5416. TOOLBAR

TOOLBAR

Drinking. I was drinking at the Toolbar again.

A red wine flowing like fluorescence down a

stairwell in the dark : back-lit, black-lit posterized

messages. 'Be careful, she might repeat what you

say.' Well, really that was the last I heard. The

star-spangled lady of the house had just walked

in. I was conked on the head, hearing Gershwin's 

Rhapsody In Blue condensed as if all,one sound.

Not bad actually.

5415. LET'S NOT LEAVE THIS YET

LET'S NOT LEAVE THIS YET

All of the helpers who've come to stay are gone.

It's a powerful lot : men - like soldiers - standing straight

with their ramrod stiffs and concrete hands. For myself,

I have nothing to show. I've left two lamps behind, the

niggardly portion of food in my mouth has been taken

already by worms and maggots, the blanket near my head

is damp, and workmen outside have put barriers in place.

-

This is a picture-book enticement, I know. I feel like the

Tomb of the Unknown, or a classical man from ancient

Greek myth. I am endowed with a scholarship of want.

Just as the lights fade, the blaring music begins : trumpets

and cymbals, like carrion at a Sunday feast. Every town

has a bandshell, Sayre, Towanda, even Washington's 

Crossing, with nothing playing in it but memories and lies.

-

Want to be reading Baudelaire again? With me? We can

comment on such towns as villages we may find along the 

way. Parasols, prostitutes, and pilgrims abounding.

5414. JOHNNY FAYE'S BLUE COAT DREAM

JOHNNY FAYE'S
BLUE COAT DREAM

One intense matter, most all the same. The lights are 
blinking on and off, the roadway shines like water. Here,
where the yellow taxis sing, there is nothing left amiss.
-
Down the street, a lamp screams at the lamppost, and I
see the new man with the strange blue coat : as in a dream,
his outlines are indistinct. I cannot be sure where he is going.

5413. TOP-HEAVY, OVERLOADED

TOP-HEAVY, OVERLOADED

Good God, I may have blinked. The onus of

this bonus makes me sink. There's just too much

to carry; I hurt. Like a truck on a roadway curving,

top-heavy and overloaded, I just may tip. Words

and ideas, colors and meanings, will all spill out  -

coating the lanes and passages nearby, tripping people

up, skimming them along. All my filters will be gone again :

fuck me goddamn bastard shithead prick. Uh oh, so sorry.

5412. I TOO JAMES DEAN OCT 1, 1955

I TOO JAMES DEAN OCT 1, 1955

Just as Frank O'Hara wrote, at the start of October,

'55, 'For a young actor I am begging peace, Gods. 

Alone in the empty streets of New York I am its

dirty feet and head and he is dead.' 

-

I felt a great connection  -  what else can I say?

The rest of it is schlock. Who in the world asks

Carole Lombard to 'be good to him up there' but 

a flaming, discombobulated fag on fire with movie

mags? Don't you see? At 37 W. 53rd, or again at

326 E. 49th; in either place like here, I am taking

my mornings outside and writing. And reading too.

-

Like the spruce-headed, angel-fired  hipster I

always never was, my head is filled with a 

weed-soaked jimson weed to burst and catch

afire. I am hot with fury and all aflame. Now

words and torches are alike to me. I am

no savior, nor a saint-to-be.

5411. DOG HEART

DOG HEART

In time I shall wither, my own dog heart gone;

finished with all that leaping and panting and frolic.

I shall slow to that limp of the bad-hipped dog,

all bravado over and done.

-

Now, as well, the hillocks are mountains to these

trickling streams which are rivers. All things are

as they become  -  quite simply so  -  and

nothing more can be done.

-

Now, beneath trees of new, two-week old leaves, I

am sitting for daybreak again. This light here shall

find me  -  slowed yet solid and unforgiving and

grateful too. I have become an old man.

-

That elongated cupola with those bawdy clocks

once again not keeping right time. Over Nassau Hall

it catches the new light just right  -  as I wish here

 to capture life. And shine. 'Right back at you, 

world, right back at you again.'

