5217. I SADDLED YOUR ARMS

I SADDLED YOUR ARMS

The command said 'go'; said 'go and kill,

feel free'. The whispered said 'just try and 

come back to me.' War and death join together, 

somehow; they run down the arm like rich and

purple plum-juice dripping on a hot, sultry Summer 

day. Pain in the pleasure. Hurts so good. All that

comes from Death is more of what it brings  -  

and still they carry out newer rifles and guns,

never stopping even to hear the tales of the

last. The big General, the Buffoon, with ribbons

and medals and proclamations, he's over there,

leaning on a car  -  a faded gray army car  -

handling his big cigar like some artillery magnate's

daughter's fondest wish. It's all for nothing now,

and goes away. The little green Jeep, cuts in,

from the left, arriving fast; I hear the sounds, a

pow, pow, and the General's gone down.

5216. THE VISIBLE AS FUGITIVE

THE VISIBLE AS FUGITIVE

We will begin with those Frans Hals

faces : a tired and destitute old man, 

an artist, painting the faces of what new

capitalism has done to his fellows. The

flat and sunken faces of old, worked-out

women, the crooked and wirey face of 

some business-burgher-drunken-man. 

Simple statements, and peeled to the faces,

each, as they're shown. I can look no more.

5215. POSTAGE STAMP BOX ART

POSTAGE STAMP BOX ART

(11th street)

Here I am next to Webster Hall, standing

by a post office which sells DaVinci postage

stamps in blocks of sixty or so : as I think it

anyway. The fury still resounds of music hall

laughter and all those old political signs  -  knots 

of people acting as one to react and provoke. The

labor leaders now of a world long gone dead.

-

For me. For me. Inside the Post Office it is today's

fat world, and I watch them lining up  -  their struggling

packages and mistaken letters and forms. Slovak, Italian,

East European, Hispanic, Black, and Indigent all together.

Your tired and hungry and poor defectives abound : and

then the hip, once. Patent leather. Gay glasses and Izod

limbs and livers. 'The Virgin and Child With St. Anne

and St. John the Baptist' is now being sold at Window

12. A boatload of wanderlust to the traveling servants

of St. Dread. Boat to port. Reel to real.

-

Outside  -  still slathered with my pain, the crazy neon

sign of Gotham Billiards yet punctuates the time across

the street from Webster Hall; while wise-ass kids pass

the time eating donuts, and mothers and grandmas roll

something on wheels by windows; windows and shops

all in a row. Everything aligned, everywhere I go. 

DaVinci postage stamps, for sale and Window 12.

5214. STORYBOARD OK

STORYBOARD OK

I awoke listing to starboard having been a'sea for five days.

Nothing of sustenance like unto this before. I thought I

heard water running, and it was raining outside. But for 

two times twenty I was alone and repentant. Where

else could I have gone? It was, in both ways, the ending 

and the start, yet people still talked of old things.

I swore I'd never enter such debate again.

-

I manage to leave marks in stones and writings on

the walls of caves  -  things to recognize; things 

people would see. Yet earnestness like this is

such a fragile item : glass, gold, the chalice,

and each ready for the breaking anew.

5213. 'UNTIL LIONS LEARN TO WRITE, HISTORY WILL BE WRITTEN BY HUNTERS'

'UNTIL LIONS LEARN TO 

WRITE, HISTORY WILL 

BE WRITTEN BY HUNTERS'

Well, I heard that somewhere once and then read it again

recently  -  so I ain't claiming it's mine just wishing it were;

in its way, it's precise. History being written by the victors,

as the other old saw goes. But now they're chaining us to

their tables of filth and debris. I don't think we need to

like it anymore, or even accept. Let us stand tall, 

and revolt. Let us push back and rise up.

5212. DON'T DOUBT MAJESTY

DON'T DOUBT MAJESTY
Never press the lever that says pull,
and don't pull the one that says press.
That all seems so simple now : I note

they've painted the new kids' signs in a

Katzenjammer way along the broken,

starlit pavement waving me home. The 

leaves will look adorable when seen from 

home - while I'll have none and I'll be

alone. But why is a baby always the first

to quibble, or - for that matter - be

quibbled over? Like Thoreau, or maybe

Emerson, put it - watch how a baby

so quickly reduces adults to the very 

same state - all giggles, and coo's and

ah's. I'll never know why or how, but yes, 

it's a form of majesty too, all of its own.

