4648. UNITED MUSICS OF GEORGIA

UNITED MUSICS OF GEORGIA
Running the cat 'round the castle, the guy in the
treehouse sat up with a gun. Out there somewhere,
it was hunting season again. September's like that
when you live far out - here where the belly-bars
rustle, the cat-tails sway. I haven't mis-spoke now,
have I? Some Jim-Crow miscreant comes running
'round the bend. 'Be the one between the lines!'
he yells. What that means, no one tells. I just
move along. Scamper. Listen. All that song.
The united musics of Georgia again.

4647. HE STAMPS IN SILENCE

HE STAMPS IN SILENCE

In the year 1945 there wasn't much :

cigarettes and booze in a jagged, dark room.

The shadowy ladies, in their black-seamed

stockings, walked forth, proud to show their

show and smile back. The sailboats were out

from Marseilles. Fifteen magnetic moments.

-

Now the cattle-clock shows nothing; the dogs

are sniffing porcupines, going into the pond.

The flat-chested girls from the film festival

walk by; gingerly I look up, seeking the new

enhancement of a very treacherous life. And

pale-faced detectives walk down the halls.

-

Everyday, there is something in the road :

the dead elm has fallen; its large limbs

splayed and broken on the dirt. Had I

been there, beneath it, or anyone, I'd

be dead  -  and them. Wind rustles the

marsh-grass, silently.

-

Fifteen magnetic moments.

Pale-faced detectives are walking

by as the wind rustled the

marsh-grass, silently.

4646. MY FUNNY BLUE HOUSE

MY FUNNY BLUE HOUSE
My funny blue house will blind you, will
rip out your heart. The wings of a dove
are robin's egg blue? Could that be and
would that do? Everyone laughed as
I sat down to tell : this house on the
side of the road, in the sun, shining,
glowed. Everything else was still.
-
Sadness and sorrow are two brothers I knew....
We all went to school together, learning much
and forgetting much else. The shoe leather
burned the soul right through. Walking,
miles away, intentions won out.
-
My funny blue house will hold you closed,
shackle your heart as it unburdens mine,
will squeeze you tight 'till the
goodness flows.

4645. THE RUINATION OF ALL WE HAVE LIVED WITH

THE RUINATION OF ALL

WE HAVE LIVED WITH
I am so sorry for being alive, here. I am so rueful of
what transpires : Jesus in the imagery, a burning bush
in a Moses hand. The tallest building in the world stands
less tall than the least of us all - man from Mankind,
like a missile from Mars. We surmise our gropes from
mere shadows on the wall.
-
Now, I have lived long enough to love. To love not...hing
and everything at all, in equal measure. From the magic of
my hands I have made another world. Inducements to bring
me forth, and bring others in, at all times, are open. I do, truly,
love the world and all its little things and all its largest matters;
and for all the rest, be all of that as it may be.

4644. MANDELBAUM THE FIDDLER

MANDELBAUM THE FIDDLER
He runs circles around even the circles; making
moments that re-arrange the world. Magic flumes,
ancient fires, words enscribed on clay and platters.
Here I sit, five thousand years out of place.
-
Had any Adam said to any Eve, 'let's not even
get involed,' what you're saying is I wouldn't
be here now at all?

4643. ZERO FOR THE HERO

ZERO FOR THE HERO
The hour has finally come - when the nightbirds
are singing and the midnight flames are lit. We must
be on our way. A few people, sitting around a table,
cannot plan a revolution. What passes for equality these
days goes for nothing at all and all is one big heap instead.
-
Cufflinks and finger rings? A cigarette holder in solid gold?
What kind of peasants are these? The lead...er came and went
in less than five minutes : he mangled a phrase or two, and
ran off. I witnessed him picking his teeth. How gauche?
-
Run away with me instead. Who needs the violence and
the deep blue pain and loss? There's nothing to salvage;
skyscrapers and reflective glass, like this pale plan for
uprise and anarchy, are really all the modern age reveres.
-
Father forgive me, for I have sinned.
I murdered 14,000 in His name. 

4642. MENACING MOMENT

MENACING MOMENT

Those who came before have left the

belt of time and place. This train I'm

riding  -  I feel it is jury-rigged. Nothing

but memories punch the ticket I hold.

