4593. SIMIAN FUNCTION 22

SIMIAN FUNCTION 22
Mallet and foreclosure, dimple and
douse - we'd looked up these terms at
dinner when we were nine. (Dinner at nine?)...
No, nothing like that. You were a saint in those days,
and so was I - living on a mountaintop in '73, cradling
some cows and a lukewarm bull. Twice a week that guy
with the milk truck would drive up to the turnaround and
take our cold milk-cans away. 'Frost...ed milk balls' you'd call
us in the dead of Winter; and at 12 below you were never
for off. That wife of yours, Barbara, what a pistol she was.

4592. SAY SOMETHING FOR ME

SAY SOMETHING FOR ME
The limerick faction was back once more : guys hanging
like girls, cracking foul jokes about cadavers and breasts.
Every week, they take over the front porches : wine-besotted,
crazed like fools and beached like whales. 'We can make all
we want the noise and jokes we choose, you see that now don't
you?' The way he said it, it sounded like a command to a little
kid : 'Don't chew!' And then, just as quickly, when the rain comes,
they run inside like purple pansies. Jeez, these fey men are strong.

4591. MY CARNIVAL EYES, ONCE REMOVED FROM SEEING

MY CARNIVAL EYES, ONCE REMOVED FROM SEEING
I've journeyed to the far and wide and - having
now come out the other side - know what
it is that I can tell you : there is no fire like
the original flame, which I've held, still burning,
in my hand; light has no source but the Light
itself; we walk in canyons through the dreams
we make; all life revolves around itself, back
into its own perfect circle; every shadow
follows its trace.
-
Here, the enamaled box on the polished shelf
seems prideful of itself - made by Chinese hands,
cradled by a few, kept clean and filled for years
with gems, it reflects those distant hands and
lands that I'll never come to know. I pass like
starlight through things moving : no, no, instead -

not things, just the idea of things, and no
things but the things themselves.

4590. ENNUI, HENRY

ENNUI, HENRY

I'm going to take your hand and twist it until it

breaks. That's the means of what you'll remember : 

I am your sodden, thriftless life, and now it's gone

away. Rue me nothing, but give me the day.

-

Enchiladas and rancho marinas.

I'm sick of everything I see.

4589. NEED TO KNOW

NEED TO KNOW

How the basis for anything goes, I do

not know. The sky has its clouds, the

moon has its reflected light. I am alone

in the darkness of another deep morning.

I've decided to walk this way; were I to choose,

what whould I choose? Who knows?  The laurel leaf

on the face of a statue knows more than me. Why bother?

-

At the end of this stylish street, people are eating

and drinking  -  their curbside tables as hip as their

dress  -  and all their straws and fey bottles. Everything

goes into the makeup of the moment, while, high, high

above, I glimpse the silver light of a passing jet.

Fashion these girls and men to be still in their set.

4588. WHEN THINGS WERE NEW

WHEN THINGS WERE NEW

(like Abraham and Isaac Blue)

My friend, at the oasis, smiled back at the scene,

saying, 'When things were new everything was as

one. Can you understand the matter?' I'd been up

for four days already, thinking myself blue.

'Nothing to make a stink over,' I replied.

-

Ten dollars for a new army. Five bucks for a new

front gloat. Two old bucks for a new Mother

Theresa. It's already so over it's over. And

then no one cares at all. No one:

-

Not the troopmaster, not the constable, not

the bossman or the drifter. Not the streetgirl

walking her humble abode, not the things

you'd think about no more.

-

I went with my father, to the lake.

He said his name was Mr. Stephens.

I was so scared I could hardly breath.

he pulled out a knife and nodded.

I took a deep breath, and laid

myself down to die.

-

Inscrutable as always, that Mr. Stephens.

4587. THE COUNTDOWN LINE

THE COUNTDOWN LINE

At ten, someone pulled the starter cord.

At nine, the dark sky died. At eight, the

girl in the big white dress was dancing.

At seven, we realized there was no longer

any light. 'As it should be,' someone said,

'the sky's gone out.' At six, everything

began getting smaller. At five, a strange

hole opened up sucking everything in.

At four, there seemed so little sense.

At three, even I couldn't go on.

At two, everything entered a

silence. At one, all things

were truly gone.

4586. THIS MADRIGAL OF MATTER

THIS MADRIGAL OF MATTER

Oceans of time? Magnetic nudges, the needle

dancing. My last drink was something like

ethylene glycol : sent to my seat from  some

evil creep across the bar. I wouldn't

have thought it would go this far.

