4237. YOU ARE SO LIKE PARIS

YOU ARE SO LIKE PARIS

I bent down to pick up some dirt : the

legions of thought and memory that

coincided with that moment brought the

white city to falling down. The City of

Lights was over, and my once fallow

field wildly had been overgrown.

4236. FREEDOM IN THE MARKETPLACE

FREEDOM IN

THE MARKETPLACE

I have found a million things in these travels : the

desert Sahara sands winding in whirlpools around

calloused feet, the stomping of burros and braves,

the wild farting of wayward camels  -  oasis-bound

for no known reason at all, with those winding-sheets

of pyramids and the mysteries behind them. No more

than that, the rhyme and the reason long ago gone.

-

I've seen the globe from the other side, wincing 

at fables and writing on stars -   planetary

re-alignments, cosmic dust. Let me grab the

tongue of a master-thief and run. I seek the feeble

world anew for my moment in the sun, while my

freedom in the marketplace has,

by itself, brought me none.

4235. THE LIME-LIGHT AND THE LAND-LINE

THE LIMLE-LIGHT

THE LAND-LINE

You do not know that beneath this world nothing

makes any sense : the shape of the Sun's circle

by chance, and accounting for such differences

in distance, is the same as that circle of the nearby

Moon? The flat and pale coloration of the inoffensive

sky mirrors all the world of water to the eye?

How did this come to be?

-

I cannot stipulate the differences among men

between the mind of the vile and the heart of the

good; yet, they all exist. And the overcoat worn

by the killer would just as well fit the saint and

peacemaker? That the worm, as William Blake

would have it, forgives the plow? We all sit in

this chorus, somehow adept and nervous,
while awaiting each our solo?

-

There is magic in the caves of Spain and France,

where saints and holy men once sang and lived?

There are relics in Jerusalem's bunkers and headers

where we align ourselves with hiding out the myths

of man and beast? All those things which have

made us what we are? A society of the craved and

madmen of mountains and valleys alike?

4234. CADENCE 1, 2, 3

CADENCE 1, 2, 3

(easter prayer)

When everything's wrong in Solobovia it's

all the Field Marshall's fault. He lights the

trees on fire to burn the village down. He

turns things over to start anew. Yet they

all still worship him. Just like our own

handy God of many arms and crafts,

who would destroy our world to do it

new. We worship Him with praise.

-

And why is this so, dear believers of a

million flocks; those of you now down

on your knees and muttering new

Salvation prayers? How is it that

you make such hoary exceptions?

-

God of Light, Master, as it were

of Enigma, oh well it is we pray to

you, and often too. Now come

down off your filial tree and

visit with us. Be, of Son

God, just be.

4233. MAJOR WOODS

MAJOR WOODS

It's a forest, not a guy.

It wanders through the civilized

world, remembering us; and it is

far more real than ever we are. All

things that exist walk through it -

the purloined eyelash of Reality's

vision, the purview of new eyes and

the long view of five hundred years in

day. I can take it. I can walk forever.

4232. ALBUQUERQUE

ALBUQUERQUE

At the synod the wild eagle flew like a man

would if a man would fly as a wild eagle. That

was all I knew. The shaman-master was speaking

in a tongue as wild as that too : like words from a

cistern wise and afire. All around the camp, others

nodded, listening intently to what I did not hear.

Apparently struck deaf and dumb for those hours,

I again was a stranger on planet Earth. The

signet ring was being cooked in fire, annealed

and procured and brought back to the wizard,

or wise one, or whatever that figure was called.

'It goes like this often,' my spirit guide said. And

then he spoke these words, 'Almays emno toti

ru' - had I asked, he later explained, what

he was saying, I would have, right then,

been struck dead on the spot.

And again the eagle flew.

4231. THE AGE OF FALLING DOWN

THE AGE OF FALLING DOWN

Make me metal, tin ear, hard-shake

powerhouse girl from the far north of

Heaven. Filter my matter through the

sieve of your being. I am holding open

this empty bag of me. Everything is

spilling out. Oh dear what can

the matter be? Oh dear, what

 can the matter be? 

