4092. BROUGHT FORTH

BROUGHT FORTH
First the Tuesday mailman enters, walking
in from Avenue B; lobby entryway, no man's
land. Is that perchance a flashlight in his hand?
No one seems to be sure, though they have seen
him before. These are target times, and this is
all some Democratic joke : nothing marked for
nothing, a few dollar bills with written codes in red.
-
I've been living here for sixteen months now, off and on. 
A new delightful chapter in a growing book of
time. Time? I've done mine : that little girl can tell
you, the kid in neighboring alley. Why am I here again?
-
Writing a book, a research screed on Poverty.
Power-madman-politics, the type these ward-heelers
and shysters love to work. They've promised me
seven thousand dollars, and a pre-publication deal -
just to get it done their way and make my conclusions
seal their assumptions. Every piece has to fit. By this
grand careers are planted, fed and raised. Yes. Yes.
-
That potted plant grazes my hands, the water is
leaking all down the wall, the drain it is clogged and
the parrot cage - where once Hidalgo kept his Moluccan -
is empty to the wind and the air. Everything is just so sad.
-
They bury bodies in Christoforo Park. I know it, I've seen
it, yet I can't say a word. The big blue car, the guy with the
frosty tophat, and the gunman named Chig, they'll all be
around here again, by tomorrow at the latest. I know it.
I'm covering the scene for my Chapter 29. The one about
the dogs being poisoned in Ratherburn Gully. I'll bring
everything maybe forth someday. You just wait.

4091. DETERRENCE

DETERRENCE, 1958

(twelve feet underground)

It used to be the Soviets, I can remember it well:

we'd hover, thinking back to when all began - dad

cursing the skies, mom cowering in confusion and fear.

Star lights and satellites up high above  -  whoever knew

the difference, not us. If it moved up there, suddenly we

were told, it belongs to them. They would have us if

we let them  -  had to be prepared, had to stir the

menace down, be ready any moment. Dig down

underground, or pierce the sky, our very own,

with rockets too. What a fucking, zany,

rocking life that was. Saltine crackers

and a jar of honey, twelve feet

underground.

4090. GRIEVOUS PENDULUM

GRIEVOUS PENDULUM
My son, that grievous pendulum bears little
watching and matters less - its arc and sweep
will soon enough swoop low and touch. Nothing
we can do. Hide the rafters in the rafters, do what
you will to escape; you will not, nor I. It is the way
of this Life, this pattern, this time. Let us watch the
apples and pears on those backyard trees - they
buzz and crinkle right now with both birds and bees,
yes, but 'ere long too those limbs shall be vacant
and broken, and strewn like kindle on this
insatiably hungry ground.

4089. ZERO FOUR LANE

ZERO FOUR LANE
I may have made my mind up a long time ago
and then forgotten : I can't recall. Now I'm
watching that stupid kitten once more,
lapping milk from the creamer, slapping
butter with its paw. I don't know the
circumstances any more.
-
I've labeled my Life as a fireplug just one
too many times - all these hoses, jamming
in and all demanding something - water, power,
consideration or light. Everything comes with a
bill to pay. My lord, I've done too much already.
-
Take my packaged steamer trip, for free, you
can have it : go where you may, travel the globe.
To Malay and Pango Pango, I bid you adieu.
I have a few more things to do.

4088.TO MY ENDEARING CHARM

To My Endearing Charm
There's no cut-off at the canyon that your
knife could not handle : rapier-like wit, fiery
tempest of reason and a solidarity with all
things beautiful. I knew you when the lazy
waters ran. We stood at Kelvin's Corners
together. Your mother ran the hose that
doused me through - for a week later,
I coughed a dead-man's hack.
-
And yet, now, all these scarf-years later,
you are standing once more in a secret light
without me. The mother is gone, the old
Chevy that leaned at the curb, I do remember,
has long ago been cubed into someone's
footstool of junk, and all my ideas and
years of trouble and schooling are so
long past as to be forgotten. You once
said I would never want for anything -
God, how wrong you were.
-
Everything in the refracted glasslight
is sour and listless; even the straight
lines are drooping. Time is like a
circus master, now spinning his
hoop past lions and tigers and
more; past lions, and
tigers, and more.

