4151. AT JIBOREE HOLLOW

AT JIBOREE HOLLOW

I lost my face in a moment of excess, in

Jiboree Hollow, at the end of a gun. It was

all I could do to keep from laughing, but - of

course - I have no bottom lip to laugh with

now. Everything was blown away and  -  at

the very last moment  -  all I heard were very

strange words and snippets of many things:

'oh when the saints go marching in dear Prudence

how many roads must a man walk down we're havin'

a party everybody's singin' raindrops keep falling on

my head I got a woman way over town she's good to

me but will you love me tomorrow there is a balm in

Gilead.'

4150. WELL THEN YES

WELL THEN YES

I might have broken free  -  the alabaster idol

broke, shards flew everywhere. The old man

in the coffee shop stall shouted out 'well I'll

be damned, now I've seen it all!' before he fell

down crying. The nearby hoot owl sang  -  a tune

most mournful yet familiar. It was, I think they

said, Richard Krebs dying. Nearby, some Mexican

lout was unloading cookies from a truck, and a

newsboy came by with the papers. He placed

them down on the marble counter and walked

off. The sunlight was just coming through; it

was six-forty-five in the morning light.

4149. CALLOW LANE ROAD

CALLOW LANE ROAD

I am terribly ambidextrous; I can screw things up

with either hand. It's that easy. here I am now,

sitting back in a clump, overlooking some Delaware

River hill, a furrow of nothing and dirt, when some

cows amble by, and keep going. I suppose this

nearby is their pasture, and who to them am I?

They're right, for sure; I don't belong, but

harmless as well I remain.

-

If I had words, though I don't speak cow, I'd

probably just manage to apologize for something

unknown - some foible, some past mistake,

that my feral mind would imagine them noticing.

Yeah, so smart am I to think this way of them.

-

I am lame, I am stupid, I am human and

dumb. After all, this is all I can be.

After all, this is all I can be?

4148. HOUR OF PERIL

HOUR OF PERIL
Painting the hammock and marking
the fenceline won't get you home.
Creepy, how the diminishing returns of
still another project keep so many men at
bay. It is written in catcalls that we are all Divine :
creatures of sentience and light, but nothing
to show for it at all. I am watching the darkening
of another man's face - he stares out at the harbor,
asleep, from a fourth floor ledge. Overlooking somehow
Brooklyn, from this east side berth, he really sees so
little, for sure, and his hour of peril is at hand. Creepy it
is, how one finds only Salvation to be had, or nothing
else to be given at all. Thusly, this pale life confuses.

4147. MILES TO GO

MILES TO GO

The savage guy, the one with the open heart, the

bleeder, he's coming back for more. Look at him

swinging his open-featured cleaver, and all that

meat. But, for myself, I'm on my way from here

and going far. I've read of all that warfare, all that

carnage at the feudal village edges  -  I want no

part. Anyway, that guy has a wonderful name, so

apt : he calls himself Christian Slaughter.

4146. TO JULIE MAYLE

TO JULIE MAYLE
Not the time that ticks, the noise we hear
is often just the sound of things returning,
both the dark and the light, commingling;
together the sound of time, some orgiastic
tome of ringing hoots and screaming.
Not that I am ticking, mind you, all alone.
I manage to scrap the pail of the bucket
of the bottom I salvage - so low that it's
coming home once more. To me every
faction hunkers, tries streaming, sidles
home. But I am nowhere. You were
soon to be my fortune, and now you
too are gone.

4145. HISTORY

HISTORY
(Virginia, 1882)
I farmed this bitter earth, with all it's
Salt and tears, and only now return to it.
How many years? Fourscore and twenty and
Multiplied five, all that dirge- like Lincoln flash
undone, and these dead still litter the field.
I farm this bitter earth and still turn both bones
and bodies. And now I am crying, hurt.
What is it about time that always breaks me?
Cuts me low and leaves a gash. - I myself
Step lightly o'er this littered field. See a dead
Horse, bones toppled and frozen, catch the
Sight of a raining frog and a running robin.
I am so lost. I am so lost.

4144. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR EYES

TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF YOUR EYES
Be the whippoorwill you wanted, wrap the
skunk you never found : see the world in
a whole new way. Listen and look, as
everything abounds.
-
You know how people praise abundance;
all that thankful crap - those rituals and
prayers. I understand all that - the motivations, 
and all they make - but just as well avoid
the time they take.
-
I live this life well, I live this life well.
I take advantage of my eyes.

