6808. THE HIGH ROADS ARE DREARY BUT THEY LEAD TO THE TOWN

THE HIGH ROADS ARE 

DREARY BUT THEY 

LEAD TO THE TOWN

Man is the manner of all things? While the

coffee brews, the stove top sings, and the

entire run of the kitchen seems useless. I look

out some patterned window from 70 years ago,

and all I see are the rippled edges of an old-man's 

glories: names and faiths and paths I used to know.

All I realize now is nothing -  I know that I am

nowhere, and just hanging on - a ventricle on

a really bad heart, still beating but not to thrive.

-

It's awkward for men to be on the pinnacle headed 

down  -  the guy over there, with the well-shined

shoes and the ring on his pinkie, he makes me wonder.

He's probably the toast of his very town, Mr. Stockbroker,

high-toned success, the one with the Maserati and the crest,

yet to me he looks like nothing as much as a gay Mr. Peanut.

-

I swing around to watch the girls : yes, they're prime, all

levels and swirls. Shapes and forms beneath those clothes

some textbook artist sweats over, I'm sure. And yet, again,

the toast they order with their teas is soggy. But so what.

I am not them. They are not me, nor he. Mr. Peanut is

separate from me. Something like Martin Buber

from a long time ago. I'll swell the crowd, and I'll

sweat the nut. Eventually something will give.

-

But I can't get up to travel again. No, not now. Although,

yes, these high roads are dreary they do lead to the town.

6807. A DOG'S LIFE

A DOG'S LIFE

I might have been high-tailed at the bridge

but now I'm tired and restful. Sloshing

all that water sure did refresh. I did 

what I did and what I like to do best.

6806. IMMULACUM

IMMULACUM

Rutherford New Jersey's where I want to be :

on the edge of those sickening meadowlands, the

small shopping centers and strip malls challenge.

Patches of marsh and water  -  paved over things

where parking lots take precedence : we then wonder

about those screaming gulls and marshland natives.

-

Everything found in one place  -  the cast-offs, the tires 

and the shopping carts, the old debris of all that lumber.

William Carlos Willliams, hear me now, while my eyes

are close to sleep. I may never awake. I may not want to.

-

If I read another freaky memoir I'll know the Pope is coming over. 

6805. WHY CANNOT TO JUST ACCEPT?

WHY CANNOT TO 

JUST ACCEPT?

Why cannot to just accept or learn how to

at least abide? There are so many versions of

what we live : I've heard Hell and I've heard

Promised Land. The singer's choir is singing,

higher. Why cannot to just accept the hand?

6804. RALLEY 'ROUND THE BOYS, FLAG

RALLY 'ROUND THE 

BOYS, FLAG 

Recharging batteries, waiting for the red light

to turn to green  -  not traffic but charging. My

drill needs some power. All the same I love this

work, hard work, the kind an American used to 

do : subtleties out the window, I give it all to you.

-

Sitting in an opaque setting, dull light beaming

down and a newly temperate heat causing people

to wilt. Same complainers about snow and cold

are now complaining about heat and humidity.

I tell them : 'It's not the heat, it's the memories.'

-

Civil War re-enactors, always at it anyway, wearing

those hideous, hot, uniforms when they should be

tattered and haphazard instead. "I came south, I came

south to kill the Rebs. That's all I know for sure.'

That was the talk of the New York streets about all

the boys who went . Same words just a different place.

Nothing organized about it. Draft Riots and purchasing 

one's exemptions just by being rich. Just like the new 

Corporal said : "It all works out in the end. Fall in."

6803. WEARISOME TRAVELOGUE

WEARISOME TRAVELOGUE

I'll think for you and we'll just tear this map

in two. Every road diverges at some point,

nothing makes sense, the straight lines are 

crooked and the crooked lines straight. A dead

end is never a right of way. Who made this map

anyway, Pontious Pilate? 'Truth, what is truth',

might just as well be 'route, what is the route?'

Well-traveled Sapperstein and his horse-cart

filled with malarkey. I'm going home by

Tuesday, you remember? That's what I told 

my boss and he'll be a real delighful prick

if I'm not there. So, like I said in the beginning,

tear this map in two, and turn this car around.

We'll put things together again much better

when we get back home. Yes, this map 

says make a right at this left. Just do it.

