Friday, August 31, 2012

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.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

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.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

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.

Monday, August 27, 2012

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.

Friday, August 24, 2012

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).

Thursday, August 23, 2012

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.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

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.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

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.'

Monday, August 20, 2012

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.

Friday, August 17, 2012

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.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

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.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

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.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

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.

Monday, August 13, 2012

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.