5410. ROTOMONTAGE

ROTOMONTAGE (O'Hara)

People talk. Tendentious claptrap nonsense

as they walk. The entire rampway is theirs. 

God of the Mountain, King of the Walk,

bantam cock rooster making his own ton of

noise. Fire on the same mountain  -  long 

brought, folded and forgotten on the fiery bush 

those stone tablets crashing to the ground. The

last landslide is up : over the pathetic hills and dales

of what is seen and what is lived. Cacophony rages  - 

fierce the storm of noise and all the letters come

jumbling down. Together. Down. 'The huge rocks

are like twin beds and the cove tide is a rug slipping

out from under us. When I am in your presence I

feel life is strong and will defeat all its enemies and

all of mine and all of yours and yours in you and

mine in me sick logic and feeble reasoning are

cured by the perfect symmetry of your arms and

lags spread out making an eternal circle together.' 

The words are written to Man-Gods of the deep;

the ones who know it all, the ones who speak.

Oh tongues of fire carry me from meanings to places

and back again : I wish to have what I wish to be.

The fifteen people embedded in this clock  are only

helping the artworld to move : MOMA in reality is

seeking its place. Five new stories, not a trace. The

men are moving Water Lilies, burned in the fire, and

singed, George Washington Crossing the Delaware,

in the fire of Spring, 1958. 'A dream of immense sadness

peers through me as if I were an action poem that

couldn't write and I am leaving for another continent

which is the same as this one goodbye.'

5409. AS THE KINGDOM CRUMBLES

AS THE KINGDOM CRUMBLES

The solace of the fields is in the salted marsh grass

bending : terns and gulls as a chorus singing. I can

do no more than listen carefully : in some duller coastal

light I wait. Everything is so different : waves crashing

but without real noise, the old half-moon yet dipping

out of a daytime sky. A few ships, way out towards

the horizon, slogging their way across a cargo-board.

Time tells its tales on everything.

-

All of this as the kingdom crumbles, the nation falls

and the works of man wither. I hear the South Jersey

twang talking. In Camden, the police have given up.

No more locals, the State Police have taken over the 

town. Their cars patrol. Their firearms watch. I hear

the people talking  -  they twist their words somehow,

and 'State Police' becomes 'Stay Please'. I want to

think I understand the meaning of that, lest I too fade.

Time tells its tales on everything.

5408. BENDING TO THE BLEND

BENDING TO THE BLEND

It's early morning again, and I've straggled sleep 

and its denizens of torture, left it all behind, forgetting

already what to remember about a dream I sense

I may have had; and isn't that the weirdest sensation,

not even being sure of that which you're quickly 

forgetting. Was it a dream then, or not? And

what is all this hazy, strange memory?

-

And then blackfriars come on to the train, bound   -

as they always are  -  for either New Brunswick or

Trenton. No other place holds them  -  midnight stay-overs

from a New York City frolic, still drunk they pass out,

prone, on the otherwise vacant seats in an otherwise

vacant train. I get to watch them sleep and hear them

snore. Neither a delight nor a bore, I withstand the

faint disgust that wishes to rise up. All things pass.

-

But how they all must live. I get their stares occasionally :

some doughty white guy with a morning sack and a book  

to read. What's up with that? Then their phone will ring

and they're on to other things  -  the sing of a voice,

the slap of a dash and a text. I cannot really care.

-

Bending to the blend, I guess I do what I must do :

walk the line, beneath the trees as the light opens up,

hearing the birds assault with sound the fleeing dark.

I love it all, it's textured right, and I take it in. I do

not speak; instead just keep on my way. Bending

to the blend, it's just another day.

5407. REFLECTION

REFLECTION

The moon is rippled and reflected in the

puddle water at my feet. Out ahead of me,

I see it again, moving, as I walk. A synchronic

moment, a space in time, a darkness, a dream.

All of this is somehow moving with me.

