7104. POST INTERLUDE

POST INTERLUDE

Listening forever  -  Duke Ellington's 'Caravan', and then

'Solitude', on 'Money Jungle. I can sit back and think :

there's nothing on the stove and the air outside just

gets too hot to breath. The smoke in this room is

churlish, and the few people who've come in give

me the creeps. Nothing interesting in this Bloomerland;

even the girls have shadows and cataracts both. The

gold in my drink is fake; the girl in my heart is real.

7103. OLD SCHOOL WORDS

OLD SCHOOL WORDS

'I've got plenty of nothin', and

nothin's got plenty of me.'

7102. RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR

RIGHT OUTSIDE 

THE DOOR

The piccolo, the flute, and David Kane.

This all brings back a memory of long

ago  -   David Kane was a kid at seminary

school; he'd just come in from Delaware;

lived in Dover as I recall. He brought an

instrument with him  -  a piccolo or a flute,

yes, something I'd never seen as an 11 year 

old. (I'd be twelve in a month or so). He'd

put it on the floor, leaning by the wall, just

outside the door. It was curious to me. Some

sort of farm implement from another land

I'd never see. Turned out not to be that at

all. Just a nice thing, and when he played

he looked like a Revolutionary War soldier,

traipsing a field, and bandaged and taped 

from his wounds, while the battle raged

before him and was rousing the troops

as the old flags burned.

7101. THE MENDICANT CIRCLE

THE MENDICANT CIRCLE

They're weasels, all, you know. These

actors and these actresses acting as

enchanters from some other domain.

They're nothing : they have sex on the 

couch, the beg and they grovel to get

some sickening part. I spit on them.

-

They call it a party. So do I : like a

hanging party, or a gunslinger revel

in the clean, pristine air  -  wiping

the stage clean of vermin, clearing

the lens for the sake of that camera's

essential purity, the grace of a

thousand elides, new angles

beneath a klieg of old lights.

7100. SO NOW ALL THAT I HAVE BROUGHT HOME

SO NOW ALL THAT I 

HAVE BROUGHT HOME

Here is the impatience that we were 

speaking of : I cannot sit still while 

those flowers remain on the mantle.

7099. 'INVESTORS SEE NEW SIGNALS IN THE NOISE'

'INVESTORS SEE NEW 

SIGNALS IN THE NOISE'

And I see you raping the Earth yet more for pillage, 

I see you dining like pigs on the death of Life and the

life-force within everything. I see you bombing for 

parasitical reasons to take out Man for your seething.

I see you burning your cities so the unfit will leave

and I see your profiteers squatting on Mankind's grave.

That's what I see while you see new signals in the noise.

7098. I BEG YOU FOR KINDNESS

I BEG YOU FOR KINDNESS

Does anyone else know what this is like? Can

anyone understand how serious I am? It's already

dark night; I am moving along, withered.

Up ahead, just to the right, on this darkened

junkyard road, I see two seething guys  -  they

both looked really mean and angry  -  peering

at me, as if to see what take there'd be. Both of

them, in tandem, black-angered types, a racial

mix I can only see as polarizing already. I have

nothing but the knife on my belt, and I'm thinking

of myself, here, with a bullet in the neck, from 

twenty feet off, or just a shot in the head. What

would I do and what would become of my dog.

They'd have to shoot her too, I sense.

Good something, I need protection.

Two angry men on a lonely, dark,

abandoned junkyard road.

7097. NEARING LAND

NEARING LAND

Here the monkeys keep the marbles for themselves : this

is indeed a foreign shore. The cantilevered housewares

of the stay-at-homes are all well-used, but polished and

kept like new. No one has a care, they all remain indoors.

-

The luscious green of the neighbored trees adds the

nicest touch of comradery to all this being alone. I

haven't a moment to lose either : the ships are in the

harbor, I know they're coming home, these sailors 

with their girlfriends from the distant seas.

whom we must now prepare to entertain.

7096. OUTLIER

OUTLIER

(last call for the motorcade)

My hands are on fire, my shirt's now adrift : 

the running of the Pamplona bulls has nothing 

on this. I lost my last ID card in the circus tent  

-  now even I don't know who I am.

Nor what is meant.

