6041. NO WASTING

NO WASTING

Saddled the horsemen. Wise guy.

Go with caution, brother; and watch

the wild winds. There's not anything

here to be left behind. We've cleaned

up everything that was left.

6040. BEGGARMAN, THIEF

BEGGARMAN, THIEF

He died whenever you want it to be  - everything

was pre-arranged like that. Think it over; it's

really pretty amazing. In the same vein  -  right here,

dark green armchair, lantern-light on a table, feet up,

smoking a pipe, it's me at station thinking just this:

This 'God' thing I keep hearing, I've got it figured,

if it was. This "god' thing didn't have to do anything 

at all. No seven-day creation, no fall of man, no long,

sad story of jettisoned love and hope. All 'God' had to

do, by script, actually, was come up with one 'idea' of 

something that accepts all that as possible, and let them

do the rest. Yes, yes, let them do the rest. Mythology,

History, Religion, it's all up to them. I've done my part.

6039. A WEE BIT UTENSILE

A WEE BIT UTENSILE (1958)

Not a word maybe but it means a tool, and that be

that. Not yet, I wasn't born yesterday. It's difficult

to eat when one's mouth is closed  -  I learned

all of that a long time ago, as a young boy out

out camping in the woods. Wish I'd never left.

-

Do you really need to know more? I'll tell you:

when I was eight, I was hit by a train and only 

woke up about half-a-year later. They thought

I was dead at the scene, until I groaned when

some rough-rider first aid guy started to drag

me around. I was scrunched, you see, beneath 

the metal dashboard of a '53 Ford wagon.

-

My mouth was wired shut for about nine months  -

broken jaw and face and such All I could eat was

baby-food sucked from a deep spoon through the

metal clamps and braces holding my mouth. That,

and custard  -  which, believe me I grew to hate.

My parents' neighbor, Myrtle, used to come and 

visit  -  after I'd awakened from my coma-death -

about every two days with another bowl of that 

crud. Oowee, I hated that stuff.

-

Then I was in traction, all wired up, for another long

time  -  and some stupid male nurse kept coming around

to change the sheets  -  every time, twisting me and turning

me until I grimaced and cried out. It was so weird. Can

you figure any of this out? But, hell, do you really want 

to? I'm still here, and here I am. Utensile, it is.

6038. WALK AWAY WITH EYES

WALK AWAY WITH EYES

The sensitive, simple narrative no longer

works. Homogenized flute. Part-time Wall

Street. Walk away with eyes. Just trying

things sometimes works. Amidst, oh, the

pulse of a supernova; rocks, like heartbreak,

crush even the rivers of Eden.

-

At the Roman Circus I met the cartwheel

of the sun, that has no name. Fires had gone

out, and everything was already leveled, with

just people milling around. 'Our Jesus is kept

in a bottle.'

-

By hand I am needing a breakthrough  -  

melancholy surprise, and the blues are

of a postcard hue. Starry heavens.

Box-shaped malingerers, more shy

than boys. It is axiomatic, all this range.

6037. I WATCHED THE OLIVE

I WATCHED THE OLIVE

Loaded like a dictionary  -  pimiento and

garlic indeed. Here it is, we sit at the table

holding napkins, wondering what's ahead.

Horror night? Things that jump out of candles,

or into the candle-light, however that goes. I

can see through ghosts like the fabrics of a

gauze. Ghouls. Goblins. Skeletons. Ghosts.

-

Some fools are eating fire   -   the mental man is

bending spoons, the card-reader is, well, reading

cards. Outside of my small circle of friends, the

only things left are the dead and the haunted.

By George, let's run to the graveyard again. Yes!

Let's run to the graveyard again.

6036. HARROWING, THE POSSIBILITIES

HARROWING, 

THE POSSIBILITIES

He took his tie from around his neck,

he ran forward a couple of steps. Screaming

aloud, he projected his intentions : 'I will alter

this world once more!' The surge of the roar

of the crowd of the hoard was all that had

commanded the scene. Police boats in the

subtle harbor rattled. Some few marksmen,

hired police snipers, took their aim. 'Lethal,'

it was said, 'this man is lethal, and he has to

go.' Demagoguery with a human face. Truly

the worst : no worst than the collective

for of assassin police  -  up for anything

and able to do the task and cover the

needed tracks. Just a few pops  :  I 

heard I heard it all.