6802. THE NEAR AND THE FAR

THE NEAR AND THE FAR

So, the near and the far have no things between

them, and I am stuck in this middle. I have killed a

man and left him dead. No, no, that's not true at all.

I have risen a man up from the dead, touching his

cloak. Yes, Lazarus arise. That sort of thing. Let me

see what else : I have made you soup from carrots, 

and offered you my pieces of bread; I have painted

myself into a corner, but levitated my way out. Yes,

though not in real life. I rowboated  -  this is true  -  

through a storm when I should have taken shelter:

tree limbs falling on the shore, wind and water

washing my face, and the rowboat itself just get

blown where it may. My two oars were useless,

even in those oar-thingies, which I now forget the

name of. Yes, there's a specific name for that, where

the oars go, that metal thing, sort of like a 'U'. A

bolt of lightning hit quite nearby, and I saw frogs

blown skyward from it. I saw frogs blown skyward

from it. Yes. I saw frogs blown skyward from it.

Talk about something making an impression....

6801. CARDINAL EMINENCE VOUCHER

CARDINAL 

EMINENCE 

VOUCHER

It was someone else, not me who said

'I contain multitudes.' I know exactly 

what he meant. The steely heart in the

lovelorn maiden and the plowboy she's

been chasing  -  together they can both

share a madness of lovers' arms entwined.

Then they too will contain multitudes.

6800. COCKLE THE MANUFACTURE

COCKLE THE 

MANUFACTURE

The man who looked like Columbus

said, "I've made everything work for me, 

don't you see. I've got no regrets." He's

just like that  -  a cauliflower ear in a no-duck

zone, fighting to the end and always listening

for the bell. Subtle differences reign. He'd never

tell. His life is an oasis; money, cars and greed.

-

The disastrous love affair his first-wife had  -

she always says  -  was with him. I ought to know,

I've kissed her twice. Once was in the bowling

league in old San Juan; eating peppers spiced

with something horrid, even hotter than her.

-

Another time, a cool, crisp Fall morning, I was

walking up the hill to New Providence, yes, and

I swear I saw her again  -  rising away in a dark

blue Subaru and looking at me the whole time.

6799. PILLAR TO POST

PILLAR TO POST

Essential derives from need, and necessity

is the mother of all invention. And I've heard all

that before. The houses come tumbling down  - 

cranes and bulldozers spinning their trash. 

And why is that  -  alas, need, again? 

-

Mankind grows a stepping stone, the exponential

growth goes sideways. My 'two' kids have two

kids each, and if they too have two, that suddenly 

makes fourteen in about twenty years. Needs push

the envelope; they have to go somewhere.

-

Thus things tumble down  -  the human resets

the stage upon which they play. 

Everything moves around when

the curtain goes down.

6798. BEGGAR ME THE NAZARENE

BEGGAR ME THE NAZARENE

I am not far from home. Still recognizing

things I see, I remember the school, the 

less-than-cranial robustness of the barber-shop

and tailor, when such was there. Long time before

this time passed. History has a sequence only it alone

can keep; the things that went before, the expectations

and the take. I cannot improve on any of that now.

-

This lonely fellow comes lively home again : what

is it he wishes to achieve? His own renown, or just

another grubby and unremarkable crucifixion?

6797. USEFUL TOOL, LUST

USEFUL TOOL, LUST

Vincent Van Gogh can lord it all over me :

Lust for life, elan, comraderie. The wrinkles

in his time were wavy items in a doctrine of

paint and point : Starry Night and Sunflowers and

Irises and Potato Eaters. Call the bank, I'm coming

home. I love the soft sound of the pedal-man's wagon.

6796. WATCH

WATCH 

What does this mean? Does it mean

I say what I mean? I'm confused yet:

first when 'Time' was invented, the

sundial worked for free. Then the 

mechanical men took over : weights 

and counterweights and chains and 

pulleys. Clock towers in the village

square and trains that run on time.

A gift? Then clocks and then  -  the

magic moment I'm getting to : the

word. There aren't too many other 

words like it. That thing on your wrist:

a 'Watch'. A massive word for what

we do, for what we've developed as

Time. Something you have to 'watch'

to tell. Thus the name that yet amazes.

6795. EMANDATION

EMANDATION

I am canceling primogeniture; I will go it alone.

