5309. I'VE GIVEN NOTHING

I'VE GIVEN NOTHING

Who was this cat with the New-Age jolt? Everything as

illusion? Memories of the time-warp? Watch out for

all that; I've got Jane Roberts for wallpaper in my

study. Every word I've ever spoken has come back

now to haunt me. Mellicent in the fog. Kendrick in

the oasis. I am so moved. I am so moved.

5308. NEVER MIND THE MEDDLING

NEVER MIND THE MEDDLING

The cavernous bear is sleeping anew : the animal

in its wide cove, safe lair. I'm eating crackers right

over its head. No matter, never mind. My human

blood tracks nothing now. 

-

I've entered these storybook pages wearing nothing

but skin and bones : a fine and perfect cover for what

I want to be. Dangers are coming along, at each turn,

 I know. I can withstand it all  -  the broken foot, the

broken arm. We make parables and analogies all.

-

They do the work of a hundred fine men. The slumber

that ends in fire : Hirsohima, Nagasaki, coming home.

5307. ANOTHER LIFE

ANOTHER LIFE

In a misunderstood radiance, the moments divide

themselves : here the fenceline sags, there the

workshed leans. I've spent five years like this, in

a fictional homburg, wearing a sliced coat and a 

a shell-fish hat, just thinking about moves. 

Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, nineteen 

hundred and seventy two.

-

Just then it was : my farmfield, comprised of idle

acres  - we mowed for hay that Summer, while I

worked for milk. The old red toolbarn, twice as tall

as a man, half a bungalow long, ended up standing

for everything I'd ever known. I made a workshed

out of it; some chains on the wall, bookshelves and a

table with chair, from which to write. And I did.

-

Nothing ever changes like that which changes one's

mind. I found a new world, and another life.

5306. THIS RAIN

THIS RAIN

(excerpt)

I have all Bill Burrough's late NYC addresses; they are

jumbled in my pocket. Most especially did I like the

Bunker, 222 Bowery  -  like 1976, or so. It was built

in 1884-85 to house the Young Men's Institute, the

first New York branch of the YMCA, and in 1915

a rear three-story addition was built to provide a

swimming pool, enlarged gym, and a locker room.

Bill moved into the locker room, what had been,

below the gym  -  which used to be Mark Rothko's

studio, and above the abandoned swimming pool.

The first artist to live there was Fernand Leger, in

1940-41 after he'd escaped the war in France. Right

next door was the Prince Hotel, a flophouse for

Bowery bums, who were regularly found frozen to

death on the doorstep in Winter. The Bowery Mission

and the Salvation Army were directly across the street.

a guy named Wynn Chamberlain had a loft upstairs,

where Burroughs had given a reading back in 1965, and,

importantly, John Giorno lived in the building in a loft

overlooking the Bowery. It was to become a legendary

for Burroughs along with the Beat Hotel, but he only

lived there continuously for three years, all of 1979 

until 1981. The drug years. The loft was one huge

space with a concrete floor and windows that were

inches from the opposite wall outside. These they

painted over. A previous tenant had built stud-walling

to divide the space into an office, a bedroom, and a large

living-space with an open-plan kitchen at one side. 

Everything was painted white. The concrete floor was

scrubbed. The locker-room bathroom still contained

a row of urinals, cubicles, and a choice of sinks. The

space was very live; it echoed slightly and there was a

caused by the refrigerator. In Bill's bedroom six heating

pipes and three drainage pipes ran floor to ceiling in the

corner to the right of his bed and there was a sprinkler

system on the ceiling. Andy Warhol described the Bunker

in his diaries : 'There's no windows. It's all white and neat

and looks like sculpture all over, the way the pipes are.

Bill sleeps in another room, on the floor.' It was otherwise

bare, functional, a place for work and the exchange of ideas.

-

In Feb. 1977, Burroughs returned to Boulder in order to be 

near his son, Billy. He took an apartment, #415, on the fourth

floor of Varsity Manor, at 1155 Marine.  (Burroughs pronounced

 it 'Man-OR'). He had a schedule of readings; North Carolina

(Chapel Hill Arts Festival) with Allen Ginsberg and John Cage.