6035. DASHBOARD FINGERPOT

DASHBOARD FINGERPOT

I am the engineer, the small one reading the blueprints.

I nod as if I can understand all these lines : understated

elegance, the glory of the universe. Here goes the beam 

that will hold the edifice up. Watch out for those things 

which dangle. I have such delight  -  on my face and in

my eyes  -  when I see how all things work. The man with

the gabardine hammer, all he wants is a silly profit.

Dollars for dollars, and a penny for your thoughts.

6034. AMASSING THE SMALL THINGS

AMASSING THE 

SMALL THINGS

She had nice, red cheeks, but that was that : 

first words spoken, 'we in America!' I was 

not sure to be alone anymore, yet I 

gave her a blanket for the taking. 

-

Conspiracy ends when people get hurt :

there's a story for every disaster. In the

morning, the bells and the whistles will

ring and all those new factory hands 

shall run off to paint mercury and 

lead on their own disasters. For

every story, there's a lie.

-

That girl was still dancing, when I left

this 'gentleman's club.' It was not that

at all : more like a tendentious assault

on even the fact of being human.

6033. RUNNING THE APOCALYPSE

RUNNING THE APOCALYPSE

Now that I'm running the apocalypse, let me settle in : 

my dangling feet have just landed, the candy-jar is

filled to burst, and  -  already  -  I can hear five 

hundred kids splitting seams at the door. As my 

father used to say : 'this is not a couch, it a 'settee'.'

He was an upholsterer and all that stuff made a

manner of difference. I'd always figured a settee

was one who sets. Like me.

-

Now that I'm running the apocalypse, let's make

flames come out of faucets and water from a

match. I think that would be a grand coaltion

of moment and matter  -  grand photos on

buildings, bells that won't gong, and women

sitting around with cigarettes in their holders.

I  -  truly, and in despair  -  want a new world.

-

Rilke it was said 'you must change your life.'

When it all comes out in the wash, there's no 

change to ever be made, he knew not of what 

he spoke, and I never too much dug his 

overly-sensitive nature anyway. But  -  

since I'm running the Apocalypse now  -

change will start today.

6032. NOT TRUE, ALL THOSE THINGS

NOT TRUE, ALL THOSE THINGS

It's not true, all those things he said : the water

was already wine and the hordes weren't fed by bread.

We were short already, by a hundred, before we even 

started. None of the cars would start  -  jumper cables,

new batteries, all those guys with wrenches; it all

seemed sincere, but no one really meant a God-damned

thing they said. I stayed around to watch the ending,

but fell asleep instead. Now there's bunting on the

alley wall, and the crocodiles steaks that people

were eating were  -  supposedly  -  tasting really good.

Holy Frijoles, Batman ! What to do now ?

-

I rode the train this morning  -  way before dawn  -  to

New York City. When I got there, I had time for everything

(it's like that now) and I watched the sun come up over

the east-side buildings. Light was everywhere, suddenly.

Things glinted and shone; glass reflected back. What a

worldly kingdom all this is, I mused to myself. I went

over to the man holding coffee in his hand and repeated

that selfsame sentence. 'Would I wish that that was so.'

That's what he said in response to my good intention.

-

He meant a material gain. I just meant a good intention.

NEW POST NOT POETRY, TEMPORARY

Artist: Gary Introne, born 1949.

 

1967 - Began at The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, from its initial location at the big loft on old lower Broadway, to its new home at 8W8th Street, the old mansion of Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, later the original Whitney Museum, as three brownstones were joined as one. Lived in the basement, after moving from 509 e11th Street, also as a sort of night-watchman of sorts until Mr. Rush came in each day at 6:30am. Being paid $16 a week and sleeping either on the grand old art-library floor or in the basement cubicle I'd constructed from, and within, an unused, huge fireplace space.

 

Wordsworth it was who stated 'Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility', and I guess that works as well for my art. I spent my times there in a small glory  -  working under the presence and the instruction of Milton Resnick, Philip Guston, Nicholas Spaventa, Charles Cajori, Esteban Vicente, Mercedes Matter  -  and her husband, Herbert Matter, photographer  -  sculptor David Hare, and others. Also, the wonderful music lectures of Morton Feldman. John Cage and Buckminster Fuller showed up too!

