348. CANARSIE

CANARSIE
From beyond the Brooklyn meadows comes the sound of
something roaring. A surfeit of consolation, this enormous
content rises - from the land, from all its tombs, and
from the edges of the very sea itself. We are at
the end of this land now and, lacking new room to
move, must stay in place and take what comes.
A raging water, a field of spite.
-
There are still those ragged Indians to circumscribe;
they have been left about, bedraggled and
forgotten. We've let them mend their
tents and their roundhouses - after
the fires had burned down there
wasn't much left of anything anyway.
They can leave or seek now their own
foul salvation, as we are done with them
and all their chilling ways. Canarsie Indians
indeed! We should have marked them from the start.
-
Being nice to someone only has its drawbacks
after you win - they are conquered and you
are stuck with them. Feed me! Tender me
whatever you can! I can do nothing
without you! Soon enough, the master
becomes the slave. A lesson to
be learned only now, after
it's far too late.

347. THE CHEVROLET AT LAHIERE'S

THE CHEVROLET

AT LAHIERE'S
Now what's that doing here? It's parked along the
street, right across from the coffee shop, with no
real reason to be there. No one drives that stuff
anymore, especially not here. No entitlement baby,
this; it sits there instead both leaning and rusting.
Bad paint, bad tires. A broken antenna, and the
outside mirror dangles. If I didn't know better,
I'd say it sagged on its suspension too.
-
People try not to look - they'd rather just
walk by. Even those two Alumni-type
codgers, snickering as they pass.
'That is not a BMW, and I
bet it goes through gas.'
-
On the other hand, for myself,
I was able to see the connection:
French food at Lahiere's, and an
old French name in Chevrolet.
Everything else should
be so simple.

346. THE ADVENTURE OF MR. HATTERA

THE ADVENTURE
OF MR. HATTERA
I went to sea a nine-year old boy,
I came back a wizened old man;
too stiff to totter, too bent to
stand straight. All that I missed
I may have been told, but none of
it sticks any longer. I don't know the
meaning of half the words they use, and
I really can't imagine what they're
saying when told. Have I just
grown too old?
-
My life was one big adventure,
from the bloody start to this
bloodied end. I killed a man
in Port Au Prince and kept
running ever since then.
Now, apprehended but as a
scold, I know no one wants me,
I know no one knows me, and
I'm too old (I'm told).
-
A firing squad wouldn't be so bad.
When the final shot hit, it wouldn't
make me sad. I might even feel glad.

345. A DEVIL'S FINE SALIVA

A DEVIL'S FINE SALIVA
They say there is snow on the peak - always.
That high up one cannot but expect it,
can't wish for anything else. It could be
90 degrees this far down, here below,
yet all that's needed is a glance at the top
to see snow. Like the Devil's fine saliva -
a strange mist which enters the brew.
-
We've all lived good lives; decent at least.
Here - down here - in the village, where what
persists to entice us is a respite, some set of
beliefs to keep us going: God in the Heavens,
and a fair star at night setting forth the way.
But a Devil's fine saliva, right back up there
by day, throws us, ruefully, back from
whence we've come. At least our doubts,
at least some. It can't be avoided; any
Kingdom soon due us is a
Kingdom to come.

344. A BAGGAGE OF MEMORIES

A BAGGAGE OF MEMORIES
All this rushing in, all at once -
I've been here before, I know it. I've
seen this scenario, played this role -
in fact, somehow I know exactly what's
coming, it having all come once before.
Just like this? In every exact detail?
Well, that I cannot say - and yet,
I remember the colors were deeper,
warmer, more red. And I remember,
just as much, the spaces as larger,
deeper again too, with more dimension
to everything I saw. Deeper and dense,
brighter and hence - I know I've been
here before.

343. I DON'T UNDERSTAND

I DON'T UNDERSTAND
I had a dream, wherein I gave you an
ultimatum - something at once both bold
and forbidding, as well as 'too good to be true.'
Which was your quote exactly, as it turned out.
You took me up on this curious offer. I was
to outlast you, but whichever one of us was to
die first was supposed to contact the other.
-
In even the most simple of ways - flicking a
light switch on and off, flipping a book or two
down from the shelves, turning a radio off
or on, as it may be.
-
But this ? this I never expected -
dirty socks in the cold refrigerator in
which (I am now certain) the light stays
always on (is that you too?), a milky bowl
of corn flakes, wilted, atop the warm TV,
a salt shaker filled with...sand? What's going
on here, (I don't understand)?

342. BEETHOVEN'S SEEING EYE DOG

BEETHOVEN'S

SEEING EYE DOG
Unable to believe in the evidence, there was nothing
more to do : become a silent cynic, ramble about as
if mad, pick up traces of whatever was seen.
It was, in a way, a chance for the most
unbelievable colloquialism. I knew
the rest of the world to be one
vast lie. Even the wisest men,
shitheads at heart, never
spoke a true word
in their entire
lives.

