6670. MY HEAD ACHES

MY HEAD ACHES

My head aches with the longing of you,

and the satisfaction that comes with knowing

you're there : like the most simple caterpillar,

on its way to something else, I am always

so conscious of transformations. People

move on; they go to different places and

are never heard from again. It's so easy 

to change most all external things.

-

It's in the heart where the harder matter lies -

the kind you can't just break away or crumble.

The spirit is annealed, taught by fire to know

how to withstand. The blood is a spirit-matter

orgy  -  coursing through veins set in place but

so little known. We do not feel them at all.

-

A father can make a child pretty simply, by joining

sperm with a mother's womb  -  the glide of an egg

to a human form soon. But only a mother can make

blood. The child walks away with blood. 

We do not feel that at all.

6669. CABLE THE TAUT LINE

CABLE THE TAUT LINE

This is a load of my mind : it shall not

snow any more, and I shall not be a beggar.

I will soon be walking, sideways in manner,

to Brooklyn. But not the Brooklyn you know.

An older one, where the piers still work and 

operate, and the cargo ships come in and dock

while the stevedores curse their bastard slangs.

The orphanage or place for homeless boys still

sits on that sideways hill by Brooklyn Heights;

I think it's the one Jonathan Lethem wrote about

in 'Motherless Brooklyn,' an otherwise OK book.

By the ferry slip, I'll touch up both Walt Whitman

and Hart Crane together, just to ask if they still do

boys, and to ask Walt about Pfaff's. Outside of

all the rest, I shall not care a whit. Tremble me

these felling trees, the landscape, it grows barren,

all these horrid, grown men with swords.

6668. I AM NOW LIABLE FOR HECKENDORF?

I AM NOW LIABLE 

FOR HECKENDORF?

We've been loading these pallets all afternoon, 

my three to his one, I might add  -  and I'm now 

pretty tired of the entire routine. He talks too much,

for one thing. And I care for far too little. Every other

word out of his mouth : Israel this, Hezbollah that;

mixed up sides in a place where no one wants to be

anyway. Desert palms. Parched water. Fences and

underground caves and tunnels. Leads to what, again?

-

If you're so god-darned happy about it, you work with

Heckendorf, and I'll work with Pyle.  Just watch what

you say  -  everything has big meaning to 

this dude and his smile.

6667. ALL OF A SUDDEN

ALL OF A SUDDEN

All of a sudden the light in the heart went out and

the canyon was distraught. That Mandlebaum guy,

with the swastika hatchet, started swinging at the

library of old. Not a word was spoken, not even a 

mouse. Two reporters came by, swizzling for facts

but writing nothing down - 'we can make the story

fit the quotes later.'  The blond one said that.

-

I look back on things, and I can only remember the

years  -  when the century turned, and then the towers

were struck, and they fell, and it was a sunny, nice

morning, about a week after an equally nice Labor 

Day. The only reason I mention that is because for

weeks after it, whenever they ran bios of the dead,

someone always ended up saying, like, 'he was the

nicest person  -  it was only a week ago we all had a

great time on Labor Day, with him, at a cookout.'

-

So funny how things run together : same as when

John Lennon was killed   -  the quotes went 'we were

just together last week, him and Yoko were over for

Thanksgiving.' All of a sudden the light in the heart

went out  -  or did I say that once already? No matter,

I sense there are fallen people everywhere.

6666. PARTNERSHIP HERRINGBONE

PARTNERSHIP HERRINGBONE

To Hell with Hades! Does that make any sense?

Here in Chambeltown, instead, the people all sit

about, with their all day suckers and listening to

Lemmy Kilmister singing acoustic solo. What

to do about that? Over in the exhibit hall, the

high-school seniors are having their art exhibition:

the usual stuff, like high-school art students

everywhere  -  unsure, tentative, too colorful,

immature. The cleavage on that girl in a beret,

painted in blues  -  no, it just doesn't work.

