Wednesday, December 31, 2014

6204. I SHOULD BE WORTH A BUNDLE

I SHOULD BE 
WORTH A BUNDLE
'Yeah, you will be  -  when dead.' If that's
got to be the last thing I hear this year, I'm
going home early. And now. Just another
fruit-of-the-loom pie-face reveler talking
his breath at me. So sickening, like a bad
cat howling, to hear how dead writers get
ahead. Well fuck all that then, 2014, and
15 too. I have to zoom ahead already to 
have make any sense : playpen revelers,
that girl with three teats, the two guys with
their dicks and the fellow swilling gin.
Oh man, what kind of shape I'm in.
-
Let me in. Let me in. I'm out too late, and
now I have to eat before I sleep  -  to hell
with the new year and all that. It's another
accumulated dance of masques, and people
all running helter-skelter, feeling each other
up, trying to get laid, finding a date when a
date's already had  -  and isn't this all about
a date anyway? Hell, I don't know.
-
I'll be worth a bundle when this is over. Make
my gravestone a Cadillac? Etch my last words
on the big granite stone : 'What the fuck?
What the fuck? What the fuck...?'

6203. PENNY-PINCHING GILBERT

PENNY-PINCHING GILBERT
'C'mon in, I can get it for you cheaper.'
As he spoke, he held the books in his hand.
'These weren't here before; I'm dazzled.'
-
The point behind this : he's living well within
his means, and only buys what he can sell higher.
'It's simple living, all this, that's what makes
it come together. 
-
The many levels of life-love will slowly
take over. Everything in its place dissolves.

6202. LEGISLATE

LEGISLATE
Making another move, the debaters ramble on;
they speak of nothing but conditional ways
and means. Outside the large windows, the
town square flies a lazy flag and the empty
bandshell makes not a noise at all.
-
This must be a magistrate judging, or
maybe a judge ministrating  -  how that
stuff goes, I don't always understand.
-
Two weeks ago, the men with the ledger
books hadn't even been appointed : now
they're (already) know-it-alls. Or acting so.
Sitting here, I'm so thirsty I want to
legislate a drink  -  not a cocktail,
just a drink. Let the others do all
the drinking in this town. 
-
If space here is at a premium, than my
premium space should be worth a bundle.

6201. WHEN I WAS THE HUNTED

WHEN I WAS THE HUNTED
When I was the hunted one I learned pretty
well  -  where the fallow spots for hiding
where the best, how to make silence a thing
never heard. I even knew about cancelling my
reflections on the water. I was sharp and slick.
-
Then I started going places where I shouldn't
have  -  not for show, mostly just for utility,
and the game of it all anyway. Showing my
face at coffee counters and bars, buying an
old sweater at a thrift shop for the poor. 
Nosing around in library shelves. yes,
someone must have caught a
glimpse of me.
-
It started pretty innocently  -  they sent over
someone's mother to begin talking to me. I
feigned an interest and kept it up. Small talk,
then a little more conversation  -  one time,
then again, and then again. Until they were
able to calculate my routine, I guess.
-
Then, one day, they got me.
Just swooped in, and in the
middle of a very gentle
sentence, I was had.
Taken.
Gone.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

6200. TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY DO WE COME, FROM GOD WHO IS OUR HOME

TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY 
DO WE COME, FROM GOD
 WHO IS OUR HOME
Both beauty and exactitude take title
to my claim  -  and only now, by them,
am I mad. Mad like an artist, and mad
past redemption. In such a way, truly,
will I live forever. (Trailing clouds of
glory do we come, from God 
who is our home).

6199. JACOB SWAN

JACOB SWAN
Not this alone, harbinger of,
bringer of : I see so many other
things  -  the colors of a heart in
change, the bloom of a natural
violet or rose. The lily in the
scented bath. All of these 
things are alike.
-
Take a task, oh Baby Doc from
Belvedere, take a task and do it.
Your Tonton Macoute slay dreams
like Devils slaying wavering souls;
morning's minions mounted.

6198. AMELIE

AMELIE
She loves me like coins in a
fountain  -  nothing as disingenuous
as that : this earnest feeling, this
rapture. I would baste her buckle
a hundred years on, and no real
address would I ever find.