-

Let me shrug these circumstances off. I can explain 

it easily away   -  it was in the early morning light

as I was standing outside the candy store; a few

stragglers were drifting by, I think from their

night before. The usual crowd of simpletons:

-

some guy spewing about vodka, another guy ranting

about the girl he'd lost, a clutch of dazed females, now

dishevelled and coarse. I love it when the female mouth

turns sour; words sideways, profanities and hates.

They had a car, these ladies, it seemed waiting for

them  -  some call-for-hire dimwit, chewing gum.

-

My lawsuit, if it ever reaches the higher court, will be about

the foulness of this world and all the damage it's done to me.

I want the retirbution of a real outsider : ten billion moments

alone, and twenty bucks for the back pocket of my own

new pants. (Then I'll grapple with the rest, and

let 'living' have its chance).

7095. SET ADRIFT

SET ADRIFT

'People don't like me because I'm a primal-scream jerk,

but I say too bad for that.' I couldn't disagree, after all it

was his canoe I was in and the fast approaching rapids 

weren't that happy : I started singing songs  -  like the

sound-track to movies that made me laugh with their

incisive wit towards real danger. I was thinking to myself,

if there was a way out of this fix, I'd need it about now.

-

That was two hours ago; now I am walking through the

woods looking at mushrooms and fossils and twigs. The

large limbs of certain trees have already fallen in last week's

storm, the water debris where it was all washed up was

still piled around. I can't find anywhere decent to sit.

So I keep walking. The other guy  -  him with the canoe  -

he's gone and continued up the river. I told him I was

more determined to walk back than he was to go ahead.

-

Indian scout I ain't. I'd rather find a Porta-John at some

insipid old campground than ever take a dump in these

woods. I can pee in the weeds without any trouble, maybe

even eat something I find along the way  -  berry bushes,

wild asparagus, dainty little walkway mushrooms. Who knows,

I might eat eleven perfect mushrooms, and only err when I

eat the twelfth. I don't want to die like this, yea, but I'm

still not sure I want to live like this either. Greatest

vacation I ever had  -  set adrift in the deepest woods.

7094. TOMBOY

TOMBOY

So I'm sitting here like a tomboy, drinking

Stella Artois. What the heck is going on?

'I've never drinked this stuff before' - that's

the way they say it, and I probably won't never

ever to do again.  The only reason I'm here is

because the waitress is hot and I know she's got

a thing for me. Belgian beer in a Belgian cafe.

What more to do and what more to say?

-

I lift my glass to the underclass  -  the distressed,

the poor and the weary. But's that's all I lift. For the

rest, they can go to Hell. I really don't care about them.

I'm filthy rich, and I'm wealthy, and I own a Carribean

isle, and I've got two Swiss bank accounts and an offshore

shelter for my money. Anything I want, I've got. Anything

you want. I'll give ya', honey.

-

Some slumball nearby is scratching his lottery tickets  -  jerk

can't even find a dime to do it with. I throw one his way and

he's grateful as hell. Now all he has to do is win  -  or please,

clean up the mess of all those shavings. He just plunked

thirty bucks down to buy six five-dollar tickets. He looked

so stupified I at first thought he'd wait for them to call to

say he won. At least he's scratching off with verve.

-

I call her over and  -  yeah  -  send him another beer.

It's the least I can do : I want to go home with her, and

send him a thousand bucks as consolation. I'm sitting

here like a tomboy, drinking; and I'm quite 

the real sensation too.

7093. TOE-TAPPING

TOE-TAPPING

Grant me a single sense of time, as

it is there are far too many  -  this

bar-room reeks of confusion. The

broke-tempo jazz farce I hear needs

connection; too much is disjointed

and the sounds fly away. Like the

bagpiper I saw in Bar 55  -  some old

Greenwich Village funeral for some

cat who passed away to his longed-for

beatnik grave, too many people just

making too much noise around around

a single man, trying his very best, to play.

7092. THE SLATE MEN

THE SLATE MEN

The slate men are building a sidewalk or a wall  -  I

couldn't tell the difference : grounding slabs so

steadily into a patterned dirt. Folds of sheeted

bedrock  -  ochres and reds and browns.  I'd

have to imagine that the world is older, even,

than my own very first dream - when I was

dreaming of dreaming this.