4230. DOGS CAN'T GO WHERE I FOLLOW

DOGS CAN'T GO 

WHERE I FOLLOW

Along the path that leads to the pond

I espied two names  -  the grown bark

of a forty-year-old tree held them :

Mike & Renna '82. A long time

back by now. Still the growth, both

constant and steady, having stretched

the fat and bulbous names, preserved

forever some old and fateful moment,

remembered by someone, or more, 

or maybe not at all.

-

The path bends around a few rocks,

and I follow. I'd bet the rocks themselves,

boulders actually, have been in place

some thousand years or more  -  

signifying nothing, remembering less?

A Mike & Renna of some more vast age?

When promises were made of stone,

and 'forever' was all the rage? 

No, no, I'll never know - where

I follow, dogs can't go.

4229. THE MAN WITH THE PRESENCE OF MIND ENOUGH TO KEEP TWO DOGS WAITING

THE MAN WITH THE

PRESENCE OF MIND

ENOUGH TO KEEP

TWO DOGS WAITING

I climbed Olympia Hill to get to Lookout Rock;

thinking of nothing but sky and water, I maneuvered

my way along earthen paths strewn with rocks and

pebbles and fallen logs. As I reached the top, having

more than trouble breathing, it seemed I remembered

so many things : the sound of the wind in the rippling

grass, that idea of new crops, and sassafras, the lines

of blackberry bushes running along the path, the old

screen door behind which Mr. Metz kept his ice-melting

machinery. Two, mind you, two blind dogs were always

at the ready, tied by a leash to the edge of the fence.

4228. MARKEL

MARKEL

Send me something, you big oaf.

Bring me that elixir you work on in

that seedy lab you keep : monkeys

on pins and dead butterflies in glass

showcases. Whatever for, I've always

asked you, whatever for do you do these

things? Your brittle nose is a hob-nailed boot.

You drink at a blind oasis and - always drunk -

you sniff warts and cartwheels together alike,

drawing in fine girls from the street below.

Why? Why? I've always asked you, and

you've always responded back : Why?

I do it for money, and that wonderful

smell of a female presence, that

best and very smell of all.

4227. MANY SIDES OF THE ONE-TWO TRIBES

MANY-SIDES OF

THE ONE-TWO TRIBES

I come to you bearing cake and toffee. Does that

make a difference at all? I am the emissary to your

heart from another world. To take you back again.

-

I have travelled, lo, many miles to see past your

moon and stars. All your earthly stories, I am

behind them and on the other sides of their tales.

Each character you've imagined, I am that person.

-

I can fool the light from a light-chamber, I can

trick the cat out of the cat. My armament vessel

is Peace and Evasion, a pleasant sort of calm.

I can see you naked, in your darkest night.

-

I am that one.

My Kingdom is not of

any world, and you will never

find me, never find me at all, yet

all your searching, in vain, will bring

you a great and a wordless pleasure.

4226. ISN'T IT AMAZING HOW THE BODY SHITS?

ISN'T IT AMAZING HOW

THE BODY SHITS?

Isn't it amazing how the

body shits? Even without

really eating big, a slipstream

of crap coming our your ass.

The little things in still

have to pass.

4225. I AM READING WALLACE STEVENS AGAIN

I AM READING

WALLACE STEVENS AGAIN

I am reading Wallace Stevens again. I have a slender,

tapered candle that burns at one end. These things all

come together for me in words and images dear. It is

so loud and so clear, and easy for me to hear.

I am reading Wallace Stevens again.

-

Becoming is not so difficult  -  it sort of just

happens to us all. Your Mom and your Dad,

fumbling beneath the covers somewhere, shoot

you off into a softened muff with pleasure.

And, then, that's pretty much the end of it  - 

the rest is somehow up to you to measure.