-

They've asked me to take center stage at 2pm, and

read a few lousy, dissenting poems  -  kids in stalls,

like cattle, sitting around, drinking soda and laughing.

Yes, they'll laugh like hyenas at whatever I say. Well,

anyway, until I get to the parts about their mothers.

And that girl, in the wierd, blue beret.

6665. AT THE PHILIP OF MACEDONIA CLINIC

AT THE PHILIP OF 

MACEDONIA CLINIC

The watchword was 'careful', and we could only

say it once : The Macedonian cavalryman carried a

murderous weapon, a meat cleaver so to speak, called

a 'machaira', as his principle close-combat weapon. 

Xenophon also referred to it as a 'kopis', and the names

seem to have been used interchangeably : twenty-five

inches long, it weighed two pounds, with a two-and-a-half

inch -wide, single-edged blade which was eighteen inches

in length and curved backward. The weapon's weight was

out at its tip, making it an excellent shopping sword but

ineffective for stabbing or slashing. When the weapon was

swung, its wight was carried towards the tip, where it would

do the most damage as the cutting edge drove deeply into

the target. It was especially destructive when gravity was

added to the driving force, as when a cavalryman on his

mount wielded it in a powerful downward chopping blow

directed at the enemy below him; even without a saddle

or stirrups to steady him, the Macedonian cavalryman

on his mount could sufficiently grip his mount with

his thighs to wield the machaira with great power.

-

Arrian records show that at the Grancius, Cleitus

saved Alexander's life by striking a cavalryman

about to attack Alexander from behind  -  the

downard blow was so great that it completely

severed the attacker's arm at the shoulder.

6664. FRANCOIS VILLON

FRANCOIS VILLON

Put me in your tide and sweetly sooth me,

barren and alone, as  -  after all these years  - 

I return to these lanes and roadways of my

home. No one shall recognize me, of that

I'm fairly certain  -  all of my restrictions and

myths will have that covered. Any tales about

me will scare them off, (No? Villon? I? -  

yet still you thinkest they would know).

-

The farms, for sure, have grown since I last saw

saw them, into some more slumbering giants; 

stretching now for miles over hill and dale. Caverns, 

caves, and rivers still remain. I guess the village ale 

retains the selfsame taste as when that brew I lastly 

smooched. And nothing would have changed beyond 

my simple recognition (but for I, for I, whom 

no one now shall know).

-

That simple man who dreams  -  that farmer, and the

seamstress, those smoking smithy fires in the autumn

sun. Nothing changes half as much as does our expectation

of what is. I'll spend my time, perhaps, in revel, (that silver

lass for my own use I've still reserved and if she doth recall).

-

I cannot wait : 'tis near December and some fireside perhaps

she'll like to slumber at as I perform for her. Her father's surely

dead by now  -  that mooch whom all men hated has for sure

been pierced by now by some man's sword; an argument

or feud brought to fruition.

-

So as I say, dissolve me, little hamlet, deep within your

bosom once again  - where I may live forever, fast and still

and small and near forgotten. (I shall love the anonymity now

for sure, since after these long years my fame I do abjure).

6663. MY LILLIES WILL EQUAL YOUR DEATH

MY LILLIES WILL 

EQUAL YOUR DEATH

Do I ever get tired of sarcasm? Fat old guy in

California, fornicating with his own dreamscape,

tall thin man in New Jersey, selling stovepipe hats

to fake Abe Lincolns and their heads. It doesn't 

matter, in the long run. Like John Maynard Keynes 

said, "In the long run, we're all dead."

6662. WHEN THE BOSS GOES HOME

WHEN THE BOSS 

GOES HOME

(I think this is a God story)

When the boss goes home you'll want to tear it up,

rip out the hedges and rosebush, pry up the lawn,

leave nothing behind and nothing, either, to the

imagination. Put the dancing girls out under the

sprinkler, and have the rabbits and deer dance

their nature-dance together. Right there.

-

Don't write anything down because it all has

to come from compulsion, not planning. If you

kill the impulse, the urge will die.