5211. A CHOICE OF CHASTISEMENT

A CHOICE OF CHASTISEMENT

I am taking this way with me now, for I am the

blue-marvelled hightster who walks the lanes and

alleys : I have a torch for my heart and it always 

lights my way. The difference between doing and 

thinking no longer exists. I can manifest my Soul.

5210. JUST THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS UP

JUST THE WAY WE 

MAKE THINGS UP

Everything fits a fashion  -  the lines and melodies, the

harmonies of day. It's just the way we make things

up that differ. That small boat at the landing dock,

it bears a painted yellow line along its side which

balefully reflects the happy face of the girl getting

in  -  as if we are seeing the other side of the happy

that is. It's just the way we make things up. You

say tomato, I say tomahto. Farther up, on high,

the Fire Marshall in his tower sits and watches.

5209. POSITRON REFLEX

POSITRON REFLEX

Here's the way I make it now back from the

dead the very cleave'd dead, the dainty ones

who can never move but never believe again either.

An atomic bomb on the way to the USA sneaked 

on board a Malaysian jetliner filled with 44 USA agents

on the way back here  -  all is found out, in a willful

panic and admission by decision, of culpability. The

entire thing is brought down, deep to sea, and so as

not to detonate whatever portable device is aboard :

USA knows its culpability, yet can say nothing except

to spread confusion and apprehension about location, 

various 'pinging' sounds, different probable sites, differing

cover stories about durations of silences, messages, and the

rest. Everyone else who may have deceased upon the plane,

will be dealt with eventually but let's get through  this now first. 

-

I believe, I believe in nothing at all; except the trancheing of

lies and the spreading of mischief. In the duplicity of everything

and the sincerity of none. How are killers made? They are born

and go to school  and are taught the same religions as the precious

fool. Once unhinged, the metal sprite of the knife arises. All things

take their marks. The drama coach begins teaching the steps.

5208. FADING ADS OF PHILADELPHIA

THE FADING ADS 

OF PHILADELPHIA

Bombay, and not Mumbai, is how the faded postcard

named the place, in 1966. From a Mrs. Ida Wilmot to

a Jermian Phace. I could not tell the difference between

the real. You would not either, knowing how old family

portraits fade. An insensitive graffiti, all this, anyway :

maybe Jermian was her boyfriend. Was she the mother

of the son? But would the name have changed like that?

I couldn't know in any way, but in 1966 she visited India.

The faded ads of Philadelphia are like that as well :  all

these brick-checkered old buildings still somehow standing,

having withstood a plague and a riot or two, ten storms and

forty feet of snow. The old lettering still, now and then breaks

through : 'Cunnigham Soaps and Pumice' from 40 years ago.

In this day and age, now, as well call the moment, what little

maters what we've salvaged o'er the years or what's still kept

before our eyes and ears. We see nothing. We hear little.

The battles of World War II are now taught by little unionized

teachers in their slipper-feet and bunny-tail pajamas, as it

were. They tip-toe through their tulips of dread, afraid to

mistake what they haven't got right. Bombay, 

not Mumbai, is the place.

5207. HATING TO BE A RAM ON MOUNT MORIAH

HATING TO BE A RAM 

ON MOUNT MORIAH

My forces are already marshaled, and everything else

is gone. I only hear the slovenly silence yelling back.

All here is what I stole : 'You were my gym buddy ferreting

along spotty fluorescent ramps...Peach sirens, entryway

orderlies. Mangled disposition stations.' Outside of that,

I knew nothing; but what I was supposed to know from

that? I purposely sharpened my pencil in the hearts of

lonely women  -  divorced, broken in two, lonesome,

keening, fractious, tired, slovenly, lazy, sick. Nothing

else ever seemed so exciting to me. We even  -  you can

remember  -  took that trek three days deep into the

wilderness (three days, three days, all this biblical shit

is always in threes) until we reached the top. I'd always

meant to kill something, and I finally did. (Dance one

fabled evening and hear the skylark do something,

anything at all  -  go ahead, I dare you.)  -  Ever since

that noted day you know nothing's ever been the same.

I'd hate to have been that ram on Mount Moriah.

