12,341. I HEARD THE HARLEQUIN

I HEARD THE HARLEQUIN

These aren't water balloons you're

dropping over Linden you know.

I've seen the Wood Avenue shoppers

go flying with each impact. That

Santa Claus guy was laughing

at the sky.

-

It's not really much of a place;

I stayed there once, in the 1960's,

when there was a hotel in the

center of town : train station,

diners and restaurants; a full

liquor store too.

-

Now it's barber shops, Polish 

food-stores, dollar stores, nail

places, and the usual convenience 

store connivances to get you to

part with your money. The Father

and Son Hot Dog place is long 

gone too. I remember first finding

it, in 1966, and I thought it was

some oddball religious eatery.

-

I saw a dollar store today. The

sign in the window said, 'Everything

99 cents! Less, or More.' Me? I

didn't know whether to laugh or 

cry; more or less. OK, back to the

moment  -  keep flying around, I'll

drop more to the ground.

12,340. HARDLY PERMIS

HARDLY PERMIS

'The road runs down here,

crosses the creek and slides

off to the little town we call

Oblivion. It's really just a

tavern where the local guys

hang out.' 

-

Old glass panes have that

great ripple, and often too

have small bubbles of air

that were captured in the

glass before it cooled. Makes

me wonder, always, how all

that was done.

-

I'm a mole marker for the

patterns of chance left upon

all things. Life itself seems a

random fossil, not yet caught

in the deep, dense rock.

12,339. RUDIMENTS, pt. 885

RUDIMENTS, pt. 885

(watching a plane fly over a golden loom)

I early on learned never to

feed any angry animal. They

are just waiting for that and,

Zap!, there goes your hand.

So I just ignore the anger,

though it makes me sad for

them. For not being me.

I guess. In order to make

due compensation for

shortcomings, some people

really bend the twig.

-

I always like to visit the

Philadelphia Navy Yard. Like

the one in Brooklyn, the actual

'Navy' glory days of it are over,

but remnants abound, as well

as do an assortment of old

mothballed ships and parts of

some old fleet. The remnants

of everything just sit about

in the water; nothing doing

much of anything. There are

cool things around, like the

Commander's house and officers'

housing, an old chapel, and

a bell tower that used to peal

for deaths and funerals. And

messages too. Trouble at sea.

People lost. Disasters, or

arrivals. There's also a

mariner's church like that

in lower Manhattan, on the

fringe now of Chinatown, by

Municipal Hall, and you can

see the huge old bell that once

used to peal for incoming and

docking ship-arrivals. Men

home to port after months,

or a year, at sea  -  the old

freighters from Liverpool

or Marseilles. None of that

goes on anymore, so pretty

much we just don't know

about it. The entirety of the

Philadelphia place now, the

working parts of it anyway,

is now turned over to a clean,

official, corporate use  -. new

buildings rimming the property,

the little clutch of lunchtime

office workers strolling the

waterfront, old guys sitting

around fishing while they stare

out, across the water, to jersey

and environs.  We live now in

the aftermath of a million things

we'll never get to experience.

-

The Brooklyn Navy Yard,

grittier and a bit more harsh,

has too, in its way, been turned

over to that sort of art and artisan

kind of place  -  studios and

galleries, jewelry makers and

artisan bakers. There too, history

and its ghosts abound, but it's all

kept pretty silent, except for the

usual plaques and legends. It's

kept busy with trucks and

loading docks, which doesn't

happen in the Philadelphia one.

I winder often what the present

day communication is between

them, if any, against how, I'd

imagine, the sort of tight and

steady communication they

once must have kept. It seems

as if it would have been

imperative; different world

and all that. That difference

is encapsulated fairly well

at the Philadelphia location 

too, so near the airport which,

in so many ways, has supplanted

it and all it once represented.

Now a viewer can stand there,

all afternoon, near the gigantic

old abandoned ships, and stare

skyward to watch the jets come

and go instead. It's sort of a

map overlap of two different

spatial levels of reality, where

they (almost) intersect as one

covers over the other. Maybe a

'book' against an 'audio-book'

best shows the contrast I'm

meaning. It's a bit like the

older reality of 'what was'  -  

a more quaint society of ships

and silence? "Today we think

of reading as a private, solitary

activity: you have a book and

an electric light. But, in say, 

1855, reading was most often a

communal, semi-public, activity.

