5123. HERETOFORE

HERETOFORE

My father once had a '53 DeSoto. Green, dark,

and it ran like a tank. Or a bullet, I could never tell.

The difference between things  -  was never much.

It was 8 years old when he had it  -  a long time for

cars back then. It shook over 50, which was slow for

Dad. My aunt always called him a 'cowboy' behind

the wheel  -  better than behind his back I suppose.

-

The woods ran by as we drove along  -  my Uncle Eddie

had just bought some 3 or 4 acres of woodland and was about

to show us where he was going to build his house (it never came

to be) - 'after the wires were brought up here, after a sewer was 

dropped in, after the village approved his location'  -  you know

all the rest. His foundation was alcohol, so the going was unsteady.

-

Like Dad's car, a lot of things back then were shaky.

5122. 'THE WORLD CAN'T END TODAY, IT'S ALREADY TOMORROW IN AUSTRALIA'

'THE WORLD CAN'T END 

TODAY, IT'S ALREADY 

TOMORROW IN AUSTRALIA'

Being enticed by circumstance can dress up an entire world : 

I know this and have seen the evidences of weak men just

piling on. Rotgut in their sensitivities; wired laces in their

wild eyes. At the shoe store, people are selling leotards.

Little girls buy them for ballet class. At the sports store,

the boys all crowd in for their Little League hats and gloves.

What solace there, and what a contract for that store to have!

These are token evidences of grace, the kind a good world brings

forth, not the kind of guns and brutes, but a smaller, quieter and

more gentle world of hearts and minds connected as one.

5121. THOSE MANY MENTAL GENOCIDES

THOSE MANY 

MENTAL GENOCIDES

This time of year it was, I remember too well, all those

biker guys motoring down to Daytona for Bike Week :

black-fisted Harley-Davidson mongrels intent on tits

and butter, booze and cream. It went on for days, some

only later dying of the excess. Highway 1, it was  -  like

some crazy genocide-slaughter on a Vietnamese plateau.

Girls too, no different. 'Pussy draw, dick face, eat my ass,

fuck you too' emotions. So funny it all was. I lent out my

pick-up truck one year, to two fellows seeking a ride. They

packed the motorcycles on the pickup-bed, strapped in

tight, and drove away. I saw them, as they returned, a week 

and a half later  -  their stories were amusing. One guy never

left the deck of the outdoor bar. The other, incredibly, every

night took a soak in the bathtub, for hours, with a tray over

the top of the tub, holding wine, two glasses, and a candle,

each night. What an incredible story to tell. I want 

my truck back; it's been through Hell.

5120. POWER-BREATHE

POWER-BREATHE

Now it's come to this big nothing  - you say you'd

rather have been the snake or the one who did nothing 

or who did the tempting, rather than the one who fell. 

Oh, what the hell. How does it matter anyway? Some 

kid is watching a dragon on the screen  -  fire from a 

mouth and people falling dead left and right. 

The kid's elated, stupid little jerk.

-

I can't make heads nor tails out of the cards you're

playing, and if this was strip poker I'd have been naked

fourteen days ago. Empty rooms, empty pockets.

5119. LANDSCAPE IN CHIMES

LANDSCAPE IN CHIMES

The languid river sliced wood and land, cutting over

time the path it sought to take : I noticed a Monsignor 

watching, praising his automatic God; I witnessed a 

lowly housewife, pleading with the stars to bring her

family home. Every few paces, another problem yard. 

This was my landscape in Chimes.

-

As a youngster, I took piano lessons  -  unwillingly or

not  -   and found the scales and chords were not the

baseball field. I so wished to be elsewhere : Miss Frank's

hard piano bench, and doilies on the backs of chairs. It

all took time, and the rooms were very, very warm.

I did my lessons, and even her mother looked on.

-

Later, things changed, and the landscape did as well :

Claire Avenue became a bestiary, turnpike and oil trucks,

brown dirt in the air. Playing Claire De Lune in that form

so soon began to make no sense at all yet, even as a young

boy I began wondering why no one noticed these things.

It was a landscape in Chimes, and everyone sings.