6197. AGAPE

AGAPE
I have done the hundred things I started
out to do : William Blake put it thusly - 
'the cistern contains; the fountain overflows.'
My further stage then  -  creativity  -  is 'giving
birth to beauty' by surpassing the dullness of Man.
That regular boor, that fat Moloch, that achiever,
amasser, keeper and holder. Collector and seeker
of riches. That filthy alchemist of things which pass.
My own satisfied Eros is the creative end of this
world for me. I contain all things, yes, but
I overflow as well; truly overflow.

6196. ALEXY ZAMYATIN

ALEXY ZAMYATIN
He says he will make the coffee, while
his lover yet sleeps on the bed. I say OK.
But, I can see her quite clearly from here,
as he goes about his work : she is true, and
beautiful, and asleep, yes, and quite naked.
-
Her legs, in fact, are splayed and arranged
in their non-arrangement as she sleeps, and
they are, alas, quite open. All that I can see
is all that I'd ever wish to see  -  quite good
enough for me. Those pinked and sinuous
gentle folds of browning skin, tucked over
as a cleft, and sort of onto one another, 
in a crooked, wrinkled maze.
-
And  -  just like that as well  -  rounded
breasts, still quite sleeping too. Oh, not a
sound, not a one; and he  -  he still makes
the coffee. (Oh, I love the mornings).

6195. TAKE ASIDE THE PRODIGY

TAKE ASIDE THE PRODIGY
Yes, take aside the prodigy and
beat him to an inch  -  a lead pipe
to his head, a razor to his eyes.
Make him blind! Surprise!
-
Yes, take aside the prodigy and
strap him to a gurney, gagged. Let
him live then, if you must, but only
if in pain. Go. Pierce his hands and
stomach; twist a foot; break a leg,
or two. I don't care what you do.

6194. LIKE LEANDRA OF OLD

LIKE LEANDRA OF OLD
What then is wanted : how many things,
and how much of each? If I wander
westward, only mountains and no coin. 
If I go east, the ocean. If I remain, here,
a rich man in a peculiar destitution.
Let me list : Descartes maintained that
the essence of Man consisted in the
ways of 'thought' and thinking. Aristotle,
by his own reckonings, had called out
for the same, instead, as 'contemplation'.
The essence of Man is the contemplative.
There's a difference, right there, already.
Elaborated earlier by Plato, in 'Symposium' 
and again in the Phaedrus, it was found instead
to be Eros  -  or as 'Mankind' finding satisfaction
for its 'Love' unending. Freud said Man's
essence consisted of 'desiring'. Oh dear,
so much. So many the distances between.
Now  -  by these all factors  -  I find 
myself just needing to remain.
-
The next thing I know they'll say
I'm Chippewa. (If I kiss you,
I'd have to kiss them all).

6193. HAMMER OFF THE GODS

HAMMER OFF THE GODS
Yes, off, like they say about destruction :
take down those heads and chisel away that
idol. We'll be having no more of that. Now
is a new world of shameless pain.
-
Every nation of this world shall be humbled
and fall  -  the light ones and the dark, the
nettlesome and the dumb. Reserve yourself
to keep your time proposed and ready.
-
This book I hold has flaming pages, and they
are burning my hands. Burning my spirit and
burning my soul. I cannot see you while I wait.
-
Find me this mote, the center of my eye.
Pick it out, and leave me alone.

6192. LACHRYMOSE

LACHRYMOSE
Then I will go slowly and silently into night
without a word : the beetle-brow of eternity
will intermittently blink back at me. In this
world, it was only me, seeking something,
seeking apples, seeking passage, seeking
her. Voyager, now, this passage wanes.

6191. AND HARM COMES TO HARMLESSNESS

AND HARM COMES 
TO HARMLESSNESS
It's all in tomorow's idea : indecisive and 
indistinct. Each part of as man is another 
part less than divine. Let the whitewash
keep the world busy.
-
On the edges of town they've built the
jails and prisons. The problem is they're
filled already  -  the mind is a mighty jailer.

Monday, December 29, 2014

6190. OF THEE I SING

OF THEE I SING
Tired of Capital Sin I laze about within,
seeking nothing else but the gumption
of the doing.  Cannot recognize the difference
now, between the hoping and the wishing, the
placement and the place. Admit it, I don't know.
-
Carlita and Cleopatra too, both were just here.
The asp and the snake, alike  -  one is the other,
like a lie is the truth and the boat sails the water.
-
Here in an early-morning light, I speak to
no one but the man nearby is playing music.
Detroit, and the single strip of destruction he
wants to call home. The gas station guy sits
down on his bench. There's no one here.