5406. PIMLICHER AND MORSE

PIMLICHER AND MORSE

How to put the stand down to where it must be  -

has to be, needs to be, to hold? There's no other

recourse to be had. We just must do it. Venture 

out, part of the all. The lunch menu shows new 

chives and spiced onion salad. Let's eat again.

5405. BEAVERS HAVE BEEN CRUSHED BY FALLING TREES

BEAVERS HAVE BEEN 

CRUSHED BY

FALLING TREES

Concepts of memory, like the death of the

beaver crushed by his own falling tree, what

are they and how do they stick? Ideas change.

Plato and Aristotle figured memory to be 

inscribed on wax tablets that could be easily

erased and used again. Fairly simple concept,

reflective of its time. We now like to think of it

as a camera or video-reorder mechanism of 

sorts, filming, storing re-cycling the vast troves

of data accumulated through life. In actuality now,

every memory we retains depends upon a chain of

chemical interactions connecting millions of neurons

to one another  -  never touching, these neurons 

communicate through tiny gaps, or synapses, that

surround each of them. Branching filaments  -  

called dendrites  -  receive chemical signals from

other nerve cells and send the information across

the synapse to the body of the next cell.  Typically,

the brain has billions of these connections.

I stand awed.

-

The beaver who didn't remember where not to stand

was killed by his own falling tree. It happens. 

I stand awed.

5404. NETHERLAND

NETHERLAND

My Humvee chart will lance your boil, spoil your

factor, edge your greensward junk of lawn all in

a heap. These are the formulas of the world's new

equation : we'll have nothing to show and little to

bring. Man has climbed and charted the moon, 

staggered its figures on blackboard and screen,

and left all those open-lipped children at home.

The dark figure on the glossy page says 'this is

not the time to rage.' It holds its patterned hand

out seeking money or change and gets nothing in

return. The Pope they say is in Jerusalem, or

somewhere just as stupid : I have no proof, 

nothing to tell by, just the nattering flatulence of

insipid reporters going on about things they know

little of.  Living in the dark like this, none of it

really matters. The basketball-monk president, 

in his turn, flies home to Afghanistan to find a

friendly audience. What else can there be? His

minions the soldiers, whom he (after all) feeds 

and pays, applaud but the new slavemaster never 

stays; he'll be home before you know it, and 

I'll be back underground again. There's a

darkness roiling the nation.

5403. TIANANMEN III

TIANANMEN III

Go shoulder. Kite fly high.

Bullets cannot reach the wind.

5402. HOLIDAYS AND ENVELOPES

HOLIDAYS AND ENVELOPES

People are charring steaks in five hundred awful

backyards  -  talking of feeble things, comparing notes

and cards. The backs of numberless houses are

crowded today. Glad I'm not a cow.

-

I'm not in attendance at anything, thank goodness.

My mind would wander, and I hate military things :

remembering the living dead is the same to me as

remembering the dead already. Soldiers taking

orders differ little to me from drones or slaves.

Yet they claim to fight for freedom, in chains.

-

Once there was a time, in its infancy, when something

like Memorial Day meant remember the dead in quiet

and solace and alone  -  quietly, to oneself and then

move on. It had dignity, for the dead. Now its a

blabbermouth fest of the living ghouls in uniform

and others who shout for them. Like an envelope,

with all kinds of crap stuffed in.

-

Keep me quiet, brother. Shut me down, my friend.

I am watching the sky-lit underworld rise again.

5401. DEAR JANE

DEAR JANE

Tarring this wallpaper shack won't

do much, except maybe keep out the

moonlight. Is that what you wish for?

5400. TRIBUNAL

TRIBUNAL

Gacaca is traditional tribal justice, by open-air

tribal court, in Rwanda. Before colonization it's

just how things were done : open-air court, land

disputes, rape, marriage. Long disappeared, it

has now been brought back. Some sort of surprise

for all involved. The land is free in the darkness; it

is as if no one owned a thing.

5399. THIS VOID WE APPROACH

THIS VOID WE APPROACH

I cannot harm anyone, I cannot harm any thing.