4087. IN PLACE OF ALL GOLD

IN PLACE OF ALL GOLD

At the witching hour, like this it comes : dark

shadows and the wistful fall of night. We've left

the words behind  -  those are things for

horticulturalists and those scientific types

with their lists and categories and definitions.

I never walked a step in that muck, for fear

of soiling my shoes. Look around you; that's

really all it takes. State of mind? Not mine.

-

I've tried science and found it wanting. I've

tried religion and laughed it off  -  all those

spiritual moments of Yves Tanguy and

Rosicrucian madness, Swedenborg, Blake

and Steiner. Art makes the grade, only then it

too fails as money gets its ugly face involved.

Nothing is what nothing does. How's that?

-

Now, instead of Death I'm just settled in :

I can ride this wagon until the wheels are

gone, and then coast this broken chassis

to the bottom of the hill. As I see it, that

will do, until.....the real gold rises up.

4086. NEW FRUIT TO BLOSSOM

NEW FRUIT TO BLOSSOM

My plate is a pattern of despair  -

on its face, etched, is all the botany

of despond and all the sickening

tendrils and vines of overreach and

clutch. Would such rancid growth

were trimmed and cut immediate.

But I am not a trimmer, nor a cutter.

For Life, why Life, there is no

second chance? I have lived already

ten thousand years and years and

years. My razor's all-thwarted intent

may have lost its edge, yet here in

place I shall remain; for my plate

is a pattern of despair, and I am

waiting for new fruit to blossom.

4085. KESSLER

KESSLER

Kessler I am running barefoot now,

and my shoes are gone and I note my

feet up on a couch while coffee smokes

from a Mason Jar  -  pure glass filled

with a dark brown roast. Well, Kessler,

we come to all these odd agreements.

Anyway, be a man  -  I can't stand

all these fey guys today.

-

The things I have to listen to! Egads!

It's noted here ('OK') that I'm not

against this modern day but only

here these people  -  while young  - 

all act so very old! Accepting all

the same old verities as everyone

before them  -  which, of course,

are not verities at all! You see

my point?

-

I'd like to decimate this Mankind,

or at least leave it broken upon a rock.

Listen to them :  Like they are slicing

bread with a perfect knife. But I have

found a perfect life, Kessler. I am running

barefoot with my feet upon this couch.

4084. LISTENING IN THE STANDS

LISTENING IN THE STANDS

Billy Joel to the rafters : Allentown

and Goodnight Saigon; or whatever

passes today for the situations of

pomp and circumstance. How free am

I? Not very. I want the Senators and

Congressman all rounded up and jailed;

they are, after all, you know, cheats and

liars, thieves and criminals, and war

criminals too. So, why not? I'm so free

that I can't say that. I want the Presidents

and all their cabinets and officers taken in,

incarcerated. I want their Libraries burned,

and all their sick, Presidential papers. Screw

them. How free am I? Can I ask that?

And we're living here in Allentown, and

they're closing all the factories down.

I want the IRS shuttered, and all those sick

indigents floating on my dollar broken down.

I want the military blown to bits itself.

How free am I? I want the schools closed

and all the churches shuttered. And we're

living here in Allentown. We came as

brothers to Parris Island; we left as

inmates of an asylum.

How free am I then?

4083. THAT OLD MANSION

THAT OLD MANSION BY
THE APOTHECARY SHOP

Well, old man, it had many grave windows too,

all looking out onto the blustery shore. No, you

couldn't see it of course, but it just felt as if it

were there : copper-limbed light dipping down

from the treetops to linger and stay. I do so well

remember you there  -  Mr. Henderson, and all

those underfoot chickens you kept in the yard. The

eggs, a dollar-twenty-five a dozen and a minute of talk.

