4884. MY RUN-OFF CALLIOPE

MY RUN-OFF CALLIOPE

Bang the drum slowly, and all hail

the conquering heroes. Each of those

having something to do with something 

else, they keep me enthralled of this

miserable world : killers and thieves

in high places, wearing their jackets of 

swarm with their pick-axe faces and legions

of followers. We simply give things away.

Now and again  -  the turn returns; it's the

turn of Manhattan's tao. Wild-woolies and hackers

with turtles and dues coming in. Keep out now.

-

Here's an idea : (let's cheer this). Pay a high

wage for the morons who serve us poison.

They deserve it. It's their occupation  -  and those

in line, all the while, will listen to the other whine

about fat and calorics and death. But let's 

pay them to kill us, we're not dead yet.

-

Sometimes I just want to laugh; other times just cry.

Other times, I take my thin-sliced fry-pan blind to

seek out every bastard doing time. Black man,

white man, yellow man, fool. They all cheer the 

same their wired-bastions; scavenger hunts for

nothing at all. My maddened calliope peals and

twirls. Let this motherfucker crash to the ground.

4883. DAWN

DAWN

A triplet at wavelength : lightly

the low light, just coming on,

seems softly rising already,

and oh so quiet again.

4882. SEMANTIC

SEMANTIC

The simple life achieves a simple

end, and it is over. The floral rake

moves slowly over land. I think of

people and I only hear voices - all

those different tongues and varied

hearts. Scribing is hard to do, and this

is always a difficult work. Talk not so

self-assured, lest you soon be fallen.

4881. IRREDUCIBLE REVERY

IRREDUCIBLE REVERY

The camera eye wears its makeup well  -

never squinting, it leaves no lines and has 

no marks. Movement cannot fool, just blur.

I've already arranged the school chorus to be

high for the weekend nights : together we will

sing of manners and ways and forms. 

-

There is a man with a guitar on his shoulder;

he seems to be mapping a song of the world.

I know his name as Reggie Forest and have 

spoken to him twice  -  he sings a jagged song,

of places with farms and roads. The ancient

cyclone of song goes on and on.

-

Even Pete Seeger lives at the side of a hill; right

across the roadway from where Zelda Fitzgerald

was once locked up  -  asylum, sanitarium, call

it what you will. The place still stands, and I visit.

-

Sixty years ago and some, beatniks used to hitch rides

right here, up along 9E, to get to Bear Mountain and

such places as that  -  living outdoors, nights in Summer

under the stars. Yes, yes, it's legendary. And all these

wonderful things are an irreducible revery.

4880. JAIL

JAIL

On the fetters, past the locks. Sit on

the cold, steel bench. Make the smoothest

entry, handle to soap but once.

4879. OF MICAH

OF MICAH

You know all those biblical names : you can walk 

through an old graveyard and see twenty of them. 

They ring so true and real. It's a very strange sensation,

hanging idly there with Bills and Bobs and Bobbies.

What has happened to sensation? In Laurel Hill

Cemetery, in Philadelphia, the nice lady showed me

the icebox on wheels wherein they used to keep the

dead for viewing. Civil War days or thereabouts.

Some crazy factory name was on it, and all. They

made an industry of cooling the dead to be seen. 

-

That night I went to sleep with flowers on my brain.

I somehow can't always believe the dead are dead, but

then what's the same. No matter. My mother's dead; she

died years back, working a polling station for some infested

election. My father's dead; long gone, from a crazy house

where they only wished they had ice. His mother too;

pretty much the very same thing. And then here am I.

-

A reformer, a revolutionary of ways. My fingers are coiled

'round some already ceded trigger, having lost my marbles to

the powers that be. I kiss no ass, but I kill no bones. They

should think of themselves as lucky  -  senators and congressmen,

Presidents and their fucking ladies too. Movie stars and the

big-time singers and dealers of woe. Screw them all and may 

they die. I'd love to cleanse this country to the bone. But, for

all of that, I'm supposed to salute and stand for the pledge,

act like a fool and say rah-rah-rah. The gun? Oh, I've hid 

that long ago in the meadow, by the well, at the lea.