The most memorable reading from this period was in Washington,

D. C., at the Corcoran Gallery. His group stayed with the

Washington hostess Amy Huntington Block in Georgetown

where they could look right across the street at Henry Kissinger's

house. Amy pointed out all the boys walking around the street

and explained that they 'serviced' the foreign embassies. The boys

were watched by the Secret Service but not interfered with as

they waited to be invited indoors or for a limo to pick them up.

At the Corcoran reading, Bill read his 'When Did I Stop Wanting

To Be President?' to the cream of D. C. society.

-

Oh, where was I? This rain has gotten my pants soaking wet.

5305. MY NEWEST HOUSE

MY NEWEST HOUSE

I went to film school with a blind man named Dave; he was

a cop later caught stealing. His mother was avid in her

playing of cards : 'My son', she said, 'my son played them

all wrong.' Harumph to that, I thought. The first short film I 

made I made for him  -  dedicated to both him and his mom.

'A regular pair of all-day suckers'  -  that's how I put it.

It was a twenty minute short about monkeys on a boat.

First there are four, then there are six. No one knows

how that happened, but two get thrown overboard. The

camera lingers on them, slowly drowning  -  like a human

would in about the same amount of time. They drown slowly,

in excruciating close up, gurgling, then puking as the brine

does them in. I didn't really know how monkeys died

when they drowned, but I went ahead anyway. Then there

were three. I left that a mystery. They all got along :

played cards and sang songs, the kind of songs a

monkey would sing if a monkey would sing.

That's what made this film so different. It won

a few awards. Palm D'Torre, Madaglio D'oro.

Things like that, in other lands. Where they

know the difference between  -  really  -  

good and bad. Here, stateside, no one

cared. Like Dave's mother said, they

played them all wrong. I took the 

money from the awards and

bought a new house. Got 

it for a song, knew

it all along.

5304. I TAKE NOTHING BACK

I TAKE NOTHING BACK

I take nothing back and wherever I am with my dog is good

enough for me to be :  the old wooden doorway at Chumley's,

me talking with an ancient Anne Adams. And then she died.

The whole place later collapsed, and it's been closed now for

years. Ooh la la, and all the rest. I could best the best there.

-

I take nothing back, and wherever I am with my dog is

good enough for me : something like the Bowl-Mor, at midnite,

as they put it. All those crazy NYU drunks and their stupid

naked bowling. used to be, right there, a place called Amy's.

Always good food, even without meat or sugar. Sweet enough.

-

I take nothing back. And wherever I am with my dog is good

enough for me : Bobbie Beddia and me; he's dead now, poor

fellow friend. NY Fireman, survived WTC only to die some

bad time later in the Deutsche Bank fire. I was broken up

over that  -  all bad omens, everything sour.

-

I take nothing back. The rest is, well history?

5303. MISHAP

MISHAP

I see with my eyes : everything arranged before me.

The  mishaps and the gloom, the energy and the joy.

Happiness brings things closer, yet all distance is not

real? What have I to show for being here? The light

is on in the canyon, the faces of people I know are

now bared before the campfire site. No one speaks.

The book opens to doom  - chapter and verse.

5302. SLOBBERING BEAST, UNBEARABLE FEAST

SLOBBERING BEAST, 

UNBEARABLE FEAST

My mother wore velvet and fake furs to church, while my

father preferred his plain suits. They often, together,

looked like some American Gothic in reverse  -  the

pitchfork, by the way, in either one's back. That

was my legacy, that's how I lived. Sylvia Plath

had nothing on me  -  all the 'Daddy' stuff pales

when put alongside. I burned coals in the plams

of my hands; my stigmata was the gloom of

betrayal and mirth together combined : all those

Ed Sullivan nightmares pre-dating the Beatles.

Elvis fucking Presley swiveling his hips? Only

my Aunt Adele was outraged. The hot coals

still singe my hands. My mother, I recall, was

furious one long ride home  -  because my father

had laughed at a joke my uncle told. I was eight

years old, and still remember not quite understanding

whatever the punchline was : 'My wife can't wrestle,

but you should see her box.'

5301. SEEING IS BELIEVING?

SEEING IS BELIEVING?