You said your wife 'was sick inside'  -  you meant,

I remember, in the house, of course, but I mistook

it to mean she had a growth or cancer, or something

mortal. We laughed, but it was all very hesitant  -  as

it turned out, she did, and died. I was sorry for months

after. Now, you too are gone : that old place is near

crumbling, and where are all those chickens, Mr. H.,

where are all those chickens now?

4082. WHAT I DID

WHAT I DID

I took to carrying blood and ashes, guns and butter,

leafs and bark. I took to hiding out behind boulders

and walls. I wanted just never to be seen at all.

Why? You may rightly ask? Because I want no

field, no house nor hovel. I want no brother

nor sister nor shovel. I wish to be left at the top

of yon hill  -  bunkered and sagacious though

unbroken, not bound. I want to be the flight

in your fleeing. Let me light the fires of my

mind with only the matches I first make  -  

the tinder and the kindle, the shards and

the shavings. All these things  -  I know

at least  -  will ever cheer me on. I am

the hermit in the thrush hut, the old

man, lying buried, at the top of

the unmarked hill.

4081. ENDEAVORED AVOIDANCE

ENDEAVORED AVOIDANCE,

LOST MISAPPROPRIATION

There is the chisel by which I chip through this

world : one marvelous wedge-point with a harshly

hammered stump. I go happily banging on.

-

Trousers rolled? I shall instead put this

newspaper down  -  for there is nothing there

to see. I note that everything has, already,

happened twice and I have left the village

anyway. Vague vapors, the fast-mouth-talking

words of gossipy little men.

-

Any ghost of Waverly has already here

appeared. The woods of Birnam have

moved, and what care I for nothing?

4080. REPEAT OF THIS

REPEAT OF THIS

The gutters run with mud, inches

deep, and - where trucks have sloshed

through - the tracks are deeply etched.

Mute and strapped, this whole, entire,

tired world is running down but yet still

drips Love  -  a wander-skate, an echo,

an heirloom. They've managed to gather

up the old, discarded Christmas trees,

thrown willy-nilly where they were.

People are done with them now, and

they are dead. Dead too is any Life

their growth-to-expectations may once

have held; so much like these storm-tossed

people. Too bad. Who cares? Their tainted

surf has thrown them gravel and sand  -

their boardwalks and promenades, they

maintain,  are gone as well. Too bad. Who

cares? No more glitter palace and no more

sleazy bars; no more boozy, frothy girls

spreading lips for tips. Oh, oh, even the

ocean is in mourning. Too bad. Who cares?

I'm sure the drop drops for nothing at all.

4079. I TOOK IT ALL THROUGH TO CARRY IT AROUND

I TOOK IT ALL THROUGH 

TO CARRY IT AROUND

(amalgamated fourth fugue for Delmore)

'My life is pretty good and I don't know

why, except effort. I've got stuff everywhere,

and my pockets seem always full of money.

Emphasis on 'seem', 'cause I don't always know

if it's mine or someone else's, on loan from

some bank or something  -  though I don't

care, because it's really all the same.'

-

This life is not an ending, just an is  -  and I

must be both alienated and indestructible

together. I am dedicated, and I survive.

(There's no ice cream in the freezer either,

big boy you're now on your own)...

-

On a sandy, topside bluff they said 'this hill

was an old Methodist prayer meeting camp.'

I stand looking out, over both water and land :

ruined marshes, brushy grass, sand and salt.

Nothing seems moving, and nothing will last.

A place called 'Toms River' must be like that,

has to  -  living on past its old station.

-

And someone deserves only this : there is

'lonely town' playing, and I ply the raging waters

alone. I have my rights, like some guy who talks

too much with his hands, some Italian baker, or

a Jew about money  -  loud, lugubrious, tiresome,

unending, lurid, lush, frantic and freely; though

all these things with suspicion. Yes, God, I

love it all  -  like looking at women all day.

