5635. GRATE ME LIKE A CHEESER, NAKED

GRATE ME LIKE 

A CHEESER, NAKED

My dog is here, snoring again  -  she sleeps some 

nights away in a slumber miraculous and happy 

and brave. I just know it. I love the noises.

Mystical, magic eyes I have not. Arms that

sag and get tired to life. A back near to broken

with burdens and boxes. I can hardly stand tall,

let alone at all.

-

And then, before you know it, it's something like

Christmas again  -  all that bullshit and cant and

cavil. 'Why to bother?' is the way some Shakespeare

would put it :  'tis better then to swank the night than

take some ignoble Yule and swat you on the head

before it is fired and burning its own anon.'

-

Yeah, well, something.

5634. HERE I AM, STEPSON

HERE I AM, STEPSON

The shadow is on the shoelace, the rugged face is

the sailor's home. I find so many people too young

for their own conditions : it was Rabelais who said,

upon his deathbed, 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps.'

For myself, I think I'd have to add a second perhaps.

-

The gendarme is lily-white, and he stands perplexed

by watching the flowers go, and all those American

girls in passing, and their giggles too. Nothing due back,

just another shout or a smile. All this life isn't really

living  -  more just like something to do.

-

I can't bell the cat and I won't wash the car, most 

certainly not here in a foreign land. Joyce Carol Oates

once asked, 'where are you going, where have you been?'

Most people go nowhere, and have long left their skin.

-

I want science with a corn dog. I want to watch you eat.

Books, existential anxiety, pizza, a happy dance, a

bowl of some soup, a vegetable I've never had, all

things like that  -  something to surprise me, please.

5633. THE NORTHERN DISPENSARY

THE NORTHERN DISPENSARY

On the comfort of this house I am reading Poe.

Annabelle Lee, Cask of Amontillado, Purloined

Letter. No mystery. Like the old drunk days of

then, we walked the dazed street messaging only

each other only with leers and stares. And oh, 

Mr. Poe, it is so often over now but I feel as if 

I am there. You know they've torn your house

down now, the New York one by the 

firehouse on West 4th. All gone.

I slept a bum's sleep last night  -

a Summer night outside the old

Northern Dispensary where

you once were.

5632. ALL THE DIFFERENT MATTERS

ALL THE 

DIFFERENT MATTERS

All the different matters do not matter any way :

we are sent for something and must do our jobs.

Sitting in a human circle for sound  -  some listen,

while many more talk. Nothing important at all.

-

Just a fretful way to pass the time : magazine load

the intentions and bring home the bacon. I don't know

why. A moving truck has again pulled up down the

street : new people moving into the new house that

wasn't here five months ago, and neither were they.

5631. DIRIGIBLE FEATURES

DIRIGIBLE FEATURES

Even the most rotund, even the roundest design,

still has discernible edges and lines. The blob in

the sky, slowly creating, coming over us, floating

by, has a shape I recognize. The shape of mankind.

And lies. That's the shadow over everything.

-

My last mistake was designing the hour I wished :

a number of minutes, overhung and elapsed, allowed

to build on themselves. Being something we are not.

Oh, I do not like noise. That goes as well  -  give me

a silent brood, if you must brood me at all.

-

The man in green with the derby hat, he looks

like he's going to a show. Unfortunately for him, 

and me I guess as well, his 14th Street car alarm 

has gone off again, and he's fumbling for some keys.

That's the shape of panic, and annoyance. A combined

and featureless landscape imparting  -  to the forlorn  -

just another bother to have to deal with. I know I cannot

egg him on, but  -  Jeez!  -  turn off that car alarm.

5630. HANKERING

HANKERING

They're holding hands again outside that

Philadelphia church, the one in Center City

with the stained glass windows by John

Comfort Tiffany. I know that all sounds

so fancy, but that's how they brag  -  to

imagine, a church, bragging about its

million-dollar windows. Then they ask

for your six-pence or dollars for support

and to aid the poor? Rittenhouse Square,

I'm not giving any more. Everybody seems

to like it here  -  all those weddings and

wedding parties, and the photographers

and people all lined up and posing. Hot

photos. Sweet photos. Cheery photos.