5206. DANGLING DIAMOND EARRING

DANGLING DIAMOND EARRING

Even here, in Forest Hill, Newark, I am afraid of nothing;

no danger lurks worth reporting, and I am kept with a

figment of a God. Your dangling diamond earring, that

too, means nothing now. Silks and stockings, glittering hats,

all those hipster cats at the Barclay Lounge, try shunting

all of that aside. The black guys with their funny Cadillacs

and overdone girlfriends for the night; jive talk, funny walk.

I am here in camouflage; I am a sketchbook for my heart.

In a row, some fifteen buildings glitter cheaply  -  neon-lit

and bar-room lights where people hang, half in-half out.

Music too loud to be good trounces the air and the silence

with moments of trenchant portrayal while another deal

for flesh or sin is finalized. In a hurry, everyone moves

so slowly as to be seen. No digression tolerated.

Yet I am not afraid. Not money, not glitter, not

your dangling diamond earring will take this

night away  -  no man can stand up to the

power of me. That bootstrap is a gutter 

by which I'm lifted up. I'm richer than

the rest, in a thousand different ways.

5205. DELIVER THE LETTER THE SOONER THE BETTER

DELIVER THE LETTER 

THE SOONER THE BETTER

Old men were sitting around. I swear I saw Elvis too.

And a John Lennon type waltzed in with a Bo Diddley beat.

Johhny B. Goode was standing in the shadows. I discerned

nothing but little that was good. Spotswood and Jamesburg.

That's where I'll be going. (There's a big book in the corner,

filled with names and faces too, and everyone always smiles).

-

This building is made of sugar, and that one has a candy-cane

spine. Three steps up, the Grange Hall of Robert Bly is opened

wide while all tractors, left running, are singing. No one watches

but I do, warily. The single black cat of Esther Ray is on  hold.

It too is awake with its one blind eye. Old men, sitting around.

5204. DARK MATTER

DARK MATTER

Negative royalty is eating crabs and watermelon,

flank steaks and marble cake. We need not lift a

finger. Catalogue the bromides, my own leige and

lief. I am the matter made of flesh and blood.

-

Outside the doorway, the crippled mayor is

walking his dog. He is unaffected by and earth

with its currents : of air, of things. Of light or dark.

His uncredited dog is in his walk-on role. Insipid. Lame.

-

Can we, can we, stop and talk, pass the time of day?

No, no, I must be going. No, no not like this at all.

5203. A SIMPLE LANDSCAPE OF LINES

A SIMPLE LANDSCAPE 

OF LINES

And now a far design for a new season.

Out of Adam Pelt am I, and left here waiting;

(aw, go jump out of a lake). Inland layers,

1. people in trees; 2.monsters with claws;

3. and sirens, all on the scary sea.

'And how many have fit against the hem

of her memory? (Yangtze Charles) : one

poet of only the great river; all similar ground.

(a simple landscape of lines). Every so often 

a mystery  -  something serene yet unknown  -  

arises. FRIGHT  WIG  CADAVER.

The Sad King : The King has a mountain

he cannot miss. It is a coronation of power

and light - yet - He knows it not.

[Old Punk Art] : Much blackened and

over-dressed swine. 

-GALLERY 45 OPENING-

New Art For the New Masses.

Assess. Asses. (Like the wine-dark sea).

-

Then, to stack the house against myself, I 

have the habit of doing things I don't remember,

of not being 'there'. Doorways and windows too.

-

The flaming mountain ignites itself?

While all the hillside village sleeps.

5202. MY MAIN-FRAME CHANGE

MY MAIN-FRAME CHANGE

My moonlight on your chin : oh God how I love you.

The dark trees along the river's edge, they amass 

themselves between light and shadow, shade and 

darkness. I can see nothing else. There's nothing

else to see anyway. And this matter at hand,

whatever it may be, is useless after all.

-

Without quarrel I have lived this filthy life - a sordid

intelrude between one death and another, between

a life and another try at same. Now, now, I ask for

nothing. I want nothing. Little given, little taken back.

-

My scrimmage at the goal-line includes no baggage

nor any tickets for other destinations. I am nothing

but a candle here, representing all that I have been.

I sought only Goodness and the hearts of men  -  and

have (somehow now) found all of that and more.