 

Both my 'emotion' and my 'tranquility' were paired with my 'art'. From the trudging with and building of stretcher bars, to my endless street explorations of NYC : cast-offs, old wood, found objects, ads, paper pieces, posters and street art, I 'recollected' my days. That is my art. The straight, yet very crooked, line  -  the paradoxical joining of one into the other mixed with pigment, color and form.

 

Anyone can identify fringe activity where something is appropriated loosely (and in art the 'modern' world allows this). It is the artist's activity now, the academy being long dead to us all. I grab onto stuff, move it around, reconfigure and transfigure it  -  into psychology and new drama. Value is added and influence acknowledged. This is culture making, not some minority activity. It is what artists do, and how they see. It is not the act of making a commodity  -  instead it is the mark of the transformation of the world around us. I want it to sink into you and become a part of you  -  and trouble you.

 

I like the work of art, and I like the ease of art. It's the easiest hard thing I've ever done.

 

I was also accepted to the San Francisco Art Institute, which option I declined, not wishing to undertake that 'lighter' transplanting. I like the darker world of my own New York. In 1973, I went to Elmira College, with artist-in-residence Gandy Brody, until his death in 1975. Since then, and here then, the rest.

 

Most important is the line, and then the form, as they are both brought into play  -  into something else altogether.

 

Gary Introne

6031. LORD FORGIVE ME FOR PASSING JUDGEMENT

LORD FORGIVE ME FOR

PASSING JUDGEMENT

Justice O'Hare, oh how I hate you, and all for which you

stand. I'd rather hang from a bridge than talk to you.

-

At the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, at the Manhattan side,

underneath it actually, is a plague about George Washington.

-

No one cares and no one reads it, or even knows it's there.

It was Cherry Street then, and, as President, he lived there.

-

He and Martha. They had a pew over on Broadway, at Trinity

Church, and the plaque says they were seen to ride each Sunday,

-

in the morning, on their big white steed, riding to church.

A dumb enough story, but worth something, yes.

-

What galls me is the stupidity of today's world : no one giving a

care to anything of the past at all. Nothing real. Nothing true.

-

Lord, forgive me for passing judgement, but

it seems now it's about the only thing I do.

6030. METAPHORS MAKING ME WINCE

METAPHORS MAKING 

ME WINCE

Twenty harness doctors standing in a line where the tree

meets the horizon and the maid in her lace tells all she

knows. Juneteenth this isn't. It's more like a Mayday

for the heart. Here, here are the keys to the car.

-

On days like this, my mother used to bake. Cookies,

bread, anything to pass the rope of time to another

set of grabbing hands. The priest in the rectory, a flute

ready to play a steady accent, the man with the payment

book, they always came swooping through.

-

One or the other of something shows up at the cat-milk

doorway. Meowing goes on in the middle of night.

While everyone else seems far away at sleep.

6029. COUNTING MYSELF IN

COUNTING MYSELF IN

You are in a fallen world, where men are kissing

men again, and girls are kissing girls. And  -  though

I need not be, one way or the other  -  I am all OK 

with this. Nothing bothers me; affectless as I dare

to be. I walk in endless circles through these myths.

-

When people say it's all one way, I tell them 'gender is 

a recent thing.' Of course, no one understands : instead 

they gnash their teeth, uncomfortable they curse. They

flail about as if it mattered. I am from some other place,

nothing bothers me  -  did I say that once already?

-

Fifteen thousand people mean fifteen thousand

different things. You err in finding one prediction

for a very chaos'd predilection.

6028. THIS HAMMOCK SHALL BE AS MY GRIDLOCK

THIS HAMMOCK SHALL 

BE AS MY GRIDLOCK

Here in the city they say nothing is forever;

my Blinky Palermo motives wander as far  -  

as far as time allows; there is no ending

to anything at all. Mondrian is my catch-basin

man. The boat-guy down on the harbor pier,

he's standing on two good legs waving

something in. I'm not intent to move.

-

Not a muscle, not a twitch. I shall stay right

here forever, or until I die, or  -  if those aren't

the same things  -  until something massive moves

me. Propels me upward. Raptures me back to

Reality, whatever that slimy franchise is.

I'll have fries with that; make me

one with everything, as that zen

guy said, just now, to the

hot-dog vendor.

