Wednesday, July 31, 2013

4551. LENDERMAN'S BELLY

LENDERMAN'S BELLY
At the swamp, where they heated the water,
where they lit up the edge, the flies were flying,
the stingers were stinging. Everyone was flailing
around. There was but one thing to do, loudly
proclaim this new status : 'I have so much to do,
but really so small a reason to do it. Nothing can
move me now.' Far away, the granite sun was shining.

4550. SEE THE LIGHT

SEE THE LIGHT
See the light take on false standing, wash the world
with its windows of change - moving across the flatness,
all that we inhabit. The book falls open again, and here
is the page where I am. William Blake put it broadly -
'I must invent my own system, or be enslav'd by that
of another man.' There is no defining the glut of this
masterly time : we are oldest and youngest together;...

most modern and most archaic at once. Let us dream
of ten thousand things. All those strange sailors of old,
floating a'sea and screaming prayers to the Virgin, all
frightened of the flat world they knew, or thought to
know. 'The New World is round!' Wise explorers said,
to profoundly indifferent ears - and, once more,
William Blake put it so well - 'the world is a flat
plain of our own indifferent recognition, a poor
interpretation of everything we see.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

4549. THE WORLD

THE WORLD
The world is so over and over and done, and all I
get is this picture. My legs and arms ache - running
the revisionist hills to find logic to make anything sensible
make sensible sense : there is nothing for this placement
to place. A mirage can double as a mirror, or a hole; one
from which you can never return. See me, see me now -
my hands are playing fire over kindling of silent
wood.
-
This world is like a baby; abused, neglected, and then,
finally thrown headlong off a fifty-foot ledge to the
oh-so-sold ground below. Really, we can do nothing
about it all. The man with holes in his head, counting
the petals on a daisy, backwards, countdown, downward:
ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. Zero!

4548. PROTEST

PROTEST
(locked horns)
I cannot shelve the frozen pipe, the arms of a
hundred revolutions  -  guns and ammunition,
screaming of injustice's hordes. Those tanks, now
 lining this sad perimeter, they act as if they had
somehow arrived to see a picture show  -  children,
lined up, to watch the big screen before them. Popcorn
and jujubes, fun and revelry, while before them,
on the field arrayed, people fall and die.

Monday, July 29, 2013

4547. EXTEMPORANEOUS

EXTEMPORANEOUS
Where were you when? I'm talking nonsense.
The car was parked in the spot allotted, two of
the doors unlatched. A fellow from Pennsylvania
strolled by with his dog on a leash  -  he talked to
himself as much as to me. But I am so tired of
so many things. The doll-faced spin-off played
cards on the felt-topped table. Her earrings were
large, and some lipstick had smudged. Like an
Atlantic City nightmare, the whole scene seemed
wrong  -  the ocean was washing in the window,
the  old sailor with the pipe was gagging on his
own lack of breath and fresh air. A seagull squawked.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

4546. 17th STREET APPLE CART BLUES

17th STREET
APPLE CART BLUES
I've got the wind-up harpist's rathskellar note
still typed and pinned to my head. The fifth
wheel on that four-wheel cart, I see, has already
fallen off. The big Jewish guy who sells jewelry
on 47th, he's back again, reading residential
contracts on the hairdresser's chin and wondering
what naked shiksa's really wear under their clothes.
All this melody is so simple ; two timed twice shallow.

4545. SOLEBURY AIRPORT

SOLEBURY AIRPORT
(businessmen)
'At this time', the announcement said, 'at this
time'  -  over and over. I remember something
called 'Tumbleweed Junction', from many years
ago; made me want to sing while the airplanes
went over my head.  How far away do I have
to be to be as far away as I'd like? Little airports,
little airplanes, little guys with balls and chains.

4544. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA?