All the kinds of things you remember

to death. Every pastel color in the

rainbow'd world as well seems to pass

here  -  brides and bridesmaids all as

one : beautiful pictures, beautiful bodies,

beautiful memories and beautiful days.

It's different for guys, well, most guys.

Nowadays so many of them are fey 

anyway. They sort of sulk, the guy-guys,

as if being stuck in this 9-hour tuxedo

stuff really brings them down. I guess

a smile is better than a frown  -  when

you're looking back on these shots

thirty years from now. 

5629. NOTHING LETHAL

NOTHING LETHAL

It's nothing lethal, this fevered pace for you,

just a carry-over from days of old. When I held

the most-commanding lead in the cabin wars

we fought. I do remember the Laramie range. 

Those awful cabins on the rugged bluff  -  you

worked in some rich man's kitchen (only by

pretending to be a chef could you get a job),

and came home one day to tell me what

'Oysters Rockefeller' really were. Bull's

Balls. 'Oh well,' I said, 'I least they weren't

Bill's.' Out on the prairies, it went, those

rich NY guys wanted to name something

that reminded them of eating oysters back

home. Consider the privilege of wealth.

5628. BROKEN DOWN ALLEGIENCE

BROKEN DOWN ALLEGIANCE

(a cadence)

Broken down, all doors of allegiance -

a land-locked Edelstein. Like a church

curtain - bottle-rockets, pyramids.

The Frigate Homere; after the lighthouse

the ship sails an open sea. Time hangs

up even the watchman gives where

Daisy Buchanan broke. Fishes.

Birds. Trees. Regale me with

trying  -  they were fishing for

bass in their brass bras.

Find me some lakehouse

trout. All the liquid love.

La voyage. To let: rooms 

with views.

-

'Oh Deadpan, it's in France,

not Finance.' Only sometimes

we doubt. Horace 1-2-3. Go!

Stop! Go! You have to freeze

me, just ending like this.

Ignatius Bloom says Whammo!

-

Not lost in a fear of being alone,

I now wait for nothing new.

5627. TO THE/FOR THE BURNING

TO THE/FOR THE BURNING

The ancient iron lash upon the

seashore washed  -  caught and

burned in fire. The clay from

inland soil as well, this fine

fire-strengthened heap has

congealed. I now have my

iron-seashore lance and some

stranded cups to drink from.

My new potter's clay is dreamy.

Just upland, there, I think I shall live.

-

I will stay in place. I will remain.

Forested here, I will no longer find

myself fragile and porous and  -

though alone  -  I will have my shadow.

To love another, you need another.

5626. MY MISMATCHED GLOBAL EMERGENCE

MY MISMATCHED 

GLOBAL EMERGENCE

(the universal soldier)

Perhaps I came out sunning,

perhaps not  -  what chance that

these differences matter? I do not

know nor tell, nor, then, say there

ever was a difference at all. No

real-time difference; that's for certain.

(The psych man says 'it's all in your 

head.')...My broken spoke, it has now

so far advanced unto a poetry of a

senseless jumble wherein the Andy

Hardy words of old are all now

disappeared. Frankly, Mr. Shankley,

I can no longer see or hear  -  not

anything, nothing, no. Entering now

another entry, do you see these

words at all?

-

I see you drink your Coke and Pepsi,

starlet. Outside of such encumbrances,

(oh wild and willing world), there is

nothing left. Just like Uncle Tungsten I

am heavy and bored or light and proud.

-

All of these categories I now proclaim

to forget! Those 100 references endlessly

made anew  -  the shank of a Civil War

battlefield, the bloodletting of a war a

century before. I hold in my hand a sword

from Ypres, a blank grenade from the

Ardenne Forest. I do not get them nor

do I purport to understand : the men

who die for valor and bravery, the

stupid fools who listen, the ones who

find their names on yet another list.

-

This battlefield monument is bleeding my

eyes while mothers creep, looking anew

for their sons to weep, for nothing more

than a false recall. (We kill a one, 

we kill them all).