One such stolen moment is enough to make one

cry : a stolen car, a broken key, a mistress. I am

Spartacus. I am brave Ulysses. I am Odysseus.

I am Telemachus. (I want to find Rilke, but he

is gone). All that swarming emotion. Are you

committed to walking around? Do you have, or

need, a girlfriend now? 'Mike paid a woman who

lived down the street...' I stopped listening, and

just walked away. Most spare time is uneventful -

the Brooklyn Navy Yard, all those finicky artist

types, and those middle-aged women discovering

new callings : canvas boards, crumpets, tea, cakes

and platters. Frozen jewelry braised by fingers;

soft spots of quartz and gold, the lace of things

all woven together as one. We sing. Maladroitly,

yet we sing. I have a chaser to follow my beer.

I have a chaser to follow my beer (and that's 

another thing most annoying here, the artisinal

quality of home-brewed beer).

5300. PARADOXICAL

PARADOXICAL

If this old Chevy

pulls this boat,

can water be

far behind?

5299. SIDELINE THE CONSTABULARY

SIDELINE THE CONSTABULARY

(Bear Mountain Bridge)

Now I get nothing. There's no back nor front. Sitting in

daylight at a long, green table, looking ahead to the fronted

mountain before me. Rockslide, climber-paths, Appalachian

Trail. Why would I do it, how should I fail?

-

When death enters in, there's always an investigation.

How high was the marker along the way; who put

it here, how secure was it? I have these thoughts,

now. I get nothing; no back, no front.

-

The small car, from up here, looked like a half-sized

something. One policeman exited  -  something caught

my eye. He was wearing a yellow slicker, with

 no rain in sight.

5298. MIXED UP

MIXED UP

It'll all be gone by tomorrow : blue car, red car,

and nothing standing in the way. This tree has been

in place for thirty years. I remember it being planted.

The picnic bench, even then, seemed sinking to the right.

-

Now-times it's Spring again. The tree, after one storm

or another, has lost a major limb; well, nearly half.

Part of the bench-wood is broken off : use, abuse

or just plain damage. Nothing ever changes.

5297. CLARION

CLARION

The steps of St. Ladislaw's were filled with

people  -  it seemed a special day. A saint from some

Polish town was being entered. Just like a storybook

with some funny pages missing, people lined up just

to stay in place. For me, there are no miracles, and

the dead never rise from their death. Boiling water

kills germs and bacteria, but the crowd, with its voice,

still swells. Here is the call I was waiting for.

5296. SAYING THINGS ONCE

SAYING THINGS ONCE

No more than. Not needed. I have

no intention, nor interest either. Look 

at the flicking wonder of that girl's eyes. 

She's seen it all and sees it all again. 

5295. FROZEN OUT OF THE CIVIL WAR

FROZEN OUT OF 

THE CIVIL WAR

They kept me away, under lock and key.

I never even made it to Andersonville. Only

thirteen, but so what  -  others just as young 

had died and fought, and that's all I wanted.

True, I had my own cause, but I told no one.

It didn't seem they'd ever care : horses and

dogs and cannons. Those were the things I

was good at. But no one wanted me on either

side. I thought too bad of that, yet fought

no matter, and went ahead and died. Now

they've got me in this unmarked grave, a 

Carolina boy, etched as 'Unknown' and 

found on the ground, dead and alone.

5294. WATERBOY

WATERBOY

I guess it's a natural thing to wish to go home 

again, even after home has been proven to be

gone. Time exists in layers, amidst overlays

of occurrence. We cannot undo the past, as 

all that ever was no longer is. You may know 

that bulb you planted last year as it reappears

right now, but it is not the same. Time is the

ne'er do well dweller in a hut made of straw.

-

I walk past the fruit vendor, with his tiny dollar

bananas and his enormous by contrast zucchinis.

I watch the passers-by exult  -  they stop to talk 

or buy. Apples, bananas, even artichokes and

kale. Items arrayed, not for color or size, but

for being, alone. Presence. Existence within

our world of time. 'I wish to eat this. I shall.'

-

Someone like a Waterboy on a football team  - 

the high school kind, the kid who was otherwise

good for nothing, and certainly not good at sport.