4143. RIVERWALK

RIVERWALK
The mist was thick like a blanket;
enraptured moments of time running by.
Stuck, as I was, in the moment watching,
no stars from the Heavens drove down to
enrage, no limits on high stepped in to engage.
The old sludge of an earthen city droned by.
-
I pierced this leaden gloom with thoughts of the
oriole and Spring - perhaps only another chance
... to find new words, another way to sing. Let me
wander, aimless now, among these passing tides
and currents, watching with wistful eyes the boats
and barges passing. This is a world alone, unto
itself, hiding so many things yet owing nothing.
-
To others come those moments of bliss : the
padded cell instead here holds me. I look out,
along the river's walls and sidings, and only think
I see what's there - like an unfolding screen, my
febrile mind imagines what it wishes. All things pass.
True colors fade, the mist takes over, and I am gone

4142. SEARCHING FOR MY EUROPEAN ADDRESS

SEARCHING FOR
MY EUROPEAN ADDRESS
When I was twelve, I ate the apple offered to me -
fool that I was, it became an anchor. Now, I believe
nothing and feel the better for it. I ran away at thirteen,
to find my patch of Paris and learn the new way. It
all took me by storm - Sartre and the bridges, the
death of Camus, and then the great storms of Algeria
and the streets. By eighteen, I was finished with all that,
having been shot in the shoulder by Parisian cops,
beaten with truncheons in the lanes of old Les Halles,
and thrown out of the cathedral by force and a punch.
My, my, what a battle this all was. The streets had then
somehow turned to crud. I fled to Belgium and then came
home. How curious that now Depardieu follows me,
how curious it all is at all. And now, and now, the
fire-in-heart lingers and I never wish to leave,
though I also wish I'd never left.

4141. DEMARCATION

DEMARCATION

Inherit the wind, my lovely; be not

scared - nor rueful - be neither.

The spirit holds the lamp that

holds the light within.

-

 Listen back to harken doleful to

a childhood face - of eyes and

smiles and a nearly perfect joy.

-

Oh, them...that circus is always

in town. They park their raggedy

trucks and cars on every path

of grass and green they find.

-

High, high in the sky overhead -

some purposeful polar jet is running

northward, leaving its trailing wake

in the nether sky.

4140. LAUNDERED

LAUNDERED

You have, I may now safely aver,

laundered my time and laundered my money;

there is no path along your escarpment and I

am tired of running. This three-room shack,

worthy of Ted Kacinsky himself, has kept

me well. I ate honey and corn, I stole what

else I could steal  -  no one has anything on me.

-

My tools were the adze and the axe.

My riflework was the sharpshooter's art,

and high along this ridge no one, apparently, ever had

heard the shots -  no, they were not constant, just

rather now and then. A few trespassers, a'foul of me

over time and years, are now dead. Their bodies are

buried in the rocks. It's no matter, it's all done.

-

Let's get real, let's keep it together. I don't wish

to live like this, and you don't want me here.

Take me in then, if you dare, but I swear

I will kill you first if I can. Beware.

4139. HE CAME BACK ALL LAME AND SUTURED

HE CAME BACK ALL

LAME AND SUTURED

-(even now, all the water is calm)-

Buster Bob Hopalong Cassidy Lefty Frizzel

buttering muffins in a gingerbread Hell. It's all

the fault of love. I know, and I saw it - when

the water rode over Brooklyn's Red Hook and

even the ferry boats stopped and the armories

were all closed over. The comedians came by

for lessons and the Statue of Liberty sank.

-

The justices - are there really any when there

is no Justice? - decreed: 'calling him tough

doesn't make him St. Paul,' and the bum by the

Brooks Brothers store came over to me. 'All these

models, they have no heads', he laughed. I smiled

back and said 'and what then are they trying to tell

us? Oh my brother's son, I am a Sethian forever.'

-

The thunder has a perfect intellect - it roars

and rolls and rumbles, loud, and then shuts

down for quiet; and even now all the water

is calm. Even now, all the water is calm.

4138. THIS KINGDOM IS MINE

THIS KINGDOM

IS MINE

(nyc, 2013)

I made this kingdom, every quadrant and

angle, each lintel and door. On high, the

great beams, suspended, remain - to

stretch the great arc and the reach of the sky.