The spaceship Long Harvest will come down upon 

me  -  and the frail Earthlings who exit from it will

be lost in space, proverbially, and have nothing

to breath at all. I will have taken their air away.

-

That was one story, and this is another : Cinderella

goes to the earthly ball but only finds a yellow slipper

fitting no one. The errant prince comes by and is

already married. The pumpkin turns green with envy

and forgets to reappear. So the Cinder girl goes

home a queen, and the rest of the tale is moot.

-

My men are tapping drums with figments of their

fingers  -  ideas happen while the water is running

strong through a stream. I remember all my days,

and envision new pile-ups on the highway that

runs throughout this new-land tinderbox that

is my flammable heart. Watch out, fires,

watch out; you are marked for life.

6794. AMELIORATE ME

AMELIORATE ME

I know that girl in the white hat is lurking  -  

behind the photo, faceless  -  and she can help me.

I need her assistance in finding this world again.

For I am lost  -  beveled edges catch the sun and

blind me. My hearing's off and can I understand

only a tenth of what is said. My big, stupid feet

are clunky and stub the curb as I fall over.

Is there nothing that I can do to same

myself, to save another?

6793. I DID MY SHINING OUTSIDE THE SUNLIGHT

I DID MY SHINING OUTSIDE 

THE SUNLIGHT

Gorgeous years, they went by in a blink. I saw so

much of nothing I was dulled. My senses wanted a

roller coaster, the Cyclone at Coney Island; instead

I got one of those water-cars for little kids they used 

to treat with at Asbury Park : flat surface, placid sheen.

What good was any of it anyway : fifteen years for this,

another ten for that. A ice-cream custard cone smashed

into your face, flat. Take this, you stupid rat.

-

Summation : the jury went home early. They too 

were bored and tired. I rambled on a bit, and

them I also gave up. Singularity. Eccentricity.

Me.

6792. ANGELS WITH NO WINGS BUT REAL DRIVE

ANGELS WITH NO 

WINGS BUT REAL DRIVE

A few things : don't drive that stake through my heart;

it sill soon enough be raining again, that's what thunder's

for. My spreading advancement will eventually catch it all.

Overflow is nothing but an excess. Nothing wasted.

-

The man in the blue car (I hate blue cars, their drivers

are the worst) has the most slipshod way of advancing

the mood I've ever seen : his wig is on really bad, his

cankers are showing, and that bottle of lotion on the

end of his seat makes me nervous about a hundred things.

-

Once long ago, I used to sell encyclopedias to the blind.

Then I cured them each by a touch of my hand instead.

 I lost my clientele and I lost my job.

-

(Your button-down boots can take a shellacking.)

6791. UPON NOT LEAVING AMALFI

UPON NOT 

LEAVING AMALFI

The local post is a joke  -  nine days too

late, this meager postcard manages to say

nothing at all : 'Having a great time, leaving 

tomorrow, ravines and tides are great all

around (snow is not general all over Amalfi).'

I get the Joyce  -  your fractured reverence is

an insult, almost. But what do I care? Staying

in your house while you were gone has been

great. However. Leaving tomorrow tells me

nothing, I need to know, frankly, when was

your today as you wrote this. All this amended

relativity really stinks. P.S. Your cat is dead.

6790. PATTERNINGS

PATTERNINGS

The patternings of the great aren't that much : they learn 

to walk early, they learn to make their noise. It's only later, 

in retrospect, when all those telltale signs show up : great

at logic, deft with hands, fierce with numbers, drinking

juice by the glassful. The "we should have known's" mean

really "we should have seen it coming." Parents are the

last to know. Like some reverse Houdini, most people

are expert at getting themselves, time and again,

back into the very same chains that

they just got out of.

6789. SEQUENTIAL NUMBERS

SEQUENTIAL NUMBERS

Sequential numbers make me smile  -  like this one, #6789.

The world should be so gracious as to hold my hand forever

over things like this : the cave where the bear lives, the aerie

from whence the eagle flies. I wonder what if I had said, instead,

'sequential numbers make me senile?' What else then would be true?

-

Fifty years ago, when I was in seminary school, it was 1965. Nothing

sequential there, of course; if you add those numbers up, they come to

21, and that's nothing much. But look again : 1 and 9 are 10, and 
6 and 5 are 11. See what I mean, about that smiling?

