Friday, July 31, 2020

13,020. SAILING ALONG

SAILING ALONG
We might have gone sailing along,
me in my jersey hat and you singing
that same old song : Fifteen scattershot
miles from nothing at all and sounding
like a lark in a broken treetop.
-
At the antiques stand all you were after
were cups and saucers, cups and saucers,
and cups and saucers again. Old things,
mostly chipped or faded or stained. 'How
like us,' I think I exclaimed. A shudder
or a laugh, something from you came.
-
There was a line of trees along the ridge,
and the old guy I was talking with while
you were shopping saucers said his 
great-grandad had planted them all, 
many years before. I can't remember 
what year he mentioned, 1904?
-
Then we both remarked, thinking almost,
alike - he and I - how it was strange that 
they all grew to different sizes like that, if
planted all the same. He said something 
about the wind from the west, or maybe 
the north, I forget, and how it pressures 
the trees to grow its way, no matter, and 
how the underground streams right there 
also bend the surface and influence the
ground beneath.
-
It all made sense, in a sneaky sort of way.
-

13,019. SAVING GRACES

SAVING GRACES
When the pentangle comes down to the
level of bliss, and triangular reflections
cut the sky, maybe then I'll relinquish this
crown of mourning I always wear: The
decibel messages, a'slant' keep arriving.
The man tries to sell me books; the lady
wants me to get a shave from her hot-towel
ladle. I'd be amiss to ignore everyone, but
truly how can I choose between?
-
I have a friend I never see. He hides his
head inside a tree? I heard that long ago;
rocking in hillbilly pines, drinking cold 
water from Evangeline springs; tasting 
the bitter bark of constant willow trees.
-
Now, as I pass the last doorway and am
rudely dragged back, the ice-picker who
grabs me proclaims: 'It doesn't say 'last'
for nothing!' I tell him little back, but reply
in my way : 'If we are made of alien matter,
there's little else to say. Can't you just let
me pass by; one saving grace for the
last stranger on Earth? C'mon, what
do you say?'

13,018. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,031

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,031
(a choice of two evils?)
In looking back over my life,
from any of ten varied
vantage points, I'd have
to agree to the assumption
that it's been a failure  -  in
any material, professional,
reputational, sense. I can
accept that, and, at this late
stage, no matter anyway.
Achievements being nil,
at least I can still talk about
some of the attempts and the
witnessings. For one thing,
I think I spent an inordinate
amount of time making
distinctions between what
things 'were,' against what
they  'did.' It's a bit of the
same dualism, or break-up
between form and function.
I didn't realize that regular
people didn't make those
distinctions, and that the 
workings of things were
meant to just roll along and
NOT be so much examined.
Apparently people today are
mostly concerned with the
function, and the form can
be damned. Just look at the
ugliness of the 'new' all
around us. It gives even
trench-mouth a good name:
Endless rows of flat-faced
compartments, partially glassed
and partially fronted too with
'doors' that go nowhere, and
which, instead, open out to
false balconies or 'porches'
that would fit, perhaps, a
tortoise and a hare and not
much else. The pathos has
gotten so bad that, for instance,
here, nearby to me, at Station
Village (a travesty if ever)
someone in the end-corner
street compartment has
suspended a huge, tan,
over-sized, baseball mitt.
I suppose to welcome in the
new, truncated, disease-addled
half-season of raw nothingness.
It little matters to voided brains.
-
But, such distortions 'work' -
which becomes the only thing
that counts. No further values
are needed, or balanced. Utility
rules : a place to stay, sleep, toilet,
showers, and a central-enough
entertainment-sequenced room
for all the piddling overthoughts
given to things like baseball,
illogical talking heads, and
'political' lies and malapropisms,
enough to baffle the Gods. And,
oh, speaking of which, there are
always, in these sorts of projects,
a close enough proximity to some
form of public worship center(s),
be they churches of edifice, or the
usual transformed and repurposed 
storefronts and painted holes of
ghetto churches for things like the
Church of the Divine Light and
Sword. Small doses, big heaves.
-
It's come down to the factors of
falsity, everywhere. Nothing is
'real' anymore. Ice cream is waxy,
to extend the melt-period and be
neater for at-home use; chemical
additives give the flavor sought;
Bread is plastic-wrapped atrocious,
etc. It's as if the 'utility' watchword
now is 'No bread, just the idea of
bread,' or 'No ice cream, just the
idea of ice cream.' And people tell
me I'm nuts when I say we make
the world up? I never cared for
the utility aspect of things. If
something worked, fine, all well 
good, but I was always getting
lost instead, in form and shape
design; a sort of 'romantic' view
of a world far behind, from where
these things may have come.
A character like that has all the
earmarks of going nowhere, and
by my concern for the certainly
non-productive aspects of a still
and meditative life I was never
much of a bet for anyone else 
concerned with the future, and 
lucre, and Moloch. See where my
was headed? Few takers.
-
That was one of the things I
always liked about the middle
ages, or the way-old, or whatever
you'd like to call it. Back then,
utility be damned, some King
or royal personage could have 
taken me up; been my patron,
supported me, given me a niche,
a place in the castle to stay
and work. Some crazy, and
hard-wired artist nut-case
kept on the premises. That used
to prove things to Kings and
all, back then. It was considered
high style, and real goodness,
to have someone like that on
your premises and within your
close realm. And every so often
producing something to prove
it. That's how the modern word
has ruined everything : utility,
profit, loss, balance, forecasts,
shareholders, and all the rest.
OK, sure, it is said we no
longer have people hungry 
(wrong), dying in the streets,
(wrong), sick and maimed
(wrong), indigent (wrong) -
how do you disprove a notion
like that? On the other hand, 
we get wasteful and devious 
corporations, making 40 kinds 
of toilet tissue, 3o different 
kinds of redundant butter 
and spreads, 100 plus kinds
of cereals, cookies, and kiddie-
torques of breakfast foods and
other slop, vitamin-enriched
death and stupidity, and everyone
is happy, right? Yeah, but look
out the window in most any
urban area, and see what's 
happening, and even the
suburbs are sinking. So I
was always stuck, and right
between things too. My friends
at the Village Diner, they seldom
understood what I meant in trying
to get across to them how I actually
enjoyed their torments  -  they'd
have hoodlums come in for
payoffs and stuff, and a scene
would ensue, the place would get
pushed around. No one really
blinked or even ever really got
hurt  -  it was all more sort of the
typical New York City ballet that
everyone went through. I'd say
that, and they'd laugh, thinking
as if to say back, why should you
care? Fact is, though I never
admitted it, I bled for everyone,
for way too long. That too was
unproductive, but I'm still a
sap when I see a bad situation.
And I still never know if that's
how things are, or how they work.