Just again, this morning, someone asked me:

'Has anyone told you you're a crazy man?'

-

'I'll kiss you wherever you think you're poor,

wherever you shudder, feeling tiny or skinny,

striped or barred, feeling you are

bloodless, cheerless, or marred.'

4078. MUSIC

MUSIC

'They are not running horses are

they today?' - I listen to the drunk

man talking , nay slurring, what he's

meaning to say - 'Can't get a word in

edgewise, it's like everybody's got

something else to say : Eddie Wiseman

carries his guitar in a gunny sack, looks

all around but never looks back. You 

know what I mean? And, yeah, they

practice all this too?'

4077. WANTING

WANTING

I must want to know you, I tell myself.

There, upon the carousel you walk through,

are all the maddening moments which keep

me here : a constable's confusion, a massive

confession before a judge who's dense and

deaf together. No one notices, and no one

seems to hear a thing. I tell myself, again,

I must want to know you, there, upon the

carousel you walk through, with all the

maddening moments which keep me here.

4076. I LIVED

I LIVED

I lived above the Washburn Pickle Works

in 1949. It was not anything special, just a place for

entry, somewhere to be until I was five. Nothing

made any difference  -  looking out the window

I saw tugboats and tankers and fishermen's

harvests. Across to the right, the grand

arc of the Bayonne Bridge, making some

sort of solid marker for place and time.

All these little cars and trucks, splaying

over water. How prescient was I, really?

Not knowing anything, but just taking

everything in. Before I knew it, 

I was gone from there.

4075. STACCATO LUMINESCENCE

STACCATO 

LUMINESENCE

This makes me sick : this leaves me cold.

All that back and forth for nothing.

The brownstone fronting  St. Luke's Place

is toying with the sunlight; fading fast it

dips over Jersey's silly edge. I've been

everywhere ten thousand times. My 

head hurts just from travel.

-

That guy, he's the icicle on the carpet - 

where he lives there are five other men.

Each of them a dancer, fine and fair,

those sorts of guys you see in chorus

lines or Broadway plays. Why would,

really, anyone do that?

-

Here comes my yellow cab - it stirs the

pavement like a regal lion swooshing

along the path. I get in and crouch.

Oh, the guy behind the wheel seems

touchy. My goodness, I won't say

a word.

4074.YES, THIS IS THE NOW

YES, THIS IS THE NOW

How golden the clarity which comes from

profusion : yes, the sun is shining, and yes,

 the cold, gray sky is gone. The rain yet

lingers in the gutters and at curbs. I listen

to some sound  -  whether a diminished

squirrel in stress, or the rolling sound

instead of a Winter bird, I'll stay to hear;

for I have nothing to lose, and an

entire world to gain.

4073. THE VORACIOUS WEB

THE VORACIOUS WEB

The spider weaves things that get

left behind. Assuming no more, I

espy those dried, dead bugs,

swinging listlessly, near the

empty window's cracked

and open breeze.

4072. THE YOUNG PRIEST IS WALKING VATICAN CITY

THE YOUNG PRIEST

IS WALKING VATICAN CITY

I am a member of a church run only by males.

I walk along the postcard streets so that people

can take snapshots of all the handsome young men

in cassocks and collars. I spend my time with brothers

and fathers of the Lord, who seem to dote on old

ladies and kids. I walk amidst effeminate preachers

coaxing answers from dead skin - things others have

asked about - as if I knew the solution to anything real.

-

I proclaim my faith for the Virgin Mother, the Sacred

Heart, the beating with flame, the tongues of fire, and

the lashings upon the cross. My figure of devotion is

a partially-clad young man writhing in agony with

flagellant wounds on his somewhat sensuous body. I

answer to others about why this is so: 'It is to show

the humanity of the Lord, and the workings of God

among us. He too became a mortal man made of

attractive flesh. The flesh by which we fall.'

