4356. PUMP MY FRICASEE

PUMP MY FRICASSEE

'Down in the Belgian castle the three men who

wore leather were acting like rakes : sizzling

dynamos of fabric and fury, lustful avengers, it

seemed for six hundred years of history. Far out

in the distance, the trim line of a river could be seen

down below : I wondered about the marauding

raiders, and if they ever tried coming up this way.

Everything was peacefully settled; this was

Belgium, after all. What else need be said?

-

I'd forgotten whether it was King or Queen who

ruled this place. None of it mattered to me; I

was here from a land of the free. Drinking beer,

swaddling myself in a new intimidation.

-

I wanted that girl over there to notice. To see.

Me. That's how silly I was at twenty-three.

I wanted to say she could pump my fricassee.'

4355. I LOVE TO READ THE ENDINGS

I LOVE TO READ

THE ENDINGS

(what was it the bride wore?)

Mystery matchbox, penny arcade.

The lithesome young lady is wearing brocade;

I almost made her once, back when forbidden

pleasures was a perfume. I think. I forget. So

much is overdue, and so little brings satisfaction.

There are one hundred people a day I could

think about if I chose to, but I don't. I just

keep moving on and this wagon train won't

stop for nothing but water holes, feed bags,

and the occasional oasis made of  -  when

we do finally get there  -  nothing at all.

-

I was walking through the woods, nearly

in the middle of nowhere. A tiny path, it

seemed, tried leading somewhere. I went.

I followed the push/pull of all those fair

intentions. When I got where I was going,

where this path had led me to, I was

amazed. Piles of used tissues, not yet

soggy with weather and rain. Piles of

used tissues, and condom wrappers

galore. (What was it the bride wore?).

4354. NO ONE IS FAR AWAY

NO ONE IS FAR AWAY

'All my future's behind me,' said Joe with a laugh. 'Might

go down to Perth Amboy, get me a job in a munitions

factory, but I'd rather be blowed up in the open, you see?'

Black dog barking, outside my door. Carmelita in her mantilla

lace, sucking on an orange ice. Outside, on the street, two buses

roll by, one behind the other, both marked for the exact same

destination. No one gets on; but then again, no one gets off.

'Tell them to all go take a flying Rimbaud at the moon.'

-

Well, I wonder. What I wonder is how to read a letter;

written in black ink, scrawled almost sideways on a piece

of scratchy old paper. Like a side of Kong, or something.

A long, wrangling letter, one written by Andretta. I knew

her once when her dog was King. That was long ago.

Times has passed; I don't owe her a thing.

-

Now listen here, old tidy cake. This is the telephone

they've invented  -  you've got to turn the crank, hold the

earpiece here, and  -  yes, yes, OK  -  talk into this

thing here; no, no NOT like that! Talk regular, no

one is far away. I tell you this  -  no one is far away!



4353. I TOOK TITLE TO THIS LANDED OASIS

I TOOK TITLE TO THIS LANDED OASIS

Here where the fluid waters lie, where the two-toned

house of Theo sits, I am hearing someone cry. That

paintbrush in his ear, it should not be there. Off to

one side, there is a clown-face in the window. You

know how that is? As you're looking at one thing

and another catches your eye  -   meticulous in its

confusion, there is no explanation given.

4352. THE SLUG-HEAP

THE SLUG-HEAP

No, there's really no such thing, you say, just

open endings and dead-ends where illogic and

images play. I nod, and I have to agree.

-

I've been enrolled for thirty years in programs

that have brought me nowhere at all. Brusque

manners and rude opinions, of those I've got plenty;

friends I've lost and others I've sent away angry

and hurt. That too, I abound in. My lot is the same

as that sorry one, those jokes you used to hear:

-

The suitcase too fat to close, the submarine

with screen doors, the pumpkin that turned into

a coach, and then back again, and the sorry girl

inside, fearful once more of such transformation.

-

My signal light's gone out, and all those ships and

trains have crashed already. I am a widower in a

new widow's cloak  -  for all my world is done

and I am nearly alone. That, my friend, may be

the slug-heap you keep trying to disprove.

Spend some time with me and see.

4351. WE WERE SAILING ALONG

WE WERE SAILING ALONG

To rid this narrow world of all that's in it - some

gambler's theft, some trick of trompe d'oeil, whatever

you say it is. It's all and it's real. ON MOONLIGHT

BAY. I never had the fever that comes with the

pox, but I could roll over, endlessly sick and feeling

bad. Simple as all that, I can be. YOU CAN HEAR

THE VOICES RINGING. Now, this ringing moonlight

stays behind; I watch the lunar calendar, if only to

see what I can recall of what went before this time.