5118. A BROKEN BACK AND THINGS DON'T WORK

A BROKEN BACK AND 

THINGS DON'T WORK

There's no longer any place to hide the cookies : the cookie jar

is gone and the canister's filled with candy. The lady who

comes through here cleaning always eats them anyway. I

thought of boobie-trapping her mine-shaft, but then I let

it go. She can have the damned old cookies anytime.

-

I remember one time, in Spring, two years ago, along 

some busy street in Brooklyn; a hefty Russian girl was 

sitting at the curb, begging. Or asking, passers-by for 

money. No one really paid her attention and she was, 

actually too far back, it was easy to ignore her. Between

takes, she'd go on talking to herself in a fast Russian

tongue. Then I passed her by; big mistake. She began,

in the same Russian tongue, screaming and yelling at

me, over something; for something I'd done?

-

I ignored her, as did others, but it was hard to do.

Ghost-lives have a way of popping up all around us:

who was she, perhaps some ancient czarina come back

to haunt; some crazed prophetess with the strength

of a girl Rasputin, running now riotous in our time.

-

I didn't have a handler, though I'd have liked to just

punch her out  -  who says you can't deck a girl just

for being a pain-in-the-ass. She made no distinction

about bugging me, so why should have to about her.

Above her head, the sumac and sycamores were trying

to bud; the surface breeze along the street was still

cold, though it was Spring. Maybe Spring, like St. Petersburg

or Yakaterinaville has Spring. Maybe. Maybe that's what

ticked her off and set up all that rage. Never will know now.

5117. PAINTING THE STILL LIFE

PAINTING THE STILL LIFE

I did not see you come in, not enter,

either doorway. Both doors have a squeak,

so I am surprised. Place your scarf down on

the table; it can double as our cloth. I am

painting here a portrait of Rabelais in green  -

green I said  -  like the same color as our world, 

though I know you would say money, no matter.

They've said our world is blue from space  -  

I wouldn't know, but their minds were set on

that conclusion before they started. I've noticed

reality tends to conform to assumptions; if you

do this the way you should, right about now the

Moonlight Sonata should begin playing. In all that

deep silence there should be something. The deep,

the deep, and I have given up.

-

Trying. Trying to hope, hoping to try, not ever knowing.

Where will I be two days from now? I'm figuring to be

somewhere distant. This silence in the morning is tough  -  

and there are better reasons we would have to speak then

to remain like this  -  aloof and mute..

-

People who are riding herd are doing so with ropes

and ideas  -  one to work with, the other to hang

themselves with. And, yes, there is always a

perfection in such a masterpiece as this.

5116. MANY MARY MAGDALENE

MANY MARY MAGDALENE

To keep the blend correct, I will

be landing in San Diego, right where

the airport and landing strip almost touch

the buildings nearby. Then I'm going to

Amsterdam backwards. I will be gone 

again. The Dutch don't wear those

wooden shoes, I've found.

-

I want to be scoring these false

contests again. Mary has a farm in

Pennington, with forty baby lambs, and

'Easter is just around the corner,' she said.

I disagree with that, of course, and shall

continue  -  to keep the blend correct.

5115. LEARNED HAND

LEARNED HAND

There was once a Justice named Learned Hand;

I never knew why. The winds that blew his robes

were the same as anyone else's winds, but he had

a learned hand. Making him, in his way, I suppose, 

a master-debater. He sat at the bench listening.

I hope as well he had learned ears.

5114. THE INVISIBLE MAN

THE INVISIBLE MAN

When the invisible man was wrongly arrested they didn't even

know if they'd done it, nor if they had the right man. Neither

were they sure what he was doing wherever he was and

where he had been. They searched what they thought were

 his pockets and found pyrite and sand. They figured the

weight must have held him in place. As they addressed

what they thought he was, they weren't even sure where

to look while talking. If he shrugged, or even shook his

head 'no', they couldn't tell. The one cop said it made

him queasy to see how useless the handcuffs were.

'Like nothing I ever saw in the Academy', he said.

5113. TARGET

TARGET

The narrow aims of the archer seem good enough for the

arrow and target. Getting by has never been like this before. 

I place a careful aim upon the sun's orb, and fire my own 

straight shot into the sky. Wayward shyward wand, away!