-

Today, I met five Russian ladies, and two guys who

were driving them around. Russians too, husbands 

or whatever. We were at Liberty State Park, staring 

at the ass of the Statue of Liberty in the pouring rain.

My dog was at my side, and soaked to the bone as

was I. 'What is her name?', they asked with their accents, 

'she's lovely.' I replied to them kindly, knowing they'd 

meant my dog. 'Liberty, I call her; Liberty is her name.'

4878. EVERYTHNG I'VE NOW DONE

EVERYTHING I'VE NOW DONE

Anger fuels the monarch like the oatbag feeds the

horse  -  between such bouts of disenfranchisement

we are left without recourse and peace. I am so

thinly veiled here; my comments are barbed and

pointed. There are ten hundred ways to take a

city down : Clintons and crybabies and churchbells

together. If any of this is a dream, I'll take pudding.

-

I'd much rather honor your fever  -  the hands I now

wrap around the solace of you. More important than

even the uncovered breast, the secreted horn, the

soft down of hair on a belly, is the formation of

the now in the world. Let me wet you dry like

a raisin in a small box of love. I can't go home

before that. And I hear they've now invented

the phone. Here, let me help.

-

Things move fast in Zeiderdown. The small post-office

at the thwarted corner, the sewer-grate where the

carriage man waits, the same horse who parries

the brick-lined ground. I watched the inspector

carry his tools  -  he drags things as if he's mad.

-

Everything now I've done seems to lead me to this :

reading religion and reading your kiss. Both things,

together, at once, as if joined. Ah, just the

way I like it again. 

4877. THE NIECE OF ALICE ANTOINE

THE NIECE OF ALICE ANTOINE

When I awake from all of this I will see clearly  -  

where I've been and when and how. All those

things I've never wished to know : the oak tree

blemish, the solace of the cowherd and the rookery.

Look, just look, how that farmhouse holds oh so

many rooms  -  each lit, each almost moving.

-

My trance has never forgiven me for being. It's a

pain I must live with, and cannot live without. Does

anyone know, I wonder, how I love all things? My

forthcoming, my giving, my crucified heart  -  as one,

moving the equation forward, Venus to Mars and the

cosmos beyond. Into the Sun, running back, where

there really is no backwards at all.

-

My God, how can we survive? We do, and stay in

place. I watch her now, lighting a lamp, with a cloth

face and a gloved hand. Who can I call, or should?

Where can I turn to be beseeched? I am the little

wren, causing havoc in a little place. I wish to be

alone, here, with the niece of Alice Antoine.

4876. BEAT POLICEMAN

BEAT POLICEMAN

He said he was a beat policeman. Even though

I imagined a guy in a beret with bongos and a

cigarette, he meant he was a cop who walked

twelfth street. Oh well, the fun was still there, 

or did I put my foot in it?

-

No different than walking with a podiatrist. Would

that be right? I don't know and I never wonder.

All things are now so strange that all I can do is

walk the water at Pine Street, or climb the pines

on Water Street. Oh jeez, there I go again.

-

Fake french accents slay me  -  all that nasal stuff

with a twisted tongue. The raised eyebrows of a

sixty-year-old man never make much sense. And

I'm a guy; imagine what it does to girls, and young

girls especially. I'm up to my neck in all that, and

I feel guilt every step of the way. Pearl necklace, 

anyone? I'm glad I'm not gay.

-

He meant to say he was a cop. He meant to say he

was a cop, filthy, in a city of sin where now, two old

gizzards of some old white-house days will be waltzing

their new Matilda into the effrontery of the mayor's 

mansion. Me, I hope they can all arrange it, to die

together in one fell swoop  -  and take their dirty

process with them. Blind boy beggar beat cop

now wearing his stupid beret.