7091. JUSTIFIED ANGLES

JUSTIFIED ANGLES

The Mathematician has his ways : all those

observations and substitutions and justified 

angles make sense to this mind : I instead have

absences and deletes, what are called shadows

where an object has been  -  erasures of the

normal mind. That's how I write and think,

combined. Fruition comes to those who wait?

7090. OUT TESTING BOUNDS

OUT TESTING BOUNDS

The simulacra of hodgepodge is keeping me

awake : I see billboards in the sky and fires 

in the lake. My personal representation of a 

mirror in disguise is nothing I would look at,

or even recognize. The tack shop is closed

for good  -  all the horses have now run off.

Symbols skate the sky and some young priest

holds a chalice : the signature song in the

hymnal is lost but the choir sings on.

Yes, yes, the choir sings on.

7089. ME

ME

I was a poor boy, who was born dead;

and before I knew it, that death was over.

7088. SCATTER-SHOT RETRIEVAL

SCATTER-SHOT RETRIEVAL

Maddeningly, the small crowd is eating spaghetti

and eggplant, Italian dishes ladled out by some

Guido who now fancies himself a chef. Sunlight

glints the red wine in each wineglass at the tables.

No one seems aware of anything : except their

garbled words and food and self. Conditional

experimentation on a twice-fading planet.

The wine glasses glint in the sun,

making cut reflections above;

a scatter-shot retrieval

for sure.

7087. MY BLUE SHIRT

MY BLUE SHIRT

The funny man, in the red shirt, was saying,

'I made money the old fashioned way, I stole

it.' Those near him were laughing. At the piano,

on the little riser nearby, Charles Folds was

plating his Thursday afternoon tunes. I had

stopped by to listen, and say hello. He plays

there most days of the week, a few hours softly

at the piano while people informally lunch. I get

coffee, and we say a few words. This is the enclosed

plaza of something, I forget  -  across from the Lever

Building, up the street a bit from the Seagrams Building,

on the other side of Park. Just things I like to do.

-

I never have money to do things like these others, and I

guess I stand out for that, but no one ever seems to mind. 

I probably look like a bum to them anyway, small, hairy

and gross  -  they all seem to have stature and bearing. A

30 dollar lunch would put me down for good. I get along

OK with the guards too, but that's probably just because 

that way they have me in their sights, that's why.

-

I often feel out of place, but do not care. I'm better than

them. They're dull. I am an artist who's not. An old uncle

I had used to just say : 'screw 'em all; walk in there like you

own the place.' On the other hand, another uncle would say,

'What are you doing? You don't fit in? Here?' My two conflicting

family poles of matter - I had to deal with both before I fled.

-

Whatever clothes I have, if and when I buy, I usually buy at

the Salvation Army store in Newark. Interesting place : poor

fat blacks, some hipsters looking for retro, in their weird-frame

glasses and tattooed dicks. Two dollar shirts and two dollar pants.

These people here are wearing two-hundred dollar button-down

Oxfords and deck-boy shoes. I shrug. And then I remember, the

shirt I'm wearing from that cast-off store, it's a Botany 500!

Some high-class light blue Summer shirt. Glad I put that

on this morning now.

-

I forget to remember to walk in owning the place though

the guards' stares made me soon remember I didn't.

7086. THE VIEWER BLURS THE MEMORY

THE VIEWER BLURS 

THE MEMORY

There are some things I just do not care about :

this swish of blue color that was a car or the arm 

of a chair, the way that armband tells me who that

man is, the idle achievements of a blowhard in

the feckless dark, and all his words to that effect.

The viewer here blurs the memory. The far cry

from the distant point is not a mountaineer; no,

just instead some baby crying. Tears for fears, as

it were. No solace there, just windblown and 

hesitant thought running fast away and far.

-

I have no designated driver for the monster dreams

I ride in : mysterious circumstances beneath the leader

of the mark, the manner of the beast, the chipped and

dangled teethings of huge tribes of crooks and villains.

They run off with the lie; they run off with the future.

This viewer blurs the memory. This viewer says not

at all. I take my words for William Blake; not following

another's system at all, just instead to make my own.

7085. RETRIBUTION IN MORSELS

RETRIBUTION IN MORSELS

I would have to know a hundred more things than 

I do right now to understand a reason  -  I've heard

a million explanations, but the planar truth does now

come through. Gestation period : for too long perhaps.