4585. WHEREVER IS ON MY MIND

WHEREVER IS ON MY MIND
If I were still immortal I'd show you a
couple of things : some ragtag Constantine
on his edge of time, a few clouds in the open
sky, making pictures, spelling words. 'In hoc
signo vinces.' A future cast like a spell across
Milvian Bridge. As it is, I simply don't have to.
That charcoal in your hand will bring the message
through, burn my words within your soul : Now....
-
Time has matter and matter has time; scattered
moments across an age and an ark. Where I go,
there will be songbirds and larks, the sounds of
things will call : we will nod and we will all listen.
-
When did I learn to write? Is that what I heard
you ask? Like a million years, like a thousand new
times, ago. It was all so much more simple then.
We walked well. We found to plant and harvest.
We ate from the land and stopped killing things.
-
Now, Man has become man, and separated in
mind from God and the Kingdom. Too close for
comfort, there is little left. In hoc signo vinces.
Now, it is best.

4584. MANDIBLE AND MAXIBLE

MANDIBLE AND MAXIBLE

Or Maximillian or Maximian. Either

Roman senators or random jokers. The

lining of the old bear's stomach, a true

and romantic tale, was thick and lined

with honey. 'Honey, get the lower jaw,

let us bring it home.' The fireplace that

holds a mantle now hold that as well.

The lights are on in the canyon, and

we are sitting around on plastic

chairs while someone lights a

candle. It's like that every

time  -  an endless array

of self-promoters.

-

('I don't wish to be

irascible, but is that

maxible taxable?')...

4583. JACK CLIFF OASIS ACRES

JACK CLIFF OASIS ACRES

Here was are now, hold me, hold me;

and the men are throwing the bicycle

down. Those little cat-feet pirouettes you

thought they were doing were only a feint.

You know they're laughing on our money

on the way to their bank. You're not so

happy now, are you? I heard you  -  just

before  -  telling them you wanted to eat

later at some restaurant named after geese.

Or something like that. I thought I heard.

I was, admittedly, as perplexed by that

as you are now, by me, having to pay

these crooks for their moving work.

All in all, (some stupid song was in

the air) : It's a lesson to late for the

learning. Are you going away with

no word of farewell? Will there be

not a thought left behind?

4582. TRAVEL TIME APPROXIMATE

TRAVEL TIME APPROXIMATE

('I poured myself into my work with

new fervor'). This stark divide cannot

stand; the city can be more well-off.

Magistrate, magistrate, can you bring

me appeal? There are children in the

streets, they are dancing to the stars.

I feel peculiarly unaffected, and only

wish to fly away. (Travel time,

approximate).

4581. THE MIND NOW AT A STANDOFF

THE MIND NOW

AT A STANDOFF

(kearney street, 1961)

We've taken the different sides of Evil, measured

its wares and counted those steps to perdition.

Now only Shakespeare awaits using his quill.

There is nowhere left to go.

-

In 1961, the delivery truck was dark blue, standing

idle at the curb  -  bread and cake were its only wares.

The ice man, he too came along, knowing his days were

numbered  -   while the women of Kearney Street came out,

nonetheless, with their slips of paper for chunks of ice.

-

Everything was measured and counted. Delivered

and finished. The two men nodded, one to the

other, as they went their separate ways.

4580. NOW

NOW

Now you've made loose with my ravings, this

pencil-point sharp tendentious array. I've got

words slathered like blood in a turnpike crash;

stuff everywhere, headlamps and grills. It's like 

a wreck, for sure. I'm wondering to park this heap.

-

Can I find calypso to pace your heart?

Do we need to dance the dance of Nature,

finding God under rocks and in fissures? I'm

really not that sure of anything to say. The

Twenty-first Street telegraph office, I see,

is still open. Shall we now enter to pay?

-

Stop. Dash. Final.

4579. I SHAN'T HAVE NO LEAVING

I SHAN'T HAVE 

NO LEAVING

The color of this stupid day still mesmerizes

me; I know the leaves, soon enough, too, will

be changing and doing their own, but that's

not the color I mean. It's something else entire.

-

The wind wants to rustle my hair, rattle my head,

raise scruples with all that I think. It twists and

turns whatever it can catch  -  like an idea, even that

it would blow about, pounce, cradle, catch, ruin.

-

I hold you like a thirsty man holds water in his mouth:

to savor, yet to drink and consume as well.