Full moon from half moon, blazing to life. THEY

SEEM TO SAY. Light me up another one of

those blazing Winter-side fires so I can sit by

the flame and watch shadows. The bricks throw

off a smoldering heat. YOU HAVE STOLEN

MY HEART, NOW DON'T GO AWAY. The two

blind kittens the janitor brought in from the cold,

now he says they're not blind, just too young

yet to see. JUST AS WE SANG LOVE'S OLD

SWEET SONGS. I finally did think I understood.

ON MOONLIGHT BAY (on Moonlight Bay).

4350. AND SO I SERVE GOD AND MAMMON

AND SO I SERVE

GOD AND MAMMON

'This ain't no finger food, mind you, what I'm serving;

this is all I've got. The life-chandeliers have already

come crashing down, and the dark room only echoes

hurt. Every table-top for miles around already bears

the marks and cuttings of sacrifice and woe. Even the

thundering voice above has spoken out : 'Stop! Stop!

Enough of your bloodied meat and blackened corpses,

no more dead sheep, no more dead horses!''

4349. MENTION ME

MENTION ME

Mention me at the Mennonite factory and what

it will get you? A few bonnets, some chow-chow, and

an open -faced apple pie cooling on the sill. No one cares

for really real things. Ephemeral mention, like some drawn

magazine profile of a screen-star in her dishabille  -  all that

cleavage and the bare-bottom'd protusion splashed like

a road map on a very glossy page  -  brings forth nothing

but the lurid task of easy men drooling. Circumstantial

evidence? Yes, he did it in advance of thinking, I'm sure.

-

In the distant American past, people dropped kids like

pieces of water, things from the well, coins in a fountain  -  

some of them lived on, many others died at birth. All those

colonial graveyards, when I look now, are filled with dead

children at six  months old, eighteen days old, one and a half

paltry years. they are buried with those little bonnets on; 

oftentimes, I note as well, with their dead mothers at their side.

It's all amazing. It's all just the way things always are.

4348. HOW THEY PAVED THE ROAD TO HELL

HOW THEY PAVED 

THE ROAD TO HELL

...Is beyond me, past my comprehension, outside of

my ken of interest, and why? Slippery surface when wet,

iced over conditions at freezing? No, no, I don't think so.

-

Oh Annabelle Lee come follow me : we can take this

disquisition and quiet down the cows. We can ride this 

slope to Hades just to see what's there. The time is now.

-

For sure. They make such certainties of every little thing.

Like flies buzzing the marmalade, it attracts the mob by

scent and by attraction. As you do as well. They've paved

again this road to Hell, and I shall take the highway.

4347. NOT EQUIPPED TO RESUSCITATE THE DEAD

NOT EQUIPPED TO RESUSCITATE THE DEAD

I am not equipped to resuscitate the dead, and

I'm not sure I'd want to if I was. Better, perhaps,

to lead the mourning and let the chips fall where they

may instead. I am really not equipped to resuscitate

the dead. I have read the books and all those stories :

'Lazarus, arise!' and all the rest  -  that stinking foul

offal of garbage and dread, piles of bones and the

ranks of the dead  -  and think perhaps it would be

better just to walk off. Mourning and crying maybe.

Yes, that would do. We cannot re-write a chapter,

re-do the plot, re-order the ending. Everything we

live has a better logic of its own. The Union dead,

or all those Cossacks lying flat upon the field, those

hordes of Chinese warriors, those Arubic warriors

panting on the African steppes : simply let them be.

They have played their plot and run their races,

ended their goals and left their traces. What

care I for that? A better thing for one

man to do - just live morally, singular

and sole. Leave all the rest alone.

4346. I HEAR VOICES

I HEAR VOICES

I am hearing voices again - the deck hands

are jabbering, the noise of the background jungle

strong. I cannot shut things out : they imbue the

essence with the real. Let me sit here, just a

moment, to collect. I am lost. I am singular.

I have but a short plank to walk. I own

little. I remember much. All-in-all,

good shape?

4345. MAGICAL FLUTE HARP WOES

MAGICAL FLUTE HARP WOES

What was that you said? The Magic Flute? Some

kind of musical opera lance-land that is. Let me

look up all this : the oratio, the hie to hives, the

music, all that sound. I sit back in this seat  -

too comfortable by a quarter by far. Never to

figure this out, the wide ceiling beckons as I

look up. I have nowhere else to go, and cannot

leave here now. This is a subscription seat,

and I'm very much stuck in place.

