4434. AT JFK RED CLOUD

AT JFK RED CLOUD

Another stupid airport : walk in here, stand

there, line up. Rental car counter, coffee stand.

Artisan bread, bakeries like soda-water. Easter

pastries, and Summer ices. What gives?

-

I sit on a rounded plastic bench, like something

from 1974  -  I fully expect the twenty-five cent

per hour slot for TV viewing coins. You remember?

Those dumb little black and whites built into the

plastic bench-seat arms? Well, anyway, that was

America then. Vietnam had no travel brochures yet.

-

One time, I fell asleep, crossing the country from one

little airport to bus station to airport again. In a chair

just like these  -  I was on the run, fighting the law,

no, Hell, I was fighting the killing of a very bastardized

country. Something of Lucy and Desi bombings, the

filth and disgust of TV land hostelries, Archie Bunker

bullshit while we carpet bombed and Agent Orange'd

Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos too. I bet Nixon jerked

off in his sleep over those.

-

Now, it's a million years later and I'm a book-show

millionaire. Money like fire-water runs through the

Indian reservation in my mind. Wounded Knee got

nothing on me, and I walked the pickets with Russel

Means and fifteen hundred others. War and salacious

he-devil evils have always followed me : now the

stupid shits just pay me off to tell my tales and 

stories of 'that was then and this is now' glories.

4433. MORNING IN ALASKA

MORNING IN ALASKA

It's already late May  -  which is now like

late Summer as all things are accelerated

and condensed. I haven't much time. The

waning skyward moon is high this dawn,

reminding me of something. I must move

fast, this furious month runs away already,

and I have lost two runaway cows to those

damned black bears at Head of the Bay, where

they roam. Eating the grass now carries so

much peril; like never before  - those poor

cows.  But I will not double-back.

-

Everywhere, the dogs are barking, and the

sky is different too  -  a seasonal alteration,

in ways I'll not describe. When I drive out

for supplies, the whole town seems different:

no more damned New York coeds a'walk

on the streets  -  no down jackets and crumpled

coats. A better pair of old jeans instead,

and I make do with asses.

-

I alone, here to tell you, usually take satisfaction

from more murderous stuff in my study : all that

free Winter time on my hands. Remember, perhaps,

Lothario de Signei, in 1190, who later became

Pope Innocent III, how he wrote in that wonderful

book 'On the Contempt of the World'  -  'Man is

filth, has been conceived in the desire of the flesh  -

vile, filthy sperm.' Yes, well, let's leave well enough

alone. Enough of all that. Up here, like a very good

monk, I need only myself; and while I may guess

that someone has it in for me  -  this fearsome human

mess  -  I still must think, 'My God, Lothario, my God!'

4432. BONFIRE (OF THE INANITIES)

BONFIRE (OF THE INANITIES)

Perfectly amenable to your hot-headed gloss,

I broke a mirror just thinking of you : seven

moments of faulty bad luck and I don't care.

It was worth it. I've said it. There.

-

Dog-tiredness ails the aimless one : the

dime-store model cure for the common cold

has become, instead, all this  -  you are my

buttercup caramel and the new cure for the

common scold! And now, take this muffin

I offer to you, and eat it.

-

There is a man, one table over  -  a few

mornings in a row now I've seen him with

his fresh Summershort- haircut, reading

each day. 'The Rise and the Fall of The

Third rRich', by William Shirer. Oooh!

That's scary now, and solo goes awkward.

But I remain as before  -  perfectly

amenable to your hot-headed gloss.

4431. AT THE TOP OF THIS MOUNTAIN

AT THE TOP OF

THIS MOUNTAIN
At the top of this mountain is the love of
all things, and I find I can go no farther.
I find, in fact, I am stunned enough to
tarry - for I have found the source. At this
height, and in this place, occlusion has changed
all things : the light is now heavy, and the
heavy has shed all weight. Myself - and my
world as well - are but a spectacle to the
occasion of a now-trembling God.

