5003. WE WILL ALL A'ROVING GO

WE WILL ALL A'ROVING GO

Who among us shall remember what was? We will

dissolve like tomorrow's acorn breezes, across the

plains and fields -   dying oaks and dying embers each.

I remember my father used to seek the final end of

everything before he would say it was done. It never

made sense, and things were done before he was over.

Now, there's really nothing. I can walk you to his grave,

or take you past his house. That's all. What pleasure he

had in hand, he has taken all with him. Life is like that.

-

Jesters and clowns. Fervid ones and crusaders. Workers

and bosses  -  everything at once. Who talks so fast is

talking low, who talks so loud is talking slow. How is it

to distinguish good from bad, dross from gold, or neither?

We will all a'roving go, and little shall matter either.

5002. DERIVATION MOUTH

DERIVATION MOUTH

It comes as no surprise, they say, this man is

now clearly crazy, clearly adrift. I stopped into

the grand opening, just today, of a new felafel

palace and wished them luck, as I asked for 

two hot dogs on a bun, but no meat which I 

don't eat. The fellow from somewhere running

the place looked me over, quizzically and asked : 

'Very good sir, how then do you want this served?'

I replied, 'In a black suit and an undertaker's carriage.'

-

I knew he'd agree to anything; grand opening, first day

aiming to please. He went into the back room, and

just never came out.

5001. OFF AND RUNNING

OFF AND RUNNING

Off and running on  -  what sort of distinction is that?

Are you off or are you on? I want to walk the Walking

Purchase, from right where it started by the Delaware.

All those lying, blasted sons of William Penn, how brazenly

they cheated what they played. I hate the likes of all that.

No wonder Dad went home in anger to England once more.

-

Somewhere along the way west, I passed a huge boulder

the other side of Quakertown or Bethlehem or somewhere.

It was huge, with a crazy plaque denoting some woodsy

lunch that was held there in a grove in some 1750 backwater

time  -  a break in the work for a treaty and discussion. That

was long before the knives came out. And then I got to

Conestoga. The river and the town. All those wagons, once

made there, and all that westward trek. The Mack Truck

overland haulers of their day. It stuck. I love that stuff.

-

Now I fly paper airplanes from the crazy-house woods.

I lean against the scabbard of another man from Hell.

When they call I answer, I eat when the ring the bell.

Such Pavlovian intentions do me well. I am living still.

-

Now I cradle your head in my arms. I was reading today,

in a library stall filled with aching and blood, how to kiss

for comfort and love. Kiss gently, upon anyone, at the

site of the third-eye, between the eyes and up 

some high. It brings peace and bliss and aura. 

It brings Love and a golden glow.

-

(I can hear it now : 'you're gonna' kiss me where?').

5000. YOU'RE BEING LIED TO TOO, TWO SNAKECHARMERS

YOUR BEING LIED TO TOO, 

TWO SNAKECHARMERS

See the slime on the snowman : he's buried

his eyes, just like his carrot. The coal seam

still hurts from where they ripped it dry. 

-

Faces on a moving curtain  -  like the passing 

frenzy I visit. Girls in winter hats, still grinning.

Guys in suits, sucking on their phones as the

deals go down. I'm always sad and happy both.

-

So, here I am. Mr Ledger-Man listeNing to me,

sitting back in that foul brown booth : your 

Guiness mouth betrays your Budweiser mind.

-

Two plus two makes four, wherever that plain

arithmetic is still in play. Catholic parodies abound:

one always equals three. No wonder nothing fits.

-

No wonder nothing fits.

4999. ALL THOSE LISTS

ALL THOSE LISTS

Perhaps I've got all those things; I'm no longer

sure  -  the sorts of objects you never own, just

have. Sunset, watery down, ducks, fir trees, tides,

glasses of wine, pennies and nickels, doorbells and

stops. Anything else can go to Hell if I don't have

it; you don't possess, you just have.

4998. MT. PALOMAR

MT. PALOMAR

You've really got to hand it to the men with 

the lenses  -  they've seen what they claim 

is the cosmos at large. I believe them, sure. 

But they've forgotten one thing : and when 

I say ONE I mean it in that same cosmic sense;

for there is no one thing, and now they know it.

Such a number is false and the only unity this

Life has is the multi-faceted turning with which

it glows -  everything is churning. That same

dense richness is how Cain slew Abel and 

Daniel went through his lion's den. 