Pastoral smoothness, lights of the land,

horses in patterns, the grid of the streets :

each of these send something back.

This Kingdom Is Mine. And the sky

shall fall and the buildings crumble

as flames descend from the Heavens

and trumpets sound. I made this kingdom,

I made it all - and I have kept it and

held it and revered what I made. But now

the ending begins - not that I wish, but

simply that it now must be.

-

Lightning on hammers, water on ice,

the constant drumbeat of all that which

flickers away - those horses, now sick,

running free and wild again, through

the remnants of Central Park.

4137. THE PAST

THE PAST

(first, do no harm)

If the past is what's behind us, then

what's that coming up ahead again?

I see the wolverine and the fox, both

sneering back behind themselves, and

I think they both know what it is that's

coming back. Retrograde analysis,

and rotational dead ends.

-

No ones senses the fever that takes over

their brain; like some hallucinatory brake,

it tries to stop the fire but fails - and we

live on, crossed and fired by crazy dreams.

-

The hands of lovers entwine, but even that

is so momentary it makes me cry. The

doctors, with their note pads and levers,

are killing people with kindness as long

as they're paid, yet nothing outside

the source wil bring the soul back.

The Hippocratic oath is just that.

-

On the old stone wall, the small plaque

says that this is where Thomas Mann

lived his years in Princeton. Another

spot says Fitzgerald as well. I shrug,

and note the markings - if only I could

be enthused about something anew.

Everything new is old again.

4136. SERENITY'S FULCRUM

SERENITY'S FULCRUM
Just get away with being saved :
my first thought is to run rampant,
like an infant stretching on a couch.
And oh, all these self-important people.
My next thought is to hie from here, run,
go, flee, lest they paper my walls with
their own decay. (One way or the other,
I know I'm right).
-
Without Love and Lust, what is this life:
a car horn blaring in the dead of night.

4135. WILLY WHITE HAPPY

WILLY WHITE HAPPY
And here it is - the shovel and the register, all
the things I've ever been. Sound, like a chalice,
is filled with treasure, and all these houses, in
a row, house nothing but dreams : everyman's
glowing with promise. The elm trees soar.
-
My back is against a wall; I look out over a
fair landscape, a horizon - somehow - of
moneyed bliss where men have fought and
died for position like this.
-
My own life, another story, tries brimming
with promise. My smile is fourteen feet
wide, and I am, truly, in another place.

4134. THE LIGHT OF INJUSTICE

THE LIGHT OF INJUSTICE
The room here is broad, and intense, and
broken, letting out light through holes at
its seams. All things must matter - the
expanding light which just goes on, continuing,
draws me in and keeps me here as well, at bay
and waiting to grow : I too would expand and
inhabit. At the moment of taking, I only wish
to give. Your Babel time, by contrast, is
stunning; let us listen to the noise.
-
If one is pure, if one has reached a perfection
of sorts, consider then this : You will speak the
Wisdom that only the God-inspired teach; the
utterances that come from the heart and the
law that is within it. They will be the
only texts of truth.

4133. NOT HERE TO CIRCUMVENT THE TIME

NOT HERE TO 

CIRCUMVENT 

THE TIME

Pippin and Pit were naming things;

others had names given to them. Between

the two, there was no difference at all. The

great wind blew  -  slapping the doorway

open and shut, banging things ungraciously.

I stood by the produce bags : burlap

sacks of beans and peas.

-

Dockside infusions of imports and grime  -

men speaking funny tongues, women talking

in rhyme. A vestibule of Hell's own 

something; that's what it felt like to me.

-

Water was in bottles from Perth, at least

that's what it said. I wanted to believe nothing,

I wanted to run or be dead. You know how

it sometimes is with nightmares : things 

swallow you up just as you start

getting out, and then they

swallow you up again.

4132. WHERE'S MY BIG BEAT SWEATER?

WHERE'S MY

BIG BEAT SWEATER?

I'm trouncing this monopoly of time and things

and place. I'm making disappearances and voids.

I stayed too long at something better; now

where is my Big Beat sweater?

4131. WORDS RUNNING ON

WORDS RUNNING ON

(for Delmore Schwartz)

There are words getting ahead of themselves, 

right now, somewhere. I hear them. In such

ways do wars begin, and worlds end.

-

I visited 91 Bedford today, just to look at 

the door where someone else had lived.

I knew, before I got there, what I'd see :

marks of prominence and declension, 

such things of royalty. Poetry is like that.