4875. THINGS LIKE THIS I CAN MAKE DISAPPEAR

THINGS LIKE THIS I 

CAN MAKE DISAPPEAR

Your wallet, your heart, and your car. I am, after all,

quite talented in these spheres. My globe is the sponge

of your head, grown into circular motions, while you

looked away. That was your watch I just took. Your

entire self, I'm hoping, is next.

-

You'd better not put your feet up on that footstool right

there  -  unless you wish to walk home with no shoes.

The light in my alleyway is a stolen illumination, and it

will not last long. Scabrous tales they tell of me, those

storytellers, those monsters, and those who make things

up. I've clenched a bible in these teeth for so long

my overbite is garish by now : listen up, I offer you

this  -  take my hand, I won't bite; things like this

I can make disappear.

-

There's a panel in your love space where the folds

intersect and overlap  -  if the world should end

right now, I would still remember that.

4874. WEATHER CHANNEL TIDBIT

WEATHER CHANNEL TIDBIT.

I notice today the weather-girl is dressed like a whore;

makes it easier to take bad news? Is that the thinking.

So many of these people, these management men, think 

like Jesse James with a hard-on  -  always producing an

attractive-of-skin idea in the mind of the accountant

before them. Let the dear lady gesture, while she stretches

that stormfront to the east. The wost that can happen is 

a rise, in the ratings. Of course. no matter today's storm

will decimate Wilmington, or flatten the rest of Maine.

4873. TO TAKE SUCH SEDUCTION

TO TAKE SUCH SEDUCTION

To take such seduction sideways I am riding you like

the hills of Troy, thinking of nothing so much as the

hour and the effort and joy. So many moments

matter only when reflected in the oval of time.

We live through the memory of the idle.

-

Down here, among the streets of the now, at

Barrow and Bedford where once Chumley's stood,

I am propping myself up against a building that

leans. I am cold, and probably a little drunk. Across 

from my eyes, I see the doorway where once lived

Delmore Schwartz; up those stairs, past the lobby

light. He most often felt worse than I do now.

-

To take such seduction from whence it comes, I

would first need disrobe you and revel in the sight

of all I see  -  thinking fast, yes, but moving slow.

-

This damned cigar's light throws nothing back  -  

just the hum of this disheveled drunk next to me,

ruing his life and cursing a wife, showeringing my shoes 

and spitting back something vile. Thank the lord it only

flows downward; but my shoes aren't worth anything

anyway much. He has soaked them now, to the touch,

and I live through the memory of the idle.

4872. THE WALLET BIRD

THE WALLET BIRD

Reading stories of Reading Gaol, while

carrying a pitcher of hard-edged ale to 

the prisoners in 29. And I never knew 

Orwell liked turkey. Raspberries maybe,

but turkey, no. There are so many things

to be told, un-named, and then re-learned.

-

I get impatient waiting for rain, and the cat's 

meow, the elf's return and the sidling forest 

of the here and now  -  everything is, at this 

weak point, anti-climactic, and how. 

-

On I-95, driving my way to Philadelphia once

more, I pass the rancid old cell of  a huge prison

wall  -  long ago replaced by something new, with

visitors' lounges and nurseries and conjugal-visit

trailers, right across the road. That's how much

it is that things have changed. But I'm still doomed.

-

The old and the hideous, those ways of torture and 

pain, the forced confession with the hair on fire, the

hangman's noose in the other room while some rabid

priest volunteers to hear your last confession. Just

like that, I realize the wallet bird has fled. There is no 

truth left anywhere at all, and all men standing are liars.

4871. I WOULDN'T MIND HIS FACE

I WOULDN'T MIND 

HIS FACE (WWI)

(Paul Fussell)

Attitudes of decrepitude; sock-dolls and fiery

deaths. 'We heard another matinee; we heard 

the maniac blast.' And, oh yes, the moment was

an integer of pure engineering, a farce corrupted

by lies and logic : 'this last bullet won't kill; the

lucky ones die, the unlucky get maimed.'

