Wednesday, January 30, 2013

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.

Monday, January 28, 2013

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.

Friday, January 25, 2013

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?

Thursday, January 24, 2013

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?


Monday, January 21, 2013

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?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

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?'

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

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.

Monday, January 14, 2013

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

Thursday, January 10, 2013

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.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

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).

Sunday, January 6, 2013

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.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

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.

Friday, January 4, 2013

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.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

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.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

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.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

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.