5625.THE MEN OF HAMBURG

THE MEN OF HAMBURG

I sometimes pass out facts like

lozenge-candy to a crowd  -  

just to see who takes. Thus the

fine word 'sucker' grows. We hoe

the table as if it were a weedy lot.

-

The men of Hamburg, these old wheedling

Warburgs, and Cassirer and Panofsky,

each had their separate ways. I shall

not gouge them now, nor eyes, nor

reputations. For I am not their own

nor are they mine, and never were.

5624. IN THE WORDS OF JEAN COCTEAU

IN THE WORDS OF 

JEAN COCTEAU

'If artists have a dream, it is not of being famous but

of being believed.' Yes, I will sail with that one.

I have to imagine all these beliefs about things

which I do not hold, and hold on. It's nothing

personal, and I am not just preaching to the

converted. I want you to shine and stand

forth, come out from your covers and fly

like a bird. We all have wings, though 

they are wings we didn't know we had.

-

That's fairly simple. Stretch them then.

-

T. S. Eliot said Blasphemy is  possible only

to the believer. Religious poetry opens that

option? All religious art is blasphemous like

all erotic art is pornography? Thinking not, I

think. There are millions of people in small

towns tonight, fornicating like pigs in a stall.

-

That's fairly simple. Let them all.

-

'Rip down all hate, I screamed!'

5623. DO YOU LOVE ME, JESSAMYN WEST?

DO YOU LOVE ME, 

JESSAMYN WEST?

Do you love me Jessamyn West is what I have

to know. Will you keep me, Jessamyn West,

before I have to go? Do you love me,  

Jessamyn West, is what I need to know.

5622. IGNATIUS BLOOM SAYS WHAMMO!

IGNATIUS BLOOM 

SAYS WHAMMO! 

It is in not getting things right that mistakes come in,

entering through an envious porthole when we're paying

little mind. I tried keeping this secret, but now the

secret is out. Those girls from the theater, yes, yes,

they're all pretty and sound  -  my just look at them 

now  -  but I wouldn't know what to do with them 

if I had them. Do they practice lines? Can they get 

their parts right? Do they understand the motivation 

of what they propose to emote? More gently than this,

I cannot be. The corpse in act one already has to pull

the trigger in act three. That's just the way it goes.

-

I love my Palomino Blackwing pencils. They really

are great for drawing : strong, black line, no breakup,

steady lead, a really great travel along the paper's

surface. It makes a difference, and one that more

than only I can see. Ignatius Bloom was once in 

a house. Now he is under it, and flat, and cold.

-

Consider that scenario, and then send the actors out 

for their supper and maybe a two-hour break before

we once again rehearse an evening's worth. Sooner

then later  -  I hope  -  we'll actually get it right.

5621. ICE CAPADES

ICE CAPADES

Oh, yes, she won the ice capades hands down, 

years back, a long, long time ago. I think she 

was 16 then  -  still very young and not even 

approaching 20. It was funny.

5620. NOW THAT EVERYTHING AROUND ME

NOW THAT 

EVERYTHING 

AROUND ME

I can't understand the fusillade, the ships, the noise, the

crowds. I simply watch in awe as everyone comes forth.

So many people. I had not thought death had undone so

many. Here we stand then, remainders of a stand.

-

Thirty years before you, I was still born twice.

Over you, a mountain loomed  -  look back to it now,

my friend, and try to understand. Now that everything

around me is talking, I cannot grasp a thing. I am mute.

-

Myself. Here. With nothing to stay : Just to strike a pose,

poise a stroke, praise a strike, all that heavenward stuff.

I am not the one for passing time away. I feel to much to

just be idle. Let me look away, tend to the fiery kettle.

-

Now that everything around seeks meaning, I see there 

is none. The man in the velvet jacket, posing as a sheik,

buys cars with his forward intentions. He claims to need

the best; to take them home with all the rest. He rules a

tiny kingdom, filled with mites and oil. Alas, aloha, ahem.