-

Now, I myself harbor an attitude like this :

'I am not you, nor am I your brother. I would

just as soon kill you  -  now and here  -  for

trying to steal from me than ever have to vote

for you again. Let me walk you, please, back

into these deadly trenches so I can see you die.'

-

Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen : 'Beauty's bearing

or muse of mounting vein; all, in this case, bathed

in high hallowing grace.' It becomes impossible to

salvage any life from this, when the ringed circle of

a flying death is landing down around each neck.

-

And I have run for miles to escape you. Silver doom.

Siegfried Bastard Lying Fool. Last in, first out. Dying

men tell no tales. 'You rolled;  I watched their hot

hearts fling flames....' I wouldn't mind his face, if I

could only see it staring up. We heard the maniac blast.

4870. HAPPENSTANCE

HAPPENSTANCE

Drive the car backwards reasoning you've

already been. Paint the house topside, letting

the bottom repair itself. Stay put on the porch

alone. These are choice assignments for all.

-

The wind that drives the point that steers the

arrow the pricks the steer  -  whew! -  that's

a mouthful for sure. Now, I'm too tired to talk.

-

Everywhere I look, there's someone stepping in 

shit  -  morons winning lotteries and newly born

matrons marrying billionaires. The whole, wide

world and one grand Mummer's Parade. Let

on one talk; the silence is so perfect, by contrast.

4869. WE MUST DETERMINE THE WINNER OF THIS CONFLICT OF TIME

WE MUST DETERMINE 
THE WINNER OF THIS 
CONFLICT OF TIME

(modern poetry)

Though there are none, there we make claim  -  

no matter and nonetheless. The small heart in the 

palm of a hand -  some tattooed distaff wandering  

-  lets us know the trebled meaning. Continents of 

blood and conflict make the season. A yellow box 

of corn meal still sits on the baker's table.

-

The abbot is singing his song : a slim sponge of

Gregorian chant in his robes and aces and beads. 

He's been to Vegas like he's been to Rome; in his

dreams, and his holy dreams alone. This secular world

is a new spear to his heart -  the one in his chest here

takes precedence. When his mother died, she was buried.

-

I have no verve for this whirling world  -  my amalgamation

polka has left the dribbling universe alone. Where I stand

up, the ceiling already is in place. I am boxed, in a cavern;

I am caught in a maelstrom of a time of my own.

4868. AS THE SWAN GLIDES SIDEWAYS

AS THE SWAN 

GLIDES SIDEWAYS

Yes, I am watching. Various things react to 

the wind; finding differences and finding the 

same. Those small ripples crease the surface, 

yet they are not my focus : I am watching 

the swan glide sideways.

-

A scene such as this amuses me, and takes

my own breath away. Would that I could

be as graceful as that, even being taken off

course by forces greater than myself. As it

is, I remained resigned to staying in place,

to watch, and not to move, or try not to.

-

I am watching the swan glide sideways.

4867. I'M NOT SERIOUS

I'M NOT SERIOUS

(carabinieri to the heart)

I'm not serious to say I live for fun and reap the

results of every pinnacle's high joke. This is the

handy mountain, the top of the lip, the view that

runs all the way to the Tiber. What care I now for

sadness and gloom? I watch the pasta eaters in a

form of dream, twirling their forks with intentions

and minding their own meat's business. They say,

in Italy, that traffic lights are 'for advisement only'.

I can understand, thereby, the black Fiat whizzing

by and the old yellow Alfa taking the sidewalk route.

-

Once I knew grammar and what everything meant : the

very stitch of a sentence and comma. Now, by contrast, 

a thousand supple tongues are yapping and lashing at

me, and I understand nothing except the silence of my 

own lusty wishes. That nicely tuned woman over there,

turning her back to her man, wants me to look twice at 

her vehicular face : the tread and the roadway of 

someone's desire. This traffic light advises 'Stop!'.

-

Glitterati and the rich; all those wealthy mavens of

marriage for money  -  things the padres and the popes

all have blessed. Make love for children only; forget making

love for the love of money; that's only what bad girls do.