4324. AND THEN

AND THEN

The cantilevered rainbow falls; it topples

like broad light from a sullen sky, overstepping

bounds and limits. Into that one place, we

fall, following that which draws us. In the upstairs

loft, the artist is heaving paint, his strong and

recurrent brush piling pigment into the matter

while, off-side in practice, a supple jazz band

pirouettes its whiz-bang soundings. If all of this

were fifty years ago, I'd believe in it much more.

-

As it is, candy-sweet and wrapped in today's idea

of festive doubt, everything goes on. Plans are made,

and that woman, again, the one with the two red

shoes, drifts in as nimble as a kite string. But,

she goes nowhere. No flight, not ever drift. Just

another drink is poured, and then,

just another more.

4323. OH, I GUESS

OH, I GUESS

I've taken all this time to let

things rub off on me - like the

Red River Valley, I feel lonesome

with a horse running away. Some old

Ranger captain comes by, to try talking

to me - all his sharpshooter and rifleman

stuff, the horse and those spurs. My own

ways, by comparison, seem so milky white

and tenderfoot. He lights up a small cigar with

a match he strikes on his boot. I look up to see:

an eagle, way overhead, flying off. Or at least

that's what I thought I saw. Oh, I guess.

4322. NOT FROM NOTHING

NOT FROM NOTHING

I dreamt of a God who said 'Make me some dirt,' as

if this God was unable Itself to do it. Secondary

infestation of power and will, I figured. What did

I want with any of that - 'all or nothing,' as they

say in the swamp brigades. I simply moved along,

aware of my ends and all my own manifestations.

I had hands to clap with and feet with which to flee.

Any harbor storm, come a'blowin' in, could take me

out. (This entire last scansion is pretty much without).

'You make up the meaning as you go along.' That

was the final thing this feeble God had said to me.

4321. PORNO

PORNO

I can stand most anything but the playback

list you've given me : layers of bad sound, words

and melodies I dislike. My decision? I'll have to

just walk away - playing my own suite to the

rafters overhead. Doing my best Sonny Rollins,

right here where I stand. There's no compunction

like the one I have; straddling everything between

the what and the is. Reality grooms this fashion.

-

Now, in some back-row, bad-theater, seat, I sit

around watching a bad pornography whittle away

my time : some small girl screeching, more pain

than glee, and a guy, twisting her over like freight.

It takes longer than it should, yet it seems over

in an instant; her face, a sticky mess.
(No creampie here).

4320. HOLDING THE LONESOME-BELL

HOLDING THE

LONESOME-BELL

The nexus, the sexus, and the plexus of all

I've ever known and been  -  a streamlined

oasis, so running down my back. Grade school

merchandise, the memories and the Spring Fair,

little kids running around with vacant bicycles

and scary stares. Up front, somewhere, a broken

teacher ringing a bell for love and participation.

-

Who will ever speak up for the animals I see at

my side? Or are they just imagined like the rest

of these crudites and shallow wafers? In a

fairyland world such as this, who makes

distinctions of what is and what is not?

That sorry teacher, holding a bell?

4319. NO REAL CANDLES

NO REAL CANDLES

No real candles here, just untended flames

somehow elevated over wicks : that's the

true magic of my hands. And no real

achievements either  -  just the spell of

things that might have been and that

I wish had been. All those pale,

stinking beeswax candles, in

the lobby of a church to

which no one

any longer

goes.

4318. UNDERWATER LAMENTATION

UNDERWATER LAMENTATION

No specious words, nothing without value  -

this entire world is hemmed in by loathing.

There's a white picket fence sagging along

the back lot; needing paint as well, its tone

bespeaks a bedraggle world. The landscape

itself just bobs and weaves. Try following

that with your hand or eye.

-

Like studying Van Gogh, only to find he traced;

or following Duchamp to learn only that he'd

piss anywhere  -  no urinal ever needed, Mr. Mutt.

High tides and higher endings -  

so many things the same.

-

I have viewed a lot of things in my sorry days  -

Montmarte in the hoariest weather, Angkor Wat

when it was good. All together, I'd trade my

shinload of memories for a spoonful of what

you can give : largesse and benevolence, an

underwater lamentation straight from the heart.

4317. STATION

STATION

I put my station where it wouldn't matter  -  

Bob the conductor, now flashing his cards.

I walked the three miles to get myself here.
If only I could stop thinking of you, so hard,

with such a concentration. I'd sit to rest,

here at the station, which I've put where

it wouldn't matter. Bob the Conductor,

now flashing his cards.

4316. FREAK

 FREAK

This is a wondrous appetite you've got here; my 

goodness I can't say what. I love the haste and the

swivel. I love every move I see. This cakewalk takes

the stage; people talk about you. In a hundred years,

nothing left but a squeamish photo of something you

did  -  archived material in the House of the Id.