4430. WHAT ARE THESE OLD REASONS?

WHAT ARE THESE 

OLD REASONS?

Marmaduke was an ancient God : saying that

right, I lose my breath. It can't be, and it's not

really. Let's try Marduk, before the cartoon idiots

got to it. I crawled over those endless Sumerian

surfaces  -  defacing all History like an American

soldier with a filthy gun in his hand. Or like some

crazed Jihadist, playing crosswords with

a two-letter word for me.

-

I erased the board that morning : the field captain

was standing there before us, explaining yet another

ambush and warning of our vest and helmets. 'Be

sure it's all in place  -  you'll need that shit and,

besides, it's regulation here.' How we'd gotten

this far, and to this place, I'll never know.

-

Sgt. Rownson, I had noticed, was still stealing

clay idols  -  from where they were found he'd

take them and wrap them for home, in Cracker

Jack boxes his parents kept sending. He was

so filthy it made my skin crawl. Truthfully?

I was glad when he went down; they should

have sent his pieces home in the same

small boxes. No, I'm not bitter, just real.

-

I walk around in shock and awe. What the

fuck? I don't know what I'm doing in this

place anyway  -  can't be bothered

and can't be sure. Marmaduke

was an ancient God?

4429. THE WAY WE LIVE

THE WAY WE LIVE

Here it is : the little policeman, in his cart, is scouring
the streets for parking violators, checking out tires that
that he's already chalked. Up on the hill, the University
cops are standing around, the three of them, with
their little bellies, discussing the weather and what
they should do. Kids stand around, inside the white
tents erected for the vast reception. How we live
today - by such standards this is OK. The lady
that I know, she steps right now out of her house.
I see her nearly every day - she says hi; I reply. Just
yesterday - or the day before was it? - I came around
that corner and startled her, she claimed with a jump.
I said 'Next time, I'll make noise.' So today I did, first
announcing, 'Here I come; hi, how are you?' She laughed,
and said everything was so fine, and how was I today?
-
It's like that. Cake-a-bake or chock-a-block, the way we
pile things up, amass the sum totals all, of our precious
lives. I, truly, feeling this aplomb, want to live forever.
My own days shall never be starched and drawn, I hope,
unto the point that something startles me. Those two kids,
now they've left their blue bicycles in the alleyway and gone.
-
I want to reach for silence, and hug it - in a sort-of way
that only I'm familiar with. The dimmer darkness of impatience,
I admit, sometimes gets me too. Think not that I never depress
or crumble with a burden - alas, I am sometimes as sad and
as soiled as a dying soldier on his field of woe. It doesn't help
to cry over it, instead, just get up and go. That's the succor
you'll find on the minefield - fold up nicely that flag you
carry...but only after you've made the show.

4428. PRIMROSE

PRIMROSE
Having never led a posse, I cannot say
for sure how easily men handle orders and
destruction. I read the storybooks that tell
of these things, and wonder what to believe.
All those crusades and vexatious, murderous
raids, the marbling of villages and people, the
pure oaf of Death which carnage brings. All
men have done these things? Arendt said it
all was banal - just insipid drones following
their orders. Perhaps, but not so. For each man
arises, anew, each day - and has the power
to reconsider his life and way. Once that
opportunity has passed, perhaps then the
culpability begins - but not before the
conscious willing of what is being done.
Slam that door, once more, before
the flies come in.

4427. BANDED IN IRON

BANDED IN IRON

Men are pretty often dreary. They stow

their gear and they wander about. I have

seen them, singly and in twos, talking 4am

stories to each other like washerwomen do.

Walking the streets of venomous gold, thinking

of how to reach advantage and gain. It's a most

dreary proposition, this thinking men through.

Those old Hart Crane sailor types, on the docks

and the wharves, trying to pick each other up

for exclamation. 'Use me, use me', they are

heard to exclaim. I cannot utter that profession,

and do not understand the need for, well, you know

that word I cannot type. Or will not. Women's juices

suit my plight much better, and the rest I leave unsaid.