6661. NIGHT TRAIN TO HARRISON

NIGHT TRAIN TO HARRISON

This long darkness seems like a tunnel; the day

drags itself out to a running blur. My own mind

now, seems a cartoon. Trees too thin to hide

behind, yet I do it anyway. I want to remember

Summers past, but there's nothing left at all.

I am cinder, I am ash. 

6660. DIOGENES WAS SUSPECT

DIOGENES WAS SUSPECT

The guns were loaded and the murder

was a secret. No one was allowed to talk,

under a penalty of death  -  the mob guys

didn't mess around. When you were out,

you were out. The creep to my left only

had nine fingers already because of it.

-

I never understood how I was to live down

my own lineage  -  a line of hoodlums, little

guys broken on the wheel of their own crime

syndicates : the embezzled dead, the stolen

and the twisted. Minions, so intent on crime

that they even forgot women. There's a trick.

-

I always used to think that must have come

up in every prison conversation : between

sentenced criminals, facing big-time or facing

a sentence of Life. 'Didn't you never have time

for Love, or a woman?' I figure they must ask 

each other that a hundred thousand times.

-

A dumb oaf, doing time, with 

nothing else on his mind.

6659. EATING IN THE BIG HILTON

EATING IN THE BIG HILTON

There's love and life and lust. And then

there's character assassaination : they all

can be made to go together easily. Like 

when the wind and the rain comes to spoil 

a day, what then is one supposed to say?

-

Or do? These portentous times become omens.

Someone once told me the shape of clouds and

the light of the day could foretell to him the mood

of all that is - pretentious crap, I always thought,

but, then again, who knows? It was him, it was

never me. Some twerp on a tarmac, waiting for

his plane. Can tell his mood by this lack of rain?

-

Now I'm eating at the big Hilton. They have this

roasted vegetable platter that's pretty good  -  then

with some wine it all goes down fine. Tell me thirty

years ago I'd be here doing this  -  I'd have laughed

in your face. Things are different now, those days

left no trace. There's love, and there's life,

and there's lust, I've found out; pick

one as a base and stand there.

6658. TAKE MY TEA KETTLE

TAKE MY TEA KETTLE

...And wear it on your head for this portrait alone.

It will look great by the time I'm finished. Take these

cherries and put them on your eyes  -  squeeze the

sockets and they'll stay there. Put in this celery, a 

stalk in each ear, and wear this orange rind under 

your lips and over your teeth. An orange smile is

irresistible. Now, just still still white I work.

It'll take but an hour or two. What's that

you say  - 'wouldn't a photo be just as

good?' Yes, I suppose, but it wouldn't

have the same class and I wouldn't 

know what to do.

6657. GOING TO FOND DU LAC

GOING TO FOND DU LAC

Lady I once knew  -  had Dachsunds; from Wisconsin.

Even talked like that  -  her, not the Dachsunds. Stitched

my head up once, I never went back to have her take

them out. She was registered nurse, and she used to do

informal ministrations for wounds and bruises in her

house. When she finally got me back there, she said

I'd say 'ouch'. This was going to hurt, she stated,

because now the new skin has grown over. Huh?

-

So the lesson I learned was : sometimes to heal

you have to re-wound. Going to Fond du Lac,

and going real soon.

6656. INSUBSTANTIAL INSURRECTION

INSUBSTANTIAL 

INSURRECTION

The blue army cot at the riverside clinic, that tent-camp

fronting the marshland : it's only a place in the mind of

a madman. Counting the dead and the wounded, trailing

through the dying like Whitman on parade. Why would

we have even come here, if it wasn't just to die : black

bullets scorching the treeline, tearing off bark and branch

alike; things falling on the horses' heads, men tumbling

like mannequins from the backsides of their steeds.

The blood bubbles, and the amputees.