Outside my glance, the ambling

fence goes running on.

4641. SOURCING ZION

SOURCING ZION

Let me be the one; hold out the external hand

and I will fill it. There's a new sky above  -  all

different stars and constellations now. Something of

that, well, you've just got to take it, or it leaves you

by. So bad, would all that be. Let me in on

this now : mountains of the deluge, rising

no more. My own personal Mt. Ararat standing

next to Yasir Arafat, or, anyway, the ghost of.

And that's how very strange all these things are:

sourcing Zion at its source - more trouble than

it's really worth.

4640. YOU THE ONE

YOU THE ONE

Who brought down the house, who snapped the cable,

who ran the wires, who built the house? You the one?

Who tore the fabric, who paged the cavern, who flooded 

the cistern, who broke the wedge? You the one?

Who stole the car, who twisted the lattice, who

ran the bridge, who slept in the attic? You

the one? You the one? You?

4639. I MAKE NONE

I MAKE NONE

79th Street down on my luck; apologies, I make

none. She was the sister of Maddie Groves, and 

I took her quickly. She came all over my face 

and it was done almost in an instant. Never

before in that manner. Then we took a cab to

the Carlo Club on west 14th. There were at

least fifty others in line  -  starting to talk about

sex again, these two fumbling girls were sure

they could squirt. I believed not a word, just

waited in alliance. Friends with everyone, that's

me. It's so simple to go on and on, believing in 

yourself is the first step  -  I learned that in an 

Actualism class in California I took in '83. Then

this Zen guy, here, in the Zen Center, 2005, he

pretty much began spouting the same thing : it 

wasn't much, and it wasn't Zen, to be sure. In

his funny way (wavy accent) he used to say

all he 'wanted was to be getting laid.' 

'Never begrudge a man his dreams,'

 I said back. He told me that

sounded deep.

4638.INFATUATED

INFATUATED

The small things are what grab me now : I stand

in the dark, looking up. The night sky - here at least -

is dark and shows me stars  -  dipper this and dipper

that, Orion and North and Venus and the rest. Ancient

past, still bubbling, on high to haunt. If I had to speak

truthfully, say what I saw, I'd admit I haven't a clue.

Disaster strikes anew : we're so far off from those

old and ancient, who used to sleep beneath these

stars, and live and die, and talk. Now, it's like

a strange flat book, one I cannot handle.

-

I am infatuated with everything, and in love

with most else. I see the universe in a grain

of sand  -  all that lovely crap  -  but I cannot

really translate here what I am feeling. I cannot

displace the William Blake intensity of my crazy

mind : Urizen and Enitharmon, Los and the rest.

-

If I can write, I too will write : a madman's crazy 

books can be no worse than any of this. Stars and

universes, all on high, replete with replication here

within. I am universe within universe, master of all

I see and say, and  -  as well  -  the one now so 

steeped in confusion and pity, a sloth of dismay. 

Oh stars, oh universe, take me away!

4637. RECKON THE LIGHT

RECKON THE LIGHT

You've come along, Old Paint, as far as you

ever will. Now's the time for separation.

Death and its minions are arrayed against

the channel, the provinces are in revolt, and -

oh Christ Almighty - all Thrace is already lost.

I can do no more than watch the warp and 

weave of all things passing by  -  no changing

station here, no altering the place or the

procedure. The ledge  -  you know, the one

we stood upon  -  it too gets more inviting by

the minute. Why should I not go there again? 

Without you my dear old friend. I reckon 

the light there is perfect.

-

I have loved you, in my way, in the very

best of all our times and visions. You were

the very best, as well  -  more faithful than

any beast could ever be. I am tired now,

and slim, and decimated, and my heart

breaks and my eyes weep. Weep, weep.

'Tis all I now can do. Help me. 

Reckon the light to let me in.

4636. BIRTHDAY POEM

 BIRTHDAY POEM

It's not the birth, it's more the becoming that I miss;

some spectral Morse Code of dot and dash, the

quick burst of arrival and the long dash of becoming,

of seeing and sensing what there is. All this time, and

in all these weathers. I've stood as still as I ever will.

-

Now's the time for movement, real movement  -  

the spin of dart and run, the swirl of a bad old-man's

behavior. All that's up ahead; oh boy, so much to see.