6788. I THEN LEARNED MY MAGELLAN

I THEN LEARNED 

MY MAGELLAN

To circumnavigate the globe you simply go straight.

Compass. Sextant. Astrolabe. I think all of this, anyway.

It was all a dream, by the way, and I did think I knew the

fellow, but everyone was following him with enthusiasm

too great and grand for what I knew of him. 'The Lecher of 

Keansburg,' they used to call him : one of those streets by

the Club Miami, where he'd bag a new girl, and often her

mother too, nearly every night. Amazing touch, those

monstrous fingers. Then he went back south, and last

I knew he was selling used cars in New Orleans, or maybe

Texas  -  so many other things have intervened.

-

To circumnavigate the globe you simply go straight. The

lesson book said that, but then it added the caveat 'beware

of obstacles along the way. It is not all water.' Had it said,

say, 'beware of popsicles along the way...' that wouldn't

have been so bad  -  they're only water anyway but in a 

different form. Things change, and then they hardly matter.

6787. BEND, SINISTER

BEND, SINISTER

Yes, Nabokov and I don't care who knows. I am 

from another world and that's what counts. 'Dystopian'

it's called, and I added the comma. The man at the doorway 

said to me 'You're entering wrongly, this is an exit door.'  

I answered 'I know, but ask me first if I care. I am from

another world.'  He held his head down while I kicked.

-

Shredding things, leaving no trace, walking swiftly away

from nighttime lights : yes, that's all of me (and I don't

care who knows)  -  secreted swan songs behind canisters

and glass vases, lead candle-holders, and fiery, flaming

roads. Women in  muffled dress, old men in Euro-scarves.

-

I am from another world and that's what counts : holding 

court at some errant moment between dawn and day  -  the

time when no one listens. The time to which no one attends,

the great, rolling time of nothing inherent at all. Bend, sinister.

6786. GETTING IT ALL DONE

GETTING IT ALL DONE

I do it quickly and early, usually.

Never waiting for late hours, sunrise

semester starts me : 6am 'til doom.

-

Pedestrian concerns are kept away; no item

in my bag gets mixed. I want to walk the 

straightest way, through the obstacles 

and sundry effects. The  glare of light 

on a window, the blare of a car horn,

blaring away : yes, getting it all

done quickly.

6785. LEGERDEMAIN

LEGERDEMAIN

The sky is larger than its other half which goes

beyond our sight : it runs an eternal half-lap

like that, building earthly expectations until we

break away. Eternal quarrels with ourselves is

the plight of a bounded race  -  warfare, dotted

with death, coated with Evil. 

-

Granted, consciousness wins out in the end : we

all go our separate ways by the expectations of that

which we've constructed and stood by to believe.

But Life itself is harrowing enough for these other,

hidden things to leave us be. Nature is a rainbow.

Nature is a tree. Nature is the factor by which

we humans be.

6784. JOHNSON PASS

JOHNSON PASS

So, I'm headed to Johnson Pass but very unsure of

the weather. Days such as these, you never know what

to bring : Spring jacket, sweater or two, something to wear

in the rain? I never usually bother, my clothes are all the same.

-

It's not like I care for appearances anyway now : walking these 

rocky paths, some awesome Bear Mountain ridge stretched out

before me, I'll be like a little man dangling from a hope. A very

modest vista stretched out front. Other people walking everywhere.

Kids are among the worst companions  -  noise, no concentration,

wanting fun and getting everything just plain wrong. A jet stream

overhead, the pattern of a plane, they'd care for less, if it came.

-

This is that earliest part of a season of discovery. I go places, 

I set things down. I sit and watch. Everything, they say, 

happens for a reason. But even at Johnson Pass?

6783. I AM FATHFULLY REVIVED AGAIN

I AM FAITHFULLY 

REVIVED AGAIN

Crossing the border into Pennsylvania, all I

see  -  like an echo from a past of gloom  -  are

fireworks shops begging the traveler. For his

Fourth of July? I guess, already the season

looms. I stay away, hating even the thought

of the noise and the sparkle. I'd rather find the

natural ripple of the local stream than that local

stream of money that screams. How crass and

coarse can all things be? Seems to me, they'd

find a way to proclaim 'Christmas is the day for

fireworks!' Blow 'em off for the new kid's birth.'

And wouldn't those wise men chuckle if they

found out their Star of Bethlehem was just a

massive fireworks on display for them.