-

I am reading Wallace Stevens again, this

palm at the end of mind, this man with a blue

guitar, this bird with the coppery, keen

claws, this comedian as the letter C. I have

a slender, tapered candle that burns at one

end; I am reading Wallace Stevens again.

-

I find I have very little to say in crowds : all

that nasty, mangled language; those little people

loud, those big people, proud. I have little to say

in a crowd. The noise I always shun. Loneliness in 

Jersey City, the deer and the dachshund are one.

4224. MY JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE (let alone the paschal lamb)

MY JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

(let alone the paschal lamb)

Consolidate and organize all these things

together : needless to say. I live in New York

City now, and I wish good for the weather. My

Waterworks condo is not yet complete, and this

brownstone can most easily continue to do. I

am looking high and low for more money, for

anything to tide me over  -  for I've sold already

every one of my stories and memories. I 

went for broke and now soon I am.

-

That turtle-faced woman nearby, incredibly she

is talking about how much she likes lamb. 'An

acquired taste,' the sickly German guy says, 'an

acquired taste for sure.' The other couple says,

'my God, how could you! It's not the meat, it's

the little lambs I care for.' All that biblical

fetish is such that I do not really understand;

for truly I eat nothing at all.

(Let alone the paschal lamb).

4223. MY WILY GUIDE TO THIS SOIREE

MY WILY GUIDE TO

THIS SOIREE

The frenzy of acclaim has nothing like this

going for it - not a once nor a twice come

to mind. I watch the people along the table.

They eat apples as at a celebration. Simple

enough, all that. In the background, a tune

of some 1960's music plays one; a few

people are bobbing their heads in time.

-

It's always like that around young folk and

old - those commingled matters where the

stories never mesh. Either abject apologies

or outlandish contradictions are in order.

The silly girl in yellow, she throws her

arms around, flailing as if to mime a

dance. The others are watching,

and applaud what she does.

-

I love moments like these, even as

I'm not a part. The glass piano sings,

the plates and cups jangle their odd

sounds. People chatter and eat, nod

and chatter. A storybook moment

'midst tablecloths and waiters

and fountains and ice.

4222. ZANDRA RHODES DID PUNK IN (at the darkness)

ZANDRA RHODES

DID PUNK IN

(at the darkness)

She co-opted the punk style. all that

do-it-yourself bullshit clothing stuff -

the first couture designer to take it up :

1977 Conceptual Chic. Safety pins,

black jerseys and tears, rips and

cleats in the deliberate ruination of

perfectly nice garments. Isn't it always

a shame when bad gets to good and

turns it all around. God save the Queen

No Future - no future for you and no

future for me. Oh Teddy Boys and

pinheads rising in the cellar, teddy

boys and pinheads all night long.

4221. TERRIFY

TERRIFY

Too most, too much, cresting the

lowland hill, more a ripple than

anything else : until the rise consumes

the riverbank mud. Someone's small,

white house is still. Too much, too

most. I engage my coat with the

wind, while brushing off a leaf.

4220. NOT WILLIAM TELL

NOT WILLIAM TELL

I would like to know the borrowings and the

stealings; what's been taken and what is left.

I have no off-hand arrow to shoot your way:

my William Tell era is long ago done. A

more precise aim would have served me well.

4219. LISTEN TO ME

LISTEN TO ME

Listen to me great son of the sky, grand

daughter of creation: I am singing your

praises as I go about my way. Behind me,

some rugged panorama of hills and valleys

fades  -  all your nursery tales and storybook

lines and endings disappear with Peter Rabbit

hopping down his bunny trail.

-

Everything has disappeared, and now we have

internalized all things. I note the way the barns

and buildings sag along the traveler's road. Things

are just not made to last, and we eventually all

outstay our welcome. I do not doubt these things.

-

Look around you: festive occasions are happy while

sad occasions are sad. Rise up, you youth of all

this circumferance  -  tell yourself this is earth

and circle and globe and world. You've learned

all these things when young, while absorbing what

 you were told. For myself, I believe none of it at all.