4866. NOW IS THE THINE

NOW IS THE THINE

My kettle drum fries and chips, your

over-cooked worms and frijoles, everything

together in our big mashed pot. I say, 'Let's

just keep it brewing, let it stew all day long.'

You laugh it off, and say 'Can't be done, we'll

die of thirst before morning.' Egads, what a

juggernaut we've made. Every circumstance 

of this life conspires now against us. I love 

the flowers you leave in the morning.

-

I am a volunteer in this army of servitude, the

long and languid wasting towards a God in absence.

She shows me pictures of her room; I love them too.

As well, as much, as anything else -   for I am happy

too. Wherever I will be going, I will be leaving now.

-

I love the flowers you leave in the morning :

there's nothing else like them in the world. I look

for Odilon Redon in my historic mind : the flowers

he painted were often haunting, with colors, it seemed,

meant to explode, or be exploded together. Ah yes,

my haunting sadness now; ah, yes.

4865. LET IT LIFT

LET IT LIFT

At the dark of the year such a new year's

need before dying. I should take a pass just

for all the things I hate. Pain has a remarkable

meaning : (would you put me in the ground

before I am finished)?

-

These boats have a peculiar veneer and then  -  

yes  -  the people. My girl named Photie, in her

loose, gray dress. So many questions arise.

There is no externality but the outpouring of

the Self, and I am dizzy once again.

-

Blake put it once : 'As a man is, so he sees.

As the eye is formed, such are its powers.' 

And all deities reside within the human breast.

I have long ago stopped the striving and the

care. No more to gain means no more to lose.

-

The shine of metal comes from the sun  -  

quickly a passing, late afternoon, before

an early dark. Here, here, at the

dead of the year.

4864. 1923

1923

The dirigible came down with a nearly

silent thud. It was 1923, and I was sitting

back, smoking a Chesterfield, thinking of

Amanda, thinking to rise at the chance of

a lick. A lazy dog sang a dog chant nearby;

as well as me, it was getting by. Cherry chant,

and why all the people I know now weren't

even born yet then.  How and why is this

overlapping time, so frightful and strange to

me kind?  I am no longer enchanted by Life.

The nature of Evil shall proceed  -  from all

the groans of my heart. No place to rest, and

the thick neck of my buckler, it is holding me

in place and he keeps me down, has no

pity upon dust and ashes. It is 1923.

4863. MY MIND IS A NAME

MY MIND IS A NAME

This is a secure command of word :

the cherry trees are dormant, blanched

in the cold sun's delight. The debenture 

of my heart is bleeding once again for

my feelings; I awake knowing precisely

where I've been. The news I just heard

is the news I'd already known. Before

the curving bend, the time has already

happened. I am engulfed anew.

-

In this long, thin room, everything is

shaded, and the lights are soft against the

mirror's face  -  yellow to soft white, like

an artist's chalk, fading off, away. The only

lines are made by shadows, things twisted

over and across the objects in their way.

-

I have a hat that I came in with, long-settled;

and now it is placed upon the fireplace mantle.

Something unused  -  like a wish, or like memory.

I will leave it there for a moment as I think.

-

I never understood a thing  -  'A Child's Christmas

in Wales' seemed just tragic to me. Coal scuttles.

Felled trees. And a hole in the forest where a

wildness before had been. I miss those old

days, surely now, surely.

4862. 5. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

5. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

The beggar has arrived before us  -  with

his withered hand arrayed. There was

nothing new to attain; just some joy

without care. Let us move forward  -

(perhaps a troublesome turning and

winding  -  to encompass the joy

of a temporary felicity).

-

That beggar man enjoyed no true joy.

He and I; equals.  Rejoice he then  - one 

in his drunkenness and I in my sloth, or regal

desire or  -  even  -  envy. For I cannot see

Thou in glory, nor that which is not Thee.