5112. MY RECITATIVE

MY RECITATIVE

Intentions like this are to cloud me over : that old

Mark Twain manuscript on display at Wave Hill

always makes me remember. He and his family stayed

there for a period of time, and this large, wide, handwritten

book is a remnant of testimony to the days he spent. I'd

like to take it someday  -  just lift it and walk away. All

those silly garden ladies would never notice. Anyway,

why it's displayed like that in a gift shop of gab is

way beyond me. Nature is swaddled in chains.

-

Here I am scrawling some more. Little lines and the

gestures of a monk : musings to some Jesus about that

which I should do, and muttered prayers for the dead, 

while illuminating a manuscript and just copying words.

God, what a paltry life is this!

-

I want to take the address of this train and let it run me down:

fifteen sodden people in their fifteen different lives, all

doing the very same thing. God, what a paltry life is this.

Even the conductor is wearing shades : to protect

him from the darkness, while adding to the gloom;
and God, what a paltry life is this.

5111. BATISTA LAHORE

BATISTA LAHORE

Here is the landing, here is the stair. Let's mix cultures

like the Cuban Missile Crisis   -  take down the pictures

 from the mantle and listen to all those sleazy bastards 

talking. The kind they make on TV. Here's one idea    -   

own up to America's problem. Look at last names.

 See who makes  this crap  -  who do you think?

 I'm sick of the racket.

-

I am perambulating the harbor facade where the 

wheel-spinners sit drinking at the open-air cafe. 'We're 

just waiting for the spin-wheel here to be legalized. I want

to make twenty-to-one odds.' Hurricane Candy-Ass has

ruined the Jersey Shore? Like a split-level bungalow

migraine headache for sure.

-

What a waste this country's become. 

What an immense pile of crap. 

5110. TRAVESTY

TRAVESTY

'Enough to sit here drinking coffee, watching the new

day blossom. Is that okay? We go back to life, one day,

the next, and it's always alright to live like this. Some other

century, when we were alive? The sheep, grazing, is

unimpressed by the mountain; but not by its flies.'

5109. DUE AT LANGLEY

DUE AT LANGLEY

'This sweater never fits right. I hate it.'  The girl

saying that was passing by  -  'He's due at Langley

at 9:25; that's two hours away, isn't that in Virginia? 

How am I supposed to get there in time?' Ancient

flowers never last : they drop their leaves in a

pantomime of doubt and their petals in despair.

-

The intentions of the best of us are always right.

She'll make it there somewhere, I feel; but I know

that's incorrect. The flourescence of the overhead lights

here does nothing for her face  -  sorry morsel, sad to be.

I figure, like a waterfall dripping, she'll simply use the

phone and text away about something her boyfriend

at Langley would understand. 'I love you, but I'll

be about three hours late. Am leaving now.'

5108. SENT THE WORLD OVER

SENT THE WORLD OVER

Like little rich kids keeping company, paring the

world between slices of apple and pear, they're

walking all over the land. Every town with a youth

hostel keeps a few. The slender girl from France,

eating Kix with her hand. The mustachioed guy from

Ankara, looking for the stars and stripes. I never talk,

just let them do it all. They like to find things : 'where this

Ellis Island?' 'How to find the Justice Keep I read of?'

I don't always know the answer  -  just blaming the

language works. They go away. I tell them I'm only

a lowly letter-carrier and can do them no more.

'Even here, in America, there are limits, yes, and

places which I cannot go.'

5107. EDIFY

EDIFY

High atop Cayuga's waters, as that old song goes, I stood

entranced looking down  - about below stood those foreign

fields of farmland to the water. A few Buddhist guys in the

pie-plate rehab shop were standing about. I often visited

here, just to see the sky and land, below and above.

-

People who needed their own help would come here to

soak  -  stay a week or two, live clean like Buddhists. They

tried their hand at selling self-made wine and pies and cakes.

No one ever came to buy that I could see. Never knew where

anything went : purple cloaks and saffron robes, high above.

-

I was emplaced by comparison to edify my own needs and

wants and  -  loving every moment of it  -  wished I'd never 

leave. It was 1973, and all those Cornell hippies were still

lining up to exit, try their luck at something, to go away again.