4578. 505 MERCER

505 MERCER

So the guy wants to look at a 'tall

sourcing standing'. I am in L.A.

Right after I went to Romero's 

Coffee Shop I entered the Golden

Lily to see Kat shining. And now,

it is light again. Gorgeous. The

Rain Check, Barney's Beanery

and Chez Paulette. I loved

all those gaudy places.

-

And then it was Joe Pasternak and

Destry Rides Again : like Brylcreem 

shiny cool I said 'no' in the elevator 

before the lights went out. Saving it 

all for Janey Maye.

-

Must have been the Season of the

Witch or Endive or even Red's. Then

up to San Francisco to see the Balcutha;

up to San Francisco, just like Eddie

Gershwin, to see that crazy boat.

4577. MOONSHINE

MOONSHINE

To benefit the too much too

beautiful daughter shines on.

Liquid white glass over the line.

Moonshine. I shall bow.  That

old '56 Chevrolet you'd hidden

in the bushes, I swear, it had

two  -  count 'em, two  -  427

engines, both hiding in tow.

4576. HEART

HEART

Just like at the bank, when

you take out more than you 

put in, you're going to be

left with a problem.

4575. MY MIND IS A NEVER-ENDING PLACE

MY MIND IS A 

NEVER-ENDING PLACE

Cocktails and banter, all that shillelagh stuff, 

over the14th floor balcony atop another shitty 

city. I cringe at nothing, yet everything makes

me cringe. This guy's soap-dish, to name just

one horrid thing, is so caked it's got its own

archaeologists combing it. All those rich, fancy

Kansas City names and people I used to know,

they're all gone now  -  turned and flossed into

nattering nitwits or fluorescent fobs. I walked into

this place alone, and I'll take that cab back home alone.

4574. SPLAY-LEGGED THE CART MAN

SPLAY-LEGGED
THE CART-MAN
I took a generous toll on my own life; Perry Street
down to the end. The three garbage cans in a row
went flying. There was source to the noise and the
silence. The fellow with the double lips was standing
in place. I saw a black Hudson Hornet roll by.
-
When I first arrived in the city I had nowhere to go.
I rolled up a shirt in a jacket, and slept in the back
of the alley. Each morning there was sweat on my
brow. Multifarious, my negative mind.
-
Now all these years later, like a moth in a firefly rub,
I can skip tunes at will and run along the street. I am
fine and hale and happy. Oh gee.

4573. LAREDO

LAREDO
(for Mr. Glass)
There's not a moment too soon to spare
leaving late for the party my pumpkin is really
a carriage and my driver is a dwarf. That's so
much a preference for the modern day : I'd rather
be lost at large in Connecticut than down at home
with J.D. And, anyway, Uncle Wiggly I'm not.
-
I climbed the stairway in Cornish, New Hampshire,
to Salinger's house indeed, It was, of course, by
invitation - for Franny and Zooey and me. Some
reprobate took our coats at the door.
-
Later that afternoon - we were eating cheese by
the cat and mouse - the sun did its level best
going down, and we watched the red sunset in
all earnest awe. The rest of the day had been hot.
And, anyway, Uncle Wiggly I'm not.

4572. LONG DISTANCE OPERATOR

LONG DISTANCE OPERATOR

(experimental viceroy)

Once before on the open seas : standing on

11th Street, was me. It was a long time ago

and I remember every split-second detail as

if  -  no matter else  -  it was yesterday just.

Steel Drum Conga Man. They were filming

Ragtime on my old street, and I arrived to see:

all those fabulous period shots, James Cagney,

and me. Some girl was in there too, some

 'what's her name' half famous but no one I

knew. The fake detective held a piercing gun,

a very rhinocerous one and I said 'whatever

will you be doing with that, shooting Reds?'

He wore a comical hat, and simply muttered

back, 'And shoot em dead.' After a few weeks,

they really had made the movie. You can see

it for yourself if you really ever want to. Go

see. That's 11th Street. That's my place  -  in

the movie all made up and redone as the

'Novy Mir Working Man's Cafe.' And I'm

not fooling - wasn't then, and not today.

4571. DUTIFUL

DUTIFUL

Used like a word stretched between

meanings, dutiful son comes home to

 tend Mother, dutiful daughter scouring

her socks. Mother is crazy however,

now home behind shutters and locks.

-

In such dire straights, a destitution

follows: the Inspector says 'Open the

trunk, I must look within.' I stifle a

grin, 'If you must, look within.'