-

Now they say it's proven, we are. They claim 

to see beyond their ides of star and place and 

time  and meaning. well good for them why 

don't they state it -   unequivocally, and stun 

the world for its own fat moment. I saw all 

that long, long ago, and I'm still here  -  like 

the jet age yet streaming, like the smoke from 

my tea and  the steam from my coffee. I watch 

the vacant swing in the park. Slowly, 

atmospherically, without anyone there 

at all, it moves of its own accord.

4997. FITZCARRALDO

FITZCARRALDO

When I woke up not knowing where I was and

it was no crime to be out of body : that was when I

knew myself best. The charnel house, at last, had closed.

Fitzcarraldo was to be no more. I could put away the

spectacles and my shovel. All my friends were near.

-

The man from the German movie crew was filming an 

opera house being built in the Andes  -  anyway I think

that was the story he was telling. I was still dazed from

a rap on the head. He said men were dying, falling from

cliffs, and the railroad cars they'd put in place rolled

backwards, over cows and horses? There had been

a fire, and someone had had a heart attack too?

-

Listening to stories like that, I was putty  -  this puny

23rd street bar held no other attribute for me. Across the

way, right opposite the art-supply store I use, was the old

Chelsea Hotel, speaking of charnel houses. I'd been in there

maybe twenty times  -  various reason, or to look at the

art on the walls  -  pieces given in place of rent by shabby

shits with no money left. The same shabby shits who went

on to fame and now the rent was 'enormous'. Dollars

grow like Pinocchio's wooden nose sometimes,

and everything has got a suitable story.

-

Our nostrums are useless. Prayers and missions don't work.

I wish to bring a doctor into this house to minister to all

the suffering  -  the dead guys from the Andean cliffs,

the horses, wailing in pain as they died, even that

railroad locomotive, gathering speed as it roars

down the hill. Heaven helps those who ask.

I ask for nothing at all.

4996. SOMNABLATEER

SOMNABLATEER

I am sleepwalking through this life, never wanting to

be here, and once trying hard to leave. I sleepwalk

the day and I sleepwalk the life. I am lost in another 

ether; fixatious drama of life and love, limb and loin.

I don't care much for aplomp, for the royalty fixations

of the common guy, the ruminations of Maria or Charlie

or Joe. Yeah, it takes a big ego, I guess, to proclaim;

but I've been called out on worse, and don't care.

My mind is enflamed, and for me that's what counts.

-

The hardship of riches is a poverty of thought.

Light in the greenhouse, and broken glass in the

greenhouse panels  -  I want to know, I want to 

know  -  who threw the rocks that broke the glass?

4995. MY DISTAFF LONGING

MY DISTAFF LONGING

Two sides to every picture goes a long way to

explaining. The mirror has a back, and it reflects not

a thing. I'm here in the Jumble Shop, at the corner of 8th,

walking in both dreams and memories alike : when you

were still here, when the world was alive, when meanings

were cautious and coy. Oh, how I loved just being.

-

Now, some guy has a junked Pontiac heaped at the curb.

No one wants this stuff any longer, and even the stores

at the edge of the street stand mostly vacant and cheap.

No more Pallazo, no more Wilentz. No more Madame

Rienzi's. It's all over now, Baby Huey.

-

I want to wander and just look at glass  -  the windows 

of another age. A time when I could just talk and just

go on, no mattering and no one cared. I lit a match and

cursed the dark  -  or I staunched the dark and cursed

the match. Dizzying arrays of everything else; and

the world is vast arrayed against our possibilities.

-

I call you out now. Come. I am here.

4994. NOW, MARIETTA

NOW, MARIETTA

'Punch the idol with three green eyes, strike

at his arms and smite his thighs  -  he has come

from some other land so as to screw up our days.

His meaning and ways are not ours.  I have seen

him bow down, this is true, before trees. What can

that mean? Not worship the oak once again! We've

had our Druidic drivel driven home with a patch, a

driver with his team of horses. He drinks at the river

of doubt, no doubt, and steals babies in their swaddling

clothes. I'd not trust him to nut on a tree or thimble

a wafer while darning a sock. He's not mine.'

-

Oh my, and isn't that enough. I'm sitting here at the

piano bench, riffing through songs I remember.

Little thought now is given to that which you say  -  

in fact I think you're crazy mad dreaming again.

There is no such man as you proclaim.

4993. THIS FRAMING IS A LEGEND AND I CAN'T GO ON

THIS FRAMING IS A 

LEGEND AND I CAN'T GO ON

I once owned 40 acres and a mule; traipsed west on the promise

of free soil and John Wilmot. Left Towanda with a premise:

'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men', so

the banner said. I was richest among these wise, rich men.