This is a muddle for me  -  intents and purposes,

at odds again. Traffic is idling, building its way

through tunnel and park : trucks and cars in a fight

for place. I move along, wondering why I'm going

at all. Once I was born silent. Then I learned a voice.

Now I am trying to be mute  -  losing it all and finding

happiness in the loss. I hear the deaf, and I see the blind.

They communicate well enough, but never seem to fight.

That's not yet fully understandable to me, but I see that

I like it. No wars, no skirmishes. Just a very deep

and quiet everyday life.

5398. REVELRY

REVELRY

Let this strike force remind you of the noise

of war, the sounds of battle, the scream of

blitzkrieg death. I have made many mistakes

 in my days and am not afraid to admit. What

you see now is but a remnant of what I should

have been  -  my promise is gone, and having lost

all that, I remain before you, humbled but here.

-

There are too many things to seek, and to seek

out any more would bring me to nothing at all. I

have broiled my clock, and it now drips a hot oil.

'Give me the splendid, silent sun with all its beams

full-dazzling.' Those words can stay, all these many

years later, I still know them. Flustered and amazed,

I stare up at the trapeze wire on high, just waiting

for something or someone to fly by. Is it me now

given the onerous job of holding this net, with its

huge hole rent in the middle? There is no joy

in Mudville; mighty Casey has struck out?

The line of cars is broken, each and all.

The people are walking home.

5397. YOU ARE MY PINION MATTER

YOU ARE MY PINION MATTER

Or, anyway, I'm making you that. Walking down

8th in the early morning light  -  so many things are gone,

some many things closed up. What memory lingers where

I cannot remain. The Marlton still stands, or what it is anyway.

All those names come marching past me  -  Lilian Gish to

Mickey Rourke and why stop there? I remained when I 

was a tender age. The one. The wonder. The wondrous.

The wonderer. All of that was alike in my rolling-sheet

of death when they took me out. Everything I lived in is

over : Studio School backstreets, MacDougal Alley loves,

Wilentz's bookstore, Rienzi's, The Jumble House, everything

running over. And now, I am a palaver, a cadaver, a marauder

in my own sickening darkness. The streets are wet with rain

and piss; the vomitorium of life keeps us busy with this.

Thunder reigns where the peppering light douses. Down.

Down. All things, together, are down.

5396. SEVEN TIMES SEVEN AGAIN

SEVEN TIMES SEVEN AGAIN

I've got 49 things in this whole, wide world,

and I've really only now learned to count : my

kite string sings your watery oasis. The scent of 

pansy on a gay man's coat; lilacs and the rest

of the field. Looking down the awkward bar,

just now I can see twenty hearts. It's fleet-week

again, and I am a dead-man's slave. Outside

McSorley's, these guys in white suits - kids, really -

line up for their beers in a row. The crowd is awesome

deep, everyone clawing for something new. Dress Navies

and Ensign Toms, what care I for anything? Here is

how we do it; on these old east village streets, in these

old east village doorways, at the projects, at the end

of third; anywhere at all seems it will do. I hear, I hear

the echoes too  -  Frank O'Hara and hart crane singing,

together encased yet separated by years. No matter. I

was in love in 1924. I was in love again in 1956.

5395. TIANANMEN II

TIANANMEN II
The orange bird in morning sings around 
the village square. Small people run to 
and from. The army is coming again! 
This time they look for Jen Liu. He is 
hidden, but they must not know!
Every day another adventure.
This life! So many
things to do!

5394. TIANANMEN

TIANANMEN

Keep the gods and the devils in; others are lining 

up outside. We have no heart, and the effort is useless 

 -  the people are once more a wave. Old men like us, 

unsure and slower, will only turn too late. Make sure of this : 

there are no birds allowed in Tienanmen Square. If we 

cannot keep them out, we will not let them in.

5393. SOLID BEDEVILMENT

SOLID BEDEVILMENT

The lady in the car, I saw, was crying. The cop at

the window had written her a ticket for where she

had parked. Somehow, she and he there together, at

the moment. His head at her open window. Where she

held the ticket. One hundred and twenty bucks, I agree,

ain't hay. But get over it lady, I say : there's so much other

tough news to bear.  A solid bedevilment is everywhere.