All of that, and so much more.

5201. MR. DRAGOVICH

MR. DRAGOVICH

(the ancients)

He sold office real estate down by the marshes and park. 

He'd shortened his business name to 'Dragos' and had a son,

Jeffrey, with whom I played. We did lots together though I

cannot remember much. Bicycles, baseball, and some banter,

I guess. Those years were long ago, and mostly now fulfilled -

things like Sputnik and Erector Sets kept us busy. The world

was a flat pancake  - which made me always understand how

some of those ancients felt. Expectations and linear thinking

only extend outward in a long, flat sequence. When all things 

are the same no one understands the circularity of a circle

and all its expectations. I think Mr. Dragovich is long-dead

now, and, Jeffrey, who knows where. My own world has

imploded and re-formed any number of times; all these 

momentary flashes - like everything else - now slowly

sinking deep into their own black hole to re-appear

somewhere, pristine and whole and entire again.

5200. CIRCUMSTANCES

CIRCUMSTANCES

(the new eugene o'neil)

This one rolls over, leaves me behind, gasping;

and only the following conclusions can be made  -

the Lone Ranger was never alone, the wind in the

willows was shut off long ago, and 'Intimations of

Immortality' is really a dreary read. Every instance 

of collateral damage is a monetary gain for someone.

-

I'm sitting back here, reading a newspaper riddled 

with facts that don't lie. My small glass of iced tea is

turning to something else, like the words I am reading:

lies, distortions and fantasies with purpose. 'Old Mother

Hubbard sat in her cubbard eating her curds and whey,

along came a spider who was known to invite her to a

fantasy camp near every day.' Twisted logic, and all

the newfound pretzels in the world. Hanover, PA is

a good place for that.

-

In the local lingo, 'going bowling' means your

seeing a man about a dog. Or a horse. I already

forget. Some of the big barns have distlefinks gaily

painted, and beneath them old women in dainty head 

bonnets sit  -  counting buttons or feeding chickens.

From what I've noticed, for each old lady there's

three young daughters. You do the math. You 

count the orders. The Eggman cometh.

5199. FRIGHT WIG CADAVER

FRIGHT WIG CADAVER

This Andy Warhol jig is up : something silver

yet moves. Give me all your chances now.

(The song moves through air, resounding off

buildings, creeping about like a widow in the

dark). I have no understanding of surprise.

-

I see you are a proper lass. I see the gentleman

lurking  -  only those who demand for company.

Silver platters and silver foil, like silver hair, are

mostly unbecoming. I should move away.

-

Every so often a mystery  -  something
serene yet unknown  -  arises.
I heard some silly girl say : 'when my

bed caught fire, it smelled like a garden.'

I have no understanding of surprise.

5198. ALL MY NEIGHBORS

ALL MY NEIGHBORS

All my neighbors are gruesome fellows, growing

stock keys and knives in the middle of their gardens;

keeping wealthy wives locked deep within a closet.

I barely speak to them, but nod. Every milkman they've

ever had never left the house alive, was never seen again.

I've got some gruesome neighbors with kith and kin of

oh such monstrous proportions. They light rooftop fires

just to read the mail. They pour hot lava down upon us

all just to make their own comfortable warmth. How any

of this ever got started is all beyond me; but now, for

the moment, that's they way it is and how it's gonna' be.

5197. RAINING IN THE HOLE

RAINING IN THE HOLE

It's raining in the hole and this is not the

Comstock Lode. Don't try to remember:

the guys who ran the art museum are all

dead.  What's left on the walls behind them

are just the shadowed marks where paintings 

used to hang. Dreams. Wishes. All that

fulfillment stuff. The only thing that matters in

the end is the ending. As was said by that 

Costello guy in the Boston crime movie, 

after the other  fellow at the bar says his 

mother's not doing well - 'she's on her way 

out'  -  he says 'We all are; act accordingly.'

I like that, and excuse me for being direct but

it's a hit and all men are going down.

-

Nothing to steal; my mother's jewelry box was 

filled with junk  -  costume jewelry and big, red

clip-on earrings in the shape of a rose only a clown 

would wear. I sometimes wondered why I ever 

came down that chute : made me wince and made

me cry. My origins were nothing much, but who's

to blame for that? Now I compare myself to any

of the dregs I see on 34th, and I laugh aloud.