6189. EXCRUCIATING THIS DETAIL

EXCRUCIATING THE DETAIL
Inspector somebody has a broken nose,
walking with his face down in the flowers
and trees. Looking about. "I need to find 
something here, Eve, to tie you to the crime.
It's been said  -  after all  -  over and over you
know it was you." This modern lady wasn't
listening  -  she was on her Apple instead.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

6188. LATE OF ENGLAND WAY

LATE OF ENGLAND WAY
Why do you savage these earthly isles?
How long before this endsite is the last
thing you'll see? Take with me the trek
to the oceanside shore : where the salted
waters run deep, surging and 
flashing  about the sands.

6187. MY CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES

MY CIRCUMSTANTIAL 
EVIDENCES
The Bible can float on water, those walking with
it cannot. I am the general practitioner of your
mind and morals  :  the one you never met. And 
I am waiting for the eternal recurrence of all good
things, the supermarkets-general of life and limb.
My hobby shop is your open heart  -  and I am
waiting for the re-supply of wonder to be coming
your way. Evidence for being is all around me.
-
(And I will be waiting for a long time to come).

6186. MY LATEST IMBROGLIO

MY LATEST IMBROGLIO
So, OK, this guy is talking to me about
Jenna Fischer  -  nobody I know, him nor
her  -  but he wants her badly. He goes on
about some show I never saw. What can you
do? This is Amerika today. I tell him about
Kafka  -  he says 'what channel?' I guess it's
like that everywhere; they all come down their
mother's chute, and then we're stuck with them.
I can't say 'forever', but damn, it's long enough.

6185. EMPTY MAN BLUES

EMPTY MAN BLUES
I remain the empty man with a bugger in
his shoes. I've got eyes for a handle, and
these empty man blues. Everywhere I turn,
there are others in a line  -  if they're not busy
talking, they're busy with crying. 
-
The salami-loaf breadman falls down the
stairs  -  his mantle's in the ketchup, yet he
does what he dares. The last man running
has ten pound shoes, and he keeps on in
place, paying those dues. I've got eyes for
a handle, and these empty man blues.
-
Send me a signal  -  all those Voyager things:
the man and the woman etched on glass, the
Beethoven sonata, Numbers and digits for the 
to see, that series of twos. I've got eyes for
handle, and those empty man blues.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

6184. MAGICO TREMOLO

MAGICO TREMOLO
The ice on the water is turning to gloom.
I want to be skating on what will come soon.

6183. NOW LIKE TIME

NOW LIKE TIME
Now like time I expire, the dwindling date
goes down the milk-carton hole. There's no
discerning anything new right now : pincers
and stealers, running from things, that crab
again scurrying along the black-bottomed sea.
-
In the library, the pretty-lady with the catalogue face
hands me another book; next to the video counter
we stand, each looking at words. She says 'We've
only loaned this out a few times over the years,
and we've found anyway that no one understands
a thing inside this volume anyway.' Then she
says it will most probably be deaccessioned in 
January. One week too long for all that.
I sign my name instead.

6182. NO MORE EVERYTHING

NO MORE EVERYTHING
It's all over, now drown this bastard
Santa in blood thank you please. I'm 
tired of people hugging and all that 
swelling music of the happy cheers 
and stupid talk. I'd rather speak 
to a potato. 
-
I skipped this Christmas just by hiding
out of state, gone away alone and in some
silence of the road : canine vittles and a
big white barn. Never had a better life
than this. No jawboning jabberwockey,
none at all, for me. Ice that cake.
And eat it.

6181. IN THE RESPITE OF THE AGES

IN THE RESPITE 
OF THE AGES
As in putting a flag at half-staff : there is
no meaning worth the salt of such an 
encumbrance. Meanings, like movies,
elide and change their social patter. 
In trying to read our cuneiform shadows,
we mistake the message for the cut.
-
Outside my downtown window, two
men are sweeping the expanse before
them : brooms, a pail, some water, and
the bags with which to hold the trash. 
They keep their heads down, intent 
on cleaning this world.


6180. ALL THE TIME

ALL THE TIME
The swing set of altered means is
running in the wind  -  a simple twist 
and turn, thankfully, this time without
children : sometimes, all it takes 
to make me smile.
-
 I love solitude. My god is a verb. 
The act is the essence
-
There's a little-known world within
each of us, saintly. The step is quiet,
and the motions are never heard. We
think we know the way, as it 
unfolds before us.
-
I love solitude. My God is a verb.
The act is the essence.