5106. BLUE ROAN HORSE SADDLE

BLUE ROAN HORSE SADDLE

Like an artist with fifteen hands, you can get away with

anything if you play it right : make the leaping horse a happy

looker and you can paint it orange for all they care. They

get the happiness first. Like a Rouault painting, or something

 by Marc Chagall  -  blue animals jumping through hoops and

over  moons, mawkish bales of cows and people, old Jewish

heads in traditional hats. Remind me of home before you go.

-

I live amidst another latitude  -  a fantasy of  meridian and

equator, concocted by a fevered brain never taken to sleep.

My soap jumps out of the dish, my toothbrush flagellates

my aggravated gums. The toilet I am forced to sit upon

is always in the middle of an earthquake, somehow, of tide

and hustle. No rest for the weary, but the weary 

are usually too tired to rest anyway. My blue roan 

horse saddle will haunt you if you try to doze.

Remind me of home before you go.

5105. MARKSMANSHIP MERIT BADGE

MARKSMANSHIP MERIT BADGE

I got my marksmanship merit badge the same way I

got my archery merit badge and my running merit badge.

By doing. Camp Cowaw. 1959.  1960.The same years

some guy named Vinnie Moriarity got nabbed with all that

money in a Jersey City garage. I heard about that each day

at mealtime from Mr. Hill, my scoutmaster. He drank his

coffee with a very odd stiff-elbow motion. It almost looked

like something you'd do in England. Elbow way out.

-

Even back then I'd wonder about the camp counselors  -  all 

those suave and sporty college boys working camp for the 

Summer  -  and those oddly interesting late-teen girls who'd

work the camp store, selling us ice-cream bars and candy.

Little I knew, I figured they were having it on with each other

every chance they got. Otherwise, why the hell work there?

They were together, mostly alone, in the dark wooded areas

all Summer long. Good God, what's a Heaven for? I'd

love to know some of the stories I never heard.

-

Each morning, and again each evening, in the Summer heat

or cool, a few of us and whoever the track coach was, 

would walk way down to the roadway, paved, of little traffic,

and run a mile on the timed and marked out road  -  having

to meet certain criteria, over time, to merit the badge. See how

that goes? Just like those guys and the candy-sales girls.

5104. NEW JABBERWOCKY

NEW JABBERWOCKY

Fuck your folded shoes and Van Cliburn hair. The

distelfink will get you in the end and I hope its bite

is hard. ('He was sitting by the river. He kicked off

his boots and put his feet in. The river began talking

to him.')  -  saying : 'talk the pie down from the wall,

wash these reeds in yellow water, take a vow to not

come here again.' That little story fascinated me.

5103. PART FATALITY, PART LIVING ON

'PART FATALITY

PART LIVING ON'

So to the keep, keep me, bound and right,

but always on. Meadows and grasses sublime;

(who sees the little city growing?). I have passive

people who do not like me; we are the creature of

little feet, but I have an iron head.

Dog. Lion. Cat. Dog. House.

-

The Kingdom has a bit of the plague. 1 - King's head

royal miter wears the silly crown alone until he passes

from the scene. 2 - 'Oaf with his head!' 3 - I think if you

give him something to look at, his eyes will seem to go

there.

-

Bundled carnage, boys! I shall grow

a beard. I shall heave this out the door - Buckboard

Charlie, five and dime, not just sneering but I am also

a shooter. A Charles Frankel lookalike. Sleeping in shades,

leaving no traces, no holes barred. Why is there this

character? Fish that are swimming, on a boat a'sail

upon the sea; and the most gentle breeze keeps blowing.

-

Skulls and bleached bones; mesas in the cold, cold ground.

Along the wall, I am a betting man - that I shall not see

tomorrow. Make it a sunrise, OK? Well-balanced, in-place,

where we stand idly watching and awed - sitting just to

learn. Part fatality, part living on. Driving is fun USA : Eat

at Job's; Park & Ride?; Angel Parking. I am anxious

now, but only for endings.