-

On this Parisian street, a spat, a spat, and

a violin. The musician was passing cars with

his vibrant strings  -  how strong was the street,

a red doorway, nothing meek. Quisnam 

esset tenendus vitae modus.

-

'What course of Life was to be taken?'

4861. THE LORD'S WORK

THE LORD'S WORK

(pop aria)

The Lord's work is done in

completion, as finished when 

created. It is only the hands of 

man, and logic, that break it 

apart and make claim then to 

put it back - all falsehood 

and claims and lies. Even 

the taking off.

4860. ANNOTATED MISANTHROPE

ANNOTATED MISANTHROPE

One pile of rags at the doorway, five bales of 

paper, wired, at the door. Don't trip, be careful.

The lonesome doorbell rings  -  the elevator light

comes on. Four floors up, the loft is busy; men with

buckets and a hammer wired to speed. It was Bellow,

in Augie March, who said, 'there's a dark Westminster

of a time when a multitude of objects cannot be clear; 

they're too dense and there's an island rain...'

-

Now some mischevious tyrant has the doppleganger of

a black angel parading with apologies, trying to sing

the air to make amends. I am more sure of walking to 

125th street than I am of believing him. Fifteen wrinkled

hambones, three letters of library reference, and a rental

car to Elmira, all my own. The oldest movie I've ever seen 

is playing on a tissue'd screen  -  some ancient film about

babies being slaughtered by a man in a bib. I forget the 

rest, not sure I've seen what I think I've seen. You ask the 

questions, I'll fail the test. The lonesome doorbell rings.

4859. CAN'T ALWAYS BELIEVE I'VE MADE IT

CAN'T ALWAYS BELIEVE 

I'VE MADE IT

Hard to make it there :  minor science, 

major gain. There are echoes down the 

running  -  one more week to make the grade.

Another year goes changing hands. I think

I'll go back to Albany  -  Cooper Towers,

Wormwood, and Christmas lights, along

some wooded glen twenty miles off.

-

My friend's a civil attorney; each year anew

he lights the trees on his five-acre lot. Too

much to do, but he's got a lot.

4858. WE MEANDER

WE MEANDER

I followed the hawk to its perch  -  we were

watching. The big lady thought it was a soccer ball;

I knew differently. High up on the branch, there it

was. Distance is a geography we mix with.

-

I have nothing to conceal, nor pretend .Spaghetti on

the stove is boiling in its water 'A la dente', as my

father would say. Two weeks are more than enough.

-

The county of Middlesex, the Township of Woodbridge,

the crowd at Hurd's Brook, the mess at Parker Press.

There was a hanging tree on the old church lawn : a few

names, jotted down, remind us of who was hung.

-

And then, here we are, living on  -  long past circumference,

long past memory; allied now with nothing at all.

4857. FISSURES ARE GLORIOUS THINGS

FISSURES ARE 

GLORIOUS THINGS 

Here is the layout : Delmore Schwartz catting 

around, running between a few big, old cars. 

He wasn't fast, when drunk, but he could move. 

I can't remember what movie it was, but which 

was it that used 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips With 

Me'? That's the one.

-

Oh say that's rich. Everything these days seems

to be a double entendre. How high does the

cat-walk go? Who parked the slab-sided

car backwards? Fissure are glorious things.

-

Here is the layout : Ted Williams has lost

his head. Rounding first, he slides into

second and - boom - just like that

it's gone. Heading for home?

Fissures are glorious things.

4856. FROZEN LIVES ARE ALL ALIKE

FROZEN LIVES 

ARE ALL ALIKE

Insipid are the reservation of the doomed :

the restaurant, Sweet Caporal, takes information

at the door  -  too late to change your mind.

Too late to change your mind, and who would

want to anyway. 'The flop I found was in a tall,

clapboard hotel.'

4855. THE NOMINAL LOVE OF NOTHING AT ALL

THE NOMINAL LOVE

OF NOTHING AT ALL

I've got nothing on the mythmakers : winds of

fury and surging gods of lust. The skies are

twisted with their fanning winds.  The land

at the harbor is white with their foam.