5619. EVER THE TUMBLER

EVER THE TUMBLER

Even so the shades of night rehearse the day;

little to be said for passage. One globe deserves

another, turning. We manage to eke out some sort of

existence and I watch the watchman find his keys

outmoded. The tumbler stirs  -  that midnight sound

which means there's no one else within. One lost and

lonely midnight building; 21st street and a parchment-ivory

silence so poorly lit by artificial light. Why are these new

girls grooming themselves now, before the dawn is near?

If they haven't made their dollar yet, they won't this night

at all. There's nothing sadder than another lost opportunity

and everything with it gone. What season is this again? It

feels so like Autumn  -  that sadness, the same brown glow.

5618. TO THE POET, IN STARK REVULSION

TO THE POET, IN 

STARK REVULSION

Take this to your dull sensitometer, and wear it

like a civil cloak. Madness only becomes mad

when all other definitions have failed. We 

really are never what we mean to be.

-

I have a red-tailed nomenclature always

ready to give you : the knight in errant armor

comes sneaking around here too often.  Not just

the ghost, in armor, but your paramour too.

-

Take this to your dull sensitometer,

and wear it like a civil cloak.

5617. CYRANO

CYRANO

Oh Cyrano, that bulge that is your nose just

keeps me guessing. I look at the white of the 

ceiling and see pictures : some Neil Young

ribaldry of which I've never heard, some

Wild Turkey in the cup. I remember when 

New Year's Day when but gifts of booze.

The suppliers, the other accounts, all those

things we had. Now you lie about everything,

and no one knows what to believe. On John

Street, even right now, the Hell's Angels' party

we're attending has thirty Harleys already lined

up at the curb. The bouncer is a killer and his

girlfriend #4 knows what to do : no questions

asked. I'm a nervous wreck just thinking.

5616. THE POST

THE POST

You have given me a moment, a space. I've taken

full advantage of what this offered : I have a dark

room I live in. Current delivery brings it right

to my door. For this I'll try to repay you someday.

-

Outside of that, my mental block keeps me away

from these items : the shelter is wearing thin, the

air is thick with endings. Like an open window

in the rain, the damage isn't much at first, 

but it eventually takes a toll. 

5615. EARLY MORNING AUTO DE FA

EARLY MORNING 

AUTO DE FA

Oh shit too soon for this : I crawled from bed

for the banana man to see or be seen? The early

morning set-up beckons. How he lines the fruit,

and how all those people come swarming over. 

I've seen, I swear, a hundred young ladies on the

way to the office buying bananas one at a time.

-

What reckoning then is any of this : all truth be

told we always stand alone. Some sluice-pipe

coffee vagrants, yes, they're still around but fewer 

and far between  -  as if some new Columbus has

came and upon departing taken then all away. He

brings them back home in ship-hold, to parade as

natives before some Ferdinand and Isabella of his

own devise. Jeez, I wish I was sick-in-the-head again.

-

Oh damn. I can pray all I wish to the highest of Heavens, 

but all the words fall flat, and the banana man gets the girls.

5614. BATTERY CHIMES AT THE HARMONY

BATTERY CHIMES 

AT THE HARMONY

The Battery chimes at the harmony, the wind whistles

saints in the willow. A few kids are already talking

about school, while their adults linger simply

over food. Two Chinese fellows are throwing the

dice. Is that what you call it, rhyming with rice?

I wouldn't know 'nothing' without what I already

know  -  that needy source is me, that fiery uncle

in the open closet too. I aim past high for this

perfection to last. There are, as yet, a few boats

in the harbor, and karaoke at the bar.

5613. MARTYRDOM MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

MARTYRDOM MAKES THE 

HEART GROW FONDER

And anyway, I'd have nothing else to do. Sling me 

with your arrows then, send the lions my way. I 

feel like I'm reading Shakespeare in a paper bag  -  

all muffled echoes and a crinkled noise subsiding. 

There's nothing left in play.

-

One, two, three, the stories go. Midsummer 

night's dream and a tempest in a fury. Everything 

reeling, upsetting itself, coming apart at the seams.

5612. CHRISTMAS INSTRUMENTAL FAVORITES

CHRISTMAS 

INSTRUMENTAL 

FAVORITES

A small child grasps his smaller drum, playing for

a King? Pa rum pum pum pum. Just like the

lyric says  -  but no lyric here. Instrumental Pez.