5102. 'NO WINE, IT LEADS TO CHEESE'

'NO WINE, IT LEADS TO CHEESE'

Every solemn occasion has its funny side : the bride

or such, slipping on her gown and falling, while her top

tears off, or a military soldier, at a ceremony, dropping

his rifle during a formal gun twirl. The organist who fell

asleep at the recital, awaiting his solo, slamming his head

upon the live keys, producing an astoundingly bad chord.

-

Specialty slices, things made of gruel, toasted muffins of

detriment. That's the kind of diner I'd like to sit in.

-

Here by the water where the wheel spins, the power stays

in place, and  -  from across the water  -  two blue lights

get stretched in reflection upon the surface of the glaze.

Everything has its comedy, its funny side, its humor.

Only the picture's frame changes, in all seriousness.

5101. COLOR JOE

COLOR JOE

The red runs from the eyes. Five poplar trees are

shimmering in the wind. I know they grow fast, yes,

but they burn out so quickly. Five or seven years,

and they're gone.  The blue above my head is the

same color of sky I remember from being born :

like robins eggs, like sky blue eyes, like a wonderful

sky being reflected on the surface a great big lake.

All of this is impressionistic stuff  -  items I simply

call in passing. Before long, I guess I'll forget it all

as I burn out much like a Normandy Poplar does.

Fierce growth  -  straight and swift  -  to a

stunning and soon demise.

5100. TAKE MY TANTRUM IN A LOVING WAY

TAKE MY TANTRUM 

IN A LOVING WAY

Before long, before long, before long, all these things

may pass, and I shall be left standing alone again. The

harbinger of next-times is coming in; I read it and smell

it in the air I breath. Along the way, every little, boxy house

seems mine  -  the people who live within are invisible, the

paths they walk, from driveway to mailbox, invisible as well.

I can talk to inhabitants of every place I've been, and in a

most-loving way ask forgiveness for my dreams and whims.

-

Sometimes deep at night I find my self crying, asleep and

dazed, yet crying some more : over a million nightmarish

things that never come to pass. Why is that? I don't know  -  

the same dawn is always purple, or so it seems to my reddened

eyes. Groping for a pillow in the middle of the night suffices and

will have to do. No guardian angel will be speaking for me.

-

Is this what it must be like, I sometimes wonder, to be a savior

or messiah to those who believe? Do all words fail, and does

sweat in turn just turn to blood before the death? How many 
things really happen at once, and how many-layered is the 
world we are in? It's no difference, and it's no wonder either. 
And I cannot get stuck in the thinking; no, I cannot
get stuck in the thinking of such.

5099. ESSEX FELLS

ESSEX FELLS

No, it's not just here; not Montclair either.

The train-station speedball powder puff runs;

and it's still a 1920's world. Which is why I like

the slowness : the black guy shuffling like a daisy,

seeking out the bagel shop where the two women

with the big hats, coming from church, have just 

stopped in. They sit down, stump-stooled after

their orders, with coffee and lots to talk of.

-

Everywhere I look, it's churches  -  here and there, 

a steeple and a hill, a walkway and an entrance.

Even the library windows have their stained glass

graces, and angels are flying from the parapets.

-

This thin world hides nothing  -  like veins showing

under thin white skin,. I can trace the path and see

the direction of everything. There's wonder and grace

just about everywhere now, and I find myself, 

sometimes, being a blessed man for living on.

5098. MR. MISANTHROPE

MR. MISANTHROPE

(at the Ypres salient, WW1)

Two thousand troops are dead on the border, mustard

gas I guess on their hot dogs already too late. The carping

officers are standing in a line muttering over 'their' losses.

'What more can we do now with just so few men left?'

These trenches, they mutter, now filled with blood and

corruption; this carnage can't just keep going on.

Hide the canisters and bring up more men.

Soon t'will again be time for a truce.

5097. YOU'RE SO

YOU'RE SO

You are so then what they call it : raven-haired beauty

with everything wrong, arms and legs a'kimbo, screaming.

Ecstasy such as yours should never know any bounds, and

I am enamored already of the confessional box and the country

preacher listening inside. One of the first sights of the day, and

already you are gone. This pile of snow so wounded and down, 

so cluttered now and baked with grime. Look at how the cars

ride by : gesturing with their headlamps and twirling taillight eyes.