Fat, black mamas with asses the size of Georgia,

and skinny black guys with pinpricks for eyes, doing

the sidewalk shuffle while talking loudly and looking 

for change. Money, not the other item. And I wonder

why I'm still alive : for Jesus Christ O'Malley's sake what

am I doing here? It's a hit and all men are going down.

-

The felt hat is worn like a cadaver. The black coat fits

no man at all. That woman's fake ermine rides the carp

like a taxi on a scam. The policeman is whistling his

idle tune while sizing up the post office goon, that guy

on two good legs coming down the steps. 

Grand finale, hot tamale. It's a hit and
all men are going down.

5196. STOOL PIGEON

STOOL PIGEON

I know what that means  -  that filthy bird

that hangs around shit. The flowers are all

gone and I don't care. Pavement and the

workers that go with it have come to town;

they've replaced many lawns with lumber.

Small cars owned by students boarding in

the rooms above are cluttering the lots along

the way  -  I can see the people coming down 

to the streets; upon their places and upon their

ways. To something else I'd guess, but not

guess at. I wonder why it's me who gets all

the space to tell these tales, make these words.

Back in Bayonne I can remember my own;

my grandmother  -  saying she was going to

the 'terlet to make water.' How is it that people

speak their natural language so strangely? Or is

 it not natural at all? Sometimes I knew what

she was going to say before she said it and it

was all nothing at all. Strange ways and I am

bereft. I have no honor; left at the gate as it 

was. My home was a great arm, which I used

to maneuver things around me  -  to get me out 

of place and bring me along to something else.

The men of Art, and all their boozing women.

5195. ALL THOSE THINGS I MIGHT HAVE WISHED FOR

ALL THOSE THINGS I 

MIGHT HAVE WISHED FOR
(Luna)

How many have brushed against the hem of her garment? 
How many more have lingered by the fabric of her memory?
All those things I might have wished for (long ago and distant) 
have come to pass and I find myself needing nothing at all 
(just misplaced energy and idle items staining the ground).

5194. BEING AT BREAKAWAY RIVER

BEING AT BREAKAWAY RIVER

And suddenly sleeping in caves for we've nowhere else

to go. Like Breugel's Village Wedding Feast, we are

crazed and busy with anticipation; all swollen, misshapen

people scurrying around. I see nothing pretty in any of that.

A swollen face is like a swollen loaf of bread. The face

with creases looks like the walking dead. And then the

lethal Magi arrive, showing up but to look like clowns,

old, strange fops from another, distant land. We are

 landed, yes, living in caves, here at Breakaway River.

5193. PAINTING THE NAKED BODY

PAINTING THE 

NAKED BODY

Every artist assumes something  -  that the line just

drawn will end; that infinite space will eventually contract

and run back into each other  -  as time bends space, inward,

so too the line. The splotch of color, anywhere, is sometimes

just a mistake, a smudge, an errant dollop of cerulean blue.

5192. WHAT I MEAN IS TO CREAM YOU

WHAT I MEAN 

IS TO CREAM YOU

There comes nothing from Nazareth, no good anyway :

the streetlights of that dumpy town still burn tallow,

donkey wax, the creepy drippings for animal assholes.

Every cash register has a man with a checklist right

next to you : like me he has much to say  -  'I don't

want to hear about it anymore, I'm tired of what you 

say to me. I have to listen endlessly to your stories

of dormers and gutters, things you built with your

carpenter hands. Go away.' Something goes, better

than the quiver of an arrow in the arc of shooting a

bird. Straight and steady, into the target's heart. Like

that, all in this little brown town hold meaning to their

mind and faces as personal things, not worth sharing. 

I did, at one point, I admit, love every daughter in this 

town. My name is still graffito'd on many a postal-dump

box. no good comes from Nazareth, nothing good at all.

Jacob, just go away. Please go away now.

5191. CAPE HATTERAS HAS ITS LIGHTHOUSE

CAPE HATTERAS 

HAS ITS LIGHTHOUSE

The seeming winner of the trilogy has come home to his 

Outer Banks Harbor, only to sit alone and watch. His wife is 
gone  -  a long-pilloried fleshpot anyway no matter. A staple 
on the sign of life, he sits forlorn and confused about this crazy

life on land. 'Crazy travelers all, and we're back together

again.' Then he adds, 'and it's a good thing too, for I was

way lost and far-off.' There are no more reasons than that

for a man to pine for this existence, even when he has it.