-

I mean no harm.

I talk no evil. I speak

to young boys who assist me

in the early morning masses.

I adjust their collars and cassocks

so that they too can be just like me.

I seek for new vocations.

I bring young men to the Lord.

-

(I seek to absolve all Mankind).

4071. DOCTOR DICK

DOCTOR DICK

I never know if I should continue with

anger or hope - each of them seem

equally meaningless. My life to date

has failed miserably. I am sitting in

a lakeside park, here, in a place I

never really liked, to read of Edgar

Allen Poe. It seems so unreal how

little we know of everything, and -

as I think back - I realize, just as well,

how wrongly we have been taught all

of our lives. That which passes for

education has been mostly wrong.

The vast part of all that is has

been missed.

-

I can only live by being the most

outrageous character I can be, and

fuck the rest. For those who do not

get it, it is a lack of imagination that

is their problem. An unexamined life

is not worth living? I read that on a

bathroom wall someplace once,

mouthing the words to myself.

-

It was St. Augustine of Hippo - I

guess before he was a saint, unless

he already know that - who first

astounded the world by reading silently

to himself without moving his lips. From

Alexandria's library it was never before

seen, and people considered it the most

personal and immediate act of solitariness

they had ever before seen. It signified an

inner life they had never before known. It

signified another world to come. Well,

he showed them, didn't he?

4070. I WILL BE MOVING YOU TO THE LEFT

I WILL BE MOVING YOU

TO THE LEFT

There doesn't have to be a real reason for the

shading of light or the washing of glass by

fresh rainwater. These things occur regardless

of our position or human attitude. Therefore I

have nothing to say about what happens on a

daily basis. We must instead simply learn to

move along within that grid without thinking or

flinching, as it re-orders our priorities or alter

whatever we may feel. The end result, I do

suppose, is meant to be satisfaction.

-

We seek to achieve a result that is, somehow,

most clear only to us. Communication results

as we attempt to talk about the shape and feel

of what we try to mean - yet somehow it only

produces side issues of little consequence.

-

I want to shy away from telling things that mean

too much, of reciting them in singsong to others,

losing meaning and worth. I would rather act the

swan at a pelican's wake, earning encomiums

and nicknames of mirth at some Princeton

streetside fence adrift with bold graffiti. The

rather neat men and women of glamorous

mien will enable the works to work. They

attend the febrile theater, seeking to dance

at melodies and song. They buy their season

box to watch McArter women stage diaphanous

plays of spirits and gnomes.

-

All about me, they will be there, as I recall the

saddest memory of complexions past and walk

my way through confusion and harm. I will push

you to the left - out of danger's way and into

the arms, instead, of something else. Your

un-named charm beseeches me onward.

-

I am owned by nothing but all,

and I possess the title to the world

4069. THEN THEY HAD

(THEN THEY HAD...
To lock my heart away. It sank over the
precipice and stayed where it had fallen.
My entire bell jar of being was over : inverted
equations calling out numbers, zeros in the act
of becoming. Yes, I'd taken my spot upon the
unlit stage, but no lights had ever before been
even brought in, let alone lit. For what great
moment was I sitting, and where were the
great locked bars of once-my-heart?)

4068. FOR NOW

FOR NOW

For now the parting is such sweet

sorrow and the land's end is near us.

The frightful Chinese fellow is sweeping

the sidewalk once more - I notice he is

singing a weary tune. Something mournful,

like old days in his Hanching Province mind.

I never notice animals in places like this -

not the pealing whistle of so much as a bird.

Dogs and cats, forget it. Only the old, old bell

on the Mariner's Church insists on staying

alive - and no one from then would recognize

the now, so it's little difference anyway

-

I sit and order rice and tea. In my favorite

moments, that's all what I'm about; but then

two yapping Jews come in, lower eastside

people with dead minds for homes, and they

haven't shut up yet - all that rising crap about

their little world : how many of this and how

much for that. Does not anything ever change?