Alas, ended up we fought for free the slave constabulary.

-

Wagon trains and broken mules, Shattered wheels and lots

of explaining  -  bible-touting red men trying to forswear

all we'd already lived. Out and lived out and out and worn out.

People naming towns, it seems, can never come up with

anything true. Dukesbury could never be Shit-Town Dry Acres.

Floating Elm could never be named Hanging Tree.

-

It's so many year on later now, let me tell this America a

trick or two : nothing is what is, everything you know is a lie, 

no man is free, Jesus was a dream, borders end in the mind,

mothers and children bear no resemblance, the furtherance of

rights is a furtherance of slavery. You want I should go on?

-

I am the new judge, sent from Tivoli through the pass at Allmount,

around the watery bend on Turn-Par Crossing, and along the

bottom lands to Rispoli. Now I am here. I have to listen : listen 

to those pleadings of the man with little water, the one with too

much land, the one with five dead children and no helpers to 

till and fray, the mother gone crazy with memory and screaming

 through the night, in her broken cabin with empty shells for

windows and a dead-man in the bed who was her husband once.

-

There's a hanging in the gloaming by the station here tonight.

Everyone is coming, far and wide. We must proclaim the

Death of Evil, right here, in front of me, before the dark of

this night sets in  -  dusk it will be, the less then to see.

4992. ALL SUPERLATIVE JIVE

ALL SUPERLATIVE JIVE

All superlative jive shall go unheeded, and the

handclappers need not apply : my raven in the

mizzen is left to be stern, my high hopes for

shore leave soon are fading. It's been ten

months already on this jabbering sea, and I'm 

tired both of noise and of quiet.

-

Once I land, where will I be? And what place

has a shape like this? I speak five tongues, but how

do I know? What speaks a native here, and how?

What are they eating, some purloined turtle fish from

the bottom of a kettle-scow? Ask me for dinner? No,

not now; I've sterner stuff to finish yet within my iron gut.

-

We've fourteen left from seventy starting out  -  how's

that for odds of streaming? Swim the rafts to the land of

gout? Two, I remember, in fact too spears to the head

and died. I have one man's knife, and boots as well.

Some picture of some lady, I don't know. Bothersome

mettle, all this human stuff with others. I'd rather be a'sea 

and sick than laid up here again in a bad-man's trick.

-

Feels like iron, feels like gold. All the same to me, so what?

I cash for nothing 'cept living on, blubber boy. Come be my

mate again if you've the constitution. my stuff is sterner and

more than steel  -  the kind of rub that can cut your ribs

in two. Keep back then, before I throttle you.

4991. NOBODY TALKS ABOUT QUICKSAND ANY MORE

NOBODY TALKS ABOUT 

QUICKSAND ANY MORE

Instead we stand the metal in the corner, the easel

 in the middle of the room, and go on talking while the 

model disrobes and simply sits there, even before the 

charcoal crayons have been given out.

This is no way to end an armistice, 

I'd swear before a court of law.

-

Wars have been started before. Names have come

down through the ages; all that Helen of Troy and 

Cleopatra stuff, but it all winds up twisted 

and lame. I no longer know where to stand,

nor sit  -  reading history books by candlelight;

what a fit this all is for words that will  live,

as they say, in infamy.

-

I worked ten years in a harbor-side port, saw

men killed by their crushing burdens. I sent

men away  -   the bored and the brained  -

on riverbed cruises and seas to distant lands.

Crossing Africa, on foot, so many were mauled

by natives that no one ever said a word. But

things are so different nowadays : nobody

talks about quicksand anymore.

4990. THE USES OF PAIN

THE USES OF PAIN

(arbeit mach freit)

Here where the holly grows loosely, the fens are gouged

and the marshgrass active. I feel as if I should be moved.

-

The thin horizon seems simple : in this case a coastline,

leathery and slick. Osprey blinds dot the field.

-

I will hold these hands like this forever. Standing

still, even then, I sense movement upward.

4989. OLD BLUE STREETS

OLD BLUE STREETS

I want to carry you backwards, take you to

Striver's Row. I want to lift you up, bring you 

to the Jumel Mansion. I want you to see with 

my eyes, and wear my cloak. The world is a 

mountainous place, and I have grappled 

with the heights.