6655. BOOK OF HOURS

BOOK OF HOURS

I'd like someday to write my own Book of Hours,

beginning with six-thirty, about so many things I

do not understand. Nothing spectacular, just the

mundane. Like about making coffee; how each

roaster is different, yes, and that determines what

different amounts of grind to use. Optimal? What

is it, one scoop for one cup, one cup per two scoops,

two scoops for three cups? How and when am I

supposed to know that? And learn it from where,

except from experience. Made too weak, it's useless;

made too strong, you can always, I guess, water it 

down some through the water reservoir heating, anew,

nmore fresh water. Beats me; but that would cover,

pretty well, six-thirty. Along with other observations :

how rabid is the sunlight in the morning, beaming 

and beating and heating already so soon? Or, on 

Winter mornings, how far has the snow advanced 

since last night's steady falling, and do I

really want to know?

6654. TELEGRAPH LINES

TELEGRAPH LINES

Right to the oceans with this great oasis, the

lines of the sky criss-crossed on the land : out,

off the water, the telegraph pole seems slanted

and falling, but it's just the tidal damage of some

seventy-five long years  -  and every word was heard.

Births and deaths and the marriages in between.

Jaquelard butterfly seascape phantom; what

last stories have you told and have you heard? 

My only solace is the silence between your words.

-

('But sure these lines don't talk; perhaps you

mean the telephone lines, instead?' And

yes then if I do so what  -  all the same

intention of the Man, and the message).

6653. THE GRAY MAN

THE GRAY MAN

The gray man began to tell me, he said "you are

an abstractionist with words, and have come all

this way to perform. This is all very interesting, 

and I am  -  just as much  -  very happy I came

to hear you. Everything you lit upon, word by

word of yours, was gone the instant you touched 

it  -  that was the magic of the reading. Complete

breakdowns of every matter to abstraction. A

gone-complete negation of everything you say.

Amazing indeed  - what Pollock or Rothko  -

each in their way  -  did with paint you do with

words. I am enamored of that, sir. Would

that I could listen some more. I wanted to

hang on every concept you introduced,

and was always amazed, all day."

-

I decided then and there to drink. To smoke.

To eat. To continue talking. To find some

girl to love me more. To ask around for 

money. to get acclimated to this new life.

To take up the magic wand of the new 

wizardry of all the gray man said to me.

6652. MY BEARD WAS DRIPPING

MY BEARD WAS DRIPPING

I took the southwest train to Babylon, and before

I got there, it was all gone : the sanctified lieder

of Schubert, nothing of all was left. 'Der Tod und 

Das Madchen' was probably the only one I knew anyway.

At the station, all those females were all gone as well.

Leaving just their clothing behind. I bought a pretzel.

I sat me down. I tried singing of something but

nothing came. Had I been a born Romantic,

I'd have a song, some instant antic. As it

was, I was roasted alive in my own

foul embarrassment.

-

There were maidens too  -  the fairest-haired 

and the most beautiful I'd ever seen  -  standing

around the looseleaf hall, the debating society,

and even the Woodrow Wilson palace  -  but

oh so long ago I'd said all I ever had to say.

About that and about that too.

-

Mystify me, missing one.

Mystify me again.

6651. UNMANNED BY CIRCUMSTANCE

UMANNED BY 

CIRCUMSTANCE

In Beacon, New York I sat outside of

Homespun Foods and ate. The people 

came by and talked. We sat at the

sidewalk, the dog on the pavement.

It seemed, all this, in the middle of

some other time : I have to smile, and

talk back, to so many nice people. And

I am nothing, really  -  just another errant

visitor to this miserable Hudson town.

So, nice. So, nice.

6650. GREEN WITH ENVY

GREEN WITH ENVY

There's a man here swearing he can come at will,

he's standing one foot up on the slag-heap, declaiming.

No one wants to hear his trap, running on like that, for

it makes them green with envy, yes, to even think like

that. For five hundred dollars even I would take him

down with my high-powered rifle from ten miles away.

Easy snare, not much of a task to do.