He always came up last. 'Let's make him the

Waterboy', they'd laugh; that someone to schlep, 

that pity-case with little talent. He gets planted

anew, yet returns, each year, always the same,
doing what he's told to do.

5293. ALL THE HANDIWORK OF MANKIND

ALL THE HANDIWORK 

OF MANKIND

(the kaye boyle story)

She was the last daughter of a brute  -  some drunken guy

who spent his nights passed out on the living room floor.

Never getting up, he drove himself to death  -  cerebral,

physical, thrombosis, the rest. She grew up thinking of 

these things. 'I just want escape,' she thought to herself.

-

Married a tailor, then remarried a gent. Found they had

some money, to Europe they went. Sitting outside at

some Parisian Campari table, she looked around at said,

'Yes, yes, this could be my completion. All the better works 

of Mankind could get no better than this.' Then, five years

later, they found her dead. The mysteries deepened.

-

Her friends wondered nothing : 'She was always so

strange; we couldn't understand her; she's gone,  

it's a shame.' 

5292. STUNNING IMPRECISION

STUNNING IMPRECISION

The attic door was in the basement stairwell, the topmost

window opened to the kitchen, the bathroom was outside

on the lawn : 'How did this happen?' I had to ask, 'were not

the blueprints followed or the places we'd designed kept to

suit?' A man piped up, 'We don't design 'em; we just build.'

I suddenly realized what I understood. There is no place like

place and any historic value to living this life is given away

in good will and grace. Was it not up to me to keep watch?

-

Had I, I would have seen how events lost control and

how things got twisted and jarred. I'd have noticed the

pilot light in the bedroom window, the stove at the back 

of the hall. Is this not always the way? How life gets its

theme all muddled, its meanings out of control, its order

disordered for all? I think of a tyrant, a mass-murder

dictator, some major-domo goon pulling the strings :

he squeezes out what he can for control, until even

that dead doll sings. In his hands, a jumbled mass

of twisted plans that no one ever stopped before.

-

With stunning imprecision, things pile up, break free,

lose control  -  and take down the whole land,

villages and all.

5291. SCHOLARS HAVE NO HOUSES

SCHOLARS HAVE NO HOUSES

Like a rat in a low-income project, there are

plenty of things on which to feed : stolen potatoes

and purloined pears. It's all there for the taking.

I live in a rickety shack, made of a glaze and a

shimmer of something  -  imaginatively put

together, pasted and slim, stern and solid, together.

My blind eye just gives me the other out of which

to see  -  things get more difficult, but they're there.

Cinderella and Snow White together, jumping; and

I am the Seven Dwarfs. With nowhere to live I have

nothing to hide and nothing to keep. I can sing at

will to the stars and the ivy. Rather difficult, again,

but no one listens to a thing I say. Simply put then :

'Scholars, I say, have no houses.'

5290. RUNNING THE FORBES CYCLE

RUNNING THE FORBES CYCLE

Never such a wondrous window running past the

scene of delightful things : I held up my hand and got

picked. It was way too long ago  -  the old guy got

 lost on a local road, turned to me and said 'take it

away.' We got where we were going, by turning 

around and running backward. Like my childhood

days for sure. I remembered everything, as I ran

back into it. I've had these ghosts running with me

all this time. Holidays out of Eden; tame and crazed,

alike. We drink to the seasons, we drink to the guys; 

we drink to the dead ones, we drink to the live.

5289. NOT MY FAVORITE RIFLE

NOT MY FAVORITE RIFLE

Once when it was small-game season in Pennsylvania

a group of guys were shooting squirrels and rabbits.

They just went at it with glee and happiness, as if

it was the most natural thing in the world. I had to 

stand back  -  I was the outsider there, a newcomer 

with, really, little sense of place. 'My Daddy taught

me this when I was ten.' Someone said that to me

as they were nailing pheasant carcasses to the side 

of their barn  -  something about both 'trophy value'

for others to see and a drying process for feathers.

Another time I watched, they shot squirrels at will,

and then just left them  -  to die, if they weren't

dead already, and some weren't. I was aghast.