-

In sequence now, behind them, come the tattoo'd

kids, those reliquaries of tears and doubt. The girl's

an obvious punk, bragging already about blowing her

guy, while the one guy in their little crowd looks like

he does all the others. It's a maddening world and

uncertain of end. What clothes are worn now

to cover up only the true and the real? I

want to know, but I'll never find out.

4067. ARGUMENTATION

ARGUMENTATION

I shelf the floor, I ante the up, and we all

make out together. Look back, at the planet

now passing behind us; remember that place?

It swiftly took our time away, and left us now

cavorting in the wind of its passing absence.

What then is this life, if nothing more than

reflections and passing things? Who has

dreamed up time, and how have

they time to dream?

4066. SIGHTED

SIGHTED
I have seen darkness and light : alternating
vistas between distant poles. On 17th Street,
the little man holding a camping lantern -
delicate and fit like a swan - while, across
the Chelsea alley, three others, gruff and
stern, standing next to their roaring barrel
fire, seeking warmth. By degrees and by
grades, I want both. I am in two places.
The great sun, in Winter array, drops...
down lightly on a great,
watery horizon.

4065. BREEZE

BREEZE

'At the moment, I'm so exhausted that I

feel like cutting my throat, so the next

news may be that I'm across the river and

under the trees. What is the meaning and

purpose of life? Death?'

-

'The mind is a city like London - smoky

and populous', Shelly wrote. In the time

it takes for my face to roughen I shall be

dead  -  and some stupid man will need to

shave my face again  -  though this time

for Death and all its attendant burials :

(and all who see, shall follow me).

-

I makes no sense so little so little to

go on and on : prattle so like the stevedore's

talk, is an endless dockside weave of but

gossip and woe...'my car won't start, my

house, the roof is leaking, I am so sick

myself, as sick and near to doorways

of death as one can be.'

-

Let me learn to relax, like the fire-pit's

turning rod  -  langorous and steady and

slow  -  on a scheduled journey, a place

in this time where things get done. I want

to live. I want to live. I want to live.

(But this slow turning is Death to me).

4064. OF ALL THE THINGS I DO NOT NEED

OF ALL THE THINGS

I DO NOT NEED

Miles from Gopher Prairie and Windicott Falls, I am

speaking in another tongue, a language all my own.

In some faulted Midwest angle of Progressive discontent,

I am Robert LaFollette one more : talking fast, furiously,

about injustice and pent-up rage. Too many things now.

-

The storms come in over the prairie, I'd figure, one

storm at a time - though it seems like ten some mornings.

Everything is ruined and blown apart. No answers there.

The takers still take and those who swear yet swear.

There's nothing that can be done - it is all a rage of

a raging storm. What am I doing here?

-

My uncle was a gunman, my father was the law.

I was drawn, on both sides of this great divide,

by a pencil sketch of genetic discontent. Dad

was great, but Uncle Heemus ruled. Yes,

I went with my heart to my ending.

4063. HOTPOT

HOTPOT

Outside the crummy restaurant the two men were

speaking in tongues : Of Jesus and Hell, of damnation

and eternal suffering. I stayed and listened just enough

to lose interest. What a paltry God this must be! For

mistakes in years of seventy, the damnation eternal too

must be? Ever and ever anon? Now listen, that's a bit

much, even for a hanging judge. Let me die, instead,

at the stake. At least it's over in a short instant.

-

I watched them talk on  -  the one fellow in a gray

overcoat, fine and fabric'd like a thousand dollars

would do; and the other, slightly hunched, wearing

some foolish-looking sports-styled fabric thing. I

don't know why they carried on so, but behind

them, like a bland yet curious Hopper painting,

I saw heads and and shoulders bobbing  -  as

people talked and ate, oblivious to a fault.