4988. ONE HUNDRED YEARS

ONE HUNDRED YEARS

August 1914 will soon be upon us; I might

not be here, but it will. One hundred years since

that stinking first all-defining war came down upon us  -

or us that was then. Stinking, shriveled men and their

tight-assed women; arms-carriers to death without questions,

bloated and grimed and murdered, like paste upon a deadly

field. Carrion never dithered  -  trench warfare was a fine

dinner-plate for banquet. Passenchandaele. Somme. Verdun.

-

How did people rise and sleep, live and walk with themselves,

then? How sickeningly morose and enfeebled the dire happiness

of War as noble cause and frolic. A day at the beach. A picnic in

those bloody trenches. I must leave my senses for this to work.

-

We've done it worse since then. I know, and I say, and I see.

The same twisted, stupid fucking wrecks  -  in uniforms and

tatters still stupid, and proclaiming Liberty, Honor and Duty.

May they (each and every) live a day and die. To get what

they deserve in ignorance and folly is not good enough.

I hold no respect aside for dunce and dribble, mice and

dope. Yossarian, Catch 22, the Naked and the Dead, let it

all go on. I'm still back on 1914 for this one.

-

I hate war and I hate Mankind that does it. I hate those

who serve and I hate those who've died. Let them shrivel,

I don't care. Every day is choices made, every day is another

selection : you opt for the radar and the gun, the uniform and

the might, the military budget to feed the shits and pay them heed.

Go ahead and have fun. Scum. But don't dirty my land
 with your futility.

4987. NOW THE MOMENT HAS ITS CERTAIN MAGIC

NOW THE MOMENT 

HAS ITS CERTAIN MAGIC

I make it proud that you be you and I be me, and in

no uncertain terms will bow to that premise forever.

It took me a long, long time to come to that agreement

with myself. Now I sit alone, looking at the wall,

wondering what became of all the fun and happy.

I see your kid has scribbled again on the wide,

white panel where I once kept my plaque.

I'll erase it tomorrow, I guess, and no

harm in that.

4986. SO MANY TIMES THE TABBY HAS GOT ME

SO MANY TIMES THE TABBY

So many times the tabby has got me : flickering,

lingering, hanging about. It seems there's always

a tongue for the habit. In the center of the barn,

here between 18 Holstein and 2 Jersey cows, there's

a lot happening for a cat to see. And me, as well.

I've taken more than one cow-kick to the shins 

or even the face and the body; not fun.

-

Out back, through the barn doors at the rear

which open to the downward sloping field, moon

soaks snow with light, a few birds seem ready to

fly, and  -  from where I'm looking now  -   the

whole world seems ready for right. The cat

curls itself up for a sleep to the memory.

-

Tomorrow is another day  -  heard that before.

Yet it's only nearing six o'clock and here I am

already over. Done and finished. If a form of Life

is hero-worship, something like teachers or writers

who purport to teach, do, then what else is there

but derivative product? Poems after the poems of

someone else, endless writing drivel about walks

and talks 'neath the starry morn sky.

-

Be done with that crap, I say. Quit finding daisies

under piles of shit. The farmers here call this manure

spreader a honey wagon, and I know what for;

 oh yes, do I know what for.

4985. DON'T LET IT MATTER IF THE MINT MAKES THE MIND

DON'T LET IT MATTER IF THE

MINT MAKES THE MIND

I want Zoroaster back. He was just looking

great, like Superman, and then he disappeared. 

'Act fast' was his quick synopsis of all he'd seen.

I wasn't yet blemished, but I neither had direction

nor concern. Just getting by, as the tattoo says.

-

Look now look : It is deep before dawn, the new 

morning is yet scrambled. The black dark gray of the 

nighttime sky tries fading but fails. I see its gloom

still hides a desperate moon. An angel, on board

the flickering beam, drops light from something to me.

-

I can't move and I am frozen in time. It is 12 degrees

already, and I am near to gone. Over by the fenceline, 

someone walks, with a flashlight as well  -  anything,

I figure, to break the gloom and keep us all running

happy. Or, it is, at least, as I hope. At least I hope.

4984. RISING

RISING

The airs of sanctification cause a pain

as much as any other  -  I call upon this

force to direct even my arrivals and departures.

Like some tormented St. Christopher, watch

thee over me. But why you ask? Because

I get tired of fighting for the right.

-

Tumescent becomes a tired life; it fits it well.

Old and worn now, down at the edges with the

same old things  -  yes, people are clowns yet they 

flock to other clowns as well, just to see, to chatter, 

to gloat under the usual matter. It's the same old fodder 

always  -  Little Rock  and Hope and here, 

all the same, all the same page.

-

And the same red blood runs through the stone,

making me purple now with rage.