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA?
When I got there, they had taken it down  -  replaced
by a string of noodle shops named Cheng Dzhou's, all
doing the very same thing, one after the other. Like a raft
of French philosophers, theorizing about the tinkerers, so
much nothing got done. We walked it ten abreast, though
there was really nothing there, and it only fit six. No moment
for Dick Brautigan was any of this. I herded the Chinese
numerals into a headshot of a major idea : selling Tinkertoy
sets of grand major domos and their captains at will.
Everyone nodded, and the Chinese dudes all cheered.

4543. LET US WRAP THE STATUS

LET US WRAP THE STATUS
As a balloon, covering an idea and clinging
to the world, our selves, regarding circumstances,
make us what we are. I see the shoreline light;
it is passing gently over rippling water. I sense
the tough scratch and the harsh trundle of these
city streets - they sing of reality, though in
another way. They are real, as is the thought
within the balloon which is covering the world
of the expanding fabric I am caught within
.

Friday, July 26, 2013

4542. UNDERWATER FRIENDS

UNDERWATER FRIENDS
All my underwater friends are mindful of
underwater things - the length of time it
takes to breath, the depth it takes to blow your
heart up. Me? I'm so ignorant of all that stuff
it's funny - let alone on land, not knowing
the pain it takes to rend a heart in two, or
blow a mind to smithereens. Yes, blow
a mind to smithereens.

4541. MINDING THE TOMBS

 MINDING THE TOMBS
Only now do we think so deeply about what we're doing:
the pigeon is a filigree and doubt is as voracious as doom.
The lamplighter steps up to his table, addressing this tiny
crowd : "I am merely here to do my duty. First this, then
that." Everyone pretended to understand. In the far back
room, some fool was playing old episodes of Route '66 on
the overhead monitor. Those...
shackled men sat in rows and
watched - that little Corvette, that small private plane, and
all those blondes and brunettes continually getting caught
up in action with those two sleek young guys. It all, somehow,
really did make sense, in an ancient sort of way.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

4540. DON'T LET ME GO

DON'T LET ME GO
Let me go through these miles, basking on air.
Let  me see your sweet smile, oh, everywhere.
As in the cave of some cretin, living by fire
and ash, so does  my own dark mind keep
dwelling  -  poorer than it should be, more
negative and shaded than necessary.
I promise that  -  one day  -  I will turn
on that lamp that lightens the gloom,
that bright candlepower will
illumine this room.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

4539. STALWART REVANCHNIK

STALWART REVANCHNIK
I've watched the gliding window glide, passing
by, backlit from a wondrous place of somewhere
else : the fair hollow of Stuyvesant, or the end
of e11th, by the 'Russian Souvenirs' store. Funny
how time takes things a'rowing. The guy here,
Peter, he's sitting in the nearby park making lists
of things he's carried there, things he's left, the
stolen and forgotten items. I ask him why, and
what things he means. He answers, "Well, for
instance, last week Joe lost a pair of shoes' They
hid them on him, in the bushes somewhere, and
I've not been able to find them anywhere." So
I said, "Well how do you like that? Taking the
thieves' word for where they hid things!" He
laughed, and said he hadn't thought of that.
-
The willow is growing strong; some wisteria as
well and, off the back along the fence, those sumac
plants are zooming. Two-men high, they grow as
if wild and on their own. Which they are. No one
ever really comes here, except that one guy always
playing some tweaky jazz on his cartoon sax, and
the two kids always entwined, and those kids, over
from Ave. A somehow, honing their skill at being
pesky. Slow, slow, slow, the cop car prowls

4538. THINGS THAT HAD TO BE

THINGS THAT HAD TO BE
You can tell the weak part of this life - it's all
so easy to see. Five hundred waxen candles, just
burning down to a nub, the cloth of all forgiveness
flowing wide and open, like the fabric of some flying
nun. Of which I saw, today : on a perfect yellow bicycle,
bright and striking, in flowing white robes and a white
wide-brimmed headpiece, one solitary nun, pedaling
seren...
ly down the sidewalk, along the road, placidly
moving along her way. No one said a word; all
just moved aside to let her silence pass by.