4218. TANKARD

TANKARD

How large is your tankard, how many dreams and

illusions does it hold? Drink from it then, until

you are filled. What has gone into what it is

that you drink? Take but a minute to think.

-

The fireman says 'it is hot.'

The rich man says 'it is easy.'

The preacher says 'it is saved

and forgiven.' I say 'it is ours,

as one, together. This is the

life we must lead.'

-

As there is no time in space for

time, so there is no space in time

for space. Take it for all what it is;

drink from your tankard well.

4217. STILL WATERS

STILL WATERS

The only time I got close to God

was the time He got me drunk.

I was young, and in the moonshine

business somewhere in the back hills

Arkansas. He took me aside, and he

'maketh me lie down in still waters',

from which I had a really

 hard time getting up.

4216. THE MONSTROUS FACINGS OF THOSE BIG TUDOR MANSIONS

THE MONSTROUS FACINGS

OF THOSE BIG

TUDOR MANSIONS

Once I swam the sound : it was a

rigorous debate whether to complete it 

or not. By the finish, I was nearly gone.

Washed like a burglar in a jailhouse

shower. Listless like a tortoise in

a cemented shell - nowhere to

go, nothing to tell.

-

I walked onto shore and saw all those

big, old houses facing the sea; with their

cloth awnings, cabanas and tea-rooms

I knew I couldn't compete. I sat on the

beach, staring to the land, and wept

behind the hiding of my tears on a

watery face. My hair still dripped.

-

As I arose, I felt to weigh ten thousand

new pounds. My feet were of lead, and

I just really wished to sleep. A few hours

later, I awoke with people around me,

picking and poking at my form : 'who

are you? where from?' and all that. I

said nothing, just frowned, and without

any meaning, pointed to the houses

fronting the beach : the monstrous

facings of those big Tudor mansions.

4215. ARCH PRESUMPTIVE

ARCH PRESUMPTIVE

Mathematics has its own storybook of

badly numbered pages. The warp and

woof of Time's elemental fabric, begging

new forgiveness, bends our reality in a

shaggy heap. Relativity sings its soggy

tale, always quiet, yet moving along.

-

I wear a coat against the wind and the cold.

In Summer's heat, voila!, it is all gone.

4214. THINGS I'VE NOTICED

THINGS I'VE NOTICED

:Mainly, it's the hunchbacks who are

never near you; rivers never turn twice,

it's either one or three bends before

they're gone. Nature does not like

even numbers. Nor right angles.

-

:Dark shadows always recede - but

of course what other kind are there.

Bright shadows are - are they

not - simply called light. Ah

yes, I've noticed, they are

simply called light.

4213. WHERE THE REGULAR HOMELESS SLEEP

WHERE THE REGULAR

HOMELESS SLEEP

By the marsh, along the reeds, at the base of

the rusted fence, near the alley, underneath 

the bridge, beyond the macadam lot, in the

old basement if it isn't flooded. What else

do you need to know? Something other

than reality tempting you again? Go,

take down the information you need,

write the words in the jagged notebook

the office clerk gives you, write your

name at the bottom of a list. Like wild

wrens, with all their confusion, so too

this truth will descend : they have

nowhere else to go, beneath the

eaves or underneath the

cover of trees, it
is always so.

4212. DRAG ME

DRAG ME

Listless, drag me. My dead body can no

longer waver between the two poles of

Life and Death  -  and it all fell to nothing

anyway. Stars, constellations, elevators,

constipation, circulation, imprecation,

evolution, devolution, destitution and rank

pollution  -  they all end in Execution, and

I don't care about a thing. Writing music,

I leave behind an odor of dissolution.

Writing words I harbor no solution.

Off, off me, gunman, cut my self

in two. I've been there so many

times before.

4211. YOU TAKE IT

YOU TAKE IT

Sunlight and yellow moon, darts and rays of

light exchanging hammers and cones. My Lord,

I must have been here before  -  all this contiguous

space and a new land to be explored. It was never

my intention to became so enamored of so little.