Friday, December 26, 2014

6179. PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT
High above the city, in the sky, the
town's demons cry of foul deeds.
The master in the backroom is
arranging his threads. 'We make 
money from any deal we can, you 
understand. There's nothing to it,
just add to the number. Buy low,
sell high(er). Sort of like that.'
-
It's a ten-year sentence, waiting
all this out. I've nothing to show
for it but lethargy now. A few
piles of money in some very
nondescript banking city.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

6178. INTENSIFICATION

INTENSIFICATION
This highway is a brute; you have forced
my hand. I am speeding past the human points
and exits, seeking another land. Entirely, that is.
I have known five hundred people to say the
least  -  talking and badgering all the sure-points
of such communication. This highway is a brute.
-
I am turning off  :  having paid the toll just far
too many times. Most of the rest, I can easily
ignore  -  there goes a pancake house, someone
else's stupid Hot Dog Johnny's, a beefsteak palace
and a barbecue. A garden store, and something
for adults. 'Lowest prices in the state!' Yes. This
Pennsylvania is surely a very funny place.
-
This highway is a brute, yet I take it all in.
Quite astute of me, don't you think, to have
packed for you to eat on the road, while we
drive. Everything else is shuttered after five
anyway : not much to do once the sun goes
down in this Winter town. The Mayor, I
bet, plays marbles with his kin.
-
Over there, look at that, it's Mauch Chunk, where
the coal wars were settled out. Men were executed,
yes, right there. The Molly Maguires, they were called.
Go ahead, look it up on your every-loving, linked-in 
phone. Labor wars took all the fun out of working.
-
Now that everything else has been settled and closed,
doesn't it all make us seem so defensive and useless,
each at the same time? One place is as good as the next,
I suppose. A good day for a hanging, a nice day to die.

6177. TILT A WHIRL

TILT A WHIRL
Caritas. My ancient Gaol. I have
lines that echo in place. My life
is a staggering booklet of 
chimes and music.
-
Majestic yet momentary, as
fleeting in the passage as a 
moment within a sleep. I doze
awake through this life.
-
Aligning goals with preoccupations,
why that's the easiest part. Testing
the mettle to see if it holds, that's
where the work comes in.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

6176. MARVELETTE

MARVELETTE
On the same shelf as a few books, a mirror
was hanging  -  something 'simple' enough 
to 'enlarge' the look of the room. I never 
understood that interior decorator talk  -  
all those tricks and shortcuts to make an
effect. Senseless and superfluous to me.
Like those jabbering idiot women on TV,
swooning on their shopping shows about
another hundredth pair of shoes or pants.
If you've got to have everything, then you
really need nothing. Oversell the plaque,
and then you too die. Aggrieved, with
no proposal. Now I watch these
Catholics cross the street.
-
It's only 5:15 PM, on Christmas Eve, and
now their Christmas Mass is over  -  whew, 
and yeah, got that shit out of the way. It used
to be strict and it used to be stern, now it just
useless and all  -  Midnight Mass the night 
before, and then it was 6PM Saturday mass,
and forget all that Sunday crap. Now, they've
even moved their Christmas Doggerel Collection
Mass to 4:30 the day before. They should get
into their Heaven so quickly, I'd say.
-
Need I mention how all of this just makes me 
sick? Jackhammer Jethros humming the lanes,
sanctified mamas in secretary dress. I don't know,
and I won't care. They hire the cops to cross them.
-
Now we're back to the subject  -  the other one 
with which I began : on that shelf of books, some 
fool's hung a mirror. It seems to be (really) 
reflecting just nothing at all. I'm catching
a bus, to some other place.


6175. NO ARMSTICE DAY LIKE THIS EVER BEFORE TRANSPIRED

 NO ARMSTICE DAY LIKE THIS EVER BEFORE TRANSPIRED
Tavern On the Green this ain't  -  Manchild In the Promised Land 
neither. The miserable ranchero on the pampas of Peru, he comes 
home running backwards, enflamed. Now the Muslim fuckers 
have a Jordanian to shave.
-
I'll imagine Allah laughing. Another chopped fucking head, 
a new neck for the cause : gracious salvation like salivating 10th 
century morons pulling up their pissing-pants. Jesus and salvation. 
Allah and his whores. We kill for everyone today. 
I'm brave enough to  stand back up to say no way.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

6174. THE EGG THAT WILL NOT PEEL

THE EGG THAT 
WILL NOT PEEL
Entranced by your entrance, or 
how does that go? Roaming in 
the gloaming, just let me be. 
Ten layers of Life, lived all
together  - I have the magic 
of a mystic life.