-

Not Poetry, just words themselves : what we

weave, a gossamer oasis, a cloud, a web,

all that of myriad matter. Take nothing for

granted, my fine young steed, all can be

changed by what you read.

4130. THIS COUNTRY IS STOLEN RIVER GRIME

THIS COUNTRY IS

STOLEN RIVER GRIME

'Debase the country that I live in, this ain't

no native land - from the Wabash to the

Colorado nothing deserves to stand. The

rumbling of the waters, the mighty and horrid

east coast, resounds with nothing special

but the inklings of a ghost - everything's been

raped and stolen, put down and killed at most.

Those criminals in coats of power, the solemn

halls of men and women too, they're all alike

by color and form, no difference 'tween the

two - like sharpshooters they kill and steal,

maim and run for cover 'neath their laws of

ermine lies and rulings, the breath of death

does hover. Everything's abstraction, their

follies kill us all, the megadeath they wish

to score shall soon come home to call.'

4129. YOU'VE GOT TO MAKE THE CONNECTIONS

YOU'VE GOT TO MAKE

THE CONNECTIONS

Strange acolyte who runs humming, finds

light where darkness dwells, come home with

me. There are strummings in this oasis - all

those harmonic chords you may once remember

hearing. And these are marvelous things.

-

All momentary, the long and tedious days

drag on - that river running by us seems to

know its way, on its own, lone and sedate,

and not without another curious nature.

-

Could I but find that clue which would lead

me homeward bound, I'd file that note in the

letter bag you carry. As it is, we each need

make our own connection - come with me,

tarry not. I note the postman passing.

4128. THE PAST

THE PAST

(first, do no harm)

If the past is what's behind us, then

what's that coming up ahead again?

I see the wolverine and the fox, both

sneering back behind themselves, and

I think they both know what it is that's

coming back. Retrograde analysis,

and rotational dead ends.

-

No ones senses the fever that takes over

their brain; like some hallucinatory brake,

it tries to stop the fire but fails  -  and we

live on, crossed and fired by crazy dreams.

-

The hands of lovers entwine, but even that

is so momentary it makes me cry. The

doctors, with their note pads and levers,

are killing people with kindness as long

as they're paid, yet nothing outside

the source will bring the soul back.

The Hippocratic oath is just that.

-

On the old stone wall, the small plaque

says that this is where Thomas Mann

lived his years in Princeton. Another

spot says Fitzgerald as well. I shrug,

and note the markings  - if only I could

be enthused about something anew.

Everything new is old again.

4127. TRAVERTINE

TRAVERTINE

In the hills I am hearing music - the sounds

of some large movement trudging along

the quarried slopes. All the caves of men

and the hands of yet a thousand more can

never cover the moment. The grotto of a

St. Xavier Pilene of the Mountain seems to

sit nearby  -  idle and barren, a place where

no crutches hang. I ask the monk who lives

nearby, 'what brought people here?' He replies,

'broken hands and limbs, mostly, those seeking

the remedy for getting limber again. Others there

were, yes, the amputees or the quarrymen who

severed an arm at the wrist or who'd lost an

arm or a leg. For them there never was any hope,

I knew that; though they all prayed to be made

whole again. Yes, this crazy religion business is

like that. They'd leave their money behind.'

-

A sidelong light enters the grotto  - smokey and

dense, it floats along low to the ground, lit as it

is by the filtered light, diffused through the stained

glass of the windows. Candles still flutter, while

others are out, I sit a moment to sort things out.

What is it that men believe? How does it happen,

this way we both grieve and live, together? And

what is it we are afraid of at all? I do not bother

to answer myself  -  after all, it would be so foolish,

-

The stickle-hammer guards the cadenced lobby

wherein two Swiss-Guardsmen are standing. I

do not know why, nor what possible could be

on their minds, nor what they could

possibly be thinking of.

4126. THESE THINGS SHOULD NOT MEAN, JUST BE

THESE THINGS SHOULD 
NOT MEAN, JUST BE

That lantern, which the farmer has left

upon the fencepost  -  as he walks away

from it is it still his? Is it still there? Or

what is the presence of presence or the

being of being?

-

'The prison of the body holds me, and I

appear destined for eternal punishment' :

run, run, do not rock, just flee; flee, flee,

do not stop, just flee - for all the lights of

Mankind and all the forms of Being are

passing and are not long to be.