I can't believe the canyon was ever this deep  -  

people in sequestered reverence to things of

such nature. Like medieval swans floating on

a royal lake  -  everyone just wanted those

shackles back on. Freedom was given.

Freedom was refused, and Freedom was

gone. Christmas Instrumental Favorites. 

Pa rum pum pum pum.

5611. MUSING ON THE WATER

MUSING ON THE WATER

I like the play of words. I like to twist a

meaning. And I fully enjoy the very idea

that things mean more than they seem. 

This tiny boat shouldn't even be called

a boat - some child's watercraft, more like.

It stays afloat, a circular motion, a drift,

a twirl, every now and then. No room

for others aboard? Well, we'll see

about that. Extend me your 

skirtless hand.

5610. IT'S ALL WRONG NOW

IT'S ALL WRONG NOW

To genuflect in retrospect is a twenty-twenty vision:

"I knew I should have done it, once I saw that God

approaching, but why did he claim he couldn't see

ne, didn't know where it was I hid? What does 

'Adam, where are you?' anyway mean?"

-

The shocking facts are that too many things are

mysterious to me : the shed-light that's been on,

steadily for six years now; the apple-tree in the

bower'd orchard, which bends and twists but

never loses a branch. My life is a light in a

very dark forest, but a light leading to

nothing for me.

-

Here are the keys to my days  -  see if 

you  can get them started.

5609. BROTHERS OF BRIGHT GOLD

BROTHERS OF BRIGHT GOLD

I brought it all down from the attic : the boxes, the crates, 

the bags of catch-all fabric. I was immediately then reminded

of all the years which have passed. The seminary hole, the

long-learning abyss, the history books all lined upon a

northern shelf. I remembered Jenny, an Irish Setter dog

who was once tied to a tree, a sapling of sorts, and just

tore that tree down in a matter of hours. You collected

guns and vinyl records like a squirrel caught nuts in a

deluge  -  the guns then did you in. Why you went and

blasted your brains out is always beyond me. The dead

body, 'nearly headless' they said, sat in a stupid French

car for days. The police finally did pull it out and made

a crime scene of your entire life to then. My writing

hand was strained by the force of lethal wishing.

-

Now it's so many years later I forget the brush, the 

painting boxes, the zeroes and the lashes. I quite nearly 

forget your face. I remember something of a very stern

brow, always, it seemed, made or tense about something.

Controlling others was a very big thing with you, but

you couldn't control yourself. Oh bright brother, I can't

recall and I can't surmise, and it doesn't matter anyway.

5608. HOW I GOT TO RACE-POST

HOW I GOT TO RACE-POST

I swear you don't know anything at all about horses :

how they gesture and how they pace. Even in their

least worthy moments, how they inhabit a grace.

Whoever first thought to ride them must have

been onto  something real and vital. Some

surly Spaniard on his pampas plains? Lone

cigarette dangling from gaucho lips? I

wish I was alive back when with all

those pre-historic men.

5607. ALL THESE BELEAGUERED MILEPOSTS

ALL THESE 

BELEAGUERED 

MILEPOSTS

Those Italian guys can just shake it all off  -  Milan to

Pavia, dealing with something. Carabinieris are watching

us n.ow Call off the waiter; I'd rather not eat here today.

This third bottle of Chianti was the clincher  -  just

a local red, probably cheap enough, but it runs like

a gasoline to the guzzling gullet. I'm done.

-

If they guys had a notion, they'd shoot me dead just for

being a stranger here now. I do like the girl one, though  - 

she was a gun looks like a soft-pillow pin-up for my

aching heart. If that other guy's name is really Alonzo

Malefioso I'll eat my own heart : that's such a fake

name I could puke. Don Corleone, where are you now?

-

Make mine fizzle with the local volcanic water. 

Put anything else in there and I'll sure pass out. 

Let me sleep, maybe three weeks ought to do it.

Ah, all these Italian plans and plains, hills and valleys.

Rick Steve's guidebooks made no mention of these.