-

It's something like knowing your mother's not home and

she's already had sex with your father  - to create you

anyway. All this unfathomable bullshit keeps rolling 

around in my mind, and then some teen-aged Wunderkind

stands up to preach : miserable factors, the twist of the

snake around the neck of the lamb. Squeeze, squeeze

tight, my darling, squeeze.

6649. REGISTERED CLIENTELE

REGISTERED CLIENTELE

I've got to get out of the sun. There are days

when it burns my brain, and they're coming

again. I am the janitor here, in the larkspur

school for dead minds : I wake up crying singing

'Ah Sunflower weary of time! Who countest the

steps to the sun.' All the noise I've made with

my mouth  -  singing upwards to glen to the

abode of the gods. 'Who seeketh after that

sweet, golden climb when the traveler's

journey is done.'

6648. CONSTABLE KEEPS

CONSTABLE KEEPS

Having a cigarette means to lounge  -  one has,

by necessity, to gaze out at something, be seen

looking wistfully relaxed and content. Outside the

bars and taverns, all those wheezers sucking in

smoke. You can't just get up and leave.

-

Not too far back, the dark and the existential; the

twisted slovern of John Paul Sartre heaving his

Gitane or Gauloises. Once mankind smoked in

doubt and darkness, and in a crisis of place and

mind. Now, everything is so much lighter;

Daffy Duck and Mickey Mouse, coming soon,

outside a tavern near where you live.

6647. ARRIVISTE

ARRIVISTE

(oh, just one of those guys)

He's just gotten here, with his rapier and his

doctrinaire wit  -  nothing anyone can control.

I'm watching him eat ideology for dinner. He's

really a goof  -  the tuck of the arm and the nod

of the head, always and simply moving something.

People come to his table to say hello, or talk, and

wind up walking away having signed their own

napkin. Suitable attire for him? I say, concrete

shoes and a derby hat, a doggie bag and

and a lobster trap. Yes, yes, let him

go down singing, with a rubber

band around his claws.

6646. SWANSEA : BY THE TIME

SWANSEA : BY THE TIME

Each time I turn around it's another ending

again; the week is over, this task is done,

someone else is gone, that one is dead. As if

embedded in a frozen circumstance  -  some

Idaho steak in a lethal freezer  -  I can't even

shout back. This time, it is over, and I have

lost. The girl I'm with always says 'it comes

in threes'. I'd like to believe in something, 

yes, but, no, not that.

-

If it comes in threes, then why don't I get it :

like the rest, Trinity, Triune, perfect multiples

of, always, 9. What's it all about this time?

-

(Senorita, do you know the way I am looking

back at you  -  bringing me another silly drink

so we can talk about nothing? Was Zapata or

Rivera ever here with you? Am I too late for

that party too? Me, Zapata, Rivera, and you.

Perhaps not three, but it'll have to do. All

those rolling deaths then let them come

as they may. Any count will is too few

when I am here with you). 

6645. MESMERIZE THE MEMORIZER

MESMERIZE THE MEMORIZER

Well, there's no figuring for that  -  elephants are

gone from the circus now, and this is end-times for

sure : I know the moon is halved. I know that the

summoning of Jupiter is underway. We read the 

omens in  lozenge-like entrails of dreams and 

nightmares alike. The child wakes up, and the

mother says 'what's that all over the bed?'.

-

'Just the dreams of my nightmare self, mother

dear.' Intent on all survival, I want to tell these

stories : the baseball man is an idiot, and he's 

swung for those fences again. Crowds cheer.

-

Figuring for that? Nothing left in the three-ring

format? Who was that elephant they electrocuted

in 1903? Topsy, a female elephant, retired from

Ringling Brothers, electrocuted by Thomas Edison

as a public display of his current, and to  -  more

importantly, I'm betting  -  to publicize the opening

of Luna Park at Coney Island.

-

I want to say. What. The. Fuck?

Guilt travels all these years, in a

very closed circuit; and I hope 

they've all burned in their Hell.