4537. CAROLINE 234

CAROLINE 234
'I hired Suds, she makes it happen - from deep down
south she's ended up here. Every morning, in a new
green hat, she's making coffee before I know what's
up. My wife takes a handle to the message, my cousin
Bernie, claims he doesn't follow that. This large, red
barn I'm standing in is filled with cows - they stare at
me, looking as if to understand, or at least find, something.
The world's a rich man's paradise; for those who've not
got it, I suppose it can get fairly boring. But we all
are that to which we were born. It's now
Caroline, called 'Suds', every morn.'

4536. BLUE AND HOW

BLUE SKY BIG TIME
Not the cat's meow, precisely, but close
enough to Heaven this. The swarming
blue and sunlight too! How far and
wide do we have to search? And oh,
how far and wide.

Monday, July 22, 2013

4535. GIFTED WITH BUT ONE ACCOLADE

GIFTED WITH BUT
ONE ACCOLADE
I was born on the 33rd of something; no one
knew the doctor attending. When it was over,
I was already fully grown and leading the charge.
The heather-wood wherein I dwelt was filled with
spirits and gnomes and sprites. Everything arrived
at one time, all spittle and fury. The racket was
unbearable - yet in just the same way totally
fullfilling and right and all I ever wanted.
Still now, I stand alone and wait.

4534. WHICH I DON'T HAVE TO SAY

WHICH I DON'T HAVE TO SAY
This lark demands an answer, this sound
calls back a sound  -  we are living but
for moments like this : Rivington and Grand,
Attorney and Stanton. Many of the streets I
once loved are quiet and useless now.
-
The red bricks  -  yes, yes, that lay on Grand
Street where the neon madmen climb  -  are
scorched to the street, their dusty surface now
fire-burnt black near the doors of the Henry
Street Settlement. Something always aims for
art  -  whether it's the Spanish senorita
blessing herself while walking past the
rambling church, or the Chinese guy
with cymbals wailing past the gates.
Amateurs grow like weeds around
here. No one gets the real idea.
-
One iota, making time  -  watch high up
the Summer-silly moon, night after night
working its way to completion, to fullness  - 
one huge yellow globe over some really
sick-hot-feisty streets. For which I do
not have to say  -  'turn me over, baby,
I'm really well past done.'

4533. TEN THINGS

TEN THINGS
Five are already idle and two are
dead at the crossing  -  thus,
seven are easy, going for broke.
No loss and no gain. Together we
come again. Three are left, one is a
twaddle, and those final two, yes, I
can itemize  -  one is a pearl-diamond
necklace, with brooch  -  who mixes
the two? and the last one, the best, is
a small fire, burning incredibly
slow in the open middle of 
your outstretched palm.

4532. BOG TROTTERS IN DEEP JULY

BOG TROTTERS 
IN DEEP JULY
(Ballynahinch Hotel, Cannemora)
'The sea, and Homer....it's love that
moves all things.'  -  There was a sauce
left on the table, in a gravy bucket - or
whatever that wheedling thing is called
by the names that only stewards would 
know, not me. The few men I am watching
come by to sit  -  they are big and they
are strong, here at the Ballynahinch Hotel
where I am staying twice. They have set
out from Galway City  -  I cannot really
understand them, and with their huge arms
they can lift both carriages and maidens too.
-
There is such a silence here as well, that I
cannot tell. A place like a car park where
they park such things  -  lorries or trucks
omnibuses, whatever. My stingy stipend
barely covers any of this  -  and I've long
ago decided to save money by not shaving,
not cutting a hair. It's all pretty simple, and
sound, and fair. The most beautiful of the
girls that come in here, they go that quickly,
never lingering on to stay  -  not tarrying, they,
while the others play. By all this, all this matter
undone and unjudged by even Jude Law, I am
worn down like a pencil tip : harrow my sideways,
needing a sharpening. What am I for?
-
In this thing of today (I shan't call it a world, nay),
they toil their times with cool patches of color in
heir hair, tattoos, and looking at screens and
messaging back  -  the unsaid, as if there was
something to say, by the undead. The bog trotters,
I note, now get up to leave, together. Not soon
enough. They have already broken a chair
and unfettered already a table as well.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