I can hardly wait to live, let alone to die. 

I've stood as still as I ever will.

4635. GROPING

GROPING
My gloves no longer fit my hands, and I've
now mis-placed my fingers. if I were a comedian,
I'd say 'isn't that touching?' As it is, a tragedian
like me can only say - 'too bad and so forlorn,
this sorry life without useful fingers, grafting
hands, holding onto nothing at all.'
-
My sorrow? It comes from groping in the dark;
and all I hear is laughter coming from the big
crowd, somewhere, in the large, deep room.

4634. CARTHART ACRES

CARTHART ACRES
I don't know what to do with the basin.
People are talking, everything's bad.
Can you wear the pants I've already
thrown out? At five times ten, this
place is worth a mint.

4633. MY NIGHTLY DOUBLE

MY NIGHTLY DOUBLE
(cockroach)
They come filled in cups, and fleeing -
dream and realization, nightmare and
new terror. I can't go anywhere and I
cannot move. Neither matters; both have
doors sealed shut. I want some crabby old
bun-headed teacher to step in, as in some
Little Rascals skit of old, and demand
'What is the meaning of this?!' So many
things now, and every category makes
me wonder, too, the meaning of things.
-
I do come forth, chrysalis-like, and drag
my ancient form across the floor. With a
sloth-like effort, Kafka's own Samsa double,
I'd rather die another death than have to
live this way. My broad shell hardens;
lets nothing in, lets nothing more out.

4632. THAT WAS IT

THAT WAS IT
They move the moveable feast until it no longer
can be found. The freeway dumps its load into the
harbor. On the off-ramp of mental dehydration,
two hundred people are already lined up - brain-dead
and thirsty, they take trailers on a 50/50 raffle. Why
is there any wonder, we wonder, at all? Some filthy
scad is playing old Oasis in a refreshment tent.

4631. HALE AND HEARTY

HALE AND HEARTY
The steadfast chooser chooses. The delight is on in
his eyes. All those bungled plans awry, not one of them
matters now. We too are pledged to the finish, like
that poor mouse in the hawk's scanning eye.

4630. ONLY THE RESOUNDING 'O'

ONLY THE RESOUNDING 'O'
Only the resounding 'O' that I remember carries
force : now the dweebs are on TV hawking sex.
How different is the ending when the sequence
hasn't changed? Rolling my heart in the nimble
hay, I'm seeking your name on this list.
-
Everywhere I turn there is disease - the old chapel
comes rumbling down, torn off for thirteen unlucky
new homes. There are bones in that ground..., and how
well I remember. What good is a colonial graveyard
if there are no colonials left, and if they were rebels
anyway? Guns and steel, men and women with issues.
Cannot have that any more.
-
So, disrobe your lace, oh dainty one.
Let me have your face. This is my
own history now, in the making.

4629. AT THE NAVY CAMP

AT THE NAVY CAMP

Henry the Wheedle said to Harry the Camp,

'want to do me before it's too late?' Just like that

the whole place fell apart. There wasn't any sense,

after that, to anything. Don't ask, don't tell sounded

like squealing on your brother for taking that last cookie.

-

They planted two pine trees for the kids who died on

that fence. Now I watch the tall, black guys slowly walking

past on their 30-minute lunches. They let them out for a

spell, I guess. Ibos, or Nigerians or Malawis or something  -

the really tall kind  -  black African basketball runners or the

type selling stuff on NYC streets. I never know from where.

-

This world's so strange now  -  men-to-men are as accepted as

margarine, and these big guys from other lands, well, now they're

normal too. Everything's a jumble, come together, gone as one.

4628 CHUMP CHANGE

CHUMP CHANGE

'You've got the same broken habits as when I knew you last;

still holding the chips where they fall, still smiling like a thief

on death row, walking straight lines with your candy-hands out.'

I remembered those lines from an old Off-Broadway play;

done in by critics in 1976. Like Al Pacino, later on, in 'American

Buffalo,' I spit out my lines so emphatically that people in the

first row went home wet each night. 'All's well that goes to Hell.'

-

Now it's so many years later my mouth can't count, and the

fifty-year olds in the second row look young to me  -  grab 'em

each and run like fire. What's the point of this life anyway?