Books and lighting were both

costly, and homes were lit by

gas lamps, oil lanterns, or by

candlelight.  For all but the

wealthy, evening reading took

place aloud, from a shared book,

with family members seated

around a shared light source,

at what was called the 'family

table.' Even when people brought

their own books to the shared

lantern or gas lamp, others could

monitor their reading. men of

the nineteenth century were

supposed to control the reading

of women, servants, and minors

who lived with them.' (Naomi

Wolf, 'Outrages'). So, in whichever

pose you which to take this, it's a

soft form of the communal militarism 

that's outdated itself right before our

eyes. Once waterways and harbors

were airtight and ultra-important.

Now, everything travels by

roadway, and nobody cares about

the rest. The commonality of

everything is shot, and the world

has dispersed itself. Monads,

all over again, Mr. Leibniz.

-

I had a discussion today with

someone  -  I'd asked them to

please tell me the story of

Rumpelstiltskin. It went pretty

well, along into the tale, until

she realized that, maybe, she

was mixing it up, and blending

it in with, Rapunzel. A baby,

in utero; if you don't guess my

name the baby becomes mine;

Rumpelstiltskin gets the baby;

puts her to work for life at a

loom weaving gold; I interjected

here about the passage of time;

no answer forthcoming  -  an 

infant leaps time, to be a

proficient weaver, at a golden

loom? Nothing else has 

happened? Rapunzel lets 

down her hair, (?) the baby 

overhears Rumpelstiltskin,

runs and tells the father (still

alive? Not dead from the

passage of all this time?....

And that was it. It seems like 
even fairy tales can dispense 
with the sense of time. We can't. 
All that old stuff, forgotten, mixed

up. unknown. How does time
pass in a fairy tale? Watching 
a plane fly over a golden loom.

12,338. RUDIMENTS, pt. 884

RUDIMENTS, pt. 884

(shooting fish in a barrel)

Hassle-free cops? I wonder. Back

about, oh, I forget the year, I parked

next to a friend's house in Avenel, on

Chase Avenue, to be exact, in front

of the neighbor's house. The kid

that lived in the house, some little

pesky 12-year old, put his bike

down in front of my car, as a

snarky challenge to blocking me

from leaving. Something about

not wanting me in front of the

house. I told the kid if he didn't

move the bike in a few minutes,

I'd simply run over it as I left.

He didn't; I did. Turns out the

kid's father was a not-so-friendly

cop. Boy did I take a go-round

on that one. Just goes to show

the law hides in the most

unlikely places; that's their

game  -  like the cop cars you

see now, 70 feet off the road,

thinking they're actually hidden

from view, just waiting for

scanning as each car rolls by.

Dorks have better chances in a

whorehouse. The other night I

had a cop over to my house. I

didn't even know it. The phone

rings, I answer and the voice on

the other end says, 'Sir, this is

Dispatch. You called a little

while back; could you please

step out of your house, I have an

officer there wishing to talk with

you.' I said, 'Huh?' So she repeated

it. Twenty minutes previous I had

called in (it was like 10pm) and

said, with annoyance, that for the

4th night in a row there were what

sounded like gunshots outside, in

the fields, or what's left, at the

new apartments they built, and

the fragmented woods that run

over to the prison.  I said it was an

annoyance, my dog was bothered,

it didn't sound like the geese-cannon

they occasionally use to scatter the

flocks (there are none now), and it

certainly wasn't firecrackers. Which

I often hear too. I said it wasn't in

the bargain that I had to now live

with such crap going on and I wanted

it checked out, and/or stopped. Period.

-

So, they sent a cop over. 'Sir, you 
called about gunshots at the prison? 
4 or 5 nights in a row? Can I have
your full name and this address

please.' He's writing down, in his

little pad, all the while. It was dark,

his cop car was at the curb, and 
my front light at the end of the walk 
was on, where we stood. So I had to 
re-explain it all, how I didn't define 
it was; I had not said it was gunshots
at the prison.  The point being I didn't 
know what it was and that was the 
problem. He starts then asking 
questions,  leading questions, I

thought, as if I were an idiot. I said, 
'Look, I know the difference in 
percussions, and so does my dog,
as does my wife (she was there, to
witness this). This is not a fireworks, 
and not a goose cannon. It's from 
over there  - perhaps they're 
shooting at deer (plentiful now, 
with occasional herd-culling)  -  
and then I also had to say how 
the Linden Police Shooting range
is right over there, through

the swamps as the crow flies, 

and though I sometimes hear that 

too, this was not it. Those police

firings were in volleys, as if timed,

maybe 20-30 shots in quick

succession. This was not; rather

these were 2, maybe 3 shots (all

sounding very much like the

sounds of old Pennsylvania

hunting seasons). So, this stalwart

young officer tried to make sense

out of this odd house-call, as did I.