-

Parts of me are honor-bound, and I am banded, myself,

in iron of a different kind : not a need for men, despicable

savages they, and grunting groaners all. With reason.

With logic. With that silly pumping of fearsome toil, until

somehow the drill strikes oil. No, nay. Give me instead

a woman's cant, a woman's lean desire - that willingness

for words and lust and love, conspiring all together in some

better, far higher, orgasmic quest. Bring me home to that,

for that's by far the best. Men are often pretty dreary.

-

To that, I can attest.

4426. LANDING GEAR

LANDING GEAR

When I hit, I hit hard; when

I landed, I fell. The coming

down was so easy, the getting

up was Hell.

4425. I HAVE THE UPTICK

I HAVE THE UPTICK

Standing on a ridge counting any pennies

to get me home, three Germans go by - loaded

with backpacks and hiking the trail. I can only

wonder what they say : about this place and

its distant lands - far off, down the river, the

absurd metal twist of New York City, just visible

yet if one squints. Tappan Zee to Bear Mountain,

all things together conspire, bringing back memories

and desires. I know I have been here before. I can

feel it in my bones and smell it in my airs. The very

idea of Cooper and Irving, either one of those clowns,

can bring me tales anew of all I knew and have learned,

here, to do. It's like that, worldwide over. The cloudy gauze

of happenstance and memory, the re-lining of some tired,

old life; all just in time to do it again, all just in time.

4424. MAKESHIFT MAKE-BELIEVE (fantasia)

MAKESHIFT MAKE-BELIEVE

(fantasia)

I awake sometimes profoundly disturbed :

my knees are locked and my mind is gone.

Far. Distant. Every form and line that's ever

passed my way is overlapped, calling a name

I think I can recognize. The fissures and the cracks

of this crazy human tale - Peter Rabbit to B'rer the

same, to Rumpelstilskin and Aladdin Sane. Everything

that ever conspired to be. It's all I can do to hold my

hands down; to keep from passing into still another

dream, running wild in a cosmic slip - firing farther

than the stars and more distant than any cosmic

story ever told. My Archimedes screw is screwing

me, killing me softly with its love, telling my whole

life with its words, killing me softly.

4423. OK THEN, JUST MAKE IT A LITTLE BETTER

OK THEN, JUST MAKE IT

A LITTLE BETTER

The Rialto of Zagreb. The Forum of

High Peak Canyon. She was all these

things, like a magazine photo cut and

pasted, ascribed to some famed

photographer but really nothing

more than some student's dreamy

shot. They do time for this in places

like Riyadh; or they get stoned and

killed. Who knows the difference

between then and now or there

and here anyhow? Every time

a boss says jump, fifteen people

jump. That quickly. We reach

the end of our days by following

bad orders to the very, very end.

4422. I WAS THE GUY WITH THE RAPIER

I WAS THE GUY

WITH THE RAPIER

Slicing through meadows with glee, I ran headlong

into the troops of King John. They cut me down to

size and hung me from a tree. All is well when

it ends this way - I lost my Kingdom,

they gained a day.

4421. PEDIMENTARY PORTMANTEAU

PEDIMENTARY PORTMANTEAU

I carried ice water to the fire, left my gloves in the

furnace, and went home crying in my beer : five

dollars for Mr. Sam, and two more for his daughter,

Emmy Lou. The next day, I hadn't a memory,

I hadn't a clue. And all that was so long ago

now I've even forgotten how the story ended.

So, here I am again - carrying my own luggage

to the flight that's, well, already crashed.

So lucky I never boarded that

backwards plane to Hell.

4420. WELL, AUNT HAROLD WAS THE ONE WITH THE KEY

WELL, AUNT HAROLD WAS

THE ONE WITH THE KEY

It wasn't me. All I ever did was take out the dog,

wear out the wash, grease up the bicycle chain,

and run. I could never get inside anything at all.