-

I make excuses, the words get tangled, the blood

that is drawn invisibly trickles down. The paper

cup is filled with coffee. New morning brings it

new illusions. Two birds, singing, fight it out.

-

This Springtime better hold some promise;

it will do to be most anything at all. I've

never been the fussy sort. People walking

past me, reading grammar books, telling

me how to say  -  not the same as what to

say, but just as annoying anyway.

4210. WARTIME

WARTIME

The losses are unbelievable. I've lost

my watch, you've lost your wagon. The

fat guy down the block, his last letter says,

has now lost his dragon. We are all festooned

in a new oasis with bombs falling around us

and unmarked dogs parading as cops. The

future looks so dim I'm calling up Helen Keller

again. Look at that smoldering ruin: that was once

my father's apartment block  -  number 22B  -

and he was quite proud of the pile of bricks. Now,

it too is reduced to a fractured equation symbolizing

what it once was. If Einstein's yet here, give him a nod,

tell him to solve this newest equation : how to equate

what has come to everything we used to fear. Relative 

to his time and place, I'd imagine that's not such a tough

boat for him to steer. But, truly, this wartime is Hell.

4209. ICE SO BEAUTIFUL

ICE SO BEAUTIFUL

You are the Rose of Tralee, the

sister of all things good. Those

people watering the graveyard 

with their festive hoses and their

honor guard, they could do no

better than to look your way and

cheer. The lovely place of your

cold heart warms itself as

it breaks the ice, once 

more, for my sweet 

entry into you.

4208. SO RIGHT NOW AND FOR TODAY

SO RIGHT NOW 

AND FOR TODAY

(staccato venom 25)

So right now and for today at once this moment

I'll take your fist and wrench it from your hand,

I'll cover your blankets with plagues and sores.

Do not sit still for a minute, I warn you. I've

come back from Jericho Road filled with ideas

and a hundred new things to do. Rory Calhoun

and Bat Masterson, Black Bart and Reginald

Denny, I've picked them all up along the way.

We play cards in the dark to see who will stay.

There's a story I heard about some tumbleweed

loser rolling into town on a shiny new steed : that

was me once, as well. The legends yet live on.

I blanched at the thought of pickling your web :

those lies and deceit and fabrications you once 

did so well. Now, Billy Bob Jameson, you're 

locked in a county jail, and I'm laughing with

the others as we all retell your tale. So right

now and for today, so long, sweet buddy; we're

all glad you've been put away.

4207. UNCLE SALVATION

UNCLE SALVATION

Tell Uncle Salvation the poetry comes from the

place in the heart where there is no other room

for a mention : the words get wrapped in the

mesh of a moment, rising like heat from

intention. Motions cavort in brave new

worlds, while the old woolen mittens

of tradition fall from dead hands

to a worn out floor. The ones

with the pens are doing the

sweeping. Things already

look better than they

did before.

4206. THE WAXEN HORSES WHICH DEPART

THE WAXEN HORSES

WHICH DEPART

I am the one slave to nature whom you already

know : I kill no thing, not bug nor flower. The

rhapsody of my play is but a symphony of Life.

There is a continuing ecstasy to be found in such

goodness - or do you not mind that I mind?

-

All those waxen horses which depart : heart and

mind and mind and heart together : they never leave

without first thanking me. And now it is only that

I look back - wondering what might have been

had this all been a better place. Trees on the

horizon, wild dogs on the plain of plenty. The

small river of a thread of water, glissending

its way silently through hill and hollow while

all men watch, agape, and tethered to

time and place, yes, tethered to

both time and place.