My complaint was about myself,

rather about 'over there'  -  as I

pointed. Curiously enough, even

baffling to me, and oddly-phrased

too, he turned to where I pointed  -

which was apartments and woods  -

and simply said, 'Well, we have do

have a man over there, (meaning a

cop), but I'll put this report out and

we'll keep eyes and ears open.' I had
no clue what that meant either.

And he left...Pretty weird.

-

See, the thing about ignorant people,

which , in this case I hoped I was not,

is how they insist on taking up the

time of others' regardless of the value

of the claim  -  part of their procedure

is to weave you in, bungle you up,

and entrap you after you are drawn

into their web. That's just how it goes,

and how they operate, and it happens

all the time. I sincerely hope this isn't

how I came across, but at that point

I nearly felt as if I was the fool here.

When you're running a town, or a part

of the town, that takes responsibility

for nothing, and owns up to nothing.

nor announces anything publicly, 

what is the average schmuck (like me) 

to do, having no recourse? If I take

up a rifle and stalk the same area of

the noises, I'd be arrested. If I shot

back, randomly, in the direction

of them, I'd get apprehended. I 

went to Paddock Street, with my 

dog, and was told to leave by some

shirt and tie geek  -  it was private

state property, in a white 

mystery-building.

-

When a cop hides out today, with the

scanners and plate readers and all that,

it's pretty much a leisure activity. Take

as an example, the other morning,

Woodbridge car 7  - windows half

down, plumes of vapor smoke wafting

out the windows, parked at the back

end of Merril Park with, maybe, a

park roadway 1000 feet off, with the

small chance of a speeder or violator.

I have no idea who thinks such a thing

is enforcement, and at 70+ bucks an hour

too, but it goes on. The old way of hiding

cops was some stumblebum cop and

car partially concealed behind a 

billboard for 'Sno-Cone Charley's

Chicken and Cream stand, don't miss

it, 3 miles on the right!'  -  no more of

that these days. The hidden agenda of

things now is that YOU, and me, are

the outside agitators, for whom the

deserved 'watching' is never enough,

while apparently, the 'police' now cover

for the local, theft-laden, creepy

business-interests within the town,

be it real-estate, subsidized housing,

graft or pass-along corruption.

How to figure that? I don't know.

I'd rather run over some brat kid's

bicycle, and take my punishment.

-

I think it's all too much, and way past

the point of no-return. Truthfully.

Everything's a slanderous mess, with

crooks and prevaricators everywhere

but no one cross-examines them.

12,337. TREMOLO ACRES

TREMOLO ACRES

These new homes are built of

mud; it's the latest thing now.

Mud doors and mud windows 

too. All in a row, like little

vases in a shop of Mings.

12,336. NOTHING TO GIVE

NOTHING TO GIVE

For having nothing to give

you're a pretty big guy. That

car in the driveway, yours? 

One mighty piece of iron, that

is  -  roadworthy fire-breather

from long ago. I bet you

never go slow.

-

Trolling past the old schoolhouse?

Again with the buddies in tow?

(I guess you guys don't like

using that word. Ha).

-

You're a pretty big guy for nothing

to give. Those photos of girls on

your shelf by the mantle  -  nice.

You know, in the old days they'd

have them on top of the TV, but you

can't do that now; wall-mounted

stuff allows nothing. You see?

12.335. RUDIMENTS, pt. 883

RUDIMENTS, pt. 883

(something I'd like to see)

The thing about what I decided

to do (previous chapter, about

the writing format) was to press

hard at it; but it wasn't easy, nor

meant to be so. Dredging up such

'memories,' let's call it, is the

easy part. What to do with them

after that is what's the difficult

part. There's nothing I dislike

more than having a simple 'label'

slapped down on what I'm doing.

The word 'Nostalgia' being the

worst of them. I've been criticized

by criticizers - one guy in particular,

from the west coast, where so

much  is 'happening,' and things

are much better, for continually

writing on about a dull life, a life

that amounted to nothing, and one

in which nothing happened. I

guess. Not that any great shakes

come out of his salt shaker either.

But, anyway, point is, what matters

is the blend. To be told something

written was 'charming' means a

lot more to me than nostalgic or

meaningful ever would. Charming

means it got through. The other

stuff is just science.