5606. OPENING THE RIVER

OPENING THE RIVER

Rating the formula, I am a Teamster informer.

I kill to play : all my trucks are parked on the siding.

The Ingle Brothers are playing cards on the hood of

the yellow GMC.  I have a hot line always open 

to my friends in undercover cars.

-

I once knew a girl named Janie Culp. She lived

in the trailer camp way down the end of my street.

We walked, as young kids, for miles, holding hands.

Too young for anything else, or, anyway, too stupid to

know. One day she just disappeared. Where her

trailer used to be was just an empty lot in the

middle of other trailers. What a sorry life.

-

There was a tiny little diner, not far off, run by

the Agolio family. Bonnie. Janie. Sharon D'Angelo;

they were all friends of mine together. Now it's

all gone away  -  far-off are the days of yore.

5605. HERE I AM, GLOW-WORM

HERE I AM, GLOW-WORM

I am hiding in my Alcatraz of mind with the 

baddest of the bad. Like a stem-cell research 

experiment, here I go again. Strike me down, 

for I am gone. Send my Mensa card a'running.

5604. WE ARE NOT THE AUTHORS OF OUR OWN LIVES

WE ARE NOT THE 

AUTHORS OF OUR 

OWN LIVES

Not sure just what that means but who cares anyway here I am.

I'm standing at a military hill in West Point, NY looking down

and out across the river's vista before me : arrayed around me

are cannons and statues and swords and mortars and howitzers,

all that crass military junk here revered. We take our highest

esteems and place them atop a hill where we extol all the

military dead. What for? Behind me, some cadets are out

doing their runs and calisthenics. It's like a certain prison

madness I can identify with. Out in the exercise yard 

before being sentenced to death. Why I should care,

I don't know; so I don't and I won't.

-

The sun itself is pretty lovely, and the water here

sparkles far below  -  the railroad cavity where the

train lines run, the Hudson River and the barges and boats.

I'll watch everything sparkle. I'll listen to that slap of the flag.

5603. FINE ART WAREHOUSING

FINE ART WAREHOUSING

'We ask no questions we don't look in boxes, we have

no clue what people bring in here. Provenance? Don't

know. If we had to check the history of every piece for

proper ownership and the rest, everything would have to

cost a lot more to store. Basically, I don't care where you

got your what from. Not my business here at all.'

-

I grew up here, in Brooklyn, in what's called now the

Midwood area. When I was growing up, it was called

Flatbush. My father was an accountant; but we also was

an ordained rabbi. He did accounting work for Chabad.

There's a lot of funny stuff I remember : I went to Yeshiva

Flatbush, where I got most of it. Jewish jokes: a Jewish 

woman takes her mother to a Cecil B. DeMille type movie,

one of those spectaculars. Christians are put in with the

lions, getting torn up. She starts screaming, 'Those people

are being killed!' The girl says 'Grandma, grandma, it's 

not real, it's a movie. No one's getting hurt.'

-

Then, a few minutes later, a lion is shown on screen,

wandering around in the arena. The grandmother starts

screaming again, 'My God! look at that lion, so skinny!

It's not getting enough to eat!' I always thought that was

pretty funny; I screwed it up some in the re-telling, but in

its funny way it's perversely anti-Christian. My school

chum, Ron, he's still around. I'm told, by him, that every 

morning he and a Philadelphia rabbi named Shemtov, over

the telephone study something together, each day, from the

Torah. For twenty-five years now, he says. 
I want to see his phone bill.

-

I'm an agnostic Jew now myself. I don't believe in nothing,

but with a schmear. You want art? You want to hide art? You

got the stolen artifact, the ancient relic, the architectural

fragment, the purloined painting? I don't want to know what.

You box it, you crate it, you cover it, I don't care nothing.

I store it, no questions asked  -  you figure out the rest.
No lions going hungry here.'

5602. THE STOKER TOOK THE JACKET

THE STOKER TOOK 

THE JACKET

He was tending the fire just like a Winter man in a

shed full of leaves  -  a stick in a cauldron, a flame 

in a spark. Tending to the King's fires is a job worth 

doing. It gave him life tenure until life ran out.