4983. CANADA IS MAKING ME OPEN UP

CANADA IS MAKING 

ME OPEN UP

( the self-lubricating stuff)

Scoville and aperture : the jarring man

in new black hair and the thread of new

noises all around. He says, 'I will be your

host,' and people move away. I fully

expected him, in a Christain sense, to 

next say 'eat me.' But he didn't, thankfully.

'Do you believe in aliens?', I ask, 'for you are 

certainly acting one yourself you know.'

He ask me if I am opening up, taking steps

to my own credit. I didn't know what he meant.

-

Somehow. Perhaps. Superlative. I am.

'Remember Genya Ravan and Asleep At 

the Wheel?' I nod. 'Why yes, I do,' I say.

'Can you not understand that you are from

another place and are only holding out positions

for the benefit of others? For the light that must

be seen.' At last, I knew I'd be going back.

-

As if holding another staff, I am rising high,

floating above the crowd and tired of the gaiety;

The robust, the playful, the fiery, the faint. Oh, yes,

the faint ones, meek of heart : they shall 

inherit the Earth (and they can have it).

4982. HORATIO RICHMOND ANTI-MATTER

HORATIO RICHMOND 

ANTI-MATTER

Oh boyos and hobos and girlos and me! The raft is

rocking; gently, sweetly, and profuse, filled with dreams 

and old letters from home. Let me go, let me : there's a

shack by the railroad, a little hermit's place, and one old 

guy inside named Fritz. We throw him money and he shoots

us with salt. His first child was a pellet gun, and it's 1954.

-

I want to dream again  -  the letter rack, the telephone bench,

the rocking chair and the love seat too. I was only a little boy,

but had to learn these names. My house was made up of things;

my mother's new phone cord was eight feet long  -  so she

wouldn't be tied to the phone when she was tied to the phone.

-

What was the matter with that? I crumbled a week later, in front 

of a train that took me down. 'Thank God it was only a locomotive,'

my Mother used to say. I never quite got that, but it meant she 
was happy that it wasn't a long train  -  it was only an engine 
and a spare and a coal car, going somewhere. 
Seemed fucking pretty long to me.

-

'Don't despair,' they used to say, 'Don't despair, Aunt Bluebell's

here.' I spent my live in a cauldron, turning and turning and 

turning to be shined like a small-kid's marble. I want

to dream again. I want to dream again.

4981. REHASH

REHASH

All things new are old again  -  now we 

are at the ready and let laughter ease

the tension. All things old are new

again; lest we miss the mention.

-

The body requires certain (and simple)

things  -  the fire hydrant source of the

fire to ease the flame. There is something

unending in all that we do  -  I am certain

this goes on forever.

-

In some sense I am alone  -  solitary, forceful

and brave.  In another, I am quite weak yet

part of another million things and people :

Men, objects, dreams and wishes.

4980. MAINSTREAM RUNNING CLEAR

MAINSTREAM RUNNING CLEAR

Let me write, OK? I am the echo of a salvage, the

creature of a kid, the third off-shoot of a vagabond

band, one guy who scurried into the ring, two others

who were shot dead. Now, we try talking, and no one

even listens, let alone understands. I snuck under the

ropes when the referee wasn't looking; the short count,

the long count, they both went against me.

-

The slats of the fence, well, some were missing  -  thin

enough for a cat to escape, thick enough for a cow. All

my stories went through with no problem  -  I lassoed

the pretty seamstress, I caught up the fallow garage. My

featured anomaly was mumps on the brain  -  in some

vast medical record my history remains. There are 

people, I know, who ask: 'How long can this go on? 

Who is the guy? How and why?' I just sit back and 

smile. Explication's in my blood, on the slipstream side :

my grandad murdered and my grandma sewed. My

Uncle Nabuko fished eels and clams on the sand.

-

The South Jersey whistles, I remember them  -  through

the pines, along the waters, up the shoreline, down home.

Me and Leo Benjamin, walking the sandy pines out behind

the retreat house and dumps, we'd find  -  nearly each time -

some girls' panties; bloomers and bras hanging in trees. It

was a local trophy custom, Friday and Saturday nights, at 

least - 'you get the babe, you leave the trade. Just to

 prove you at least got laid.' Local legend. Pineys all. I

never let no provincial gall like that get to me.

-

Every time I got to the end of that book, the one about

B'rer Rabbit, I'd get lost. A man is a man and a slave is a 

slave, but with everything written in some old-time code, well

then what were they tryin' to say? B'rer Rabbit happy and 

wise? Or not? Don't put one over on me; don't pull my leg.