-

Let's go down by the Caramoor trees. I lay you in

a bed of leaves and roses. We can listen as the

southern river runs by, carrying all that dirt and

destruction southward  -  while I, with arms at a

full salute  -  will take everything you've got. I am

the ogre in the sideshow. I will be your freak.

4315. LOOK

LOOK

I have the same gross habits as you -

the same slime'd desire for fortification

and validation as the everyday man in the

middle would have. My life doesn't sing, 

it hollers. I have the same gross dreams 

and distant hopes as the grease-stained

hobo who once rode that rail. We each

ride that road; we each try, and fail.

4314. UNDERWORLD

UNDERWORLD

Hasty makes the wide hole wider, the

barn door open, the dogs out. Stupid

questions, stupid answers. References

not even a nun would approach. Who

loves you? 'God loves you,' Sister Mary

Martyr Joseph says. On the tabletop,

her Essence of Cintop tea is getting

colder. My entire life is like glittering,

twisting smoke, the steam puff of

a miraculous, momentary drink.

4313. I WANT TO BE STRETCHING

I WANT TO BE STRETCHING

The truth is wider than the Sargasso Sea,

even Pilate tried avoiding the issue  -  all

that evidence pointed to nothing but a weary

question. A shrug that the ages cannot shrug

off. Things elastic make a life  -  truth stretches,

all those bounds and realities consume what's

vivid before us, and then artist comes around,

elongating, stretching and twisting that streetcar

around the corner : turning but still where it

started as well. Can an object exist, in two places

or states at once? The nuanced feint of quantum

physics, the Shrodinger's Cat of what I'm living.

Amidst all this hardwood framing we call our

own  -  most certain  -  Reality, I'm sure I detect

too many wormholes, places where knots are

gathered, and distorted patterns where the grain

is stressed. I'll try ignoring it all  -  just so as not

to upset the steady-state crowd around me. I

do like to laugh, though, I do like to laugh.

And I want to be stretching too.

4312. THE EXECUTIONER

THE EXECUTIONER 

(familiarity and degradation)

Only those already with title are

given another title  -  the peerage

of such kingship decrees, yet I

spit on your mantle, my good

Lord Charles. Such a mad and

maneuvered comedy bespeaks

nothing at all to me  -  and this

I ask: Where has your peerage

come from, and where will it be

going? For the lines of your

enchantment take me nowhere.

-

I too have hammock and bed,

and a carriage and a dog who

adores me. My own peerage is

worth a counsel to the King, and I

can speak better words than that

insipid coal-car of a nothing. The

better part of him dripped down his

mother's chin and wet her thighs with

leakage. So take my head, you bastard

fool, disarm me now. I welcome such a

public death before the all to see. You

may take my head and loins, but

you shall not take me.

4311. BAADER-MEINHOF DREAMING

BAADER-MEINHOF DREAMING

In the sleeve of the coat of my pocket I

keep a photo of Ulricke Meinhof. For

no reason but to remember Life instead

of Death; and it's all that easy. Early AM,

I am riding a train through the false green

woods of Nowhere at all. Houses like

boxes are lined in rows. As I leave the

small city that cityscape wanders and

breaks away; then the woods themselves

come and go. Just after, where it should be

farms and quiet, begins the rubble of all the

new. Homes bigger than homes should be

except for the large spaces where idiocy

must fill. The silences of all these people

roiling about, endless in their stupefying

habits. I dream of Ulricke, and reach into

my Red Brigades pocket - wanting to,

hoping for, looking to, search out a new

revolution and kindle a flame in someone's

lonely heart as mine.

4310. NO ONE WRITES TO THE COLONEL

NO ONE WRITES

TO THE COLONEL

Garcia Marquez was right, no one does. Not

that anyone ever wanted to, mind you. You

know how those Colonels are - snap to

attention with fealty and a snappy wrist,

salute to the stars and say something

about war or the domestic situation.

People are being killed, they fall like

pins, in the street. And these dolts

just keep fighting amongst themselves.

-

The guy, anyway, got everything wrong :

calling Costa Rica an island, talking of

the land-locked country of Aruba. No one

ever corrected him; out of fear they just

blanched. It was 'severance pay forever'

if anyone opened their mouth. Such a

silence, yes, is deafening,and quite so.

-

As for myself, I never liked the cigars;

they made me sick. That and his meager

height when compared to all that bravado.

Head over heels was meant to just be an

expression, but for him it worked as well

as a description - just nothing there at all.