4531. WINSOME ONE

WINSOME ONE
I don't wish to be your vestige arm or leg; it
would hurt too much to be. The issue here is
more than one denomination : I am standing
near a window where the bell-pilot wrings his
hands out every evening. Between him and the
fly-pool, covered in yet another swarm, I spend
all this time figuring out so very little. The little
kid who sells Coca-Cola is once again setting out
the ice-cold cans and bottles. A child-labor law
would make no difference; he's enjoying the
trance of soda and ice too much. No one
listens anyway.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

4530. ON THE OCCASION OF THE ARRIVAL OF MR. TITAN

ON THE OCCASION OF THE
ARRIVAL OF MR. TITAN
Well boys, the cacaphony starts, the drums are rolling,
the trumpets blare. That guy's funny horse rears up
again and nearly throws him into the drink. See that
tree over there? That's where they hung Nathan Hale.
We've got a narrow bottom on the trunk of that bolster,
and it's holding up nothing as important as food. Bed
down now, for the night is comin
g, and Gen. Washington,
I hear, is due to come through soon. I want to be there
for moment of all that. In the dark woods, alongside the
Indians' camp, they say there is a spiritual void. I do not
think so - I find it, instead, a furious night, a cloud of
all these dark and revolutionary dreams we're now stuck
with. I wonder, will any of this ever come true?

Friday, July 19, 2013

4529. PAYING MY MONSTROUS DEBT, IN DUE TIME

PAYING MY MONSTROUS
DEBT, IN DUE TIME
The warbler knows the steadiness, while the three-armed
drummer is keeping time. I am watching the girls pass
by, listening to nothing so much as the rhythm of  -  what
did Paul Simon call it  -  the 'rhythm of the saints'? Holy
Hell what that all amounts to now is nothing I recognize
at all. In looking out, there, there is the Leonardo horizon,
(NJ, not the painter), and it's a massive armaments depot
filling ships uploading with guns and ammunition and
missiles and launchers. Does anyone know this? I can see
it all clear as day  - right of Rt. 35, turn left for the Leonardo
boat basin, and just look at the frigging horizon. Not 2 miles
out, at most, there they be : huge ships, holding at dock,
military re-fitters, stocking up on lethal guns and death.
they take it all back out to sea and, sailing the globe,
replenish the ships out there waiting. As for myself, no,
I can't any longer take this largess. I want to coat this
evil world in my own sort of venom  -  some with fury,
not this listless and lazy reverie. Boys and girls of the
world! Let us take to the ramparts and battlements
ourselves! It is our lives they are killing!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

4528. I WAS THE ONE THAT WASN'T

I WAS THE ONE THAT WASN’T
 It never came as a surprise to me that leftover people
gravitated to each other – thus the clutches of bums
and cripples the indigent and unwanted the criminal
and the piker all hanging together at streets’ ends
and grassy parks along roadways or under abutements –
for a singular language of sameness and a shared sense
of love and lost-love and bad opportunity and missed
fortunes all come to one piece as around each other they
 shelter and harbor whatever left there may be and it’s
 heard in their words and seen in their eyes how they
each clamor to share in the solace which each somehow
affords the other – the man with the one bad eye and
disfigured face meets the one with the withered hand
(and together they enter grace).

4527. ACES HIGH

ACES HIGH
The cleavage was enticing, but it was only a landscape
I saw. I wanted to jump into the picture and flee. Have
you ever seen a scene that made you wish to be? 
Something so bucolic, a real snapshot of old Ruritania, 
wherein your heart and soul yet dwelt. You knew it, you 
could feel, you so wanted to go. Sections of time like
that disappear so quickly, like a cardboard cut running
by  -  you've simply got to grasp it catch it, get it on
the run, stay with it and travel on; or else it's gone.