6027. SOMETIMES WE WERE JUST CHATTING

SOMETIMES WE WERE 

JUST CHATTING

(no escaping, Penelope)

Here between towns, somehow neither here or 

there, things are put together strangely  -  the 

whitewash on the fence drains down the eager 

gully, people dance a naturalistic dance.

-

It is said the hubris is a bad trait to follow.

Aristotle called it 'shaming the victim.' Other

men of method means call it other things. But

what goes down is a fateful insurance about

episodes delightful or goals which need to be.

-

No escaping, Penelope. The strange

Druids are still dancing 'neath the dark.

6026. MY GARGOYLE FACE

MY GARGOYLE FACE

Gargoyles staring back, waterspout faces intent 

on remaining. I will be working on that : here I

sit, looking up. I am a face of my own, my

masonry precipice of doubting and wonder.

-

When they put up this building, everything was

so much easier  -  stonemasons in place, carving

to belittle their world. Around them every form

of caricature watched as, far below, humans

on horses and in wagons looked upward.

-

To see some glory in God, to find some likeness 

of a heaven or their own wicked glory. To convince 

themselves that they'd convinced themselves of 

something. How different, then, all that masking 

of faces while men with hammers and

chisels went busily about their work.

6025. I WAGER

I WAGER

Do me this favor, come to the river with me.

I wager it will change your life. I am the one

with the cloak of a martyr and the cap of a clown.

How can you avoid all that?

-

Let me distribute the following : awareness of

the world around; good feelings for the rest of

Man; expressions of affection for Nature and

the animal kingdom. I harm nothing.

-

Now it is 3PM. On this stupid highway, people

are fouling their nests  -  ten-cylinder Ram trucks,

a few with loaded beds and broken trees and branches,

loudly crowd the busy shoulder, trying to avoid 

the two who rear-ended each other.

-

My shadow throws a hand across the roadway:

my charades make sense : the cloak of a

martyr and the cap of a clown.

6024. INTENSITIES OF HELL

INTENSITIES OF HELL

Intensities of Hell can be like Heaven, 

if only you live your life alone : waiting for

the caramel budge to break inside the oven,

where your head last surely sat. All those

women I used to know, doing their best

Sylvia Plath. To scream 'Daddy', to scream

'Daddy', at this and at that.

-

We are all monsters when the skin gets peeled 

away. Every thank-you fades to go-away. I cater

to the needs of everyman : or whoever that is right

now for whom the wind is wild and blowing.

There goes the rooftop. There goes the shed.

-

I watch this fine-boned woman sitting for tea;

she is thinking she's still in Schraft's, like Audrey

Hepburn would be. It's all a foil, and her chiseled

features send me money just looking. I wonder,

inside her head, what her Daddy-Monster is.

-

So then, Jane of Lexington Avenue, kiss me in your

dreams if you'd like, or spit out my name with the

drudgery of some exploitative moment that I am.

Chase me until I fly away. Just call me 'Daddy' today.

-

Hear the chimes of the Westside church. They ring, and

they peal, they sound and they hammer. There's nothing

to go away from; every sound is its own redundance.

All those intensities of hell, so startling they are.

6023. LONGING?

LONGING?

Waiting for nothing, beneath the trees:

a few boys playing stickball start singing.

The low sky, clouded over, races its dark,

coastal-storm clouds overhead : branching 

and breaking the shadows in a dizzying motion

of a newer form of stop-time. Games are to be

played. Yet, what am I still waiting for?

-

My longing wears a step-coat of wide diversity.

Here, the buttons are blue; there, the clasps are

bright red. What am I to do? I try reaching out

for something I ache for  -  I cannot reach, it is

all too far off. A man's reach should exceed

his grasp or what's a Heaven for?

6022. MONTECITO, BABY

MONTECITO, BABY

Not that this wasn't the one : the true survivor,

the one to outlast the stars, the pinnacle of all

the image. Here the chambered nautilus stays.

-

This was Ho Wan Pi's desk once. He placed it 

here after a feng-shui dream. That dream was 

of the end of the world's wide realm and the 

entrance to another geography altogether.

He went.

-

Now, it is said, the whole, entire world is California.

6021. I'VE GOT THE BUCKLE FOR THE BUCKLE

I'VE GOT THE HUCKLE 

FOR THE BUCKLE

(totally abstract)

Demonstrate the illumination factor by lighting

the lamp. We walk amidst the darkness as the dark

men vamp. The human factoid as a consensual fiction. 

