Sunday, March 31, 2013

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.

Friday, March 29, 2013

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? 

Thursday, March 28, 2013

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).

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

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.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

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.

Monday, March 25, 2013

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.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

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.

Friday, March 22, 2013

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.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

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.'

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

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.

Monday, March 18, 2013

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.