-

'What is this gun, some crackpot

philosopher all a'jumble?' Go ahead

then, you quizzical oaf. (This is when

things get equally crazy  -  he finds the

gun, asks about it, I refuse any information,

and he takes me in. Which is where I still sit).

4570. GAULT

GAULT

It takes a long time to make a song ;

all that witty rhyme and vocal matter,

matching music to words and in-between

patter, just so someone can have it on

in the background all day while they

listen. I won't confuse a ghost with

anything of this at all.

-

When I was nine, it was not, certainly,

Caspar Hauser  -   just instead a friendly

ghost, a meaningful haunt, a gentle sentiment

of Brotherhood and Good. Then the years

came around and changed everything.

Dienbienphu to you.

-

Now it's like some baleful oath, a 1984

that no one passes anymore. I have to ask,

oh transparent one, who is John Gault and

why does it matter? Who is John Gault at all?

It takes too long to make a song  -  and

you'll all be disappointed after all.

4569. THE RABBIT BOXING SCENE

THE RABBIT BOXING SCENE

Always stays with me, that one  -  Edna

O'Brien, page 312, Country Girl : something

about it, don't know why  -  like only a fragment

of a thing, a haunting fiction but based in life

moreso; just like Nature and all the rest of our

days  -  wherein we see only what we want to

see, the real, sometimes fake, and the fake,

sometimes, real. Had I the arms to form a

fashion  -  maybe then there'd be a list to

listen for. As it is, instead, there's nothing

like an A-list here at all. Nothing

big-time going on.

-

Some men pride themselves on voice until

they pass away : loud or questioning or

officious or vague or stern. The verbs and

adjectives with  nouns and adverbs, all that

tendentious stuff, rattle away, clanking off

one another like a steamboat trolley

off a sideways shore.

-

I'm thinking here of the grandfatherly, lonely

types : they sit around at stations and bars  -

talk about weight and cookies and Plato.

No, they don't really talk of these things

at all. Only the real, or only the false.

4568. NOW IS THE TIME

NOW IS THE TIME

I'm writing from my shadow, in force by

dark winds; looming somewhere near me

are the coves and shades of midnight.

What looms ahead are squalls. All this

and more I still must pass through, yes,

and everywhere else is but empty space.

4567. I MADE NO MOVE

I MADE NO MOVE
Once I had entered anyway, there was nothing else
to do - I couldn't run, I couldn't hide; Chagrin Falls,
Ohio, like being in a Hart Crane movie-poem. I had
any number of things I 'could' have said : passing time,
idly awaiting a train. My friend and his wife were away,
actually cruising the Danube, a vacation jaunt like a jostling
tourist of anywhere American. It would be t...hen just me in
this funny, not-really-so-faraway, faraway place. The dark
brown lacquer of this tabletop, I noticed was in fact very nice,
and nicely done. I called the young waiter over, and said :
'Do you know why no one starves in the desert?' He said
he didn't. I replied back - 'Because of all the sand-which-is
there.' He laughed a bit, and shuddered. Turning to the others,
he said : 'Bring this funny fellow all he wants for free. Damn,
he's earned it.' Another long, slow jetstream Sunday, and
it felt like Hell. It reminded me - so lonely, so sad - of the
time my Zen-acolyte friend, at a 14th street hot dog cart,
ordering, said to the guy 'Make me one with everything.'

4566. AND HIM THE MOUNTAIN

AND HIM AND THE MOUNTAIN

By not wishing to be undone I am undone

and all the circumstances of Lethe and

Lysistrata can't help. Leaving it all again,

I will hide these stolen sheaves behind a shelf

where no one reads. It's all so simple, really.

-

Born beneath a fullest moon drooping, with

carrion and wolves both on the run  -  nothing

looking back and drooling  -  I awoke with a start 

and my first words were 'Leave it all again!'

-

('They're killers, just like us.'

'We aren't killers,' I say back).

-

Some man told me my Doppelganger was calling;

it was on the line. I told him I don't ever use the phone,

and he shrugged, saying simply, 'You know that scene,

I think the final one,  in that motorcycle movie, when

the bikers get shot, killed, riding along the road -  all

the gracious music playing, and all the rest  -  by

redneck chickenshit haunch-faced honchos, dickless

mavens of ineptitude? You know that one? You seen it?'

-

I had to say no, 'cause it was the truth. He said, 'Oh never

mind, it doesn't matter anyway. This reminds me of that,

with the phone call you won't take and all the rest. You

know they could only do that scene one, no second takes?