-

I count the barns and realize they're gone : more strips

of shopping now than lanes of comfort for a cow :

Every highway store that ever was can be counted 

here twice in fifteen miles. Oh wow, so wild.

6782. THE KINDS OF THINGS TO NOT BELIEVE IN

THE KINDS OF THINGS 

TO NOT BELIEVE IN

(sandy hook, nj)

Crawling forth from the sandy smudge, some new

sea-creature is calling my name. He says 'Sandor' three

times over. I call back and say 'I am a fiddler crab?' and

then I say, 'I am a horsehoe crab?' On the distant line

of the horizon (which my father used to say was always

seven miles ahead at sea), I glimpse a small yellow ship,

which I know instead is large. Tankers float their ways

along these waters, headed out. This is the famed

Narrows. This is something else. 

-

I am stranded on Sandy Hook. My car is gone, 

my bicycle stolen, and the jetty has run off with 

my boat. Only a seaside cove such as this can 

hide all my arms and ammunition. Dotting 

the sands, here and there on the abandoned 

fort fields, are missles aimed at the sky.

-

The naked beach here, Gunnison, has always called

me. I get here four or five times a year. To peddle my

wares before they're over; to watch the pigheads play

their volleyball. A tournament worth watching  -  

naked bodies in stressful cavorting, like missles

and pillows no longer touching the sky.

6781. HERE COMES THAT REVOLUTIO

HERE COMES THAT 

REVOLUTION

"You're going to let Power do that to you, take your

birthright away? Just because they have it, doesn't mean

they own it, the Power. How come they don't allow us 

no guns? Just so's they stay the only ones with them?"

Union Square, New York City  -  you've got to love

the idea, as well, that this is right next to a Hillary

sign-up table. Nothing to do with each other, and

anyway, in between the two there are people selling

American Indian Stolen Lands tee shirts. Somebody's

going to get the man, I'm thinking. Such a fine

profusion. And all the noise that goes with it.

6780. THE BAGGY PANTS MAN

THE BAGGY PANTS MAN

'I can't lift this for nothing and ain't trying no more.'

He's like that : cinder block for a dumb-ass brain and

he got wall-eyes too, like a fish. I can't hardly look at his

shape, let alone his face. He just sits there, and each day

makes up a new story : please help, give money, wounded,

homeless vet, lost my house, lost my pet, need help, got

nothing, spare a dollar please. Good days are when he sits

there and holds a Bible for hours; another good day is when

he brings along a dog to sit with him, poor thing. Hype.

Hyperventilating bullshit ragamuffin crap. I want to

give his head a slap; see if any nickels, dimes or

quarters maybe come out. 'Know wad ahm sain'?

6779. MY HEAD FOR RANSOM

MY HEAD FOR RANSOM

At the Paterson Falls I watched the water jump down,

the Spanish kids flee, and the two guys with their dogs

hang around. The noise behind me was waning : there

was a time when this Falls was really a roar, but over the

years authority has turned it down. To a trickle now,

and all subdued through pressure pipes and control-house

valves and nozzles. Pity it is, the place reeks now. 'You

can hold my head for ransom, but I know it's the rest

of me you want.' I heard some mouthpiece say that

as he walked by with a girl  -  I actually thought it was

pretty good. Alexander Hamilton, the King of these Falls

once, with his 'City of Industry' crap, I bet even he would

have nodded. 'We need the money, and we need the banking,

but we need the water-power here just as much.' Oh well, all

gone now  -  smithereens, Shit-City, dog-dump, Hell. The

things we've done to this land and country are enough 

to make me puke.

6778. THE PENNY-TREE IS RINGING THE PHONE

THE PENNY-TREE 

IS RINGING THE PHONE

Wise guys never quit : some form of Clint Eastwood

trickery with a gun never loaded. 'Go ahead, punk,

make my bed.' No, no that's all wrong; though it

may work for tough guys in the hotel business.

-

Now here comes Jayne Mayall; she's tipsy again and

almost walking sideways. It's so weird to see a woman 

drunk. Nothing at all like a man  -  they waver differently,

smile differently, and even talk funny differently. I

can't exact say why or how, but I know. Just a

wild penchant for wild things, I guess.