These boys were men in their minds but kids in

their fractured little mental cases  -  want to run

and want to shoot. Let's find any excuse to do it.

5288. 'I DON'T HAVE NO VALET'

'I DON'T HAVE NO VALET'

Nor wallet nor safe nor safe deposit box.

What are you thinking, really? Fixated 

minion of some monied clan, not me. 

My mother used to send me out for 

bread, when it was three loaves for 

a dollar. Let alone the fishes. I tied 

my shoes with vines and string. I ran 

in place to get someplace. I ran in 

place to get someplace.
-
I don't have no valet, and I
wouldn't want one anyway.

5287. AND SO LET US MARCH TO WAR

AND SO LET US 
MARCH TO WAR

We will go, holding each other steady : some miscreant from

the bomb factory has left these things behind. We can take

them now. Fuse. Wick. Timer. What's the difference, and

what's the use? I don't know. Everything that happens

happens for a reason, but those things that did not happen

did not happen then for a reason also? Too deep and now

confusing, all that, for me. Those things that did not happen,

they really happened anyway? I am limbless now because this

bomb went off in my hands? If that did not happen, then

what did, and why? scant motive, scant reason, for living.

And so, let us march to war  -  holding the meanings

we want, whatever shade of misery we select. We can

shoot the abject maiden and her children. We can kill the

farmer's cows. If he resists, he too will have to go. We will

burn all the huts in a row, and decimate the houses and

their clans. Nothing ought to be left. We will claim this

as our land. And so, let us march to war, the way 

we've done a hundred times before.

5286. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I MEAN

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I MEAN

What do I want to emulate? Paris, Harry? Or could it

be Harry, Paris? This world is too much with me, late and soon.

Or sooner and later? Oh no, here I go again  - smokescreen to 

the heart, a fury for the jury, and so much more to come. I don't

know what I mean. What do I want to emulate? That trainman,

running his contraption out of control until it crashes off the tracks,

like so much else, so much other. All those morning-sleepers

sleeping in their seats. The six a.m.crowd, all dead on arrival.

Or dead on non-arrival. Smashed in the deep woods along

the pre-dawn tracks. No one should look. Take it all back.

The funny Chinese guy, from the U.N., all official and bewildered

looking. He sat down and ordered Cheerios as he held his Panda

suitcase and his official car sat outside. The driver could do whatever

he wanted; with Diplomat plates there's no rule to stop him. I

could wish to do that? Or, instead  -  same place, same time  - 

outside the Secretariat Building and just across the street, I could

chase that girl now walking  -  just watch her sway and move.

Until she saw me. Until she stopped. Until she called me over.

What then would I do? My luck, I probably wouldn't know

her God-damned U.N. language. Just my way again. What

do I want to emulate here; an International tongue, for sure?

5285. FRAMED AT IMPATICO PLAZA

FRAMED AT IMPATICO PLAZA

And I wasn't even there; never went. Got too drunk the

night before and passed out on the weasel-wench loading

dock, where the held the parasol, for hours, over my sleeping

head. Big joke. Pink umbrella. Sleeping drunk. So, anyway,

like a mime at the supermarket pointing at peas, there I was.

I never got where I was going. And I wasn't even there.

-

The north coast, it was reported, was always the roughest one :

all those nasty pines and the big, sluggard oaks; things that bend

and twist in a very bad wind. They can withstand most anything.

Except the treeman's humming chainsaw death : wallowing in

its wail, slicing like lemons this bark for a drink. Everything

that goes up but soon enough comes down. Timber.

-

I was still drunk, two days later : read the note you left me

but didn't understand. What's a kerfuffle cookie? What's a

jealousy muffin? All this shit I never understand. While over

in Red Hook, I'd parked my car at Fairway, and actually

did go inside for coffee and rolls. I made a purchase. I

wasn't dumb, nor was I drunk. They towed my car anyway.

Fearsome fucking bastards that they are. Fearsome scum.

5284. WINTER CLOTHING?

WINTER CLOTHING?

I am a dead man still wearing a blood-coat; the same
 one I was killed in : run down by a truck, shot by 
a sniper, stabbed in the back by an abnormal assailant. 
It's the coat I died in. I was just about to put it 
away for  (or because of) Spring.