In the deep dark of early morning, just before the break

of the light, this time it is me looking up at the strangely

reddened sky. 'In morning take warning.' I still hear

that like a Saturday morning disaster bulletin breaking

into a cartoon-character show  -  'red sky at night,
sailor's delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.'

5190. ALL MY LIFE

ALL MY LIFE

I am gone now; just a trace remaining, yet all

my life I kept waiting for something to break out  -

some ragged, raging beat for the slow music of

time  -  I'd been listening to that dirge forever,

yet nothing ever happened. And now, so many 

years later my mind is a box, broken with a bad 

lid at the top. Fifty years ago it little mattered.

Every dark street led somewhere new, everyone 

belonged to another; I was homeless and, it seemed,

arrayed against myself. I took any hand offered, 

and I walked off down any wooded lane.

5189. MANNERISM

MANNERISM

I am an artist of dead chalk and yellow blood,

leaving my strange markings on neighborhood

walls  -  you may have seen. May have not. I

am not sure, quite, if there's really a difference

at all. Here, let me catalogue : Moon, stars, sun

planets, mists of cloud and smoky matter, distant

dots on an unbroken sky. I see things like they are,

or may have been. Recreate the planeload of that

mirror, please  -  like an unpaid astronaut waiting

for air; that's me. (I remember very cold air, of a

Winter's night, in Elmira. It had been frigid for twenty 

days, everything frozen rock solid: like ice, a sculpted

masterpiece of this world had turned to stone).

5188. I SEE WHAT YOU DON'T SEE

I SEE WHAT 

YOU DON'T SEE

I drop things all the time and then I cannot pick them

up; my life is a baleful hole and I have little room to

move, no place left to maneuver. 'I wake up with 

this marble head in my hand, which soon exhausts 

my elbows, and I don't know where to lay it down.'

If it's broken, don't fix it; or, maybe, if it's not broken,

don't fix it. I forget how that goes. Here, where I am sitting,

everything is broken, nothing's fixed and everything fixed

was never broken anyway. Just like a flag on the land

of someone else  - your own flag exactly  -  you realize 

quite suddenly that it was not YOU who put it 

there and you do not know what to do.

5187. KEEP THE MARGIN ACTIVE

KEEP THE MARGIN ACTIVE

There's nothing pure left. That old, rustic church

on the footpath to Blight Ridge, it bespeaks another

age  -  when purity reigned. Peasants in a circle, singing.

Farmhands loaned out, raising barns and raising bridges.

Nothing goes on with direction : the one match that lights

a hundred fires. Two men stand, leaning against a thick,

wooden fence. They're close to disagreeing about 

something  -  I can sense their anger rising. Towards 

each other, and all about, to everything else as well.

There really isn't anything pure left.

5186. THE WAY YOU GET

THE WAY YOU GET

There are so many avenues to take just to reach

the lake; it's all mind-boggling how this could be.

Two hundred years ago, nothing here at all; now,

a dungheap of wrappers and junk, a broken canoe

with sunlight for a bottom. The sheen of oil glistens.

5185. PISSING ON MOUNT ARARAT

PISSING ON MOUNT ARARAT

The rooftops are secured by love. There 

is more true realism in the craziest picture 

of the most abstract subjectivist, in the silent 

concoction of lines, dots and spots, than in all 

the harmonious worlds commissioned by 

bureaucrats. A strange, silly, crazy picture is, 

after all, a true expression of at least 

one living human's soul.

-

A mountain had died : all that was left were

its rocks, its fields of stone. Along the sideway,

the craftsman was making metal wreaths adorned

with metal leaves. At every local village funeral here

in these mountains there are some hundred plus

people and usually as many wreaths as people. The

creator of these funeral wreaths has become rich.

-

Notwithstanding the rest, I stand before a pile of bricks

on a rock-strewn hilltop, alone. Some old, broken

construction site, long ago unfinished, is before me. I

am pissing on 600-year old bricks and all the ground

beneath. The relief of a poetry like no other : for thousands

of years poets have been striving to convey Happiness.