You know why? Because they really shot those guys, they

only got one chance. They were killers, just like us.'

-

'We aren't killers,' I again said back,

'and anyway, that's not true.'

4565. WHY THE BUTTONWOOD TREE LIKES YOU

WHY THE BUTTONWOOD

TREE LIKES YOU

Button-down collar and tie-dyed briefs; sporty tophat

and a leather brief case. Towers of money are engaged

in your rant : phone lines still crackle, as in days of

old. You are, perhaps, too young to die so you just

carry on. I hear all those numbers and am amazed :

'7,000 shares at $3.21, up, and selling 1600 on a run

of treble 34's; cut and take, speculate the position as

it's growing...' I guess if I knew I'd do. As it is, I am

simply agog, watching you eat gold bullion for lunch.

4564. HERE'S HOW IT'S DONE IN BRECKENRIDGE

HERE'S HOW IT'S DONE IN BRECKENRIDGE

Dominoes at the Player's Motel, playing cards by the

cars in the lot, watching twenty girls ride by on

bicycles in their 'Ride For Susan' Run. Not much

but not little either. Along the grassy ridge, at the

bottom, the river forms an eddy, an egret holds its

guard alone. I am singularly interested in that

desk-girl's freckles  - you know how that goes,

they start on the face and cover the rest. The

rest is the best. An old Doors song on some

guy's tabletop player? No, foiled again.

And I'm too old for any regrets;

too old for any regrets.

4563. DARLENE TINCTURE

DARLENE TINCTURE

Spinner spin and singer sing.

Maiden ring and grab that thing.

Now I enter the halls of your

Montezuma, where I hope to

be a roomer. Sit me back again,

m'amoselle. Don't let this end.

4562. OLD POST HOME

OLD POST HOME

Oh God, if you eat a lot, if you eat at all :
what is it that you like, and how are you
 fixed for seconds? Do you ever regret your
choice of an order? Eskimo Pie with Life?
This morning, by the way, I witnessed a
postman calling your name.

 

4561. AT THE TAVERN AT THE END OF TOWN

AT THE TAVERN AT

THE END OF TOWN

Jaundiced perspective, that token of the last free

beer, the shot in an over-sized shot glass, the way

two fives are left simply on the bar-top. The light

right here is cavernous  -  it crowds the low ceiling

and sparks the noise of the drinkers, as if something

so soon was to ignite or catch fire. From heat does

love grow; from flame comes the shooting fires of love.

4560. I MET THE LARK A'WALKING

I MET THE LARK A'WALKING

Nothing was said, so little at all. Everything

was grown diminished by the surfeit of the

usual  -  a camerman, diving from the ball,

misses the shot he's supposed to be getting.

4559. WE ALL ARE SLIPSTREAM

WE ALL ARE SLIPSTREAM

Adjacent to some furry monster, holding scary

pillows to our face, we dream alike in a slow motion

sped up to superspeed. We watch the vital world unfurl.

All circumstances are warranted : the frieze behind the

costly museum scrim, the balloon man holding his aces

on high, Dr. Caligari and his wicked but splendid cabinet,

the lovely stepdaughter singing. These kids are nasty items,

and each one of them comes with a stick. I advertise little.

-

Up, outside, high atop the great museum wall, I see a

hawk at rest  -  or so it seems, though never are they to

be at rest  -  always at ready, for the tidy mouse, the

morsel squirrel, anything new and warm and chewy.

So to speak. The sunlight dapples the rage within that

hawk's stern gaze; nothing can be changed or saved.

-

Past all that, here on the ground, some thousand feeble

people seem sideways walking  -  to the getting to nowhere,

to the nothing at all. radios and sound effects here monsterize

the ground  -  children madly swinging, playground mothers

looking on, talking hands, holding things to their eyes and ears.

4558. YOU MAY OR MAY NOT

YOU MAY OR MAY NOT

...know of this, be aware of things, have experienced

my form of experimental fiction. I am yours at the

source, but then I disappear as the waters spread away.

I travel high and I travel low, over and around things,

making fissures of my wounded ways and traveling

harsh over soft spots and hard alike. I care little for

the butter, should it so be, on my bread. Please, now,

you will take that as fact, for I love the foretelling.

-

My phrenologist friend, a one Walter Whitman, we

break our eggs together; we fly in the face of the

ointment, we moan in the old fields together like

two crazy cows braying. He brings his carnival

airs and his silly straw hats to each service or

church we pass by  -  happen upon  -  stop in.