-

There is no grief to peddle that's worse than the

grief we're given : all those curious words  tumbling

down. The noise of a choir in full preachment form  - 

in a long, dull corridor, perhaps, with no 

one listening to anything at all.

4062. NO, I WON'T

NO, I WON'T

For that reason alone, I will not. I remember

seeing that woman before, looking my way while

her dog kept yapping. If she was staring me down

as the source of her woe, no, I won't move on.

Shut down your culprit dog instead : your own

yellow-raincoat flickers in the breaking sun, and

your plastic boots are tragic. I'll do anything

right now to completely mix her up.

-

I've decided, just as well, to never put anything

in the way of myself. You know, I am all that I

have. The river may widen, the river may crest,

but my own craft must float, no matter the rest.

-

Let me take this steamer cap from your head.

No, I won't deliberately hurt you, but it

might happen nonetheless. Yes, you

may wince in pain. No, I won't.

4061. FOR ALL THAT I SEE

FOR ALL THAT I SEE

For all that I see I see nothing at all. The

only shivering person I know has already

gone  -  she was once mine, now no longer,

though I remember her face and I've kept her

scarf. She'll only notice, perhaps, later.

-

Let's walk in lockstep  -  two doors down,

past the entryway, into the court, and sit. I

can hear things before they even sound. I can

sense the things you'll say. This is good. Like

the gunfire in the courtyard at the Dakota,

when John Lennon went down, everything is

by sound transfigured. Changed. Altered.

-

This is so mysterious, this flexing, fluid life.

We come, we go, and in a moment so many

things can change  -  like an endless blind where

the ducks are picked off, one by one by one.

Crazed and stupid hunters, staring blindly

into space, intent on one thing only : that

they will never leave a trace. (For all

that I see, I see nothing at all.)

4060. AS I LAY DYING

AS I LAY DYING

And go down, Moses, and all the rest.

The wind is rustling the marsh grasses, yet

I can hardly see  -  my world has gone gray, a

pale and stone-colored place I now only

half inhabit. Spiritually, my loss is exacerbated

by your presence. The only light to be had is the

light of your minion's army. Take my arm, help me

up. The image before me is wavering : some weak,

shuddering native who has lived here before. He has

flame in the palm of his hands. The aura stretches

from his head to the far horizon. Lean me back

once more. Let me die here in peace.

4059. PILLAGE

PILLAGE

I am at my seventh year in a place called

gold; walking with Delmore Schwartz, lining

the pockets of others, perambulating through the

Princeton lanes and passages : campus trees

resounding with bells and lineage. To my one side,

Bellow winces while, at the other a guy names

Fitzgerald plays along. The Wilsonian dirge drags

on. World war sadness still lingers, and all those

shouting voices. Need I wonder why I am?

-

Intentions are sometimes vague things - I stand

aside and swallow hard. I have books galore, they 

drip from my veins like the black-purple ink of a cheap

prison tattoo: self-inflicted, pressed by fear, etched

in a chapbook of both dread and doubt.

-

'Why sit still for madness', it reads. I have to squint,

as it too so quickly fades. Like a memory of some

hallowed deed  -  no one wants to forget, but no one

quite remembers right  -  I will walk around, a legend

only in my own feeble taxonomy. Grange the ground, 

bring everything to a halt, stop the noisy charade. I

am the better for this, but no, no, I am better for that

as well. All this crazy shrillness keeps me going,

enjoying the pillage of others.

4058. I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT (Jumel Mansion)

I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT

(Jumel Mansion)

My schoolhouse massacre goes on

and on - as if each day something new 

to be slaughtered arises. I have, I have

yet, the stars and the moon, that Winter

hoar-frost and those blazing nettle-bush

fires on high. Let me then once more

just stand alone. There is always the

sound of mayhem and mess  - 

the doctor's ash-heap for sure.

-

There's a certain genuine nervousness

in walking down from Harlem Heights.