-

Legerdemain  -  do you know what that is? - when the magician

does a trick by the quickness of hands : I lived a lot like that most

all my days. Singing cat 'o'nine tails to the cat o' nine lives too.

4979. IF I WASN'T SO LAZY

IF I WASN'T SO LAZY

(Hemlock)

If I wasn't so lazy I'd be dead by now : as it is,

my feet are up again. Sitting in a twist like some

hibernating bear to think and to decide about the

cold and the gold. How far should I stretch my tired

limbs? In the other room, someone putters over a

soup-bowl and a cup; regular restaurant fare for when

others  come in. Me? I haven't moved in days, just thinking.

 Pearl-handled pistols always sound like a good idea;

 but I have no more of them.

-

I need a handler; I don't need a trainer. I need someone

to tend to my place. I don't really want to talk, just yawn;

thinking  of tomorrow, and deep outer space - where the

planets can become my own eyeballs, where the light of

some reflected sun is the blanket I sleep in and wallow.

If I wasn't so lazy, I'd be dead by now,

 (having finished that last, lethal swallow

4978. THE LATE NIGHT CANON

THE LATE-NIGHT CANON
It is a far and distant wandering the
mind conjures in darkness : things peopled
with little wrens, tall buildings stretched with
lethal shadows. The flawed carapace of Mankind,
looking back, spends energy in just trying to retrieve:
all the names, all the totems of the wandering tribes,
the pathways to Eden and past and beyond. With every
excuse, this strange coffee-closet closes in, a deeper wrap
for a colder cold. I am sitting alone, like a regulatory miser.
Depending for light on the darkness, seeking the dark fort
a light : every page I can turn has an echo that, somehow,
I am lame enough to just keep reading, just keep reading on.

4977. TO WHERE THE MOON IS NOT A PLACE

TO WHERE THE MOON 

IS NOT A PLACE

Milk makes the Milky Way, but lactose intolerance

somehow kills all that. The policeman took a header,

tumbling down a long flight of stairs. Something about

a safety keeps a gun from going off. I am reminded,

immediately, of that scene at the end of Taxi Driver,

where de Niro's guy goes ape-shit and splatters all

those walls with blood like an instant Nestle Quik moment.

I remember Scorcese saying it had to be toned down in

color, the studio guys got too nervous with all that red so

they turned it more brown. Oh well. Get with the program.

-

Here I am. Alone again, naturally. When that song came

out I had an outhouse with two adult seats and one child's

seat  -  holes of certain size cut in the planks. It was cool.

My grandmother came to visit once, from far away. She

went into the outhouse, to see what it was like, and  -

unwittingly  -  walked into something that resulted in like

a hundred bee stings to her head and face. She screamed.

She thought she was going to die. She was yelling :

'Take me home! I don't want to die here!'

4976. FOR GOD'S SAKE LET THE LEMMINGS GO

FOR GOD'S SAKE LET

THE LEMMINGS GO

My computerized fake list of idiots grows  -  they have names

like Eldridge Montrose. The misanthrope who stands at the

mirror is not me. I enter where no others go, and that black

mirror takes me in. Should I ever return, I do not know.

-

Now, in icicle raiment and bright with desire, there is no one

around  me. No longer a demeaning quality to my face or 

mind. I want to coat this big-room floor with a wax and a 

dynamite clear. Children are eating cookies, leaving crumbs

at the window's sill. A woman has lit a candle, beseeching 

something for a something else. I did a leap over the pantry

just to get to the door. 

-

If I were a scribe in a tenth century cell, I'd be looking

down at something seen below. Not through glass,

exactly  -  more like something opaque, a density of

 mind, another reality entire. Since I am inclined to

accept chance when it comes my way, I think of

nothing as being awry. I accept my own 'All' of

this life  -  the swings, the arrows, the slings. All

defiant in defeat, I still in place remain. I

love the double entendre.

-

An individual with a compelling task finds himself 

often involved in ideas and actions for which he is

no longer responsible. Being motivated no longer by

caprice or arrogance, he finds himself driven instead

by a dire necessity, one which he himself cannot

comprehend. It comes down upon him with a

savage fatefulness. This man (a sometimes me)

driven by a daimon, steps beyond the limits and

enters, for himself, the untrodden, untreadable

regions  -  air there is thin. Light there is thinner.

-

It's not like heads-up in the land of the living, but

more like a heads-down in the land of the dead;

and let us all mourn together.