She was the lady with the forced smile, always

wearing those disgusting, saturated dresses,

fixing up the cellar door for thieves and robbers,

counting down the harpsichord and critizing every

astronaut whoever came home from space. 'Look

at the Michael Collins guy, all smiley! What did

he ever do? He never even left the capsule or got

to the moon. They just left him up above, circling

around, while those two walked the lunar surface.

He should be crying instead.' That was our Aunt

Harold, the one with the key to everything.

4419. AT-HOME REPUTATION

AT-HOME REPUTATION

My at-home reputation has now cleared

a trampoline of its own making : none of

the crowd seems returning, and I am left

holding the bag. It seems, somehow, the

most difficult part of the jump is the landing.

-

Here I am again - vaulted, at a height I

am not used to, spinning, adrift and twirling

about. Background music somewhere plays -

a choir of French voices, in a unison that

needs revising, singing about clouds and

visions. The more things change, the more...

-

Doctor, lawyer, judge, king - let me off

easy please; for I am now so tired of the

learning rote, the old soft-show, the twist

and shout of this debacle. I just want to die.

My at-home reputation is withered and shot.

4418. PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Muddle through this with me will you?

All those distended cattle have brand marks

on their faces - what's the deal with that?

I can't imagine that not hurting, and where's

the cowboy who did that to them? Like to

give his ass a taste of his own medicine :

a feel of testicles in a vice, speaking of

distended - something he'd remember

nice. As it is, my girlfriend says I have

tomorrow off and there's this picnic we'll

be at. Checker tournament and real plaid

tablecloths. Every moth and ant in the world,

I've already been told, will be there for me.

I cannot wait - I'll make a list of all the

things I expect to do : can't sit, can't drink,

won't eat, won't think. How's that; well, it's

an anti-list anyway, Marianna. It's the

only kind you'll get from me.

4417. LOST LOVE, GENERALLY

LOST LOVE, GENERALLY

In the gentility of sunlight and magic, in the

arms and amidst the cries of homage, I'd

see myself extending hands to touch a heart

and mind. There comes a schism in our lives,

between the body and the soul, the heart and

the mind, the Being and all that is really not.

Never deciding, the hurt of the moment 

enflames. All this lost love is like a forest-fire,

blazing to destroy every item in its path.

-

You can run, but you can't hide...isn't that

how it's been said, or tried?

4416. TO SHRED THE RISE OF GOOFBALLS AND BRAGGARTS

TO SHRED THE RISE OF 

GOOFBALLS AND BRAGGARTS

To beat the scoundrel deadly is not always the answer,

for it comes with too many reprecussions. You can hear 

the idle chatter now : 'He was treated so poorly. He lost

his rights.' Personally, I could never care. Let it all go down.

Take the goon to his circle of charmed friends, and let them

all witness what occurs. Stocks and shackles - pillory the

guy, lash him with with a chain, slap him with a hammer.

I do sort of like that stuff - better even than Justice,

the smack up-side the head will do.

 

4415. STANDING IN THE GRAVEYARD WITH CHRISTOPHER SMITH

STANDING IN THE GRAVEYARD

WITH CHRISTOPHER SMITH

Just like that magic in the flute, I was headed

where I stayed  -  thankfully above ground. I

like it better that way. Everything else has its

marbles, things good to be said. But, poor old

Chris Smith, I'll let him go in my stead.

-

Two bluejays were making a racket  -  loud birds

they can be. I once saw a bluebird here too, up

in a tree :  they take a little birdhouse, small to see,

but it works, if you can get them started, they stay.

-

I know that now  -  and how human-like is that?

4414. LET ME, MENDOZA

LET ME, MENDOZA

Spin me off like a gumdrop while I

watch the white egret take my breath away.

Such beauty has no name you say? Standing

in ten inches of water, it's got to be better

than a wade. I'm here with my dog, as we

slosh through the stream  -  I learn everything

she learns about water, and at the exact same

time. It's a wonderful life, Pearly.