4526. AT QUARRY FARM

AT QUARRY FARM
Oh I so mix up the names, all that Middlebush stuff,
the faces, the names and the places. A carnival-like
attraction to detail is not much my stead. I'd rather
watch the wind. I know lots of things, and can
remember an abiding thought or two. Like
Terwilliger and Mark Twain, in Elmira, at old
Quarry Farm  -  for so many years when I lived
there it was nothing, neglected, unseen and nearly
unremarked. Now, years later, it's a historic shrine,
a paen to madness with nothing maddening ever
said. All those mini-docents, rat-ass kids two years
ago still in school, now working for the Parks Service
and telling me all I never know. As if they do. I want
to run. I want to take hold of Mr. Twain, old Sam
himself, and say  - just as was said in 1888,
'same damn fools, Sam, same damn fools.'

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

4525. CULPEPPER

CULPEPPER
My fly in the face of the ointment,
the charnel house of all my blues : one
faction of twenty lawmen looking for gold.
Here I stand, with my six-gun in hand.
-
The deck held too many cards; that guy's
flippant hands were on everything  -  swapping
numbers, turning cards. And up his sleeve,
the Derringer I saw was held in place by
nothing but expensive gold cuff links.
-
There was a water trough out back; a few
horses whinnied, a woman in a long,
flouncy dress seemed searching for
love. I held another drink up to the sun,
and it was shot right out from my hand.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

4524. AS WE GO THROUGH TOMORROW

AS WE GO THROUGH TOMORROW
(I will have soundspace)
Powerful stuff, all this intrigue : the shoreline
is bequeathed to the victor. Paths through these
weeds take us somewhere  -  just watch  -  as I
move along. There's something new now, and
wonderful too, jangling in my head : Bob
Watson's 'The Greeter'; it goes like this: "He's
not the Reaper, but he does stop by to say to
everything that's ever lived, 'Nice try'."
As we go through tomorrow, I will
promise to remember.

4523. HATCHET MARKS

HATCHET MARKS
They not only lined the tree, they spelled a
word, some long and stupid word for something
no longer in common usage; like the name of a
means of flotation or the way crops sway in the wind.
Watch the bullfrog, just sitting there. Before you even
make a move, it will take note, and jump off.
-
My idea of love and justice differ. One takes everything
in, and the other is nothing but distinctions. Those who
die, must die, while the others who yet live seem just
to get in my way at all times. The porkpie man with
the narrow shoulders  -  the one over there, looking like
a sad accountant, a mad poet, a soldier just home from
a war  -  he is thinking of the tigers in a jungle sleeve
where he wishes to visit. One will attack him, eat
him alive; he doesn't know it yet, but he'll be dead
in four months time. Before he even makes a
move, it will take note and jump off.

4522. NO, FALSTAFF

NO, FALSTAFF
Nothing in between. I was lost, lost like
to the ages. Beneath my feet the subway
growled again, hundred degree heat warming
my toes, frying my brain. No, no Falstaff, it was
never meant to be this way. Once I realized the
misapprehension was all my own, it seemed better.
The coasters under the two glasses had wet circles
at which I enjoyed gazing. Outside the window, some
in
sane Dollar Store collected its rabid people : low, loud,
large, lugubrious, leaning towards cheap luxury. Nothing
and everything, all jumbled up together. Oh, Eight Street dies.
-
Maybe it was meant to be Flagstaff, Arizona instead.
Maybe I just saw the banner which I misread. Like those
photos of missing kids on the milk carton sidesleeves, nothing
is ever what it seems : they're old now, unrecognizable to all,
and the milk cartons themselves have trash-heaped their
passing importance a long time ago. Everything fades.
All those kids have gone home. No, no, Falstaff, no.