Reheboth Beach, Delaware; some kids were throwing

tomatoes like they were mudpies at anything that moved.

I stayed still like Lot's wife  -  pillar of salt or not.

I'd be willing to bet, Delaware or not, they've

never read a book in their entire lives.

7084. ABOUT TODAY

ABOUT TODAY

There was no one about today :

the streets were empty, and

the sky was gray.

7083. I WAS PAID TO DIE

I WAS PAID TO DIE

All that stuff comes together  -  outside, the city

sweeper, wetting the streets, nearly empty, as it 

rolls along its pre-dawn way. The two men in 

jackets, trading cigarettes as they exit their car. 

The strange lady with the briefcase  -  way too 

overdressed, I'd say, for post-midnight Summer 

air. 'I'm here to attend the Apocalypse,' was all

she would say to me. I hear that metallic bellow

which seagulls make  -  they are swooping in, as 

if in trouble, from the nearby harbor on the

east end of the city I'm in.

7082. THINGS I DO NOT NEED ARE LEFT

THINGS I DO NOT 

NEED ARE LEFT

Two left hands will not help this arpeggio; don't you

see the run of the notes, right off the page?  Just like

the Devil's Trill Sonata  - by Guiseppe Tartini, have you

heard of it?  -  there is a trilling movement everywhere.

It's called that because it's a devil to play  -  but I like

to think, as well, that in it the Devil had his say.

-

Soundless and difficult to hear or sense, the denseness 

of being deaf in a world full of noise is tough : the sky 

is never cloudless; it seems there's always 

something going on.

7081. NAKED NECK

NAKED NECK

And devolution marks the moment - we have turned

from other matters to this tiny little speck. The mote

in the 'other's' eye soon turns to morte for you and I.

The pleasant willow trees are dying, no water 

trickles down now from the landlord's fort.

7080. DIVINE ENCAPSULIZATION

DIVINE 

ENCAPSULIZATION

This God is a sudden veering : oh how I

want It to be a verb. I swear to see it build

buildings with a lightning strike, break down 

Jerciho's walls again and bring me, so salty,

home  -  where the flowers adorn the wall.

7079. SEEMING DEARTH

SEEMING DEARTH

Like death the blind man staggers forth as much

confused as once alive : the olive tree grows

Jesus branches through his head, and he cannot

speak a word. On 21st street, the jagged memory 

of Earthside crime still lingers : heroin gods, men

with steel arms, the blackened veins, protruding.

-

We buy fruit from the corner stall  -  all stupid

stuff, nothing worthwhile at all.

7078. SERENE HIGH COUNTRY

SERENE HIGH COUNTRY

I took a bus, I took a plane, I ambled, I walked.

The things which came together make this land a lark.

The jazz-pizazz I left behind, all the Union Square

stuff long over. Here - instead  -  I sat and placed my hat.

There is no longer living when it's all become a task :

foursquare and beleaguered, tawdry and tired too.

Shall I wear my trousers rolled? I don't think

even that would do.

-

This book has no other chapter? And why is that? Being

stuck, such as I am, in acknowledgements and in citations

instead, I haven't time to write another word. This is

sad, and this is sorrowful. I have entered that higher

land : a serene place, all quiet. Now, if I could

only stand, and face this world erect again.

I don't think even that would do.

7077. PENTANGLE ENTANGLEMENT

PENTANGLE 

ENTANGLEMENT

I took a walk down Sunbury Square, off the island to the

left of there : what I found was all I ever wanted. Not a

care. But, undaunted, I remained an absolute silence

and wouldn't share a thing. 'This is my own secret here.'

-

I'm thinking to myself : the wager stays, the odds are

five to one. Jolly Roger, Summer fare. The plays and

pennants are in the square. Will Shakespeare sang with

Father Dominic. The songs are in the air.

-

I love a Summer festival : when all those ladies 

in waiting are waiting no more.

7076. AND WEARY THAT WEATHERMAN IS

AND WEARY THAT 

WEATHERMAN IS

Gunslinger, cap-king, cut-throat, daredevil, liar.

Too many descriptions to carry at once. Heavy

the burdens these cumuli bear. Give me
this mouthpiece to take to the air.