-

Under signs I stand by a dim straight fading -

one foot in the universe of spinning moment,

and the other in the distant firmament, from

which these things coalesce and fade :

they should not mean, just be. 

4125. THIS MAN IS A CULPRIT

THIS MAN IS A CULPRIT

What noise that comes down to us from

these fruits? In the morning it is lighter

now as seasons begin their change already;

escaping lightly, trolling heavily - but

moving with ease nonetheless. Here it

is, only, and I am a camera. A few

people  -  it always seems  -  are looking

for shooting stars and heavenly objects

and busy at work doing so. But there

are none : No, man's question to man

should be, instead, are you consigned

to being dense and obtuse, or are

you ready to be accessible to me?

4124. BOULDERS AND IMMOVABLE OBJECTS

BOULDERS AND

IMMOVABLE OBJECTS

Let me talk. Let me whistle back then :

ontology jelly wrapper spit-shine Glenn Miller

blues. Thou are so stable, great God of the stable.

-

And anyway, it's all your mess and what

shall I call thee? Ialdabaoth will have to do.

You've turned out to be another city guy.

-

This morning at dawn, it was in Elsa's

broad garden, I saw a rabbit running stop

running stop. The winter grass was wet

in a thaw - what it was, he was looking for.

Running stop running stop.

4123. MORNING NEWS

MORNING NEWS
I stuck my feet into Heaven and they went right
through - landing me back where I'd started with
a message coming through : disengage the follies
and notice as you do - the whole entire world will
fade, long before you do. Sackcloth and ashes,
sackcloth and ashes, sackcloth and ashes,
over and over again. We are as miserable
as the rhyme we reason to.

4122. OVERHEAD SIGNS

OVERHEAD SIGNS

Do not be the one man aboard

who is knocked down by these -

sway, sway with the sea but stay

upright and watch the swirling world

abound. And, good Christ, do not be

the boring one. It's not a fight, it's not

a battle; no, just stay. And anyway,

escape itself is far too easy.

4121. CAMERON THE YARD DOG

CAMERON THE YARD DOG
(never to leave again)
The papyrus has a moving war that is never
put off by spite : regimented hands and fingers,
dolorous tales of warriors and sailors and saints.
Why divulge anything more? It is the hallmark of
fame to just stay in place. I bow down to no one,
but will offer respect. The flag that is carried flies
high; papal eagle, lance of the land, French fleurs
de lis, everything of that sort. And all those men,
generations of Portuguese fishermen, hauling their
catches with no effort at all. (Watch, watch this:
the faint blue of the ringing sky, high mountains
over top, a ridge of rock, the coastline hugging
the land, as if never wishing to leave again).
-
The phone can reach Gibralter, and sure enough
someone is calling there - that quickly, voices
overtake the line, and all that peace is gone.
Military men stand in line, guarding that now-so-
awkward rock. No man has a country, but this
country claims men; as if wishing,
never to leave again.
 

 

4120. 1863

1863

(as found unfinished)

'In the sputtering mass of that moment, Mama,

they took me down. I had shot in my leg and it

was making blood run. The pain it was steely,

Mother, as it ran down my calf. I remembered,

or tried to, Decauter's directions, yet only could

remember having just entered Virginia. This hard

life was becoming a dream; like, as I screamed

with my newly-found verve.

-

The man who'd shot me was aimless and without

face  -  there was a flank of riflemen along the ridge

as we ran, and they were shooting as we were running.

It seemed no cannon, or nothing big  -  just the swift

form-rustle-snap of rifle-shot and gauge. Oh it hurt,

and I went down.

-

As I did come to, Mother, in this wall of pain, I

saw I was still alive, had all my limbs and could

still sense my moment. A man was coming slowly

towards me  -  in another uniform hat and clothing,

though as dishevelled as me. A warbler something

warbled, and it seemed a mean horse whinnied.

-

Mama, though now I will probably die, I grabbed

my gun and shot him in the throat  -  he went down

before me, and I watched his gurgling blood ebb

and finish. And oh, so soon after, I found this stub

to pencil and finish this note to you. Mother Lynette

Farnes Fitzgerald, Canterfield Georgia and Roxthan's F'

-----

4119. HOUR OF PERIL

HOUR OF PERIL
Painting the hammock and marking
the fenceline won't get you home.
Creepy, how the diminishing returns of
still another project keep so many men at
bay. It is written in catcalls that we are all Divine :
creatures of sentience and light, but nothing
to show for it at all. I am watching the darkening
of another man's face - he stares out at the harbor,
asleep, from a fourth floor ledge. Overlooking somehow
Brooklyn, from this east side berth, he really sees so
little, for sure, and his hour of peril is at hand. Creepy it
is, how one finds only Salvation to be had, or nothing
else to be given at all. Thusly, this pale life confuses.