4521. BEFORE RIGOR MORTIS SETS IN

BEFORE RIGOR MORTIS SETS IN
(working for a living in Old New YorK :
42nd Street, meat on the hoof)

'Hey, don't get me wrong, I like to stay stiff as
well as the next guy : but this is something different.
The signal light at the end of the stage is telling me
time is up; some guy's pants are down around his
knees, and those two girls there, well, I don't
need to say. This Roman debauchery is such...
a
crock of shit to behold. Fourteen people are
standing outside just looking in - shoppers,
actually, from Dubuque and des Plaines. All
the touristy types usually end up here, but
they tip like the trickle at the end of
an old man's dick.'

Saturday, July 13, 2013

4520. RESERVOIR

RESERVOIR
A secret voir dir, all that presumed matter, the
material left in the closet, the drum whacking
hard on the tabletop's edge - I remembered
all this as from a fabric torn from another time.
My mother's lantern was of a Venetian lady,
while my father was only an Albanian seaman's
offspring. Spouting fire, they both were, instead,
from some emotional Etna I never bothered to visit.
...
-
If  -  in looking back at the bones  -  one recognizes
a face amidst a skull or femurs, can any of that
be made to mean something? The evidence factor
which draws near as the day of reckoning rises
becomes all the more important. You can run
around, like a titan's powerplay pushing forward,
trying to make all things fit, but it's really then just
anarchy which rules in the end, and the reservoir
alone overflows both with water and with blood.

4519. GLORIOUS CADAVER

GLORIOUS CADAVER
I've got it here somewhere,
hiding in a box, all jangled up
as a mess of arms and legs.
Who knew it would be so much
trouble? Back in the gospel days,
this was all cleared up in a few
sad moments - people's faces lit
up, all those lights came on. Now?
It seems, as I said, I'm stuck
with this stuff forever.
 

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

4518. MY MIND IS ON THE END OF SOMEONE WINDING

MY MIND IS ON THE END
 OF SOMEONE WINDING
I visited Bristol, and Beacon too. One day out, two days
afar - everything running where it may. There were all
those collected bottles, blue and green, the ones the old
chemist-elixirs came in : the rheumatoid and arthritic came
by, one case at a time, to plead their cures. Out in this
far country, beyond perplexing, is the only way we
understand. Eac
h house seems two hundred years old
- that center corridor, running a breeze through two
open doors - a natural and God-given right to air and
coolness. The trees here sometimes look like monsters,
or dinosaurs even; huge, pre-historic things, rearing
up and staring back. I look at them with whimsy,
and little do I care, just gently smile back.

4517. IF I WERE TO TAKE ON THE HUMAN

IF I WERE TO TAKE
ON THE HUMAN
My list would be endless : the foraging of whim and
desire in the face of paucity or want; the way men
walk past others with that look on their faces; the
manner in which goodness is mentioned, but not
given. For now, this will have to do. I am alone in
the glen - water rolls past, with its little water-noise.
I can recognize five thousand things in an inst...
ant,
taking in sound and light and scene and motion.
My entire world - that large - is but held on the
end of a pin : the entire passing world
.

Monday, July 8, 2013

4516. CREATIONISM IS BACKWARDS

CREATIONISM IS BACKWARDS
The lamplighter has lit the charcoal, fire not yet
in check. Nowhere to place the flame, nor any
understanding of it. We are all, each alike, now
cavemen looking back at something dimly playing.
-
This world is cinema, this world is frolic. The
four seasons play us, and not the reverse. All that
matters is present  -  the words, the world, by fiat.
-
You are holding three cards, I see; they mean so
little. One is your past, things calling you back.
The second is the story you are weaving; as thread
pouring out of your mouth, jaw flapping  -  you
make up the tale as you go along. And lastly,
yes, most, the third is your destiny calling.
-
That last one, I think, is really the only
you can put back in the deck you're given.
-
(This world is cinema, this world is frolic. The
four seasons play us, and not the reverse. All that
matters is present  -  the words, the world, by fiat).