6173. MY WINDOW ON ALONE

MY WINDOW ON ALONE
Well, well, Mr. Cat, I bet this night is nothing
to you : gingerbread prancing catnip joys? it's
like Christmas, when the say at midnight all
the animals can talk  -  and do. Conversing 
with one another in their animal ways. I've
never seen it, no; and I've tried. While others
waited for Santas and cookies and all that, 
I waited for the animals to talk.
-
Too bad again, just another chance that's
passed me by. What's this life for anyway? 
I got nothing, ever, for all the foibles I brought.
Like at an old frontier trading-post or something
of that nature, I always wanted to get a parcel
back for that which I gave. I got not anything, 
ever, and nothing to save. Now, not even
the animals will talk. Why is that?


6172. THIS ISN'T HAPPENSTANCE

THIS ISN'T HAPPENSTANCE
The rain fell on my head, from beneath the awning
at 27 W47th, I walked out. Beseeching no one for
nothing, I set out not thinking of a thing at all.
Collar goes up when the neck gets wet.
-
Uptown just a bit, still wet, still raining, I entered
the area of the Museum frontage  -  two 'swingle'
girls, walking fast, as if every care in the world
just then was chasing them. Oh MOMA! 
To see a Matisse again.
-
I used to love delicious ice cream; now I
love a good coffee. I speak to no one,
mostly, and no one speaks to me.

6171. OUT OF A DISTANT PAST

OUT OF A DISTANT PAST
The road crew seems lazy today,
dragging their feet like sluggards 
along a blind-tar hot-pot fix-truck.
Like prisoners, they spray the broken
streets, for cracks and holes. Can't be.
-
Are these men prisoners? No; fine
fellows they work for their money at
Bridges and Roads, McAllister County.
I don't know any of them, but they each
need something quick. Assistance 
for an alliance.
-
Once before, this was all done with
horses; now there's nothing but steam
and gasoline. Yes, steam and gasoline.

Monday, December 22, 2014

6170. HAPPY HOUSE

HAPPY HOUSE
Something like where the sun lives, the
haught of pride and place and the joy of
Being. All together, they come as one.
Hearts amend their weary ways  -  the man
stops by, the man goes. The woman stops
over. The woman goes. We are all as divine
as the figures we attribute ourselves to be.

6169. UNITARY

UNITARY
Into singing let us burst, as one;
a fisted, unitary knot of circular
relation budding forth our leafless
fruits of proffered friendship.
-
Heart is all that matters, heartened
by the mass, the grace is stronger as
the grace is more and more involved.
-
And saviors come not for the one,
but for the many. (Be it so resolved).

6168. MALINGERING SUSPICIONS

MALINGERING 
SUSPICIONS
Not been had for anything good :
the man took my life away. And to
be truthful anyway, I was already
quite lost. Nothing coming back.
The karma of the hatrack.

6167. WHAT D'YA HEAR?

WHAT D'YA HEAR
How is it, what's that, huh? This
myopic crowd makes me seasick
again. All that thwarting  -  the
little cotton candy kid, eating those
sweet, roasted nuts, he's barfing in
the gutter anew. What d'ya hear?
What should we do? Too much
precision, everyone gets tired, at
least this crowd's a mess. Let's go.
-
A pile of fifty watches in this old
store window. Next door, they're
selling five-dollar dresses and shifts.
Each lady in the crowd looks over as
she goes. That street hawker from
Nigeria, he's seven-feet tall I swear!
What should we do? What d'ya hear?

Sunday, December 21, 2014

6166. OMEGATRON

OMEGATRON
Might be the one, might not, but for
now the Spanish music plays. The
little senorita is a'shuffle, and I bow.
Some kind of waitress comes rolling 
by; wine and menus, why not?
-
I am a robot for your love, a drone
for your delivery. There hasn't been
a time like this since 1963.
-
I decide I'll make that my refrain  -  
something to repeat again.
(There hasn't been a time 
like this since 1963).