Human society as a consensual fiction. If that is found

so, I say what of human reality as a consensual fiction?

Hold these packages for me : I am entering another realm,

and I need to find the key to this apartment. As at the School

of Visual Arts, on 23rd, there are so many confusing things :

the art-supply-store, the school-store, the school itself, and 

then all feeders who duplicate the services and try to feed off

the student-art crowd that congregates. Until nighttime, when all

they do is party, drink, party, screw, fuck, drink, play, amble and

party again. Then they walk east, and disappear into the river.

Sometimes I just feel off-kilter. I want to wear that school-cap

but cannot figure why. I have the off-centered idea of geometry

never being art : angles and planes and rigorous attention to

rational detail. Like the fellow in the white apron whose job 

it is (somehow) to re-fill the broken eggshell with its original

contents. A sliver of Life for the silvery man, indeed, that is.

6020. CICERO IN 45 B.C.

CICERO IN 45 B.C.

Had his throat slit. It was in the Fall of

44, 6 months after the assassination of

Julius Caesar, when Cicero had written 

his treatise on the responsibilities of

'civilized' man. Yes, even back then. 

It was called 'De Officiis', and long

would outlive him. Church fathers, 

medieval grammarians, Renaissance 

humanists, they all loved it.

-

In 1455, shortly after Gutenberg had

printed his groundbreaking Bible, what 

was the second title to roll off the presses?

Why, none other than 'De Officiis.'

-

Having his breakfast one day, of a creamed 

and curdled yellow milk, Cicero said, 'Well,

now. What is all this?' His man-servant, in a 

dutiful service, replied, 'Why sir, it is nothing

alone, yet is a jumble of oh so many things.

I think they shall be calling it 'the Future.'

6019. SOMEONE'S LAST INTENTION

SOMEONE'S LAST INTENTION

They are clapping, Eduardo, for nothing,

while we play stupid music of the bounding

main. How'd that ever get started anyway? The 

sea as the 'bounding main'? I mean, let me talk, 

don't get me wrong, listen. I like it. It's got a

nice feel. But, what's the essence? What's it

really mean? Bounding main?

-

The martyr on the ship I last saw sinking was

not any martyr at all  -  bawling, crying his

stinking eyes out as the plastered ship went 

down.  In that sinking it made its own wake.

He pealed a merciless peal for value and mirth,

in which it was all soft enough but sounded to hear.

-

His last intention was to pray aloud  -  but the water

caught him good and all his screaming did was garble

up that sound into something else : 'I seem to be dying,

my God, dying here ! and nothing now comes of it!'

-

I wasn't close enough to hear the rest, and he was still

spitting words when I saw him last. He there reminded

me of a Captain Ahab of his own, going down with a

vengeance but going with a purpose as well.

6018. ARMS AND THE MAN

ARMS AND THE MAN

Listen to this then : the roar is of

the men, fighting backwards over

field and glen. The stretched hand, 

over the waters, reaches out. 

All we hear is the rush.

-

There is a single purpose to every 

thing in the world : a continuance of

circumstance, a constancy of want.

6017. REASONS TO BE

REASONS TO BE

I hadn't wanted, so I did without.

This little table in the red cafe is only

large enough for one. Even with the 

other side not against the wall  -  as it is

now  -  there'd be quite a fit for anyone 

else. I'm sitting here on Decibel Street -

well, what others call 72nd. Every noise

seems  -  yes  -  amplified and accelerated.

-

How fast does everything move? In retrospect, 

the world is unchanging. Glacier-like, the rocks

and boulders atop the earth are long done heaving.

Nothing moves. Nothing whatever changes. 'I think.

therefore I am'  -  trying to tell us something? 

6016. TITLE THIS SEQUENCE (1966)

TITLE THIS SEQUENCE

Sitting on a train with the landscape spinning by;

moonscape, dreamscape, winning. A small wreath

of smoke, something outside, reminds me of a

factory of old. The guy next to me, in my memory,

is damning himself with a cigarette. The small

silver case he holds holds ten.

-

There's nothing to be done. I have to breath.

Whatever happens after this can be his funeral  -

so they say, in 1965, that smoking kills. Lung

cancer, emphysema  -  old those big post-Kennedy

words. What Lee Harvey Oswald started. The

real New World was coming.

-

I sat back and was reading 'The National Observer'.