5392. GREEN LANE

GREEN LANE

One man dreams of the Anzio Beachhead, another

rolls over in his sleep. The drumming noise in the air

comes from something  -  birds, drums, a woodpecker's

dull head. Green Lane is where I live : everything here

comes in two's. Why I'm not there right now is beyond me.

Distant is but a joke  -  so many ways of looking at things, 

like Stevens and that blackbird again.

5391. PRINCETON MAN MISSING, FOUND

PRINCETON MAN 

MISSING, FOUND

In New York City, no less. He was only 22,

so why all the fuss? Probably ran off thinking

of a kiss, kissing some lovely, running like this.

Now they say here he's been found  -  so why

the headline at all? How small-talk does small-talk

have to get to be kept in a small-town way? This

is really nothing at all. Princeton man found after

being lost  -  like any final hymnal tune, the sort

they sang in the Second Great Awakening at any

one of the evangelical churches here along the way :

Nassau and Witherspoon, Vandeventer and Spring.

Lift up your voices! Let us all sing. 

'Princeton man, lost, has been found!'

5390. BE LOOKING FOR GOD IN THE FIVE AND TEN CENT STORE

BE LOOKING FOR GOD IN THE

FIVE AND TEN CENT STORE

Not in the notions, not in lingerie. Not in

hardware or makeup or pets. Nowhere to 

be found; neither in carpets or household,

bathroom or sports. A few smiley fish, it

seemed, might have known  -  but they didn't

say a word, just some bubbles. The fixtures

in the plumbing section, they too were mute.

-

I took an angel with me over to music : small

groups singing carols and hymns. Why not?

Thought I - 'what a great place for a dwelling

of the Lord.' Some outpost dire and bleak like

that. Judges and Deuteronomy together, and a

housemaid as well, with a small towel to 

wipe off the seats.

-

Everywhere I go, someone has been there before;

even here, looking for a God : small thin man

with his breviary, skimming. He knows the 

score and all the secrets to boot. He be

looking for God in his Sunday suit.

5389. THE MAN WITHOUT BOOKS

THE MAN WITHOUT BOOKS

I compiled my hurt and hesitation and put them 

between covers, and then ran off along my way.

The blistering heat of some searing new night 

had already wetted my brow. A tankard 

of loneliness, throw that in.

-

Sometimes the things we carry aren't worth a 

damn : the charmed lightning of a dance, the

cute curtsy of some new lassie. Tissues to

the heart, and new forms to the tailor.

-

There's nothing the matter with wanting, there's

nothing the matter with need. Both of them line

up under a wayward vine  -  the small, painted

fence of some madman's community garden.

5388. THE BEST I CAN DO

THE BEST I CAN DO

I sometimes offer premonitions  -  

the glimpses of a thing to come, 

something new and happening, like 

an Andy Warhol costume ball. And 

why not? We're all on the threshold

of something and hold the secrets 

within ourselves. Why should we

not then be able to go there?

-

Questions stream slowly, like sap from a

tree with a broken limb  -  stained and wet

and sticky. We see it all, as it slowly drips; 

running down the bark and tree together, 

one question with a hundred answers.

5387. THE BLESSED ROGER PRIN

THE BLESSED ROGER PRIN

The lines undulate like a ragged coif on some

sick old nun; beatitudes, for sure, there are not

any. It's raining once more on this dark, dreary 

street. I am walking about 12th in the dark.

I have nothing to do but penetrate  -  truth,

trends, reality, thought. I don't make these

words, a God does. Hear me out.

-

The tremendous force of Life  -  whatever it

may be  -  goes on. Tries to be, pushes on, is.

We have no thought control, and that panel of

command, all the lights upon it are always flashing.

-

Only one man knows these things, and one at a time.

It is, in reality, ten thousand men, and women, all together:

there is no trembling difference between  -  we are what

we are, all together, the dream. Or the dream of dreaming.

Or the dream of dreaming this dream. Infinitude as such

paralyzes the mind. One man is all Man together.