6165. DINNER WITH CHARLES MARTEL

DINNER WITH 
CHARLES MARTEL
"You are a cumbersome man, my friend, and though
I will listen, I will not always understand." He said
that to me, and it was  -  right away  -  pretty clear
there'd be a big divide. "Well," I replied, "I'm here
not to emphasize but to bridge those differences."
-
We sat there, both apparently dumbfounded enough
so as  not to be sure the  next move. "Pepin," I said, 
"your father, what was he like?" He smiled back and 
said, "yes, many concepts presented to me I only just 
now remember. He took to the fields like water takes
to the rivers. Easily natural, quite plain. And here am I."
-
"Oh the things I do not know  -  all this matter about
the spirit and the endings of man. What real difference
is that on the plains where I must battle? After Cologne,
I only want rest really  -  and now I have to form a place,
and even a language. I have already lost so much."
-
A genial man, so thought I to myself. Would he know
the work, would he see the place and the stories he'd be
left with? I spoke : "Do you sense the great divide to
which Mankind heads now? It will all work out  -
eventually  -  take it from me, but there shall be, before 
that, so much more carnage and death. You'll see. Man
can, it seems, never rest until he thinks he's achieved a
'certainty'  -  of which there is none and which is foolish
to even try and see. You should walk slowly, and keep
all that in mind." He smiled back, in almost a sadness
of a gentle nature. "Mark these words," he then said, "I
will try to kill only when and as I must. Is that OK?"
-
"Well, yes, I guess," I said, "but don't get lost within it all."


6164. HERE IS WHAT I PROPOSE

HERE IS WHAT I PROPOSE
This moment is no more than a cracker-barrel
slap-fest. I will give it to you. Right back to
the beginnings : everything turns, all this elastic 
time stretches itself around matter. We sit, enchanted?
The lady wants to wake me  -  she is gossamer and
holds a light. In her lap, the Book of Things.
-
I roamed twenty hills and valleys before I came here.
Behind me, there was a story, and before me another
one stretched. There always was  -  I propose  -
a tomorrow before there was a today.

6163. AMENDATION

AMENDATION 
The other day just the other day.
Car parts in the investigation.
Two cops shot sitting at the wheel.
Daydreams lead to disorientation.
Now, where was I?
-
Here's the yellow light beaming.
High in the sky, Ezekiel's wheel.
Once more I am lifted to the heavens.
This life is more than I feel.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

6162. FABRICATE THE MASSES

FABRICATE THE MASSES
The lean-to you live in required attention.
I came over with shovel and pail  -  it fell
over anyway, but we really didn't care.
My own ideas went more towards concrete
and stone  -  an idea of a Roman wall around
all our world. You were more open to gates.
-
'What do you think we should put outside this
wide perimeter?' I remember you asked me that.
I only thought a little and said 'let's fabricate
some idea of the masses.' How advanced was I?
-
Hittites or Canaanites; all those Romans and
Greeks. What difference never mattered, they
all shared Gods and didn't even know it. Do
you remember how  -  for ourselves  -  we 
always seemed to stay above the fray?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

6161. ENTERPRISING FOOL

ENTERPRISING FOOL
Now it's snow and ice all over again and nothing
worth anything will ever come forth  -  not until
another thaw in another time. I've tried cooking
this marmalade, but it would only singe.
-
Harvey was an invisible rabbit that only one man
could see ; glimpse and glimmer, the conversation
always ended up as pretending it was or wasn't there.
Like ideologues at a bad picnic, the drinks of logic
spill down the outdoor tables.
-
In the shed, down the alley, at the backwoods turn,
that is where my distant spirit dwells  -  among the
trees and the tall, dark sky between two worlds.

6160. HOMER

HOMER
Ode. To travel. Hurled in their
multitude to the House of Hades.
-
Playing mystery tennis on the lawns
of the sea. Gnawing for years on
the great salt expanse.
-
The ship's capture :  'Bring fire,
and give single voice to the
clamor of battle.'
-
This is horrific  :  nailed to the mast
with knives and seamens' lances; the
scuttled wooden ships of fire.
-
I've never visited your post.
Bring arms to the point of battle.
Do you think there are others behind us?
-
They've brought something down from the
mountain  -  it sleeps in the pearled night
like the lancer's fabled hand, once severed.
-
All of the women of this famous land are
swooning now, for the fires are biting the
shoreline, and they have nowhere left to go.
The acid children wretch. Escape now?
To what?
-
Evacuate some sinking ship. Bring fire, and 
give single voice to the clamor of battle.
Keep right. Slower traffic exit.
Signal. Pay toll ahead.