-

In 1972, I think it was, the New York

Knicks were the champions of whatever

competition basketball has to be the

champion of. Playoffs and finals and

all that. I don't know anything about

it, except that I was astounded, in

Ithaca, NY, atop the cloistered hills

of Cornell University  -  where just

off campus was a small collection of

'the radicals.' Where I hung out  -  there

were a few bookstores, some oddball

eating places, hippie stores, black

militant stores and coops (the University

was just then recovering from an almost

lethal turmoil and shutdown from a few

years before, and things were still boiling).

Anyway, amidst all that, when I saw

the staunch and ordinary parochialism

of all the people, all of a sudden, in

their cheers and hollering for a winning

basketball team  -  even if it was from

NY  -  I could almost not believe

it  -  and frankly it diminished my

respect for 'cause' and for their 'militancy.'

I saw them as people seeking the same

stupid comfort levels as the most

ordinary burgher. To me it was

all as much as being about steadfast

and stuck to your task and goal;

the idea of radicalism and 'cause'

as I saw it meant that you disdained

the bourgeois plight of sports and

industry, together. They were both

useless parts of the dead carcass

of the capitalistic world.

-

The hills of Ithaca were cool, and

I always liked them  -  many rocky

breakouts, waterfalls, sudden

precipices and cliffs of a short

nature  -  but rocky falls nonetheless,

that could kill. In fact, the university

itself, then and now, had a big

problem with suicides. When I say

big, I probably mean like 6 or 7

a year, but that's a lot when you're

held responsible for everything.

It's probably even worse now  - 

the huge influx of Asian academic

hounds who reach a complete

and miserable dead end just by

getting a bad or low grade  - 

'humiliation' is deadly for them  -

causes some to jump. Assorted

love affairs and betrayals, and

debt, probably also cause others

to do the same. Add it up; you

wouldn't want to have to answer

for it. Going there now, what

you see is some really serious

steel mesh netting, on the campus

and along the approaches, secured

over and down all the gorges, and

bridges, and jumps, and drops.

They sure make it difficult now.

What's weird about it is that one

can still jump, but end up just

landing like a busted lump stuck

on the netting somewhere some

distance down. I guess that's

considered better. I can see the

job listing now  -  'Wanted:

Body picker, for retrieval off

University netting. Live or dead.

-

Thorstein Veblen  -  one of my

favorite  characters  -  arrived to

the Main Gates of Cornell one day,

long ago, and so determined was

he, for entry, that he barged in to

the Registrar's office and simply

said, 'Hello. My name is Thorstein

Veblen, and I want to go to your

University.' And he did  -  famed

now, among other things, for his

well-founded theory of 'Conspicuous

Consumption.' It's in essence the

idea (economics, and social theory)

of people wishing to be seen doing

or having something. That takes

precedence over the usefulness

or real need of the object in

question. As if 'my neighbor

just got a new Buick. I will

get a new Cadillac.' Being

shown attaining that status

becomes all-important  - and

it's perceived by Veblen as one

of the flawed engine-burners of

the capitalist system. World

without end, Amen.

-

Cornell University, and what

drove Veblen to it, was one of

the 'Land Grant Universities'

of Lincoln's Civil War era

program of agricultural and

agronomy colleges; places of

study y for the hoped-for

burgeoning American empire

of growth and new demand.

That's how they began anyway;

if course, over time, many

other disciplines and courses

of study entered in  -  Cornell

itself being a fine example of

one that prospered. The main 

gates to the University grounds, 

last I saw a few short years ago, 

still had the  plaques and the

storyboards attesting to the

premises by which the

University was founded. I'm

not even sure people any longer

even know the word 'agronomy,'

or what it is or once was. I know

I was ignorant of it upon arriving.

As it turned out, in about 1972

the two newest campus buildings

were the Johnson Art Museum,

AND the Agronomy Building.

That latter building was set off,

by itself, on a waterway, and a 

rocky gorge, a bend in the road;

near to a lake with rentable

canoes  -  affording a great view

of the building. Weird thing was,

and still is, I guess, that the

architectural design of the

building incorporates rust  -  for

color and texture. The building

was designed to rust. I suppose

it's a certain form/idea of bare

metal  -  which may be OK for

now, and was for 1972 also.

But, and it's a big but, what 

happens, say, 200 years from

now, with all that 'Rust Never

Sleeps' stuff going on, seems

a question. Maybe it'll just

become the headquarters of

the 'Crumble Brothers

Demolition Company.'

Which is something I'd

like to see.