5283. HERE'S THE TITLE

HERE'S THE TITLE

Every Tuesday it seems I ride the same train as

Paul Muldoon  -  he always comes scampering in,

a mess, and almost dishevelled. Sets up his papers 

or a writing board or something, and seems to get to

work on some large-format ledger book. We smile, 

say hello, once or twice have conversed. He once shot

me down, mercilessly, with some crack like 'I really don't

have the time to discuss the minutia of Anne Beattie now.'

Well, I don't know, I thing that was it; last year. I winced,

but forgave him. (Now I speak of his own minutia, no?).

It used to be people were bi-coastal, or multi-tasked, or 

whatever those social-types said. Here, then there, there

here agin. he's like that too  -  peripetatic mind-bender,

on the monied go,with fame, prestige and privilege.

All that stuff beats me. Positive for him - yes - to say

at least he's not a stupid phone guy; endlessly babbling

and texting and looking at screens. I like that. Kindred.

But now what would I call it, if I had to call it?

5282. INTENSITY

INTENSITY

Clamoring no more; listening to none.

I've got here the intensity of a frog  - the

nightly kind, with all that endless, shrill, 

dusk-peeping. Climbing trees to go nowhere. 

Staying stuck on that same old lump.

 That's an intensity for sure.

5281. COTTAGE FREDERICO

COTTAGE FREDERICO

While all Ireland honestly

wanders, no other man is

listening. The gate, still

swinging, squeaks on its

old hinges. A pretty girl

saunters, aimless, for

nothing.

5280. TOO MANY INTENSE NOISES

TOO MANY INTENSE NOISES

There are things which never make much sense, but come

to fruition nonetheless. Like an Obama presidency, let's

say, or the clown-posse party show of one of those Bush

guys. After all this time, we've become, have you thought,

the only 'civilized' country to have been ruled by Bushmen.

-

Then there was Clinton, back in the nineties, when things were

funny to watch. He sticks a cigar up a Jew-girl's cunt, and no 

one goes after him for anti-Semitic stuff. No Jewish Defense 

League banter, no debates by crazed men in frocks. She sucks

his dick like a slave-girl; no one says a word. The only thing they 

set after him for is 'ambiguous language' about what he'd done?

-

I don't begrudge anyone for good times. I just begrudge a

bastard for being what he is. Or her. Nothing has a difference

like the different times of opinion and taste. Today, tomorrow,

forever, all things at an ever-changing pace.

5279. COLORWHEEL

COLORWHEEL

After I'd spoken with you at the sumac, I realized there

was little to do : three days out yet, and a rainstorm

pelting. It would take a restoration to survive.

-

The buses were lined up under the awning, one, two, 

three. It always seems, in bunches, that it's all or nothing.

I watched the very tall man hunch over to get on.

-

He's always with that woman not his wife : it's a workday

thing, I guess. They hug and touch, talk quietly and sweetly

to each other, head to head. I never like that stuff.

-

One time, they were joking, as happens, about size;

someone made a crack about how 'big' the guy was,

and she blurted, loudly, out : 'The bigger the better!'

-

It's pretty much the same each day. The lady driver remains

silent, but smiles. The same goons get on, and then off. All

 the wisecracks and snide remarks go on and on and on.

5278. WHEN I LAST KISSED AUNT JEMIMA

WHEN I LAST KISSED 

AUNT JEMIMA

There wasn't nothing to be told  -  just needles in the

mouth where teeth should be, and a handful, a pocket, 

of gold. Sitting at length behind gray prison bars, I

noticed the time it was drawing  -  near to close, less

to open; a prison warden's weirdest friend is the

conjugal motion. This meant lights out in some

messy drawer of intention.

-

I told Aunt Jemima to settle. I told her my clothes,

none were fitting  -  my collars were broken and 

the shirtsleeves too short. Nothing like that in my

contract or sentence. They never said such

a thing in the court. Why should I stay?

-

I kissed Aunt Jemima good-bye.

Then I kissed her again for

good luck.

