Sunday, May 31, 2015

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.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

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....

Friday, May 29, 2015

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.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

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.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

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.)

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

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.

Monday, May 25, 2015

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?

Sunday, May 24, 2015

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.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

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.

Friday, May 22, 2015

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. 

Thursday, May 21, 2015

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.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

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."]