5096. OH MY, BRILLINGSWORTH

OH MY, BRILLINGSWORTH

I'm done for now, and been quoted to death.

On a certain foul cushion along 24th street, some

fool has my name on his tongue, and what he's saying

just isn't right. I'm rolling over like Fido, because 

I just might as well be dead.

-

Lemonade and sulphur, that's what I think they

were drinking : wearing no reputations and carrying

something glum. 'Keep it separate', the guy said. I

stayed in place. Out front, there was a bench where

a few other workmen were just sitting around.

5095. WHEN YOU TRAVEL, TAKE ME WITH YOU

WHEN YOU TRAVEL, 

TAKE ME WITH YOU

Leaving through the entrance; that's OK. Outside the

doorway, a few guys as a mariachi band are plugging

away in their Southwestern hats. I like the marble cake

OK, but this is too much. One time, on the subway, a

guy came in, dancing. He ran smack into one of these

little Mexican guitar bands, and joined in. They called

themselves, after that, 'The Dancing Mariachi Brothers.'

5094. AS TO JUPITER

AS TO JUPITER

Bringer of jollity, I think Holst calls it. I don't know.

Jollity is Happiness, correct? Planets just make me 

scared. I read once that they were all alive  -  

and I believe that.

-

I believe, in fact, because I want to, that the only 

dead universe is the one in our heads  -  that all we 

have is alive and running all the time. We simply don't

 receive the signals correctly. These planets aren't 'planets'. 

They're living, fiery things with lives and places all their own  -  

out of our time and involved in something else. We're only seeing, 

let's say, their dead backsides, what's left that faces us.

-

What they see of us is indistinct and passing, as all things 

are moving on. We live; they live. Together;

as the ancients knew, who named and

gave to us all these things we only

now have glimmers of, faintly.

5093. A DISPOSITION

A DISPOSITION

Such an image tends to shading  -  soft and

cooperative, silent. I guess it leads to passive things

in the social world. Yet that's OK by me : I'm always

better off alone it seems. My crayon book, now dark

along its edges, is marked with images both cruel and kind.

I shake no man's hand who says better of me. I think back

on nothing but favor. Checklists and favor-times, all marked

by the marker who manages Time; small smudges, queer

shapes, stray lines running right off the page.

5092. WHAT KIND OF THINGS DO YOU REMEMBER?

WHAT KIND OF THINGS 

DO YOU REMEMBER?

I can remember this shirt. Well horse-whip my asshole now.

I can remember the  time Billy Martin kicked all that dirt in

some umpire's face  -  no, that can't be  -  kicked up some

dirt anyway. I remember when the Earth stood still and all

the carnival rides suddenly began going backwards. I was

five, and terrified. I remember screaming in horror for

weeks. I remember screaming in horror for weeks.

5091. I HAVE TWENTY EXTRA HANDS

I HAVE TWENTY EXTRA HANDS

I'm walking past the University Club on Fifth Ave.,

over by all those silly places : Rockefeller Center,

with the Oklahoma and Okinawa camera people 

everywhere snapping, and St. Patrick's Cathedral,

where the droll droolers from Cincinnati and Cologne

come to pay homage to their God, singing, as if

it makes any difference that you're now in a big,

fancy church like a nation-state on wheels.

-

Screw that, I'll just keep on walking  -  past the pretty

lady in the white fur hat, riding shotgun with her tiny

rich-girl dog peering out of the top of her handbag. Is it

still called a clutch? Too suggestive, I'd say today. Here,

as well, the cigar guy is smoking the stogie. It's large

enough to double as his cane, but it'll burn down and

he'll only lose support  -  and he never had mine anyway :

money, money, always funny. Like John F. Kennedy's

crooked dad, only causing trouble in the end.

-

Here sits Malaga. Really, that's her name. I don't know,

sounds more like a place to me. Would you name your

kid Calgary? Or Manitoba? Actually, not such a 

bad idea, not such a bad idea at all.

5090. DUMP THE POST YOU FOOL

DUMP THE POST YOU FOOL

Leave the message board empty; no one reads

it anyway. Clean the carport carpet, run the razor

lightly over Sally's ass. Dump the post, you fool.