-

There's a bountiful amount of joy in

the way branches and limbs just learn to

grow over and around things : the streamlined

gruff and the bark, so rough, yet right. From

high above, some smart smattering of blue calls

down, just before the breath of sky hits me right

back. It's worth smiling or just living, for this

and this alone. I should call her

Pearly Mendoza. She'll let 

me take her home.

4413. SPIRITUALLY

SPIRITUALLY

Here, I've arrived on Salivating Ridge  -  or was

that Salvation Rock? I dearly lost my way, oh, Deary,

oh. The fierce men were still in the hallway  -  licking

their fingers in that old roadside house. Inside, the Russian

guy was trying to sell anything he could  -  coffee and rolls,

donuts, maps and chips. 'I bring things in fresh everyday  -  

but I never buy too many. The Parks Service rents me this

concession. I try to make a go. I try.'

-

No one seemed to care; leastways I. Moving my

bottled effervescence aside meant little as he smoked

another cigarette. 'Ain't supposed to be smoking inside

here, but in these hill parts no one cares  -  except the

Parks Service people and the hiking crazies. But I

can hide it.' Funny guy, just getting be.

-

It's strange enough, how we manage, each, to suffice -

beneath a staggering sky of such beauty and the running

of fiery blue waters. Everything is moving by me.  If they

had never said 'Appalachian Trail' to my ears, I'd really

have known it anyway  -  part and parcel of a certain

goodness, truly, this was a no-man's land.

4412. BLUFF

BLUFF

With her groaning, Angelica grows so

much  -  the tendrils of gnat-like vines

clinging to trees and bushes. On balance,

it's probably the time now to run away  -  

as we ourselves are blanked by balanced

transfers of Good and Bad. What you have

to say to yourself is - 'Boy, they really

don't get it, do they?'

-

 No treasure of the Sierra Madre this  - 

no flames of money blowing off into the wind.

You'd have to catch me running anyway, for that.

Instead, I will sit on this bluff, and, bluff.

4411. HASBRO

HASBRO

A guy trying to tell me that means in the ghetto a man

has friends  -  like I believed him a minute. The other

side of that equation is the loneliness of the crowd. 

People walking around liquid. Like Weisman's 1950 

'Lonely Crowd', I tend to find agreement in the 

solace of the one. Let me look back anyway : where 

golden water once washed the daylight and the 

steamers and tugboats floated away. And where 

the harbor was washed in its own, inner, light.

4410. I PLAY JUMBLE (momentary mystery)

I PLAY JUMBLE

(momentary mystery)

Only 10 floors up, a chaotic scene involving

a man looking for trouble - was followed by a

police chase and a gun. 'There's something

about life in the United States that's not conducive

to good health across generations, nor the well-being

of others.' While there are still many gaps in the story,

the specialists are hunched over laptops, and  -  like

mugwumps of old  - jump criteria to change parties

and totems. Overseen by a revolving cast, why not?

In a high-ceilinged room with a silent grandfather clock,

and resplendent in his gleaming, white uniform and peaked

cap, the stationmaster was waiting, on the platform, for

a train that would never come. His jacket buttons

were tugging his plump girth.

4409. I CAN INHABIT THIS PLACE UNTIL IT KILLS ME TOO

I CAN INHABIT THIS PLACE

UNTIL IT KILLS ME TOO

Now counting the numbers : there are

police with clickers watching me pass,

and - oh yes - there's a camera overhead,

and we live in a land of pigsties and inkstains

for brains where the ruling clients of the Holy

Land can steal you blind and laugh about it

on your own TV screen. With pleasure, of

course, you will be the one applauding.

-

Why is it I count myself not yet among the

dead but not glad among the living? Every

tendentious thing I've ever been told, from

grade-school on until now I am old, has

been but lies and fables, untruths and

cant. And I'm sick of it all as well.