4515. MAGNANIMOUS GESTURE

MAGNANIMOUS GESTURE
They often abound, these things,
at once  -  the kestrel diving. The
old, sinking boats in the sickening,
hot harbor, (where, once, yes, I
puked behind the changing-house
shed). To be derived from so many
other things, this beautiful life develops.
-
The very best course of things that
I've ever done was in silence : Quito,
Ecuador, where I read, mutely, for
one whole year, the diary of your sister -
yes, your sister's diary  -  each new entry,
day by day. And I counted, you not
knowing  -  365 times she and I made
love. Once a day for that entire year.
-
All while I was reading her diary; so
preoccupied was I. Hot with hands and
ringlets percolating downward; all those
drippy liquids and frothy gels. Sisters can be
an adventure. But, let us move, that was then.
-
For now, I am in a stinking Panamanian jail,
at least until the Americans come. I've called
them, two times. They said that they'd arrive.
Get me out of this mess. 'Could be worse,' they
say, 'could be worse. You could be on your way
instead to Cuernavaca, Just imagine that.'
-
To be derived from so many other things,
this beautiful life develops.

4514. WASTREL

WASTREL
People who don't know me think of that
and call me names. I don't really care.
They are chaff, to my wind. In my first
life, the one with the vast and mannered
estate, I handled so many things. Now, 
as payback, I can do so little at all. I am
poor like a ground-in bedbug. I sleep, in
fact, in my clothes, under piers and bridges, 
wherever I can find a dry spot to be. The
only real grand gesture I've ever seen was
that girl, thinking no one was around, peeing
by herself, from a crouch, on the sand while
all around her, elsewhere, was water. 
Why foul the sea, I guess.

4513. WHIL YET THE CHANDELIER WAS STILL FALLING

WHILE YET THE 
CHANDELIER WAS 
STILL FALLING
I basked in the sunlight a little to long. It was,
once more, the Fourth of July. We'd done nothing
all day. Two men from the boathouse were just
hanging around. The whippoorwill-solace of the
darkening sky meant that the new breeze I was
feeling was bringing in rain. And hallelujah for
that. The running of water was all I could hear.
-
Two steps back, the kids were playing with a
bicycle that had no wheels. How strange was
all that, I thought to myself, how stranger
than that could anything be?

Saturday, July 6, 2013

4512. AND I HAVE TO COOK

AND I HAVE TO COOK
Never the meaning elides so sweetly, never the
ending arrives so quick : the stove is on the kettle
and I still yet have to cook. What shall it be today?
I may purloin a minute's taste for that lousy sack
of rice, and some tea. I can make the lentil thing
again, those beans with all that creamy slop.
So, anyway, let's talk  -  what's it going to be?

4511. TERRY MAY CONCEPT FLOWERS

TERRY MAY CONCEPT FLOWERS
And Terry may have it all; I certainly don't want it.
The aggrieved party to this stately dance of death wants
out, wants just to go - no more floral bouquets, no more
lavender scarves. The parakeet is chirping in its stable. The
landed bird, I'd think, knows more already than any bird
still on the wing. The sky right now is as blue as it is hot.
My fingernails long ag...
o melted and fell away - now all
I have left is a soft, in fact a very soft, touch, willing
and weary in looking for you. The heat makes
everything else indistinct and wavey too.
And Terry may have it all.

Friday, July 5, 2013

4510. STEEL LIKE THIS HAS NO BEND

STEEL LIKE THIS 
HAS NO BEND
The kids were setting off fireworks down at the
dam; the canal nearby was covered in sparks and
debris  -  pieces of blown-out paper floating down.
It was the Fourth of July in a country of lies.