That, now, which I have here achieved.

5184. UPSET THE CHARACTER OF THE FREE MARKET

UPSET THE CHARACTER 

OF THE FREE MARKET

Kill the beast in Triton. Line the roads with the famished

and the dying. The dead can fend for themselves. We here

have already achieved so much. Land of the Great, America!

We've already got our first woman President  -  fact being that

he's a black woman is even better. We've already had our first

Black President some time ago. His name was Bill and we're

paying still. The next was a George, not Washington mind you,

but who'd want that anyway? The Georges and the Bills, and

together with the new one who shops for sweaters in New York

City, we're a well-rounded mass of lumpishness going nowhere

soon. The crime of Crimea can happen to any goon. Lift not a

finger to wag the dog; run a nice mouth, talk it down. But I

respond thusly :  'I am the ice monger, the fisher, the ringer of

bells, the man who toils to bring up the rear, dragging forth the

old ideology of fear lest we faint from dread  -  dread which

is always with us, intent among us, within our hearts and souls,

never leaving, always present, just here. Just here. Just hear.'

5183. TENDENTIOUS LOTIONS OF TIME

TENDENTIOUS 

LOTIONS OF TIME

Only fish and the busy cutters

who cut  -  all on the shores of 

Lake Savan, where the unattended

communists of old are still working

to build their empire. The singular

world of all those old-timers : 

Uspensky, Roerish, Ozanyan, 

Nalbandian. So many busy Armenian 

names I no longer can recall them

all at all. And here, and here, this

lousy English is sometimes I think

such a dead-end. I leave it go for

there is nothing to say  -  nothing high

or exalted anyway. Everything we

debase : Comfort Inn Hideaway

Retreat, and  -  of course  -  'music'

as well, everywhere. The tendentious

lotions of American time, like this,

make me sick all well enough, sick.

5182. ST. JOHN AUX FRANCE

ST. JOHN AUX FRANCE

Never existed, I made him up. He was a

holy man nonetheless. Used to stick forks

in his eyes to show his imperviousness.

The masses roared and the Cardinals

cringed. They knew on the holy days this

man would work wonders : used to peel

water with the slice of a knife, recite

chemical formulas while standing up

on one leg alone for hours on end.

Dwarfed all the giants and roared

on for hours. Kept the good office

on the top of the towers : every

national cathedral worldwide

held a bed set aside just

for him.

5181. DREARY LORD JIM

DREARY LORD JIM

The milk on the table has no beginnings; it's

always been around. At least for me, in my 

brain, years before, it was planted. Timeless 

and ever-present. Without change. That's how

things are. Like an M&M, or a car  -  the core,

the essential idea, pre-dates itself. Eternity falling

through envious space, while each of us looks on,

absorbing what  we see. So. I. Call. It. That.

What does it take to make real change? A new

revolution by a gun, replacing the old revolution

by a gun? The one which only now is mythologized

in every fourth-grade classroom by unionized

teachers working for the state. Getting paid by

tax dollars while preaching Free. Enterprise.

I. Do. Not. Know. I just have to pay. Oh, an

endless heed is all all this for useless chimeras 

of Freedom and Cloak and Dagger and Belief

in everything equal and fine and equitably right.

Ma'am, please, if you will, pass me the bullshit.

Please.

5180. TEAR ME DOWN SOME, I KNOW I CAN COMMUNICATE WITH DOGS

TEAR ME DOWN SOME, 
I KNOW I CAN

COMMUNICATE 
WITH DOGS

I don't have to prove a thing. Isn't that weird? The brainstorm

where the candy-store was is now a bowling alley made of

green. My lead dog Guider pisses there all the time. We talk.

-

My second dog, Jingo the Parasite, has a sister who's an elf. We

understand that to be exceptional, and discuss its ins and outs in 

our own courtly manner  -  from a long line of junkers, he knows

what the junkyard dog feels. Pontiacs and a Lincoln in rare

profusion; everything together, baling his hay and feed.

-

The third dog I want to mention is the worse of the three : I call

her Dioge, pronouncing the 'e'. You may think, as I did once, that 

it's short for his full name, Diogenes. But it's not. Simply put, the

fine dog's name is D O G; spells dog. These are elements of things

I can talk of. We communicate well, these canines and me.