-

Here is how it all should be : Nature's bridge,

a chariot over the river, now swarms its shores

where people linger. .Everyone who watches

is gaping  -  all those tired, envious mouths.

-

I straddle two continents; yes, I

go wherever I may.

4854. HOWIE DOBSON'S BOMB

HOWIE DOBSON'S BOMB

(on to this then)

Up in the tree for you and me : Howie Dobson

built a bomb that failed to ignite. It was 1964.

Every lane was peeling, its leaves and trees and 

rivulets were bleeding. The whole world was in awe.

-

I'm reading the famous last words of various people.

Not one of them really says much : Gertrude Stein,

'what is the answer (silence); ok, then, what is the

question?' That one, I kind of like, but knew already.

-

I don't merit much : it's Christmas now, it's deep of

the solstice for the Winter season, shortest day, etc.

To try and make something of that is just too much.

Everybody's yapping about something.

-

Did I mention, Howie Dobson built a bomb?

4853. CAR WHEELS ON THE GRAVEL

CAR WHEELS ON 

THE GRAVEL

(part one)

Having to leave things alone, my body walks

away from my mind. The car wheels are

crunching granite, pebbles and rocks. A

man with a single crutch is lighting his own

cigarette. 'Isn't that supposed to be done for 

others, like some lithsome blond in an old

noir film?' I ask. He grunts. The entire

episode made no sense anyway, so

what's the difference.

-

If people were able to really translate moments,

there would never have been wars. As it is, 

I really can't prove there ever was one anyway.

Total subjectivity like that always cuts me short.

-

When I was young I got hit by a train, like

seven or eight years old -  me, not the train.

Then, months later, awakening from a mediocre

coma from which I can still remember every thing

and every dotted i, I realized I was a thousand

years old but grandly young all over. Strange.

-

It took a while for people's words to form; from their

mouths came garbled sounds, filtering as if through a

sieve or something first, and only then falling back into

my field, as words. Or words I understood anyway.

No one said anything important or grand anyway : just

stuff like 'are you OK? How are you feeling? Where have

you been?' I'd better they had said 'where have you gone.'

4852. ELIXIR AND ENAMEL : TRUTH

ELIXIR AND ENAMEL : TRUTH

The wedge truth of the water sparkles;

a Tahoe enema for sure. Well, to be seen;

not that I even know what it means. Reading

a book where a mention is made  -  girl goes 

water skiing on Lake Tahoe, keeps falling down, 

realizes only later that her bikini botton, all this

while, was nestled into the bisected crack of

her vagina. People are laughing at her as she 

gets back on board the boat. And then she says:

'still to come, a few minutes later, another surprise,

Tahoe enema.' So that's where it left me, all this

annoying prose. My sacred life, on the other hand

is quite different : arms and legs always in place, the

right clothing, like a soldier wears or a military man,

and  -  long lost in those old daddy memories one 

keeps, the man talking at me, 'no, son, don't do it

that way; people will think you're quite stupid.'

Oh only I realize how very little I know.

4851. ALL THOSE HANDS

ALL THOSE HANDS

I can tell you straight what I think, or I can

take a long time, weaving a story, telling in

the end nothing really at all. It's all those hands

which go into the making. Were the Brooklyn

Navy Yard now to sink, where would they all

get their primo coffee from? Tell you straight?

They'd be lost or just go somewhere else.

-

There's no necessity like the need for Life.

With each breath seems to come yet another

responsibility : I see you talking, and I hear you

seeing. How difficult can either be?

-

The code-counter where I keep my medicine is

now under lock and key  -  there's a marshall coming

in from the state dispensary. I guess I'll need to

ask him what he thinks he's doing. The answer I

get will be quite the thing to hear. Or see. One

of those other conundrums I can certainly

live without. All those hands into the

building of nothing real at all. I wish

I was ten again.

-

I need a congregation of my very own

now to preach unto. All those

hands will never do.