while we're on the subject,

let's get off the subject. Mary had a little

lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.

-

Oh Lordy, Lordy, and here it is I am again.