-

Yes, it's like that : two troupers on the lam, two

criminals minding their p's and q's, stripping their

corners and taping their edges so only where the

new paint is all the best of things shall shine.

All the best of things shall shine.

4557. TREMOLO

TREMOLO

Outside the Greenwich Hotel, sticking stabs in

the softened tar, knife-edges ruined by grit : I was

seventeen years old and so ready to roll. The old, black

Imperial, then Chrysler's hotshot car, was bigger than

a a battleship and heavier than a whale. But they let

things like that go, back then. Smoke wreathed me.

-

I'd forgotten what I was doing, sitting by a black

widow; fearsome spider spinning time, encaptured

as I was with lethal venom too. Forgotten friends,

brothers-in-arms, all buddies and pals. Then here came

came Johnny Appleseed, hopping down the bunny

trail, hippity-hoppity, my future was on its way.

4556. THEY TOLD ME

THEY TOLD ME
They told me to come see the warblers and the
cross-dressers and the men who weave water into
gold. But I saw nothing. There were drinkers on the ledge;
they were hanging clotheslines from the paper, construction-
paper battlements on Tristram Shandy doll forms. The entire
world was blank. I wanted so badly to yawn in their faces -
instead came you. Sally forth, and there you were. Throwing
dagger-kisses like a robin running down. Ladling out the suits
of love like some haberdasher's daughter from a very pretty
Hell. I wanted to reach the ending, find peace, attain forgiveness.
Once I had all that, and nothing more, I knew I'd be alright.

4555. MANNERISM

MANNERISM

It was like that at nine o'clock  - 

the pointillists were out  - rive gauche

and Georges Seurat. Having to do, perhaps,

with the French Navy, my impression of the

Impressionists was that they should be impressed.

I went looking for bathing suit beauties and

industrial chimneys. I bought a flower from

the flower girl  -  she said her name was

Marna, and that it rhymed with Hedgewick.

I said I didn't understand. And then she said,

'Language is always a barrier,' putting

a red rose behind her ear.

4554. NOT MYSTERY

NOT MYSTERY

And no, there never was. The husky

at the corner was barking  -  yes, some

one or another adoption-day quest. The

ladies who were lunching nearby made

comment : 'so lovely to see, so much to

behold. But I wouldn't want to clean it.'

And the waiter brought a tray  -  like those

guys in Procul Harem say. I heard that

 song on a jukebox once  -  a bar-room in

a dusty old hotel, but lively and filled with

sharks. I had some Shirley at my shoulder,

testing me out. 'Skip a live fandango? I'll

do anything you want  -  shit, honey, I can

make you come by thinking.'  Yeah, well,

anyway; the waiter brought a tray.

4553. MAKE MINE DISPOSABLE LENTILS

MAKE MINE
DISPOSABLE LENTILS
I haven't the time for lending, a bird would
have more crumbs. My second-hand clock
bears no longer any second-hand worth
referring to. It runs backward at will and takes
turns shading the light. The countdown from
this place would land no man on a moon for sure.
-
Everything I once did, now bold, once obscure,
sees a new version by the deft reporter's hand.
... I too am Carlos Danger, running rampant, flip
and haughty over this pathetic land : caliber
cabinets, photos of the unseen, my long Israeli
member flapping in its wind. C'mon now, please
forgive me. Let this go, make an amend. I will
eat this humble food, if you just let me in.

4552. MADE TODAY

MADE TODAY

Lending the air the grace that it's due, I

walk the long streets to this alley : old lights

are playing down on shiny pavement, wet forms

struggling through dawn. The new morning

air beckons, calling, as if to say - 
hasten now and take me in.

All of a sudden it is an old day in a new form :

a 1955 in a Beagle Alley, or some other gray time

held short in memory's palm. Best minds, destroyed

by madness,  starving hysterical naked, dragging

through negro streets at dawn. My mind, set on a

swing like a master-weaver's string, draws its own

conclusion, pulling the sadder needle of time.

-

If I must confess to something, today it will be this:

I have squandered, in my way, my own occlusion of

matter  -  all that was given to me I have wasted.

Everything but the burning, the intensity of the longing

and the drive  -  'the ancient heavenly connection to

the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.'

-

Here, here, now, today. Does anyone know what I mean?

Can someone pull my shoestring tighter, and let it be then

around my neck? I choke on my own reality crying,

lending the air the grace that it's due.