-

My cap parlays a seaman's toke. I drink this goblet

of rum. Both feet on land, I am looking out to a

more distant horizon from the one I've come.

5386. TO PUT A STARTLING SONG WESTWARD

TO PUT A STARTLING 

SONG WESTWARD

Let's go then : out the chute and down the mile,

rolling the ages of hay through our minds. Such

an agrarian nature you have! I've never seen the

likes of it before. Let us go then., westward shining

to battle. Sing of mudslides and shanty towns, even

Appalachian things twisted in the crotches of hills.

Valleys filled with penchants and pensioners. The

muscle-men of the old domain. You need to

remember, remember, how Pittsburgh was,

once the far west indeed. Pittsburgh,

the far west indeed.

5385. TAME ME DOWN SOME

TAME ME DOWN SOME

I just got back from Carbondale, riding along

Route 6; I've seen the monstrous windvanes on

the ridge. They paddle the air in a strange and

distant silence, bringing things of indeterminate

nature to others who say it's there. I do not

like these precious items; strange and scouring,

they've been put in place by scoundrels, cutting

roads on high through ridge and range just so

they can make their coffees and teas. It seems

deranged to me. It seems those who worry

so about their 'God' should worry as much 

about what they do to the this world 
'God' supposedly made for them.

5384. GOLD

GOLD

I'm riding the train with all the overnighters from NYC

on their overight returns to Trenton. Luckless idiots

Passed out. Cheap. Cheesy. The early mornings are

funny for that  -  usually you think sleepless oafs, but

these are always sleeping  -  sprawled out with no

disclaimers, except their fine new sneakers for $12.99

and hoodies for $5.18. High fashion has a rigamarole

all its own in the 'hood. Hurry on home to mama!

-

I'm thinking about writing, as I sit. Using a sentence

as 'The boy plays with his new gold toy' I'm wondering

what the difference would be if it was written instead: the

boy plays with his new golden toy.' Adjective? Does the

'gold' being changed to 'golden' make a difference?

And, if so, what is being described anyway,
the toy itself, or the quality of same?

5383. MY WHITTLED TASTE

MY WHITTLED TASTE

It all has gone down to nothing, all this :

what's left? Eyes, and words, and books.

The old kind, paper. I don't care about much 

else, for my tastes have been whittled down. All

that late-night TV, that cauldron and pit of crap

I see, means death and its own minions have won.

Myriads  -  sick people passing, dead people awake.

The Currier and Ives of the Moneychangers anew, in

their funny-grand New England palaces resuscitated

for use : bed and breakfast, nicely alliteraltive. Why not,

'fuck and food', 'ease and eat', 'farms and fornication'?

Any of that could work as well. My taste  -   you can 

see  -  has come down to nothing. I'll just park my 

new Buick where the sun doesn't shine and

maybe come back some other time.

My taste has been whittled to nothing.

5382. 1967

1967

She wasn't blind though pretended to be. She took

me upstairs to meet her family. Her name was Adele

and her father was Martin. Ashcrofte went the name, 

with the 'e'. Two hours later, I was under the sheets.

Central Park spread outside, she spread within :

east 84th along Fifth Avenue. I couldn't believe

my luck, nor what it got me to do. Inside a joint

such as this, something storybook strong and all

fantasy wide. Her mother, with jewels, had just

come in from the 'Fifth Avenue Ladies Society'

Brunch. At which point, I noticed, 'Dad' left.

Financier to the stars, or some such jumble. 

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, L'Express,

Variety. I couldn't find a Daily News if I had to

wipe my own ass with it. Life is good at the top.

Why she had to play blind, I never did find out,

but a better world was there for the seeing.

5381. INTERRUPTIONS

INTERRUPTIONS

Something like the fly buzzing around catches

my imagination now : it can hear what I want 

to say, I'm thinking. This carbon-copy world,

like the fly, has many eyes. Everyone looking

for something : that Japanese couple, with the

ash-paper camera and the see-it-all eyes; I

already know to love them in return. This is

our world; a papier-mache doll if ever to be.