4627. THE BLINDING LIGHT

THE BLINDING LIGHT
There is the blinding light of events,
and the blinding light of darkness solved.
There is the well-woven moment within us,
each, when we realize the moment has come:
the fevered shaking of a leaf on a tree.
-
The world is said to be stable, though there is nothing
stable about it - and those who say otherwise, once
they have spoken, are scoffed at. Science refutes stability;...
but then again it refutes dreams just as easily. Of late, to
dwell in Science is to dwell in the unstable. We are nobody
more than when we acclaim that we are somebody.
-
I am watching the spray of the East River again. Some
strange white barge, being pushed by a more strange
yellow tug. One senses movement, the other tries staying
in place. Something like a battle between the stable and
the 'un.' I should know. I should know. The blinding light
of events, and the blinding light of darkness, solved.

4626. ALL THIS TIME WHILE I AM BLIND

ALL THIS TIME

WHILE I AM BLIND

I haven't read the newspapers that are all piled up, here,

by me, while I have been blind. It's been quite some time.

Not as if I lost my sight in a poker game, mind you, but it

does feel like bad luck. There's little I can do. I carried

a saber to the point of no return, but the point returned.

Once I realized I would no longer see, I tried quickly

cataloguing all that I remembered before I did not.

Life was a fun game doing that  -  almost more

than anything else had ever been before.

Now, what I most regret, oddly too,

is that I didn't see it coming.

4625. THE TIME IT TAKES TO KILL

THE TIME IT

TAKES TO KILL
Let me take this flower from your hands
then - fatwa, mujaheddin, and the chancellor
and the president and the ayatollah and the pope.
All of you. You are all insane. And you, you make
the case for nothing but the dwell of time. The
time it takes to ruin you. The time it takes to kill.

4624. I LIVE

I LIVE
I live in a house where most people aren't :
where the walls are the floors and the ceilings
have ears. Where invisible is the dimension the
builder somehow used, and solid is only the air
within that melts. As Berman put it, 'All that is
solid melts into air.' I wouldn't know a direction
if you gave it to me whole.
-
I live in a house where the only landscape is...
the bluff of myself; where the light in intangible
but the darkness hard and strong. When I arrived
here, there was no future; now, set to leave,
I can see there really is no past.

4623. LAMENTATIONS

LAMENTATIONS

The Summer came and went  -  kids yelling and

preening in the park, stupid fuckers fucking in

cars and yellow wagons. As though youth has no

age, it never ends correctly. Now they're parking

Jeeps and Subarus where the bats used to fly;

a half-paved gargantuan submission to fixation

and adolescent growth. Lightning bugs glitter.

-

I walked seven miles just the other day  -  from 34th,

across to Park, diagonal uptown to Sutton Place and

all that up there, higher and higher it seemed. Carl

Schurz Park; all those willowy and old yet walking

people. I've noticed that when nurses and attendants

hold a rich person's elbow, they're always looking

away. Elder care only goes so far, and then it stops,

becomes distasteful, and loses its appeal.

-

Not done yet: and then I walked back, first across

town, over to the westside and all those more

shaggy streets. There the old folks just wither on

benches and die. No one other than a few seemed

really to care. The Zabar's smoked meat counter

counts off all those numbers backwards, and then

calls out names instead of digits anyway.

-

The parasol hooker looked my way. I smiled and

waved her off  -  'had you too many times already'

I said, but she didn't hear my joke.

4622. AMONTILLADO

AMONTILLADO

Fortunato and Montresor we are not  -  two better

bums could not be found, but, whatever  -  the cake

here is in the baking, the fine drink in the drinking.

I've gone crazy enough to try and murder, and now

people say my revenge is insane. Like sunlight

prying the bars, piercing the gloom in effect, I

seek a goodness and a light that no longer exists.

Good God they are right! I am mad and crazed.

Pureblind, sick at heart, twisted with a grimace

and a lace of disrepute. All these things, now,

so long later, are around my own neck, dangling

like charms, chiming like a bracelet, sopping up

my dreams like a grandmother's old-chair doily.