-

Each morning, Greensleeves himself would arise

with the sky's light, crawling back from some rubbish,

once more to see the world all steeled with sense.

Tending the King's fire brings grand recompense.

5601. A LONG SHOT TO THE HEAD

A LONG SHOT TO THE HEAD

A spike went through the crowd like lightning  -  the

spike poked everyone at once, skewered like some

barbecue meat all writhing and thrashing about. As if

being at a race, when a huge and deadly crash takes

place, the crowd roars and screams, intent on its own

survival and pleasure together. I haven't seen that much

fun going on since I looked through a catcher's mask.

-

My task was simple: to scare the living daylights out of

those already dead. Not yet buried, just dead. One more

time before the menace of morning arrives, I'll keel

the scuttle, I'll round the square, I'll grab a high school

equivalency deal while still in my own sixth grade.

-

How many hours have been spent daydreaming like this

in moments of drudge? I color in lines outside the lines that

don't even already exist. Others come in to look, they nod

and walk away, saying 'really ought to be more careful

about the lines.' Hop to it. Now. The rules are made to be

ruling. Only in museums do we really worship the dead. 

(Ain't that a long shot to the head).

5600. KOONS' FLOWER RABBIT HEAD

KOONS' FLOWER 

RABBIT HEAD

Koons' flower rabbit head

just shows nothing to me but

fashion  -  grave, and the

lingering death of old art.

5599. LOST NAMES

LOST NAMES

Here is the end of the tribe : a floating piece

of wood stock is running down the current.

The ribble and the dodge, the water has a

flowing throb. Mine eyes have seen the glory.

-

The first five minutes of anything new are

always the worst. I can abide nothing 

more than broken houses, afire. 

5598. THIS ADDRES GOES RUNNING

THIS ADDRESS 

GOES RUNNING

Newton Falls nearby to Saturn Rings,

both small towns in the hills back here :

pig sheds and goat huts. On the other

hand, yes, this street address reeks of

big city charm. Look at that, just look.

-

I'm reading here in the big library.

Above my head, angels seem flying.

5597. ALL MY GENTLE FRIENDS

ALL MY GENTLE FRIENDS

All my gentle friends, I am tired of so many things.

I believe this will be my last day alive. The blazing

pattern of the eraser blast looks seemingly better

and better. Over in Dunellen and Bound Brook,

where a hundred idiots live, it's a travesty of wind

and air. Mao said 'let a hundred flowers bloom' and

then he killed his countrymen by the thousands at a

time. Here now, small people crawl the streets.

-

I can't make any major mistakes. Firstly, there's

nothing major about me, and, secondly, there's no

major mistakes left to be made. People are pushing

carriages with three kids at a time. Low life, deemed

important, finds riches in the sublime : propagation,

fornication, the multiply of time. One, two, three, four.

-

Having given away the land, I watch : a sugar corner

where some kids are swilling soda, a mother walks a

forlorn circle, looking for her stupid man. I am sick

at heart to keep continued presence. Adios, amigos.

5596. JESSE JAMES AT THE TUILERIES

JESSE JAMES AT 

THE TUILERIES

Mastication and sublimation, both somehow together.

He twirled his gun like a magic stick, a drum majorette

in full bloom. How he ever got here I'll never know.

Now they read his letters aloud in an American 

classsroom just to prove he couldn't 'write a dang.'

I love it when the French try to be 'les amercaines.'

Equal twisted justice under the law.

-

The pounding of the Civil war goes on unabated  - it's

still behind so many things. James Meredith and all those

guys  -  if they could still talk  -  they'd tell you : oh

Frenchies, this America ain't a thing.' Every outlaw

that brewed the wild West was a leftover killer from

the Civil War; either side, no matter. They still had

their battles to fight. Money, not slavery, became

the new subject at hand. Frontier justice was

a stallion running wild and hard.

-

You can believe all the stories you want : hand-me-downs,

fresh lemons and juice, rotgut whiskey and the girls who

worked the saloon. The broken-down stage came in at noon;

the horses ran free, and everyone on it had been dead for hours.