It was a weekly back then  -  some Liberal funk paper

out of DC. All fun and games, how to solve the world,

end poverty, quest the debt, reach the moon, save the

blacks. Medger Evers. Those three guys from New York,

Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. Like yesterday,

man, like yesterday.

-

When bowling was cool. When the Beatles were breaking,

a new surge with all those fey British groups. When Esquire

ran Dylan on the cover  -  all that crap. 'Writes like a poet,

sings like a rebel'. Pure frozen-fuck hype. When bowling,

yeah, bowling, was cool.

6015. THE MANHANDLED TRIO

THE MANHANDLED TRIO

I wish this world could be Paradise.

I wish I could walk through walls. 

Open the lock 'round my neck.

Let me out.

-

There are stupid parents on TV.

What I just heard I can't believe : an

Army commercial, in which two dullard

parents are speaking to the camera. 'When

he first joined the Army, we were really

afraid. We just didn't know what to expect.'

-

What did you expect, genius folk? A game-show

a day with no one pecking at the window? No 

winner's allotment at the cost of someone losing?

-

Sometimes I wish to just bury myself in 

an overcoat ten times larger than me.

I wish this world could be Paradise -

but it ain't, okay?

6014. ARTISAN WELLS

ARTISAN WELLS

Not artesian, OK? Those were the wells from

which the beer my father drank was made; so

claimed. 'Artesian' wells. This is different.

Who else can make water so well?

-

I make no claim to inherent talent or a way

with things; but I for sure know I cannot 

make water :  unless in the way my grandmother

used to mean when she said she was going to

toilet  -  'I've got to make water.'

-

Does anyone know why I'm so confused?

6013. HERE IN BLUE

HERE IN BLUE

Always, always, waiting.

The green guy is chewing gum.

His daughter looks like an ace.

My farthest place from home is

seeing this distant vista. I sit.

-

This camel-back notebook is 

shaded in gray  -  pencil markings,

splotches or smudges. Every tiny

drawing  -  believe me  -  means

something. Mysteries abound.

-

I look up and am startled by a 

strangely hooded horse, seemingly

agitated and staring back at me.

6012. THIS NATION IS AN ENTITLEMENT

THIS NATION IS 

AN ENTITLEMENT

I could not entomb anything more important 

than Death itself  -  that which comes bearing 

the graces of cover and scent. Those cowardly 

boxes which drop right into the ground. Now 

they are made of some incongruous matter 

which never decays. Because we cannot speak 

rightly of any death but a dog's, make mine a 

small box of rottable pine instead; thanks.

-

Here, here, let me vote. I'm sure it's something.

6011. TRAVESTY

TRAVESTY

Wooden hands wear a black hat.

Open doorways let in light. The goyim

are watching the man in the Sukkot hut

drink his overly sweetened wine.

Why any of this occurs at all

is way beyone me.

6010. THE MARKET CRASHED AND MY ASPIRATIONS SOARED

THE MARKET CRASHED 

AND MY ASPIRATIONS 

SOARED

(stay close to your own inventions)

Throw those God-damned dice down on the table, come

here you little rat, bring me another cigarette and scotch.

Take my scorecard and shove it up your ass, stand around

waiting for whatever else will come. I have Salvation now.

-

Perpetuate the dagger that cuts to the heart, the entire idea

of violent death. Go to the confessional to strangle the priest.

Write something obnoxious on the altar-piece's awning.

Bring home the candles, cut down the monk.

-

Stand on the corner of Beaver and Pine, peeing into a blazing

cup  -  beat the next stockbroker you see to death and pieces.

Set ten-dollar bills ablaze and throw them off your shoulder.

Bow down to no one but itinerants and thieves. Gird your

loins, write home to mother, and enjoy your stay in jail.

Whatever else you do, stay close to your own inventions.

6009. SUDDEN INFUSIONS

SUDDEN INFUSIONS

Grace, like a battleship, is coming home to roost.

With all its guns and armaments I can only look

forward to so much more. They named this ship

'Loki'. I do not know why. But, will I understand

the battle anyway? Not on a dime.

-

People fight to a grimace in thinking they're

making a point. And they are  :  the rubble and

the bodies left behind will tell. Even though your

point is pointless, buddy, you've played it well.

Now the unearthly silence is all yours.