That old black man seems stirring his

frothy coffee with an undue vengeance.

I watch, and then stagger alone  -  old

music fills my ears. I'm gazing out from

Morningside Heights, eastward, over a

city that seems but an assemblage of shit.

-

Why make any of this matter? It doesn't

and I won't  -  there are too many people

spelling and spilling my name to care.

I am famous at my own dumb level :

waterway and reservoir, conduit and

boathouse lake; it's all another page

in some coloring book of an urban life.

-

Hamilton Grange? Was that the name of

this place  -  a pale white mansion on a hill -

when there yet were hills and geography ruled

place and setting - wild trails and wonderful

things. I know that I've lost all my squalid places,

having gathered both grace and quality instead.

-

(No, no, it was the Jumel Mansion). There

I sat on the cold, hard ground, watching the

world while sitting down  -  and remembering

those peacocks at St. John the Divine.

4057. INDIA (1914)

INDIA

(1914)

Never trust those who tell only the

truth : they will be lying to you or have

you in hock. I am 'farther more' broad

than that grand old bridge as I'm walking

through Washington Heights.

-

Like a bullet train speeding Japan, my own

 mind stays expansive and wide, and I will

not draw down. I will not let myself be drawn

down. I will not allow it. I will grow.

-

Charlotte Perkins Gilmore I shall become; ragdolls

on the doorknobs, yellow wallpaper at stay. I can

change the world as I walk among the wealthy.

-

'After I come back from India I have no real

travel on my agenda.' (No, you don't - because

you are dead. Do you know what dead is? It is

stasis; it is the moribund static of a conceptified

life). 'Accroding to all the ethics that I know,

I must obey.'

-

At Huber's Palace Museum I watched the

tiny man crawl into a jar : small this,

small that, as all things are.

4056. MERE SCIENCE

MERE SCIENCE

I am my own cyclotron's tunesmith, winging

angles from the straightest of lines. There

are uncomfortable moments afoot, and I shall

have to face them off. I can alter the evidence,

yes, but the world will never change

4055. NARROW BRIDGE

NARROW BRIDGE

My only biological premise is over; I have now

alienated everyone. The graveside manners of

my Delmore Schwartz have hacked off any

good limbs there once may have been. Barren

wastelands are all that remain and I am farming

what I've seeded - a pretty meager crop at that.

The woman in the semblance hat, she is knitting

covers for the books I've penned : pages never

turned, volumes never referred to. It is finished in

mere seconds. This life rides its own narrow bridge.

4054. MAN RIVALING

MAN RIVALING

There's a man rivaling nothing so much as

himself; he's sitting upon the edge of the

midnight pier. His long steps have brought

him here; his despair has kept him in place.

-

I have had nothing to eat for thirty hours or more:

That disarms me, but the last oatmeal in the world

still would not suffice. I am tired and thin and ready

to go. Take this wicked world from me, now.

-

I had parents who died, siblings who stayed, all

of that  -  yet I am closed and alone in this cycle

of time. Liberty's harbour light is throwing a

 midnight shadow somehow moving over the

waters. I watch the rippling movement of Freedom's

ghost, just to realize it says nothing at all. The

bay-chained Liberty has nothing to give.

-

Steerage and passage  -  all those miserable dullards

clunking along. I can still see them; dragging their

rags and cardboard goods, they struggle to understand

as much as they see. Nothing comes forth to greet them

and, wordless and dumbstruck, they utter their own

tongues' noises : their 'why am I here' sounds forever.

-

Black harbor smokes, ferry stacks belching, grand

roars and the nosies of fires and steam. Wood pilings,

smacked by the thrashing of boats, groan and heave.

The entire world is atmosphere and activity while the

only silent moment comes between the breaths of dawn

and the breathing together of new light and life. The

faint strugglers moves along  -  wild parsings cut

through the words of night while this man still sits.

He is rivaling nothing so much as himself, and

the judgmement is his alone to be.