Thursday, July 30, 2020

13,017. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,030

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,030
(otis redding?)
I used to sit in John's house
and look at things around me  -
it was possible there to think
of it still being, say, 1924. Mary
and he kept a severe and steady,
old-format, household. I'd sit
there and think to myself that
this was 'quality,' the way it
maybe used to be. There seemed
to be, kept by John and Mary,
a transcendance to things, some
quality that was above everything
and realized the old days  -  before
plastics and gilt had a claim
to the storyboard of everyone's
life. Of course, it wasn't conscious,
they didn't have an awareness of
it; for that was their characters
and it was ingrained. The lens
they looked through to see and
partake life was of it, and they
realized not. It only stood out
so grandly to others, like myself,
and was remarked upon often; like
visiting an old catacomb in an
ancient village. Something like
that affects everything else around
it, sheds the very language used
in talking of it. Plastic wall phone?
No, this was an old, cord-wired
Bakelite desk-top style phone with
a cradle and a heavy handset. In
the kitchen, everything was solid
and traditional, the way you'd see
in old magazine-ad kitchen
illustrations : egg plates decorated
with painted chickens, some old
wall clock reflecting a barnyard
scene as motif. Wooden pegs
along the backdoorway, to hang
jackets and coats upon coming in.
It was all as quiet and deep as their
voices were  -  seldom spoken,
and when they spoke it was slow
and deliberate and tired too.
Old John Harkness never spoke
much, as I said, but when you
arrived at his place to volunteer
a day's work, he'd give out a few
words, of thanks, etc., but any
instructing or laying out of the
day's plans always came from
someone other than him, whoever
it was who was running that day's
operation, whether baling, stacking,
or whatever, The regular milking
and cow stuff, John and Mary did,
the old way, milking by hand.
There wasn't any vacuum pumping
system, or auto-hoses in place;
just buckets, towels, and maybe
some of the disinfectant used to
swab each cow's teats before
milking. Yes, I said maybe.
When John did speak to you,
in this case me, it was as if from
within an odd tunnel of time and
distance, as if from someplace
else. The voice was old, and
deep, and possessed of other
things. On the day of John's
funeral, and burial, the house
was very full, many people
arrived. I was, myself, totally
surprised, after introductions,
that he and Mary had a grown
daughter, maybe 50 plus years
old. I thought about her, as a
girl, growing up there, and
I wondered about what the
environment must have been
like, around her, how she'd
fared, and what she remembered.
That funeral procession, by the
way, once it got started, went
up along the small road to
East Smithfield, just a narrow,
hilly, paved road between two
'towns' (in name only, places
on a map), towards where ther
was a large, local cemetery
which had serviced the
surrounding places for decades
past. The line of cars, maybe
60 long, stretched all along
the road in a slow, mournful
procession, following the
open-back lead car carrying
the coffin. It was an amazing
sight. I cannot recall the reason,
but we did not go to the burial,
somehow remaining behind,
tending to regular concerns.
There must have been a reason,
though  I cannot recall it; maybe
it was just regular farm-work
that kept me back. At any point
there were always 3 or 4 locals
working at John's farm, giving
their time.
-
Before any of this Pennsylvania
hide-out stuff, I would only have
had clues to 'other' lives like this,
maybe, through crap like watching
The Waltons,' or 'Apple's Way' or