4509. CAN YOU HAND-HOLD MY HELD HAND?

CAN YOU HAND-HOLD 
MY HELD HAND?
When I was seven I already knew the numbers of all the
stars and planets. I knew to what sum everything added
up and I knew that what you come in with is exactly
what you go out with. I didn't need any cosmic riff
or comic bible to tell me things : all that lineage
begatting, and all those horrid names.
-
Now, it's so long later that everything is curdled and
hard  -  no meanings match, but yet I understand.
The sunlight shines back off the cars' crazy colors,
and I shield my eyes with my hand. That girl's white
dress is so sheer I can see  -  right through to the
figment of shape. I am an artist. I can get away
with all that. I look at the arms and the faces
I see  - musculature taut, tendons and flesh.
-
I am already in paradise, and have one foot, just
as well anyway, set hard-down in Hell. Just in
case, be prepared, never falter, not look away.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

4508. I AM UPHOLDING MY END

I AM UPHOLDING MY END
As the willow bends but doesn't break at the edge of the
lake, so I too am buffeted by storms  -  the same twist and
shout of some cultural neophyte's rock and rool screams.
Why would I care to end this source of all delight?
-
Here, in the dog pen of Riander Lane, I stand and
face forward again. Someone says they know me; I
deny it.  A trumpet sounds! Both fox AND hounds!
-
My humiliation is leeching into the soil; things
erode and foliage falls. Noises sound and people
are seen to rustle about. Now, confusion reigns.
-
I think that I shall go home once more  -  before that
kid with the rock ruins my day, that woman with the
water bottle starts talking, that old guy gets my ear.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

4507. THE HUB OF MY JOINT

THE HUB OF MY JOINT
Pleasantries abound, but they can never take the
place of small things made larger than life  -  to think
back of when, as a small boy, a cat would lick my
hand, or the thrown ball would soar the fence, that
makes all the difference now. The hub of my joint
being the core of your heart, I now have  -  so to
speak  -  this vast cabin in the woods in which to 
stay. My door jamb squeaks, yes it does, but it is
not from too little use, and they tell me, these
mountain natives do, that this place was
once a very large mansion.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

4506. IN YOUR SOLID MATTER

IN YOUR SOLID MATTER
In your solid matter then, yes, I awake. It takes
all of, and is all about, faith : faith the roof will not
fall in and crush me, faith the light from a distant
sun will continue to refresh and not oppress. Faith
that is unworldly at the same time as all about the world.
Faith I shall not expire in a second of one big, explosive
blast of heart; faith that trucks and cars shall not careen
around me, or into, or among; faith that the lion, most times
will not devour the lamb, and faith that we all can live together.

Monday, July 1, 2013

4505. HEY DOOFUS, I DON'T EVEN USE WHAT I HAVE

HEY DOOFUS, I DON'T
EVEN USE WHAT I HAVE
Five skyline aspirins, in one big gulp, not water attended, 
no sparkle, no effervescence or fizz. It all went down like the 
wire at a fenceline  -  some brutal force stretched taut across 
a roadway and catching all those snowy snomobilers off guard  
-  there were bloodied heads scattered all across the white and 
snowy field. I took my tankard of ale and walked home; hearing 
the  screams as I left. So weird, how those heads still screamed
 for a moment or two down on the snow-encrusted ground. Those 
full-throttled machines, without real 'riders' now, just kept 
throttling  along. I always loved the thought of dressing up 
Vermont, and  decorating Pennsylvania, of classing up 
New Hampshire.  All those beautifully boring places.
-
I really wanted to talk to a friend, not a fiend. I try chatting 
up Aleck, but it was headed  -  I could see already  -  to Hell. 
The scapegoat was going to be me once again, but only if I let it. 
The vacancy at the head of the class  -  no, no, I already had 
rewarded  that to him. I quit trying a long time ago. As Philip 
Roth  would put  it in 'American Pastoral', in Old Rimrock 
there's no rim-rock at all.
-
Why then should I try? The blood is just going to drip down
the cornice again, the sneaking eyes will squander my vision,
the burro and the ass will run off with my load. I am too old and
tired, now, to even carry arms or intentions or grudges.
To me, they can all go to Hell awaiting my answers.
I am too pure for the animus they strut.