4621. THE DEMISE OF THE TALKING DOME

THE DEMISE OF

THE TALKING DOME

Ladle the handle the speedway soups out  -

fast and the cars, speed and the wheels. No

magic like the magic of crowds. Lightning

rings the edges of the fifteenth lap; five cars

dodging each other for maintaining hapazard

speed. Like a Pennsylvania coalfield in a

Hazard, Kentucky strike, the violence is all

in the resistance. And I've nothing more to say.

-

Standing by the fenceline where the coaches get

water, the girls are mixed with their sounds and

soulmates. Under the bannered bleachers, so much

goes on there should be a law. Instead, the huge

crowd, still fixated by movement and slumber,

drinks huge its drunken maw and lunges

forward, screaming 'more!'

-

Thirty years ago, this was hardwood forest and

slab-pine floor. I'd not know it from anything near

that now  -  plastic and metal and wood and steel.

All that shit that crumbles at will.

4620. A PRECIPICE FROM SPACE

A PRECIPICE FROM SPACE

Deep are the ways of these wastrel days :

I am in a place I never wished to be, and

these bars are looking out at me. In ways 

I never reasoned I am seeing behind things.

-

Deep space and all its curvature makes a lie

of this entire planarity. Leave nothing to chance

and then see how nothing happens; for chance

is all there is. Yes, chance is all there is.

4619. ALL THESE SHADINGS

ALL THESE SHADINGS

(autumnal)

So many, into one  -  all these things arrive

like a stagecoach on a blundering mission,

so much grand matter on a course of submission.

I enter the mountain town holding a new flag

marked 'Surrender'. And it is only my own

eyes that can see you. Let me enter the heart,

where these shadings will be my arbor.

-

Time wears a vest, in its way, of momentum

and change  -  with everything intent on being.

We supplicate with open arms, but most of

what happens falls right through. Madness

is running the selfsame scam, in reverse.

Between the two, somewhere, we agree.

-

Leaves are falling again from trees.

The dark lines on the pavement are

evidences of only the shadows cast

now of everything trying to hide

from the waning of the Sun.

4618. SO TIRED AS TO BE DEAD

SO TIRED AS TO BE DEAD

(john the revelator)

Go. I've grown this way. Over years -

so tired as to be dead. My single shot

sits on the shelf. Ophelia is arranging

yet another rainbow. Let's try hooking

up the Fitzgerald to the mountain bike

you're stealing from Kopp's. I won't

tell. In the morning, the guy from the

glass shop is the only one here.

-

My eyes have seen the glory of the

coming of the horde. They are ripping

out the vineyards where the money

trees are stored. These boots are

marching on.

-

Who ramped up the macadam to

these sky-high prices, John?

4617. SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES

SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES

I haven't the patience now to rest my head on

your open legs. And my own world's handmaiden

has grown out of control. Mozart died at 35, buried

in a pauper's grave. It happened as if pre-ordained.

Now he's famous and cute and rich. Big deal to

all that. Let's us run together to San Francisco. we

can dance and get drunk at the Mizzen Master; and

I'll park my big car right where Sal Paradiso parked

that Hudson Hornet. Was that the one?

-

Doctor, doctor, I'm feeling so sick. I want the blind

man in the alley to understand my absence. I just can't

make it today. What speed-freak junky was it who said

(I already forget) : 'I'm dilated to meet you.'

4616. THE POWER AND THE GLORY

THE POWER AND THE GLORY
With the wisdom of Solomon long over the fence, gone like
a willow-the-wisp, we find ourselves standing around - holding
foul books of empty pages and talking about movies and art.
My mind droops at each soliloquy you try. Uttering anything
new will only hurt me more. Please stop now.
-
I've drilled a hole through my bible, and now use it as a
sight-glass - something steady to look through, measuring all
distances and angles - yet all I can see is the past. It
seems nothing any longer runs forward. What am I to do?
-
You sit down with me at the screaming table; where the napkins
are a'flame and each knife and fork is a small torch. To pretend
this isn't happening won't work - like children gleeful at a
horror-house carnival, we roar with both terror and delight.
Old cars are coming through the wall; women in sorry dresses
are walking past the light and men with hammers are watching.
-
Yes, yes, the power and the glory together.
Men with hammers are watching.
Uttering anything new will only
hurt me more. Please stop now.