4118. THIS POCKET PLACE

THIS POCKET PLACE

I am wandering again  -  sullen

and alone in a disparate morning

light made of winter sparrows and

the scat-song of icy water. My head

is down, but only to see the light I

imagine instead of the light I see.

A fencepost ties the land to where

I am  -  this is Foggy Lane, this is

Carnal Village. Now  -  so all at once  - 

there are so many things around; every

new move becomes a sudden description.

4117. HEARTS OF MATTER

HEARTS OF MATTER

It is a vista of sure gold : we are

looking at the mountains, westward  -

what they call them, anyway. An eastern

man's mountain amounts to not much by

a western man's standards - yet who really

cares? California and all those other meanings

pale by smoke and magic, and nothing is

ever called to account for itself.

-

Here, in a tiny Princeton villa, I am

overlooking subservience and the ritual

manner of fools with money. They pounce.

They retell their trips, they argue with the news

and they retell their doctor's views. Man makes

money based on the line he hews. Yes then, too,

oh my eyes bleed for their incessant shit.

-

I am so lost and alone  -  and only and only

someone like you can suffice : to hold my leaky

cup and saucer, to thank this world for being, to

harbor as well such Pound and Chaucer  -  or, as

Delmore said  -  to 'swallow his toad and study

his vomit.' Ah, poets too make me sick.

4116. FIRST THOUGHT IN THREE WORLDS

FIRST THOUGHT IN

THREE WORLDS

The urge that made the world considers

nothing amiss outside of primal horror. Yes,

it contains an apple  -  shine and roundness,

surface and circumferance. Holding hands

like Annas 'round a globe, defining what

it feels, what it has fashioned, extracted

from the accursed wood.

4115. HERR KAPITAN OF HAPPENSTANCE

HERR KAPITAN

OF HAPPENSTANCE

 I would be the posse to retrive you, taking

back the florid world from Jesus and all his

gospel gossip. I can hold you up when you fall -

though of course that paradox arises : I cannot

even lift myself up. I cannot lift up myself.

-

('He lies in the coffin of his character').

4114. LIZZIE PARDON

LIZZIE PARDON

I went to the Kentucky Derby

wearing your hat. I came back home

wearing nothing but my clothes.

4113. 20 AVENUE A

20 AVENUE A
I went to my London cabbie saying 'why you here
and how?' - he smiled, saying nothing much back.
It's always like that in this dream: regiments of the
plain and bad, with qualifications to qualify nothing.
'How can I make you pay,' he said, 'when there's
really no ride at all?' I smiled back in my best and most
nonchalant way, 'I hear you, yes, but the words are
unclear - and whatever it is I will pay.' On his window
was etched a map of the world - all going nowhere,
all circular and overlapping, with a hole in the middle,
for Time and what roads it brings.

4112. HOW I FEEL GRATITUDE

HOW I FEEL GRATITUDE
I feel gratitude for nothing at all :
starry mind of the moon and
the Heavens, deep-dish daughter
of Neptune's swans. Nothing.
I hold dear to myself, that's all.
-
I'm stumbling my broken gait through
the paradise at Chumley's alley; all
what once was, and is now gone.
It is 1924 again, and I wear that same
old worsted jacket that goes with the
pants. No other gin-soaked alibi will do.
-
Lighter things have happened in these
days of old. The Parcheesi guy who just
kept coming around, and - oddly so -
even my own grandmother was only 24.
-
The little man, swilling English beer and
holding onto his Pomeranian dear. The
two made such a couple - fireplace
heart, open-door meeting, kissing like
guzzling mavens - a regular pirate, he.
-
I spent enough time at Chumley's to die
there - and money enough to buy the
selfsame moon and stars; and money
enough to buy the moon and stars.