5089. INTAGLIO

INTAGLIO

Con brio, arriverderci and the rest. I found the

startling language on a mug-top visor, holding the

espresso cup, easing the coffe urn. Whatever jilted

fantasy makes your Italian mind go. You can carry

your Gina Lollabridgida hat to my pasta fagioli hut

anytime. I never leave the confines of home : makes

for a fine, dangling pepper-pot, and all the German

tourists come. Now, over and again my father talks:

his battleship-tender stories, his memories of those

shoe-shine days. I want to say 'enough!' but

how can you hurt an already broken heart?

5088. LET ME TIRED I

LET ME TIRED IN

Not being the one who can't talk here, I won't be mute.

Most of the time I spend is spent in a prison of broken

 imagining, wherein people sit to talk, and linger over

broken dreams and faded memories. The frog-man

plays his distillated water-flute; how strange to

watch him move. Used to mermaids, instead.

-

This is chiaroscuro, something I never wished to see:

the light will fight the dark, the dark shall fight the light.

Let us stand to see which wins, if any. Like the end of

the world would be, I imagine a big flash where such

opposites meet. No one plays music at the corner.

-

The baseball men have returned from Rome : visiting

the Pope, they said, was a masked-man's thrill, and he

was interested in baseball too. I didn't, and don't, believe

a word of it, but  -  if he can believe some of that other

stuff he pushes, why not spitballs and beaners?

-

The capstone is leaning on the edge, where the

time capsule will be placed. 'What's inside?' I asked.

The man said  -  'a jumble stick, an IPAD, a box of Kleenex,

a sleeve of Advil and a cross from the Medical Center at

Lourdes and blessed by the Pope. 'Holy Hell!' I said,

A regular, freaking home run!!'

5087. WHAT MAKES ME REGISTER, HEAT

WHAT MAKES ME REGISTER, HEAT

Too early for long, the slim train decidedly runs slowly in

the cold of the dark night air : two conductor women, black

girls, large heads of dreadlocks under that conductor cap and

all in blue, walk together through a nearly-empty car. In silence

I swear they're twins  -  sisters as one, proud and tough. To click

a ticket can't be a life's work, but this is a moment worth dredging.

-

I want for more : sitting back in an otherwise empty car, like

a ride on my own coach-car, I imagine Andrew Carnegie, 
channeled here, and I spit in his spittoon. In silence of course, 
no splash; the girls would notice, or little note. Not sure. 
How to connect? And what does a 'conductor' do, after all, 
but ride harsh on 'conduct' becoming? 
I relax a bit, and just ride on.

-

Let me take this comic coal-book backwards 'round the bend

beyond the glen. There's really nothing happening, and this is

fairy-land : in an archeology of the mind there are bodies

that matter, and others, I suppose, that don't. The dead-shell

cavalry yarn is mine. 'Wash me in the water that you wash

your dirty daughter; and I shall be whiter than the

whitewash on the wall.' I remember what I said, a

soldier's song now, from the Great War of 1914.

5086. HEAVENS, I TRY

HEAVENS, I TRY

And don't the marks of Hadrian's Wall and

his memories work together as one : answer

I try, though I do often miss. Mr. Kurtz, he

dead; and so now is my horror.

-

Rows and rows of apple trees  -  row and rows

all in a row. We start out as easy friends and become

encumbrances only later : to each other, reflections

of the selfsame self to be recognized in another.

The sing-song quality of things sways us, easy we

move as if pushed by the wind, or something sap-like 

flowing through our own trees and limbs.

-

I am hearing language between two people: 'fifteen

years ago in Costa Rica'  -  exchanging their nods and

tongues  -  'I can say it all now, but I couldn't then; and

now I can say it like that but I can't think it in English.

What does that mean?What does 'chula' mean?

Am I favoring something wrongly?'

-

There is a tall girl running the place  -  in black,

dispensing beverages and coffee in a new day's early

light, only now dawning. She handles tongs like

delicate tools. 'We had our first fight,' she says, 

'last night.' The two girls' laughter is mystifying

to me but  -  heavens  -  I try.