7075. CARRY ME BACK TO THE LONE PRAIRIE

CARRY ME BACK TO 

THE LONE PRAIRIE

Ham-fisted and with a cauliflower ear, the old pardner

at the Mello-Roll Bar sat back in his chair : 'It ain't right,

no siree, this ain't nothin' but trouble, and I been here over

forty years and you can't now tell me this fellow's coming

in here to build skyscrapers? Red Hook oughta' just up and

kill his type  -  there used to be little factories dotting all around

here, now there's nothing but filth and stores selling fancy flowers

and wines where nobody can park and everybody fights over it

and all these block-eyed kids sit around the outside bars just eating

or waiting to eat behind fences. See that, right over that, that was the

Waymen's Club  -  with the boxing rings and the pool tables. Used

to make money there every night there was a fight card, and then lose

it just as much playing pool to sailors. Damn! What a life I was!'

-

He didn't look like much, and the beer in his hand wouldn't last. I

knew that, but I hoped he would  -  a hundred years and more, I 

wanted to be his life too, not just hear it, be it, and I knew everything

he was going to say before he said it. Why settle in? Let it go? The

whole place now is run by the same creeps who gave us cartoons and

Ricochet Rabbit. I realized I was getting drunk  -  I don't know where

 that previous thought came from, and I'm not even sure about the rabbit.

7074. OH SO NINETEENTH CENTURY

OH SO NINETEENTH CENTURY

The gamekeepers on these landed estates -  they're the

men who keep the wildlife  -  take care of and order the game

on large holdings. Fox and deer and wolves and cats, I guess.

They used to nail up the withered and shrunken corpses of

crows, jays, weasels, stoats, sparrowhawks, buzzards, kestrels,

peregrines, hedgehogs, and owls  -  all hanging in  a row like

bedraggled coats on pegs. They don't do that anymore, and it's

all illegal now. Like the loyal dog, always retrieving something,

everything about this idea is so old.

-

When Roger Tory Peterson  -  bird artist and environmentalist, 

was a boy, he found a golden-shafted flicker lying on the forest 

floor, and put his hand out to touch the dead body, only to

discover that the flicker was not dead but merely exhausted from

its migratory journey. It burst back into flight, and set Roger

on the path of his life's work. Things like that really do happen.

7073. LOOK ASKANCE OLD BUDDY

LOOK ASKANCE OLD BUDDY

Half in the distance, the sea was throwing foam,

and the lady on the pier was yelling 'We have three!'

I thought maybe she meant fish, since men nearby 

were fishing, but she meant me. I was walking the 

sands with my dog, and she thought it a great sight.

She said that's why she yelled 'we have three'. Dogs.

-

Barrel-bottomed boats were festooned with seaweed 

and people as the bottom roiled the top and the whole

surface was rolling : the ocean swore to its own concerns.

7072. WHEN EVEN THE DOG GETS IMPATIENT

WHEN EVEN THE 

DOG GETS IMPATIENT

Every so often I just have to wince : lines of crossing-guard

Catholics are being traffic'd by a moonlighting cop. One curb

to the other, the crossing like Earth to their Heaven? Their Hell

to this Earth? Or can one make it straight from this Hell to that

Heaven? My God, it seems I'm always wondering about something.

7071. ONCE YOU

ONCE YOU

Once you get it started it all keeps 

rolling in  -  like money, I guess, 

to one of those big-headed magnate

guys. Buddy, the bourbon, the bourbon.

I don't even know if we make magnates 

any more; hell, we don't make anything

at all, 'cept maybe Kleenex.

-

I never know why people say that though  -  

like, 'what'd you ever make, big-head?'.

as if they'd made things themselves. It's a

general conceit by people who work, have or 

had jobs, toil. Even the worker at GM, does he

really 'make' a car? He hangs a tailgate or

positions a seat or a mirror  -  everyone's got

their appointed task all on down the line.

-

Ah, I don't know and whatever about it cares?

From Macon, Georgia to the Somerset County

line, the world's a great big jell-fest, with

everything coated in slime.

7070. MACHINE HEAD

MACHINE HEAD

Before I sleep on the floor again, let me tell you something -

I have the ways of getting around this; I can stay awake

forever; in my land, creatures do not sleep. Here, by contrast,

I get to watch that trucker nodding off, spinning his wheels at

60mph and crashing through the barrier to the great ditch below.