4615. ABOUT THE TIME

ABOUT THE TIME
(9-11-01)
About the time I was shilling the plants, the crop duster
was eating his remainders; taking things from slide to
drop, it all became his earnings. And then all those people
were lining up - instant TV celebration, again and again.
-
I couldn't tell what anyone meant - a cloud of white dust,
a hundred thousand things falling harshly fast into the ground:
hopes, dreams, outstretched arms, failings, gleanings, hearts
and minds. Some were looking up, to others looking down, but
nothing really mattered now - all that was before the crash.
-
I saw a girl with red shoes, stunned, crying brutally on the ground.
Most of her was covered white, but the shoes remained scuffed
and red, and with her sound - with legs drawn up, immodestly
showing all - the endless pain was showing.
-
Sirens and blazes of noise, more screams, and the sounds of
water. Everything at once, together, yielding noise and bad
for the bad and the wrong, the sluice of foul meaning at
the price of a clear and blue morning's song.

4614. HAT-STONE FIELD-CROP MUSING

HAT-STONE

FIELD-CROP

MUSING
You can have my hands and heart, in
this my seventh Heaven. And I willingly
cede all these things your way : the wind
and the weather, the light grazing your brow,
the light touch on the harbor sail. Gone away
and all for all - I will give to you. I will lengthen
back the speedway to my mind, where things run
fast and wild. Look not away : here it is. It is all here.

4613. BEGIN THE BEGUINE AGAIN

BEGIN THE BEGUINE AGAIN

(from the beginning)

I parrot your love and all of your

intentions  -  so many other languages

are fighting now for our allegiance. Let

me not just run away; sourcing off with

all desire in a so-September way.

-

The swing-band here is playing right with

their 1940's music. So bland, and yet so

shiny and bright. I will withhold

judgment until the end has come.

-

Echo Sally May. Echo lovely legs in a

fruitless bloom. Echo even Echo Helstrom,

that once-miraculous girl from Minnesota.

Who shall die among us first now that I have

lost anew all of my cards and papers?

And what font shall I deliver like a

Small-World blackened fever?

4612. CLEARLY VET

CLEARLY VET

Howl, howl and supermarket Chinese  -

lines of people syntactically destroying

their own base culture. Ah, radioman, I

have squelched your signal and your mother

will come home no more. So save me, tendentious

one, and bring me home, in the same way, from

your pages. (Oh my friends, do you believe in

my innocence? Restore me with a hallelujah').

-

I met a man named Eli  -  'I'm Puerto Rican, from

Perth Amboy. My wife's away for eighteen days,

ten more to go, visiting her family in Panama. They

own land, and she says they eat for a dollar fifty a day.'

-

I remembered reading Philip Larkin. 'Sexual

intercourse began in nineteen sixty-three (which was

rather late for me). Between the end of the Chatterley

ban and the Beatles' first LP.' I am even now present,

and not sorry for it, here holding Larkin's hand.

-

Oh, then, so very many things are somehow all

connected. Fierce, fierce, the fighting on the sea.

Fierce, fierce the violence on the land.

 

4611. RIGHT NOW

RIGHT NOW
I am walking to Ditamoora, where the magic sky
beckons, and words are still garlanded like blooms.
There are voices in my ears, and I am silently
hearing things: 'the world is a vessel, it holds your
dreams and ways; the path is well worn, though
not by you; there will be a moment when all
mysteries end.'
-
On someone's television, I watched a distant land - ...
they were bombing things as people died. No one
seemed to care : they uttered only silence like a
broken Munch scream. What was I to do?
-
I was born in the September of a year I only
with imagination can remember : there were fields
where some flowers still lingered, and people walked
home, heads down, in hats and fedoras, with women
in black stockings and perfumed hair. Times then were
so long and different, and cars were fat and slow.
-
Should I try to turn a page, or must I? It seems there
is no answer - in angelic waves the grievous markers
drop around us; our time itself, it lingers for just so long.
Enough to find a marker for the dead, a place to rest the
bones. I am walking to Ditamoora, and I shall call it home.