-

Number one contender for the middleweight

crown. Head of something or other. Collector

of misfit women and all the nation's cast-off

losers. No one writes to the Colonel. No one.

4309. POETRY WORKSHOP GUY SHIPPENBERGER

POETRY WORKSHOP GUY SHIPPENBERGER

At my feet lies a puddle of mystery, the

old hankering after one million myths

of time. No energy greater than this :

the motherlode of what builds up.

The poetry workshop guy comes over,

after listening, and says 'why did you

ever write that ? and when you wrote it,

why did you write it like that ? What

were you trying to say ?' I looked back

and said 'look here chickhead headhaven

honcho guy, I said what I said - don't ask

why. Or I'll put my modifier foot right up

your iambic protractor diameter, and how'd

you then like that?' He ran off. Only later

did I admit I was faking, and had no plans

at all. After that, things were better; until

his wife got involved (who may once have

been a man. I couldn't tell). Oh swell.

4308. HEAR HEAR

HEAR, HEAR

'If there was any justice, that guy would

be dead already. Kill Dzhokhar now, end

this travesty, and why should he live on?'

I watched this guy, feeling good. He sneered,

with lips like Elvis had. I wanted to buy a

new car : a Toyota Tamerlan, or something.

4307. WEIRDNESS HAS A JUSTICE

WEIRDNESS HAS A JUSTICE

And a texture and a fabric too  -  all so

many ways to keep apart the things we do.

In looking up the face of the corpse, I found

two versions of the very same shot : in a

way not much different than a Shroud of

Turin thing, the sort of idea that people

fight over for years and years.

-

Now one has to ask - was there a gunman

in the bushes, and if so, what could he see?

No strange assassins have ever been women,

now tell me that? I brush forth the flower

that's now fallen from your cloak; a memorial

trapeze to an artist on high. So much is now,

so little is later than.

-

On the back of that 12 page calendar found

hanging over the desk  -  7 years old it was,

forgotten and out of date  -  was scrawled a

telephone number, the sort you don't see

any more : 5 or 6 digits, and then a letter

or two. Something European or from some

other place. I happened to know it was the

Army posting Mr. Jantz's son had while

in Germany; but I never said. It was more

fun to watch the perplexed detective fumble

over what he thought could be a clue.

4306. ANIMALCULES IN PEPPER WATER

ANIMALCULES IN 

PEPPER WATER

(john adams)

Ulterior motives are nothing, this is

America my friend : the place where

all men glisten alike. Gold being dross,

as dross is gold, means nothing - no 

difference at all. And I'll never hide 

from that marking. My kinsman,

Major Molineaux, would know.

-

'The regular and uniform subordination

of one group to another, down to the

apparently insignificant animalcules in

pepper water  -  a proper society is

like a plenitude of Nature, nothing

ever lost, nothing ever wasted. Order

is Heaven's first law'...from Jonathan

Edwards and John Adams too, we get

where we go, we do what we do.

-

So within the fabled house of gables

I have to ride the carriage supplied.

And I have been a fool for far, far less.

4305. PERFECTLY FAKE

PERFECTLY FAKE

(lexington ave., 1976) 
Fake faith and fake fidelity fought -

forget the figment of frailty, please.

(Oh figure for me a mistake).

I jostled the old Automat tray

and plate. 42nd and Lexington  -

somewhere by that Daily News 

globe and the Ford Foundation 

indoor garden. Fearing for my

safety, I felt for something more 

substantial instead : like the sting 

of a false Spring, the spark of this

so spectacular setting. Instead

of all that  -  I get the coarse 

man with the tattoo'd arm, 

ink inching incrementally

to incredible images,

sitting next to me.

4304. INTERVIEW WITH WHY I AM DONE

INTERVIEW WITH 

WHY I AM DONE

'You want to know why I am done? Because people 

are sickening, that's why. Every mis-step takes me 

more away : I can't even stand the face and the smirk 

anymore. I don't have it to tell; my tell is not for 

signification. The snide, crying toilet-faced whiners

move me not, and I am not to be in their own

strait-jacket any longer, and they can go to Hell,

as well. Oh, that's swell  -  if you wish to meet me

now, you can meet my firewall first. My words and

pictures alone will greet you; for I am out to sea.'

-

'Land of the brave and home of the free : everywhere

I turn that's another putrid lie, a worldwide lie. You

cannot be free when no truth exists   -   the exposure 

is deadly, and the only Freedom you have is the one 

which must come from not saying at all. I cannot call

a thing a thing  -  its true nature remains hidden by

popular consent  -  and everyone goes along for the

ride. The world is a corrupt title, hanging from a thread.'