6644. MAINTAIN MINIMAL MESS AND KEEP THE LIGHTS OUT

MAINTAIN MINIMAL 

MESS AND KEEP 

THE LIGHTS OUT

The endeavor goes like this : we will try to

maintain a modern equilibrium in spite of

all those age-old tales they keep trying to

tell us. Those madmen  -  the ones with the

scimitars and the beheadings, the clerics and

American bishops, everyone with their head

in the sand. The tortured logic of their Canterbury

Tales within a religious sphere just gives me a

winding headache  -  and I'm not even a guy

at the tomb. I traded my angel-wings for

the mercy of helping my fellow-men.

-

At least somewhere along the line someone

had enough sense to call it the Red Sea  -   

where the blood flows and the heads roll.

6643. OH PUNCH LIGHT

OH PUNCH LIGHT

I venerate the girl with the candlelit face, 

the one with the hump and the smile.

She holds things perfectly still, looking

to the sky all the while. There is no

whistling past this graveyard, and

everything else seems done to style -

the 'just right' and the 'well done',

while she's present, pile up

all the while.

6642. DIRIGIBLE GATE

DIRIGIBLE GATE

Oh leader, we are heavier than air.

Yet we float. How is this? Everything

I see below me is a nascent blur, and

now I realize only one thing  -  this 

world is all a lie and nothing more.

Illusions speckle my hands. Chimeras

are rocking my bedsteads and cradles.

I want nothing to do now with any of this.

6641. MAKE, MODEL, NUMBER

MAKE, MODEL, NUMBER

Serendipitous followers, all in one place. We're roiling

the hillside ourselves with new flowers. The thin man

has a pencil thinner than he is, and he draws lines on

the landscape in time. Cars are parked, over the cliff.

-

We take no measures, we call no ends  -  limitless

futures, owing no one any thing. Some men, I notice,

stand up front and speak to classes of listeners. I'll

have none of that : the radical black in his beret, 

spouting poetry to all his daughters and sisters.

Imiri Baraka again in disguise, and 'How I

Became Hettie Jones' in his eyes.

-

There's a backstory to everything, but if you don't

wish to get there then don't start the looking; the

path is a twist and it's treacherous too. That hillside,

those flowers  -   they are nothing of what they seem.

6640. MARIBUSH, WHO SELLS THE OASIS

MARIBUSH, WHO 

SELLS THE OASIS

The paintbrush man comes by on Tuesday,

selling his wares  -  brushes, colors, palettes and

solvents too. Anything but sensible talent; you

need to supply that on your own. Come back

tomorrow, when we leave for the African veld.

Green-acre, parking lot, deep-dish monkey bar too.

I can picture anything you mention in my mind.

-

The heat makes imaginary things shimmer  -  nothing

is really there; we live in an oasis of time that passes

and fades when you measure. Or try to measure.

The cattle call, the waist-bush brush, the row of

old cannons on the West Point Hillside. Each

one captured in some great Army victory.

-

How do you want me to stand? No matter what

I do, will you really even remember tomorrow?

6639. I HAD LUNCH WITH YOUR MOTHER TODAY

I HAD LUNCH WITH 

YOUR MOTHER TODAY

There were flowers on the table  - Easter leftovers,

I'd guess. Certainly not a funeral spray, though it

certainly almost smelled that way. She said things

were all about the same, and she was feeling okay.

6638. STORYBOOK LANDING

STORYBOOK LANDING

Some soul-fated webfoot storyman was telling his tale

while the tables turned and the outside sky darkened. 

I knew I didn't want to hear, but probably would. The

cardinal crowd sought sensation, and he was already

all tuned up. 'Permit me voyages, love, into your hands.'

I knew that maybe as a little Hart Crane, but this guy's

routine was to make jokes of everything, and this soon

became his jerk-off joke of the night. Big funny.