4610. UPLOAD MY OFFSHOOT

UPLOAD MY OFFSHOOT
 (Brown St., Philadelphia)
'And to please the Lord, I'll have another.' It was
a pet-shop easy walk with Bukowski and you; the three
of us, walking past his favorite old saloon. 'Y'know', he
garbled, 'I used to get fifteen bucks a pop,' Bukowski said,
'and this is fuckin' true, you can ask the pussy with the big
bumps behind the counter, you can ask, go 'head, I used
to get fift...een bucks just to go out back with someone and
get beat up - we'd box, we'd spar for a bit, punching and
snarling, and then I'd come back in, each time, clean up,
and have another fifteen bucks to drink with, no shit.'

4609. APPROACH THE ASSUMPTION

APPROACH THE ASSUMPTION

The long fence, the horses ride it wildly, staggering

forth, steeds on a run.  Like a low graveyard, the old

meanings of stone are cluttered. The horses prance

on, not out of step with anything but their time.

-

A flag cannot fly if there's not a pole to extend it.

Approach the assumption, see what you get : like

flying spittle, the horses mouths broadcast their own

stern attention. The assumption is : I laze in the grass.

-

Wherever that might be : approaching again the assumption -

we assume that all things are conscious of themselves?

In full knowledge of what they do, on their own terms.

Sometimes, however, it seems there is too much silence.

-

I am dreaming, in another life, it seems, of Verdi's Nabucco.

In the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the Israelites pray

for help against Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar), King of Babylon.

His forces have attacked them and are vandalizing the city.

Zaccaria, their high priest, enters with Nabucco’s daughter,

Fenena, whom the Hebrews hold hostage. He reassures his

people that the Lord will not forsake them.  I must approach

here again that assumption, and the grand chorus of the

Hebrew slaves. Oh, I do love that sound. I am moved.

-

Approach the assumption, then, with me  -  everything

that exists is ephemeral and disappears, and  -  somewhere,

over the rainbow, way up high  - there's a land I can go to,

awake in a lullaby. And, if there's not a pole, a flag cannot fly.

4608. SHORT ARMS*

SHORT ARMS*

(NYC, 1991)
Jose Quintero, walking with two gloves, short eyes,

heavy arms, short arms and a heavy heart. Twice

the value of a cigarette, if you say 'it's my last one'

To wit : we re-enter the dragon. Life is but lust.

-

Waves of compassion, and its sister, forgiveness,

step in to close this day. The frequent visitor, the

Moon itself, is making a dainty step across the

painted fencepost. Looking out, I see no signs.

-

Harbingers of this and that  -  the regular morons

of love and deceit  -  ah, that vast carnival these

brothers keep running. I want more than you; I

want all your meanings and your intentions too.
---------
*(Short Eyes is a prison play by Miquel Pinero)

4607. I MAY HAVE

I MAY HAVE

Have you seen the Chinatown banner yet, on that

old fence by the Weng-Dong Fortune? They have

placed photos of ducks and geese, with the words

'Dishonor your Nature Eat flesh!' Just that way.

An obvious translation?  Myself, I like the incongruous

way the message flows : 'Dishonor! Your Nature (is to)

eat flesh!'; 'You dishonor your Nature when you eat flesh!'

It can go in any direction, and I like to play along.

-

Outside the store selling flesh  -  two hundred years of

Italian butchers before them, really, right here, before

it was even Chinatown  -  this has been going on.

Blood in the gutter and entrails flailing, Joey Gallo

was killed right over there, when it was Umberto's

Clam House for real. Now, like stockinged feet,

all those old Italians have gone quiet; no more

hanging sausages in the window, eggplants on

the shelf, and beef tallow on the counter. I

kind of like the way things disappear.

-

All my books say it wasn't always like this:

storm clouds came and went, fires and revolutions,

disasters with wagons and carts. Five hundred

people at a clip. Nowadays, I really don't

know if that was really it  -  a grand feeling

about something, maybe, once gone.

I may have had it, once.

4606. I WORRY THE MINE

I WORRY THE MINE

Will cave in, will crash and crumble.

There would be nothing other than that.

My old friend wakes today, he's Jewish.

Another enters his home-field fray

deciding he's a she. What can be?

-

The pressure-cooker lives in Long Island.

Jack the Beanstalk has lost his 'and.'

Cockatoo Island has been fully paved.

You don't miss your water 'til your

well runs dry. No one stops

to ask why?

-

I worry the mine will cave in

while Jesus says losers will win?