4111. HOTEL GRIGIO

HOTEL GRIGIO
I am wearing that hat again, the one with
the Polish grain and the broken eagle, an
inside patch now soiled and gloomed from
oil and sweat. It was never to matter, I always
knew, because no one sees inside me.
-
Stumbling, and with these shaky hands, I find
a fat cigarette in French-coat pockets. I am of
such International Man fervor that this all comes
very easily now. I light the scratchy match and
smoke like a bum - leaning on a wall, this
old building has a grime of red brick that I
carry away - clothing, like life, just fades.
-
The intensity of a moment never carries well into
the next - moment, not world. Even here, as I
leave the Hotel Grigio, I feel as if, having fallen
somehow from the 17th century, I've lost all
those meanings which make modern time
sensible. Something to understand, where
there's nothing left at all to see.
-
Ma mere used to say I was 'qu'ell characteur' -
she wrote it down one day for me, in her peasant's
handwriting and mis-spelled way. She also mouthed
'oeuvre la porte' once too often, and died alone in
her Chantierre bed. With her, everything was wrong.
-
Now my marbles have slithered down, rolled their
cantankerous way along gutters and drains and ended
only where there was no more space to roll. If even
I knew how to say it - in my mother's broken French,
'dead end Harry' would have to come to mind. I am
of such the broken spirit that it would probably fit.
-
I think that I shall buy a new hat,
and then begin to wear it.

4110. TO HAVE BEEN DUMPED BY CASSANDRA

TO HAVE BEEN DUMPED
BY CASSANDRA
To have been dumped by Cassandra would have
been a happy moment. We would have flown to
the farthest cogs of the western hills, seeking
something like a solace brought by a burro, or
a rapacious, unruly mount unwilling to settle for
instruction. There could have been a holiday of
emotion, right then, as we basked together in
finding a means to parlay one hunch into two
heads - opinions disgorged to the hilltops,
pebbles in the mouth, screaming as we ran.
'This is how we practice oration,' they said on
the coast of Greece, or deep in the tropical
woods. Now, for ourselves, we are once again
producing the nineteenth century - without
knowing why or how. We pass the rounded
hillside, with its errant road around the trees
and river, and see before us the old and
whitewashed barn set out, still with its
fences and turrets, windvane and gates.
The silo almost leans; it is of such an
extraction as to groan now with age. Bales
of hay, silage, manure, all these things are
spread around the yard; amongst the cows
and cattle the heaving heap of muck and
slop produces throngs of flies and bugs. The
very air is abuzz with the activity of Life and
Liberty, seen from a very small perspective.
Alas, we should not worry. We are here for
the duration, keeping a cobble-book of notes
by which to refer to the daily urge of mark
and number, strain and desire. It is not for
nothing that seven thousand years of living
have brought Mankind to this very edge of
agriculture - bigger than ever before, yet
seemingly small on the face of this Earth.
Life becomes a quandary thereby, the paradox
by which we breath. The very same dead we
bury in these earths become the source for
soils and fuels. How is that, that it cannot be
understood? A relative scale so obscure that
only others would see it? We allege to love
the Earth. We allege to revere this very world.
-
To have been dumped by Cassandra would
have been a most happy joy instead.

4109. ANYBODY WISHING

ANYBODY WISHING
Anybody wishing to know can just ask : hell, send
a note, whatever. Minton's Playhouse, even that -
if you've got to look it up, go ahead. All that largess
comes spitting back - like backwash from a
trumpet's mouthpiece. I said 'trumpet', fool, not
'strumpet' - though if you've got to know I can
find you that too. Since I am (must you ask),
Kingpin of this entire neighborhood, let me tell
you the following things : watch your kneecaps,
always look behind you, don't bend down, don't
give out too much information and - most
importantly - if Bettie Jane McArty comes
your way - by all means leave her alone.
I've had to bury too many men to make
that memory pleasant at all. It just
cannot ever be. Go ahead,
just ask.

4108. NEGLECT

NEGLECT

So I inhabit worlds that exist and those

that do not. So my sock-feet are here

ennobled by visions : I am the winsome

stealth-cat, moving between lanes and

staying quiet over fire-escapes of ladder

and hoist. Yes, though it may be this is

the building I live in, so too is it where I

am not. Like Science's capricious foe, I

am that which cannot be measured.

-

I lived beneath a bridge, right where I

was born. Now, in the Wintry light that

pecks at my face, I manage only to

stare out, look glumly, try to recall,

about this world I've never seen, or

may have, or - yes - seen not at all.

-

I grow the grand flower 'Paradox';

it weathers every doom and crisis

and grows richer with neglect.