-

My genealogy rotates mostly around destruction. Vlad

the Impaler, I just found out, was my great-grandaddy's

offshoot of a brother; time-traveler as well. 'Do you know

where you're headed? Can you stake me a dime?' were the

big jokes in my family. I'm still laughing  -  and a head

on a spike, of course, should always line the roadside.

-

From here to Florida, Route One would really look

grand with spikeheaded mileage markers all along the 

way. Or do you not think so? Please be careful  -  

and do not disagree. The repercussions are bad.

6637. SOME SOUL-FELT DIGGER

SOME SOUL-FELT DIGGER

(aug. 1967)

I passed home on my way home last night: never

even knew it was there. Cat on a hot tin roof, and

the lights in the canyon were yellowed. My friend

on seventy-first street lent me his girlfriend for the

night. After I figured everything out, it went all right.

This here is the place we first had Doreen laughing:

the candle-seller and the book-guy, both with their

big tables, stayed out here way past dark. I wrote

down their names to send them some food. Fifty 

years ago, about, all this Diggers stuff was done on

east fourth instead -    there were three rooms filled 

with free clothes, hippie kids were everywhere; incense

and peppermint, that kind of crap. The funniest thing

I remember  -  and I was only 17  -  were the clothing

rooms where all the free clothes were tended to by girls

who wore none. The digger girls, somehow and why,

were always naked, always -  that's how they lived, 

some oath they'd taken to stay close to Divine, or

something. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind.

6636. COMMINGLED WITH FROSTBITE

COMMINGLED 

WITH FROSTBITE

Your heart is broken open like a tortured gun

and mouth is there just gaping : I have your

youth to deliver, but there's no one home

to receive. That  -  along with my silly delivery

truck outside, and the freezing cold within  -  

makes me wary of standing here waiting. I want

to stammer and leave. Just sign this please.

-

Only yesterday, in far better weather, I stood

at 14th street watching  -  some Asian guy was

playing his one-stringed instrument again. I'd

not seen him all Winter, and now I guessed

he was back  -  all the same, nothing different,

need is need, I guess. He had some money 

thrown down already. Happy Spring to you!

But can you play 'Happy Trails'?

-

Which is all I want really. I'm headed back to 

the hills, those inoffensive highlands are calling.

6635. MIXED METAPHOR NOT SEMAPHORE

MIXED METAPHOR 

NOT SEMAPHORE

I said that to all the sea, I said that to Moses, I

said that to anyone willing to listen  -  my way

of exclamation, as if to say, 'get things right,

or do nothing.' Burning bush, triangulated

meanings, and how paradoxical were the

tablets of Moses anyway  -  one word 

means one thing, another word

means something else.

-

You can't keep a good man down.

Shouldn't that have been one?

6634. TYING THE TALE

TYING THE TALE

(my day)

Twenty-four strokes a minute, that old steamboat

plugged slowly through the thick water  -  it ran like

blood through a lazy, deep harbor. Frazzled nerves,

like prism-lines in a blistering sun, were everywhere.

Even the Deck Captain wouldn't take a seat. 'If we

get past this without incident, I'm going to drink

myself dry.' The tanker, on the other hand, seemed

fighting mad. 'We were waiting for you, fourteen 

hours off the Hook and then another two at the

Verrazano Strait  -  how the Hell does anything

get done?' Tough Germans are, when angry.

This guy was a Mr. Bremen himself. Not

knowing what tongue he understood, we

just muttered  -  'Over there and shut

the fuck yourself up okay.'

-

It gets funny in these waters  -  like a ukelele 

playing at some backyard grill, no one wants

really to hear it. 'Oil and water,' I said, 'oil

and water never do mix. We shouldn't

handle these damned tankers.'

-

A thousand fly-off handles, and the guys below

deck are hungry now  -  they want food, they want

money, they want women too. 'How's that then

for visiting New York? You can't get in and you

can't get out.' I said that no one but Mr. Bremen,

and he understood right off. 'I've seen more 

sugar-cane than this in Cuba, and better

women in Hamburg for sure.'