It's the same with bad audiences everywhere : the story gets lame,

everyone's head begins bobbing, eyes slide shut, and before you

even realize it, the speaker is speaking to no one at all.

7069. ALL NIGHT, DISINTERRED

ALL NIGHT, DISINTERRED

Frequently, the habit of declaiming things runs out, slides

down, disappears  -  that's why so many grow silent, no

longer even knowing what to say, let alone to think. 

-

I have seen this in the best of places, and the worst. The

Cevender Brothers Meat Market, for instance, where the

men with cleavers remain silent amidst all their animal

carnage. And the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where

even the most robotic masters of self-discipline break 

down and utter only sighs.

-

Outside everywhere, the buses glide by, lit from inside.

I can see people's heads, with their newspapers or bags and

all those sporting hats : Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees, Pirates

and mets. What the Devil does it all mean? The bus carries

people, but not a sound.

-

I can recall, with a friend named Paul, one night well into 

the wee hours after two am, a bus ride back uptown; mostly

in silence,  as we passed The Dakota. It was 1972. He 

pointed, and said, 'see that building there, that's where 

they filmed the movie, 'Rosemary's Baby.' We both 

looked over, scanning together the post-midnight scene.

7068. PASSED OUT ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

PASSED OUT ON THE 

CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

Just kids, oh just more kids, improvised in the studio

drums and noise : 'he do the police, in different voices.'

-

I want to see the mountains Route 6 headed west I'm 

going on streets of nothing at all certainly not gold. 

Legendary Lisa, light me up another butt.

-

Just more kids, he do the drums, improvised noise,

improvised police, in different choices.

7067. PLEASE FACTOR IN THE CRAZY GUY

PLEASE FACTOR IN 

THE CRAZY GUY

Summertime shawls and egghead dunkings, look at the

way this wild world turns : all the kids are at the pond,

Promised Land, Pennsylvania, and I can't believe they 

call it that. Cat calls and phrase falls, mothers are shouting

out names while fathers relax, Those dads with their beers

and cigars  -  big time motorcycle guys on parade. Cicadas

make soundtracks for eternity's film, no one notices the

food is burning, and that spicket on their grill keeps turning.

What are these people for, if not about living and love?

Just park yourself down, the world will keep spinning,

and you are allowed to watch  -  hear the infernal racket

in the woods nearby. The kids are having fun! Listen to 

their cries! Please factor in me, the crazy guy.

7066. DUBIOUS THINGS

DUBIOUS THINGS

(for skip spence)
Nature is a fine fettle to break down, a masterful

master, with a whip and a frown. You cannot break

what you cannot know  -  waters and winds will rule

you. What am I worth, when my most prized possession

is my copy of 'Oar'? Some there are who've told me they 

love it. I just listen  -  I want to be mad, and die.

7065. DARK NOW AND IT'S SNOWING

DARK NOW AND 

IT'S SNOWING

My mind is a fortress and outside the walls are men

looking back at me from their horses. They stare, and

then spit on the ground. I pretend I cannot see, and that

satisfies them. Behind them, as if on a scrim, runs the

noise and movement of the NJ Turnpike : somewhere

I seldom venture, where trucks run bent and cars are

lethal fractures. If the fabric of time can be rent, it

would from here the doing would be done. All the

trees hereabouts have been sickened and are dying.

The old apartments houses seem to lean, and the

donut people still line the Dunk-o-Rama, not

like they used to thirty-five years ago, 

but they're there. But today, no one

in there smokes. 

-

On the overhead sound system is heard some really

old song  -  a Tin Pan Alley thing, like 'Always.'

That confuses me too much, because all those

levels of overlapped time seem now only to get

captured by quaint, shiny entertainers, something

like Harry Connick, Jr., or someone, the kind who sing

for money and bend to the bows as a girl would, who

couldn't swing a mallet for shit. Girl-guys, that's it!

-

My undershirt is stained with sweat, and even somehow my

balls are sweaty  -  but I stay here no matter. If I can imagine

a winter coat, and big heaves of snow, I'm thinking I'll be OK.

7064. TIME AS HEAVY AS A GOAT

TIME AS HEAVY AS A GOAT

Soon it will be coming back : lightning flash and

snow together, wrapped like a scarf around cold limbs. 