any of those lower-grade emo
shows they used to run. Purporting
to show the truth from some 30
years previous, in the FDR days
of WPA and CCC and all that
bail-me-out Mr. Govt. stuff. They
didn't have a clue. I learned it by
walking right into it. You know 
how, today, a big thing is to make
a statement with a tattoo and a 
nose pierce and what else; well, the
1970's ended up bagging nothing
except regrets, more lies and slander,
any number of dead bodies STILL
being shipped home, and voices
saying, 'No, really, we've ended 
the war?' Honestly, I couldn't tell;
but the black-night walk into the
large, empty, maw of that day had
none of the earmarks of John
Harkness, nor his ways, his
house, his needs, and his urges.
It ended up killing him.
-
Before this, again, in NYC, I had
somehow reached a point  -  never
knew how  -  that people would 
come to me, for things, truly
thinking I was somehow in
touch with or 'connected' as it
was to the powers and fames of
those who mattered. It was a sad
comedown too, like hanging
my own self, weekly. (Weakly?).
My stock response had become,
'I don't know anybody who's
anybody, but anybody who's
anybody wouldn't know me.'
I liked to mix it up in people's
heads, and most often still no
one got it. Even if you don't
have the power of the street,
as people think you do, it's a
pretty heady thing to run around
knowing that people think you
do. It's a rough equivalent to
saying, 'How it all got started
is that it never got started.'
-
Sometimes, my hands felt like 
they were put on OVER the 
gloves. I was reverse-protected,
but completely powerless too,
an owner of hands with nothing
to do. I had friends who sold 
blood (their own) for money.
Others who sold drugs or any
contraband they could steal.
I did that too  -  the contraband,
not the blood. I hated needles 
and medical stuff. Even when
I finally did get really sick, and
way out of it, in the basement
room at the Studio School, the
best they could do was call 
for my father, who came and
got me, with another Avenel 
guy too. Threw me, prone onto
onto the back seat in his 1960 
Chevy station wagon, and 
dragged me out of there for 
my own recuperation, back 
at home. That took about a 
month, and was just about 
the time, as I recall, when
Otis Redding died in a plane
crash. He was some black
singer, with a big number,
'Sittin' On the Dock of the 
Bay.' It was a big deal, at the
Studio School, his death was,
and I never really knew why.
I couldn't have cared less, being
way on to other things, realms,
and worlds by that time. That
all seemed so mundane.










Wednesday, July 29, 2020

13,016. HERE'S THE CLOCK

HERE'S THE CLOCK
Oh great time-man, keeper
of the flame, all I've got left
is nothing (barely, my name).
Tiger Lilies and cicadas too.
Things I don't really care about
but, whatever : We sit outside
now, umbrellas and lawn chairs.
Some people talk; I brood, and
stare out to the water. New York,
here called, off Red Hook; really
not the harbor, just a bunch of
watercraft taxis and some hump
of Lady Liberty adrift atop the
water. These days I've seen
better buoys than that.

13,015. MY PANORAMA BROCHURE

MY PANORAMA BROCHURE
Welcome to this old world, and it's
still squeaky clean. You may have
it all  -  mountains and valleys and
hills, rivers, and streams. There's no
end to the glory of Man?
-
You may stay in our places of
lodging and worship; open to all.
We offer the best amenities; swans
at Driver's Lake, outdoor breakfast
served daily at Marsberry Pool.
-
We offer ringside seating, let it not
go unannounced as well, for the Second
Coming; the Rapture; and any future
Resurrections you may plan. Cool!
-
Let us help make this world a better
place, from Pleasure Pond to Sunbury
Lake. parking for 300 cars!