5277. TERMINUS OF LOCAL CONTRADICTION

TERMINUS OF LOCAL CONTRADICTION

Not knowing well where to turn, I moved myself sideways

by contraction : local memories and stevedore hats, the

old mathematics of add and divide. Every contradiction 

brought me new moment, the terminus of all things local.

-

The only midnight star in the midnight sky is the one

I may recognize as 'I'. And isn't that always the way? 

We make our agreements, with self and with others,

to stand up and band ourselves girded for something

and ready. Some neighborhood judge comes

stumbling in, asking for tickets and money. A

terminus of local contradiction.

-

'Councilman, councilman, give your gloves and 

your daughters'  -  that's the local payoff these days. 

Every hallway voice in the light green dungeon is heard 

to echo and resound. By contract, the 'just-over-minimum-

wage' painter saunters along, to dawdle his drop and

his brush. 'I be's so happy, a'jez like dis; and dey gimme'

da money t'go on.' Sounds like a breakening thrall  -  

Blake's chimney-sweep and chartered streets 

got nothing on that at all. A terminus of

local contradiction.

5276. THE FIRE BURNED

THE FIRE BURNED

The man says nothing, just writes his clipboard

report. The fire may have burned the carnival hut,

but things will still need to be fixed, and done, replaced,

and reported. And it's almost May again  -  the crazy

geeks with their Alabama plates will be back before

you know it. Setting up their Feerris Wheels and 

Whirli-Gigs for guys and girls to scream from;

like sandpipers pitching tents on a loaded beach,

these gypsy workers will sit around, smoking and

cursing their daylight hours and then just rueing

the night. No satisfaction, no where. The fire may 

have burned the carnival hut, but things will

need to be fixed really soon.

5275. WHILE ALL IT MAY HAVE BEEN

WHILE ALL IT MAY HAVE BEEN

While all it may have been is over now, the world

will still go on  -  vast and deep, the pockets of

missing things, but no mention will be made. Things 

fade, and drift away. Like celebrating a war from a 

very long time ago, no one really understands the issue

anymore. Why fight, but we fight. Why celebrate, then,

that which we do not know : bent-elbow, crooked old

men, saluting the fearsome flag of their soil. They say.

-

Here, here the riverboat leans in the water, and 

someone else is drifting away. While all it may

have been is over, the world itself will stay.

5274. MAKE MARKER

MAKE MARKER

There's something about the simile

of a smile that never works  -  like a

Chesire cat, or whatever else smiles

like that. But does a cheetah or a 

leopard ever? Every day it's something

else. I tire so of this guy, always reading

the paper and vociferating about every

little thing : plane crash, Russia, a capsized

ferry. All the living dead. Yes, yes, all the

living dead. I surmise nothing from

purpose. Nothing at all.

5273. ZERO AMBITION

ZERO AMBITION

'My parents kept a small cabin in the

mountains  -  a simple thing, just four walls

and very dark.' Estimations may vary on just

what Darkness is. Or where to find firewood,

even in the dark, blindly, after you realize you've

forgotten a flashlight. And there's a bottle of scotch

remnants, an old, cheap scotch inside the cabinet,

found. But it puts you to sleep well enough.

-

I've never been outdoorsey  -  all that camping and

kindling was not for me. As a child, I played clarinet

and read  -  over and over, in sixth grade  -  a book

called 'God Is My Co-Pilot' with another 

dweeby kid named Peter Tolendino.

-

There was another kid, MJ, as I'd known him.

MJ had zero ambition  :  he lived in a trailer park

and he hung around school only as if it were a prison

and he'd been hired in to terrify or frighten others.

Later  -  after he quit  -  he smoked weed, shot dope,

got a job in the big warehouse of an outlet chain. He'd

listen to big, nasty music and chased girls. All of them.

-

Unshowered. Ratty in a hooded sweatshirt. A real

warehouse rat. Nasty, brutish, and short. No, no, that's

someone else. Adam Smith, or Malthus maybe. 

-

I've nothing but a wrinkled Chinese shirt  -  it makes me

laugh too, because right now I'm also watching a Chinese

Princeton kid in a wrinkled white Oxford disdainfully

swatting at American flies and changing tables because

of them. Now I can't see him. He's gone behind me.