Thursday, May 30, 2013

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.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

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.

Monday, May 27, 2013

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 fo
llowing
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.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

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.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

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.
 

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

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.

Monday, May 20, 2013

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.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

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.

Friday, May 17, 2013

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.