-

Parking a car sideways never works; even the best valets

in the business know better than that. That's why you give

them the keys, you see  -  so when you come out hours later,

blasted, they can keep them, lest you hit a wall or go off a

cliff. They can find you another means fo getting home.

-

Steaks and mashed potatoes are the things most people

end up eating  -  all those fancy plates and restaurants

matter little. Nearby, just at the other table, the

penny-tree is ringing the phone. Most annoying,

and most annoyingly.

6777. I'M AIMING HIGHER

I'M AIMING HIGHER

Time it is goes like a flub, run through your veins

and in your mind with a garbled message never silent.

Here we are, the big, stupid crowd, just waiting for

people to die. We count them off : age, role, reason.

Gargle me with peppermint paste and I won't be late

for anything at all. My funeral was last Tuesday and

I didn't show, just like I said. Now they've cemented

my remains into a garden tower cinder-blocked with

bad intentions. Where oh where am I to go?

6776. ELECTRICITY IS GREEN

ELECTRICITY IS GREEN

They electrified the lifeguard stand today and the

first thing that happened was fried meat. They 

electrocuted a Lifeguard instead. Yeah, man, it

was fun. If that's a fine headline, I'll be glad to 

read it : cotton candy, fuzzy-head, Ski-Ball baby.

-

It doesn't take much to imagine where you are  -

a little single-malt scotch and some hipster girl

with tattoos lapping your ear. Yep. Yep. Yep.

-

Tomorrow is another horizon whereon that big

ship out there is already riding. That thin line which

separates things   -  sky, water, ocean, earth  -  

I no longer recognize it all. Electricity is green.

6775. AND NOW

AND NOW

These minutes tick off like time zones in a camera's

eye, the watchful morning, the dark night sky. The

stand-out hawk is watching. Along the storefronts

on this old broken street, the television eye is watching.

He who labor's is love's labor lost; Pippa Passes, and

Pilgrim's Progress too. Somewhere off, a liquid taxi

droops its yellow reflection on a twisting window's

glare. Homer's Fabric Shop, Hiram's Screws and 

Fasteners. The feeling is wrong and unsettled,

even as the mind warms to all these things.

6774. THE CAREENING OF MARYKNOLL

THE CAREENING 

OF MARYKNOLL

The Brothers of Mount Marcy have decided for eggs :

their small breakfast is dispensed in a line. They stand

together, congested yet calm, like the bunch in The

Dead by James Joyce. Not a word is spoken between

these fellows. In the soft background, little Brother Albert

plays a gentle hymn on the outsized chapel organ. The

music is a given, the words are not supplied  -  within

each brother's mind the psalm's own words add flight

to the tune they know so well. It is nearing another

morning day : work to be done, and visitors. They

come in groups  -  peering and inquisitive. A nod and

a greeting, perhaps questions answered. until evening 

again, and another morn then. The Brothers of

Mount Marcy have decided for eggs.

6773. WHEN THIS WINDOW WAS A WINDMILL

WHEN THIS WINDOW WAS A WINDMILL

Being ten years old meant many things, one of them

being the right to misunderstand what you saw : once

 a recollection of a spacecraft landing on  a roof, upon

later inspection, turned out to be two overlapping views

of two different street-lamps, some distance off, 

superimposing themselves on the rooftop of

a nearby friend's housetop. How little did

I know?

-

Not that much has changed  -  how little DO I know

is now the only operative alteration, and even that needs

some modification. They are tearing down yet another

grand home in another nearby town through which I

travel. One hundred and fifty year old fire-brick, and

all that old mortar, now just fallen apart by the power

of crane and shovel superimposing themselves

on another nearby rooftop. Or so to speak,

and as it is.

6772. MA

MA

Twenty minutes ago, Ma, I was dead, but

they've brought me back alive. Pleiku and some

freaking highlands, some meddlesome gorge, a

harbor filled with murder  -  Ma, I can't remember,

but what the hell am I doing here? The gunking

cannon of that commander's mouth, it won't stop

barking orders. Ma. I no longer want to listen. I

hope he dies. There's a word about that O'Leary

or Haines, or someone else, is going to take him

down  -  blow his tent-shed to a tent-shred, break 

his ass. I only know he's become unbearable Ma, until

no one here any more can take it. Schrend was killed

on Tuesday  -  grenades and all, our own stuff, blew

up in his face. Ma, can I remember the way home,

I try to remember? Can you take me out of here

alive instead. Please help, Ma, please help.