13,014. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,029

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,029
(done by hand)
For a while then, after that
whole Bobby thing, I just
wanted to pack it in. I was
pretty disgusted with most
everything, and filled with the
sort of hurt you don't get rid
of easily. It's too hard to live
with the idea of having been
looking up at a fire-scene and
unwittingly witnessing a friend's
demise. Yes, I had nothing to do
with it, and no, he was nothing
to me; not family, not romance,
not even a solid connection.
Just a cool guy with whom I
identified any number of the
better things in life; outside of
the usual rathole of festering
crap we all deal with or assume.
My wife said he looked like
some dancer or movie guy, to
her. I hadn't a clue, and, frankly,
for a period of time at first,
thought he was gay. But he
had a girlfriend, an Alfa
Romeo spots car, kept at his
house over on Staten Island,
and he was good, strong, and
tough; no fake about him,
whatever he was. One time
he said to me, 'I was out your
neck of Jersey on Saturday.'
I asked what he meant, and
he said (still a little foggy
to me), that he had to drive
one of the fire-tank rigs over
to a station in Edison, filled
with water, which they had a
need of there. And then he
drove back empty. Like I said,
I don't know what he meant;
firemen stuff, I guess. They
transport water?
-
To realize him gone, and the
way it had happened, really
sucked. I'm not so sure I was
ever the same. You know
what life is  -  that plain
old boring portion anyway?
It's one slap to the side of
the head, and then another,
and another, and eventually
the accumulation of all that
gets to you, wears or breaks
you down. Like a blown tire,
and then a bad transmission,
and, finally, a blown engine,
and you too are dead. Bobby,
missed all that accumulation,
at at 56 or 57, whatever it was,
he got hit with one, solid,
unseen, airless brick he never
even saw coming.
-
When I lived in Pennsylvania,
there was an farmer nearby that
I used to help, now and then.
Everyone did, often. He was
like 80 or something, and he
hung himself in his barn. Just.
one day, had had enough; there
were some current problems
over 'modernization' of his
dairy-farm practice and
equipment, and they were
talking of dropping him, no
longer accepting his milk,
at the creamery, or by pick-up.
It just destroyed the old guy, and
his wife too; who, unfortunately,
he left behind in his bullheaded
reacting to events yet unseen.
Life's like that too. Sometimes
it just blows up in our face.
I've known about 4 or 5 suicides
in my life; close dudes. That seems 
like a lot to me; I don't know. Males.
And one female; sweetest young
person I ever met, and my feeble
heart was gone. She left Princeton
and was working at a coffee bar
in Grand Central Station, where
I'd see her occasionally. And then,
alas, not ever again. Just a sign
that said she was gone. And
her photo too. I guess it's not
so prevalent among women. I
wonder why that may be? The
guys walk around with a tub
full of life-giving semen all
the time, yet they never seem to
care about that; ladies, on the
other hand, being nurturing and
motherly, etc., they maybe can't
seem to take that step. Except for
a few weirder ones, hard-cases,
poets and writers and painters
maybe, who were female. I guess.
Ann Sexton. Sylvia Plath. That
ilk. Real intriguing to me. But
anyway, I never bought into
that gender stuff anyway; every
person's fluid enough, all along
the way, emotionally, bravery
and courage-wise, bold and
anarchic; any of that stuff is
all the same.
-
John Harkness, this old farmer
person, he was a guy, through
and through. Tough and rugged,
he was, with hands like two
vice-grips, coarse and solid. He
ran his entire operation, with
Mary, in the most basic, old
way possible. They were quite
nearly Amish in that respect,
except they did use lamps,
bulbs, and drove a car. Everything
else was frugal, and done the old
way  -  a real  paucity of machinery,
little small talk, and lots of rope
and twine, heaving and baling of
hay and straw and silage. His
totally classic barn was probably
new in about 1880. He was,
maybe, one of three or four 
people I'd ever met who could
date themselves from the 1890's,
not including my own forbears,
who I assume fit that bill too.
This was 1972 or '73, so if he
was 80 years old that would
comfortably tuck him into the
1890 period. His death too was
sad and tragic and memorable,
but, frankly, at least he did it to
himself. Bobby's death was gifted
to him, somehow  -  as if that
counts for anything.
-
I used to go up in John's barn :
You knew you were going to
sweat, and deadly too. Piles and
piles of hay bales, in 90 degree
heat; in the hayloft up top of a
barn makes it for some dead, still
air, intense heat, and dusty matter
everywhere. In addition, John's
included hemp-rope, blisters, 
muscle strains, aching backs, 
calloused and bloody hands, 
by the end of five or  six days 
haying-season, hard work.
I can't ever imagine what things
were running through his head as
that morbid rope tightened around
his throat. All the good he ever
had done, right down the drain
 of the modern world, that day.
Everything he ever did was done 
by hand, right to the end included,
and as I recall, it was the merry 
month of May too. Farmers had a 
saying : 'Cool, wet May, pile that 
hay!' Meaning that with good 
moisture  and some rain
days, there'd be a good, 
heavy crop of hay.
-
On the other hand, in the 
printing industry, my boss used 
to say, (it was a bit of a sex joke), 
'There's only one thing you do by 
hand in the printing industry.'
John kind of fell in between the two.