4205. BLOWIN' MY SMOKIN' CONCH SHELL

BLOWIN' MY SMOKIN'

CONCH SHELL

Beached miraculous and credulous too,
I still avoid deciding decided things.
Cleanth Brooks and Reginald Marsh
and Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis
Stevenson and Hart Crane and Van Wyck
Brooks - all those old, wonderful American
names that weren't really American at all
are now but Americana for me and for you.
But where, oh where are Thorndyke Barnes and

Richard Haverford Moore? They are gone and
washed away, figments each and nothing more.
No matter, I move on : amid thundering Hudson
tides of Jane Street and Morton and Charles, and
even of Hudson itself. But really, what have we
solved if we walk to the wharf but to destroy it?
'Cynthia is the product,' I heard the old stevedore
say, 'the sole product of my own proud loins.'

4204. STEADFAST (#2)

STEADFAST (#2)

I may not have reached you and 
we may have both lost - that in itself

is a progression. Across such differences,
dichotomies dwell, and I am still (wishing to
be) yours forever. 'Like what else,' the hip
kid says, 'the brain has a foreign object    

and there is no best response  -  or at

least nothing the gauges can read or

detect.' Oh shut up and drink your

purloined coffee  -  Chimera Roast,

dark brown objectification.

Seance blend.

-

I went back to Philadelphia all battered

and worn. I was dying and had already

lost everything  -  words, photos, pictures,

ideas, dreams. Broken arms, twisted leg.

Not worth as much as spit in one of those

dangerous city cabs.  Outside the church,

more of those fools were being married -

purple hue'd dresses and organdy pleats.

Nursery room jewelry and dangling cleats.
Good intentions, and bouquets. Every

womb should be so clean as this.

-

It should never come with surprise, this

newer orgasm of Life  -  lineaments of desire,

and all that. My Blakean hat to your Lorna

Luft pussy, babe. 'Lo, to hear the chimney

sweeper's cry : whose little kid am I?'

-

I kicked a stump at St. John's Church.

I saw the broken lamplight window carriage

sliding down another cobble'd lane. One thing

after another, and what's come over you, brother?

I am in love now, with vainglory and power,

effusion and joy, glee and witness. No, no

not now, no  -  I cannot go on any longer,

though I am steadfast in place for you.

4203. I TRIED BEING QUIET

I TRIED BEING QUIET
But for no thundering herd did it work :
neither Bibbo or Mandelino, Italy's best.
A simple chirp. I called it quits.
-
No; I return instead to the scene of
this crime - where the milkmen let
their guards down all.
-
It is Springtime so soon tomorrow :
the little flowers in all their confusion
are returning already. I see their
confusion within their profusion.
-
Let me continue to be a plain man,
the kind of thing, say, 'Trenton makes,
the world takes.'

4202. MY BROTHER SHOULDERS A LOAD

MY BROTHER

SHOULDERS A LOAD

Wistful it is how far the eye looks back; to see

from afar below or everything once missed.

Death and happiness, fighting together, both

waeve their carpet upon which we walk.

I can only steal from another that which they

allow. I can only give back whatever it is

they do not know about. The kernal of the

story is this : life your life well, for it too

is over as soon as you've started. Find

meanings in those subliminal things.

4201. REASON'S MEMORY

REASON'S MEMORY

The world has all its own mad memories

coming down in pipes from the past  - 

those strangely choral yet dippy songs

and versions of things once done. Happy

people somehow sing and spring their wishes 

gaily  -  all chorus and nonsense now too  -  

lines only a heart could sing.

It is all so long ago.

-

The songs know their meanings but

cannot relate; the happy, the sad, all

together. We live in the midst of all

that, wondering ourselves what it was

we have been. A world, so various and

changed, in all its being teeters. Eight

million people a day striking out.

4200. FIGHTING THE VACANCY TWICE OVER

FIGHTING THE

VACANCY TWICE OVER

Take off your jacket and climb in the hole,

bring forth the books and the papers. Remember

the hermit who lived on the hill? He's gone now,

and his cabin's a ruin. Filth lives there now, like

flies on a pile - seditiously strong and sour the

smells. I remember all we used to do so well.

-

I brought my bicycle once to this hilltop, and

threw it off the cliff. I walked home thinking

that things would be better. When I arrived

to my own place, I saw it too was gone.