I can hear those tree limbs crack. I won't have to 

sleep in the outside air. If I do I won't do it again. 

My moccasin head is heavy now.

Time, as heavy as a goat.

7063. LOADED

LOADED

Forgive the marketplace, it's filled with dread. The streets

of Newark are filled with State Troopers, filling in and aiding 

the ineffectual city cops as people fall with bullets in their heads.

Too many to be comfortable about, they say, but I say let them fall,

let the bastards kill each other off, let them fall. Over by the 

Prudential Building it all looks calm enough  -  rows of cheap 

dollar stores and bright-blue street-boy clothing and sneakers.

'Dress me right to die tonight,' one would think to say.

-

Now the drums come marching in : two local police on 

motorcycles, screaming back at the crossing hordes to move 

along, out of the way. Lights are blinking  -  fuck me, it's just 

another bunch of political goons  -  the Cory Booker stenchers 

and the Chris Christie fools. It's time for rail-tunnel-talk 

with the jerks from New York. In my car, here at the light,

Leonard Cohen is singing : 'Democracy is coming, to the USA.'

7062. THIS IS HOW WE BE DONE WITH IT

THIS IS HOW WE 

BE DONE WITH IT

I've lost composure, but taken my pill. I've

walked in circles, but gotten there still. I don't

know how it happens that I'm still alive. Here

the storm skies part, and bright lights recur : Gods

and angels and demons are walking forth, allied.

-

What kind of a mess-up world is this? Too many 

things left to Boyle. No. no, silly, to boil, this isn't 

a probate hearing. The watched pot, yeah that one, 

that story lies. It bubbles over whenever it wants. 

That broken watch, right twice a day  -  well, all

that can be said for that is, oh, sometimes, maybe, 

aye. For all the rest  -  white marks on a blackened 

chalkboard that rub off with a simple pressure. 

Even kids can do it. I remember me and Theresa Knox, 

in fifth or sixth grade, no less, without even trying, 

getting in done on the painted walls on School 4's basement...

cleaning the erasers with which we 'd just cleaned the boards.

7061. THE FILMMAKERS ARE RANK

THE FILMMAKERS ARE RANK

What started as a joke is now a rooftop industry;

Woody Allen running without pants, Spike Lee

leaping for joy.  Oh what bug-eared antics we

start watching when we let it go : I want to see a

car-crash; I want Superman spiked on that fence.

All I can think of is the Worthington Pump factory

disaster, like the Triangle Shirtwaist  -  things I see

in old documentaries, when people made sense and 

had time. The General Slocum, that horrid, burning

ship in the harbor outside; all those Germans burning

to death, always burning and fire and mayhem. Oh,

what the heck. What is it they say, life itself is only

a momentary movie wherein we have walk-on roles?

I'd like to agree with that, yeah  -  yet why is it that all

we ever get to see are our own lonely parts of the film.

7060. MYSTERIES OF THE AXIOMATIC

MYSTERIES OF 

THE AXIOMATIC

The autopsies have fallen into the waster-bin, 

and now everyone is back up, alive.  It's just 

like a Resurrection, really. The light pounds 

on the lab-windows like hammers, and all those 

beakers and bunson burners keep working and

filling up. Flames of a sacred heart; 

and everyone rises and leaves.

7059. TAKEN ON THE RUN LIKE THIS

TAKEN ON THE 

RUN LIKE THIS

My coffee is a tiger in a cup, ladled with

a spoonful of responsibility and two dollops

of care. Like so many others,  I sit at a 

window and stare, as a new dawn beckons.

7058. MY MONEY'S ON THE MARKED HORSE

MY MONEY'S ON 

THE MARKED HORSE

The strange guy with the grease-gun is coming around

again, and all those stalkers are out on the street. Loosen

me up a new widget please. Jehovah's Witnesses, good God

yet again, have taken up places in so many of the driveways.

It must be mission-day once more for them. Get out on them

hustings, and pump it up for the Deity! Yeah! But what happens

if you live in a world where Deliverance is only a movie? What

then, bungalow Bill  -  you're caught in your own frieze of a trap.

Like a wartime general who is also a mechanic, you seek to fix 

things up just as soon as you go about wrecking them.

Conflicts of interest, I'd say.