6771. DARK BLUE

DARK BLUE

(1966, NYC)

Hidden beneath a canopy of shade and shadow alike,

I get deep and doubtful  -  the world seems blurry to

me then. Listless as I can be along a street of no tears,

I wander with an edge down 17th, turning to a haunt I

once knew well : bicycle at the curb-post, that simple

light still on in the entry. A chamber, filled with the

potting soil of working minds : art, jazz, and all the rest.

I don't have to speak : even a taxi knows my mind.

Tonight is for the stars  -  the guys are hanging out,

those famous eyes of robin's egg blue, that girl

with the always-twisted skirt, and my card-player

friend, Eddie Stephen. For what? I don't know. I

hate cards, I dislike chess. But that's all they do.

I know the phone will ring  -  Edie or Andy or

some foolish fool  -  and I'll be there when they

too arrive. My delicate fingers will be broken

on pretzels and beer once more. I'll wince

at nothing, for I am in my glory.

6770. DESERT CAMMO

DESERT CAMMO

The broken transfusion has spilled to the sand,

these men are dying now, in rows. Passion is the

fury of religious men's minds, and they just roll on.

Only the doctors are here against their will. 

How good then can anything be?

6769. SAFER SAILING THAN IT SEEMS

SAFER SAILING 

THAN IT SEEMS

Alee to the footage, these waves will not harm, and

the tide will take me back as it fades away. Like the

sun setting, that big face in the sky will sink and another

faint moontide arise. All I know are the things of women :

lunar lover and lifting waters. I don't know men, 

I don't know men at all. 

6768. WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Walking the streets today I decided I was tired

of talking and would just stop. I don't need to

continue, and it seems everyone else has said

it all for me. The secret people talk secretly, 

the loud ones talk loudly. Some guy asked me

directions to the library. I said 'Silence!'

6767. 'MIDST ALL THIS HUFFING AND PUFFING

'MIDST ALL THIS 

HUFFING AND PUFFING

I've not come here to donate my time : French Foreign

Legion and all that stuff. I'm just looking at pictures, but

you're worshiping the dead. Bob Dylan and a nomenclature

of factoids, things long-gone on dull acid. Here, once

more, my black and white dog lies at my colored feet.

-

I was once a man of the cloth  -  dishcloth, washcloth, what

you call. That was my call. Vocation? No, vacation, or

can't you see the difference? There were little boys wearing

kites and bloomers, and long old men overdue at the grave.

People said prayers to their own faithless Wotan.

-

When I turned 17, I got up and left : I walked to the bridges,

I walked to the cliff. I entered the harbor. I joined the Harley

Boys, the Scouts, even the Seven-Eleven Merchant Marine.

Now I'm back from all that, and I might marry your daughter.

-

This briefcase is heavy with dulcimer plans, the rumors  

of slaughter and the blood of the lambs.

6766. LARCHMONT

LARCHMONT

Is a fire like this worth the burning?

Superseded highways and tunnel-based

loomings shadow all those expensive homes

in their sleep. Mommy and Daddy are professional

crooks. One deals in finance, the other in books.

6765. ARCH MCKNIGHT FROM HELMSFORD

ARCH MCKNIGHT 

FROM HELMSFORD

["It wasn't just the coat of arms that was treasonous, but

the entire estate seemed somehow perverse. The eaglets had

sat down for tea, and some midden-mast chore-maid was bending

over to serve. Quite a fetching sight, though no one said a word.

Cleavage the size of Rhode Island  -  perhaps that gets across the

idea. An ideal situation for an idiot-savant to say something rude

and get away with it. 'Excuse me, ma'am, but this back-breaking

work has bent me over and weakened my bearing. I need to rest,

can you turn my bed?' Well, something like that.

-

The rooster from the other edge of the county was counting

beads and churning his stomach free of jellybeans and taffy;

he seemed to take solace in the fact that he'd already sired here

five children with a few different lassies. There's a book or a

story at least in here somewhere : let me see  -  D'Arcy, or a

Madame Bovary?

-

Footwear; that too was beyond discussion; Big John Falconetti,

having lost a leg in the Crimean War, made no bones to be not

discussed. No talk of shoes, forevermore. Or quote this

raven : Nevermore."]