-

I have to stand here like the rest and watch the cardboard

cutouts of ladies and men  -  who should be better, who 

should know more  -  act like morons on their dancing stage.

The little politician cretins cringe, for nothing. He and she

lie like their honor depends. They are as bare-assed naked

as any can be. Foolish, stupid, and dumb, the three.

-

Particulate matter will settle. The smoke and the grime finds

a place. After a few days, the bloated bodies  -  if there's a flood  -

will at least float away. The birds and rats will have the eyes.

The vultures can take the tongues.

6008. PRESIDENT OF THE HANGING COMMITTEE

PRESIDENT OF THE 

HANGING COMMITTEE

'If that's Art, I'm a Hottentot.'  President Harry Truman

said that, on one of his better days. The rest of the time

he was bombing other cities. Good for him, atomic weasel.

He also chased journalists who criticized his daughter's

piano-playing in recitals. Better man than I am.

-

And, hell, I'm President of the Hanging Committee and that

gives me great power. 'Cept I don't yet know what that's about :

am I hanging this here 'Art' or we still doing subversive lynchings?

Jesus K. Rist how do I get in these confusing situations?

-

As a youngster I played marbles with thieves. They would

supply me with the mandatory marbles and those marbles

were always square  -  or at least way out of round. 

Nothing ever worked, and so I lost every time.

Buckets of dollars, and dollars for a bucket.

Better man than I am, now do you know how

that feels? The hurt is flecked with pain.

-

But, still, no matter, I am : President of the

 Hanging Committee again.

6007. MY PANTS ARE IN THE TOLL ROOM

MY PANTS ARE 

IN THE TOLL ROOM

My pants are in the toll room where they hold 

themselves for ransom  -  painter's loops and 

gunslinger eyes, a hook for a holster for a word 

to the wise. If everyone is scared all of the time, 

then no one is scared any of the time. I use that

as my parting couplet. I'm done.

-

Here is the seat where the magistrate sat. See how

the indented cheek-marks refuse to leave. What's

with that? All he did was shuffle papers while

I tried to talk, yes, even I, talking like a hollow,

couldn't reach his inner brain. He allowed us

to go home  -  but nothing more than that.

-

Before he came back he said he would 

call. No one mentioned to him that we 

had no phone at all.

6006. WE THE AUTOCRATIC

WE THE AUTOCRATIC

Look now at this :

look then at this.

Parse the list, 

thin the choices.

Make the 

parsimonious

noise as if you

really meant it.

Go on sailing.

But, whatever

else, do not

remain idle.

6005. THE MEGLOMANIACS

THE MEGALOMANIACS

King John the Marshmallow, and all those kindred

spirits, he drove himself high in a hot-air balloon.

Quite the new fashion, made the town swoon. He

rose up high, over fields and woods. Looking down

he spoke : 'My Kingdom is good.'

-

Down below, good Queen Sally was making love

with Elmer Swansong. A soothsayer, a wise-man,

a seer. All he kept saying was 'Johnny be good.'

He was thinking of the future - had never learned to 

read or write so well, but he could play the guitar

like ringing a bell. This the future. He took care 

of the King. And the King's maidens, and the 

King's mistresses, and the King's wife  - 

 in fact, all the King's affairs.

6004. PAINTING THE TOWN RED

PAINTING THE TOWN RED

For painting this town red you get five years  -  

hard labor or not, all that's up to you. There's 

coffee in the deep-dish morning, if you can find

your way through the dark of night. Some ghouls

and spirits there won't let you be. Annoyances abound.

The rich-cabs, town cars and limousines, in the dawn they

sit and curbs and idle for the morning debutantes who make

their way. I've seen them, NYC TV people, on their way
 from Princeton to their studios in private car transport. 
The drivers are so cool as they sit and wait. Right outside 
D'Angelo's Italian market, there's always two at dawn. 
Over at Small World, where they wrestle every day with the 
coffee kin, I love to watch them go at it  -  memories larger 
than mine for words describing all those 'beverage' orders 
outlaid for the nonce. Only a few minutes. Never a lifetime 
sentence. Yes, and all that goes for clothes; not my

feeble daily rags, I mean 'clothes', the kind the big stores
 sell, the rich array of form and fit and fabric  -  everything
 for the king or queen who wears it. Language and words,
 clothes and jewels, all that together in painting this town red. 
Somehow. Red.