5380. AND BURIED HIM WHERE HE FELL

AND BURIED HIM 

WHERE HE FELL

I don't respect the past; never have. All the calamities

of manhood dwell therein : campfire boys on a Civil War 

field, dead and dying, right there where they fell. The

hot cannon still lurches the horses. Animals skewered

o'er the field. At least here I am safe again  -  my good

dog sleeps at my side. This is my own wondrous world 

and I want it and I'll take it and I'll keep it too. 'Drum Taps :

Vigil Strange On the Field I Kept One Night.' My son,

my son, that is America. I am at least at a certain peace;

not crying yet but sad. Yet those, I notice, who do handle

this past  -  with their sacred and their reverential gloves

  -  they tell us nothing of today. They merely bow and

genuflect to that which was, deeming it right to tell us

too to so revere. I don't respect the past. The past

is already there.

5379. BY THE BIVOUAC'S FITFUL FLAME

BY THE BIVOUAC'S 
FITFUL FLAME

I am reading my Walt Whitman while campfire water

boils : cannonade, a fusilier, one of those assholes has

been shot again. Needing to cleanse a wound (I am not 

here making tea), the hottest water can be is best. I

watch the writhing man and wonder of the elements

of this nature I am amidst. How can any of this be?

The hottest that water gets is when it then transforms.

And is no longer water but this scalding steam that's

worse than flame. I've seen such men  -  tortured dead  -

by the exploding scald of locomotives boiled or cooked.

Even the vast wonder of skin flays red and dies when

reached by water in that form. So all this life? Nothing

then but a momentary and elemental form of what we 

are for now. Bring that beggar to me, over here; I'll cut

that wound and grind that bullet, remove it with this

steel blade knife end; all-I've-got anyway. He'll wince -

the dumb shit - and then only maybe die emptied of his

slug at least. I'll go back to reading my Walt Whitman 

again, not even written yet, but who cares. In times 

such as these, men falling around and smoke, there 

is no  time at all  -  and anyway, I wouldn't notice.

5378. THE TWO DARK-HAIRED ONES

THE TWO DARK-HAIRED ONES

Carbine and carbonation  -  both regarding a sizzling

scene. The twenty-five men I've seen, down from the 

hills, are chewing and smoking tobacco; little care in 

this world for anything else once these military basics 

are taken care of. I can hear the breathing of the lame

guy on the floor next to me, down and sleeping. We

await some new directive : run, stay, flee or fight.

My gun is shiny. Here comes the night.

-

I once  -  long ago  -  used to read my books by the

lamplight of the dead of the night; Joyce and Mann and

Kafka and Sartre. Now all those guys are dead, many

new writers are female, I read little and  -  oh, I forgot

to mention  -  civilization has crumbled. We are the

marauders, right here where used to be Sixth Avenue,

tall buildings inhabited daily by pretty young things

working on high for something or other. Now it's all

gone. The street's used for fighting, skirmishes and

invasions. The idea of all that was : gone, gone, gone.

We live amidst an anarchy new. Men from those 

Harlem Hills are coming for me.

5377. DOWN THE RIVERS OF EAST

DOWN THE RIVERS OF EAST

There's nothing where I live except crackers and

corn. My cupboards have been nailed shut and

given over to mice and vermin from the other side.

I really don't care  -  these cigarette-shaped lips

are now languid and edged with calm. I've done it

all and all is over. Living here is a sequence of rest.

Some now-and-then boats go by  -  with criminals for

captains they may as well be barges of evil setting out

on a cruise. Malaysian pirates? No worries there either;

there's nothing to take. Like my own Huck Finn, I keep

time with my creative subconscious named Injun Jim,

or Nigger Jim, if you still wish. Old Mark Twain's

names have been twisted and turned already so much

that nothing natters now. Down the rivers of east, we all

float  -  Huck, Jim, Mark, and me. Samuel Clemens

brings along the booze and cards. I have nothing

but distant clouds in mind, things floating high

over this river of time; all down these

rivers of east.