-

Now counting the numbers : the

fifteenth slob from the end will

be the last one to go.

4408. THIS VAIN ALLOY

THIS VAIN ALLOY

This vain alloy anneals to nothing, stands firmer

than steel yet withers as well when done. The farmer,

in his mis-shapen ideas of trade, thinks the same way

of corn and oats and wheat. Perhaps mistaken, this all

goes down in the end. Barns and silos, no matter how

things appear, can only hold a temporary crop.

-

Out by the river, they were herding cows - those bovines

who slosh in the water, barely jumping in herds the broken

limbs. I've never seen anything like it again. Alongside the

farmhouse, on a higher ledge, wasps were hanging, perilously

nasty, to each fat pear on the tree. The old, black Chevy

truck, just as dangerous in its timeless malaise, seemed to

linger and then sag on its wheels. Memory does that to things.

-

That was long before my armistice with myself. Signed in blood.

I'd promised to leave all these items alone and never return. Yet, in

part, this vain alloy of what I am knew, even then, that I'd be, and

only be, lying if I said never. I protect my prerogatives like gold.

-

Solid matter entrances. Only the things that sag never return -

like a Dali clock, I too am stretched now over rock and perilously

dripping and close to a break. I breath in deep only to try and

stay calm. Nothing, however, seems to work for that,

though my vain alloy keeps trying.

4407. OH MY DARLING, KILLING TIME

OH MY DARLING,

KILLING TIME

...You are lost and gone forever, odds and ends,

lost time is not found again, Recherce Les Memes

Chose  -   you may name it, Clarabelle, these

darling moments are all your days. And I don't

know a God-damned thing. On the marquee it

simply stated, '99 dancers, all you can eat.' Well,

Hell, Clarabelle, that too stopped me short.

-

What a fucking waste this whole life is, this

collection of time, that battered suitcase of

circumstance. Each thing you tell me, I can

carefully refute. There is nothing that is as you

say. The world is illusion, Madame Clarabelle

again, and we don't need a Madame Sosotiris

to add to that. Time,  gentlemen, time.

Gentlemen, killing time...

4406. TRANSCRIBING FOR REASON

TRANSCRIBING

FOR REASON

I was going to have to work a

brick-bat transcribed for reason;

something meritorious that could

last forever. But, alas, now, nothing.

Whatever comes along is all you get.

4405. ATTAINMENT

ATTAINMENT

Do you see the everyday in what I

do? My faint cynosure keeps a status

of its own - even when I leave my

land. Doors and castle fronts, erected

where I am not, keep all the carnage at

bay. And, though the fields are littered,

I step lightly between bodies and limbs.

That alone is one attainment, reached.

My ribs are parched - I look like a

starving cur put out to die - yet, of no

moment at all, I know that I shall live.

My arms are your defenses.

-

Before I was an ending, first I was a

beginning - incursion, inception,

initiation, and all the rest. The small

pop pops and these frazzled nerves start

jumping. How long was it, I question,

before human flinched at sound and fire?

Dead bodies still litter the field,

so then, no matter.

-

And back now, to the start : what is it

we've attained here anyhow? The harbor

water surges onto a filthy shore - old

freight and lumber, cast-off things. We

walk about, judging to comment on every

little thing about others not ourselves.

We place the monad we are in a better,

higher, place. Attainment.

4404. CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

The Big Dipper comes down from the sky and flounces.

The Double Dipper works just as hard stealing money.

The flowers of Spring are now twisting and twirling,

crawling up fences and lampposts and every little

thing with a point they can cling to  -  bugs and flowers,

the fragrant politeness of what the world has to offer.

I still care for nothing. I still am non-plussed.

-

This happens each year : this frenzy of the beetle,

the ravaging of ants, the quick, unfettered walk

and fly of every Robin in the world. Everything,

it seems, has come home to roost. That same

home, I would dearly suppose, where this

Charity is supposed to begin.