341. ABSTRACT 3

ABSTRACT 3
One beat-up old pest, the likes of which
not before shorn of all heart and matter
kept itself between I and thou, was all I
had to show for living. Now that was that.
-
This end had been achieved and,
with little to show for it, I shambled
on. Egregiously wilful, shamed and
hurt together. 'Let us go skimming,'
I uttered to no one in particular 'let
us take off from here, and speed through
the remnants of what life is left : before
us, behind us and with us right here.'
-
My left hand was on the wheel.
My other hand, just beneath your
heart, was ready to rip it - in one
motion - out from your chest.

340. MESA

MESA

On the tabled plane, five trucks.
Passing light, the shine comes off
their sides. Repeat offenders,
wearing sunlight crowns.

339. KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM AND GRACE

KNOWLEDGE AND
WISDOM AND GRACE
And so a crazy professor in a well-worn suit
comes up and says 'it's all about over now. I do
nothing, and I do it for love.' He sits down on the
one chair empty and orders another round. Coffee.
-
She looks over - this wonderful woman I know -
and says, over her shoulder, 'the only oxymoron
is you.' He turns about and smiles. They had been

high-school sweethearts, but had parted in pain.
-
That was all years before, I'd been told.
He now did nothing but play checkers or
dice for money, and lecture on Elizabethan art.
She stayed home in her own place, sending out
manuscripts one after the other, to sources I'd
never really heard of. The Magnificent Bolster
Review. The Pequod Inquest Poetry Journal.
The Quarterly Chapbook of Masterful Art.
-
Eventually, it always seems, everything changes
and we all go our separate ways --
like some crazy professor
in a well-worn suit.

338. JEANETTE

JEANETTE
It was Jeanette. A simple ruffled shirt,
and something quite mussed. We spent three
hours huddled, as it were, over stacks of very
old books staggered with care deep in the library's
inner-sanctum. Only low-lit lights, and those in
green shades. Couldn't touch; just look.
-
Great Universities are made for this, I guess.
Or made by this too - the veiled smartness of
a three-hundred year old collection of five-hundred
year old books. The meager face of dust and paper -
little things flaking off. Browned corners and edgings.
Gold gilt which leaves traces on one's fingers.
Couldn't touch (they said); just look.

334. ALL WHILST READING WALTER BAGEHOT

ALL WHILST READING
WALTER BAGEHOT
My mind wouldst wander.
Seeking other climes; a stalwart
mind envisioning another land - someplace
quite quiet. Like an island of the deaf. Leadeth
me to pastures, restoreth my soul, and all the rest.
A very quiet cemetery, filled with the deaf dead,
deceased Caesars, someplace where the rest rest.

336. WELL THEN, WHAT TO DO WITH THESE HANDS

WELL THEN, WHAT TO DO
WITH THESE HANDS
I am always alone, in the most savage way:
an articulated sadness, a glorified gloom, something
that can bend with the moment. Good times, bad times,
who can even tell the difference? Watching people talk,
waving their arms, or putting their heads close together,
merely leads me to boredom while gauging their strengths.
-
In the end - all it is - I really don't care.
I met my factored doom - that which
was brought in for me on a very-personalized
cart - on the day I was born. I've been with it now for
years - dragging it or pushing it, depending on which
way I was headed. In my day, I inspected carefully each
item laid out on that cart. Non-plussed, like a deviant,
I merely continued on my way...intent on something else.
-
Or so it would seem, have seemed, did seem.
Now - filled with weariness, and worn - I just
wish it would roll away, be over, exit the premises
on some fiery, prancing, steed. But, alas, I
cannot seem to put this horse before this cart.
It is all this effort merely to break my heart.

335. WORLD HAS FLOWERS - a Panegyric

WORLD HAS FLOWERS
They come at you incessantly - these things.
You've been characterized as 'Nature Man' -
that guy who haunts the parklands; hiding
Springtime muffins in the warm bouquet of
hands. The Sun-God itself, going out of its
way to see you, trespasses between trees and
shadows to enter places which weren't there
before. It's magic and splendor, everywhere.

334. JUST AS I WALKED WITH THE VIKINGS

JUST AS I WALKED
WITH THE VIKINGS
Along the slag heap, they put the ships.
Tied with poles to rocks and timber,
nothing so much as short to go. And
the lengths of chain, it seemed, went
on forever. A few men, horrid and
very sick, were simply put to death -
a mallet, a hammer, a hatchet.
-
Each time we entered some newly-found
place it was as if never before. Of course,
or off-course for that matter. We ended
up where we ended up. The scallions
of the north, places of today's maps -
Maine, Newfoundland - were for us
but empty expanses of discovered
land. We knew nothing, caring less.
-
Bone meal and chatter, raw meat, the cloven
hoof, the highland cat. A naturalist's ledger
would have all these things listed - we did
none of that. We just went on; wordless
and without a history of our own.
Or of what we were doing either.
Nothing and neither known.

333. MILITIA MAN

MILITIA MAN
Once I was sent by the army to break heads
and crack people's hands with hammers. It
was supposed, of course, to be a simple task,
the very sort that warfare is made for. Soldiers,
made to take orders and nothing else, are - in
that respect - a truly stupid bunch. I myself,
to speak frankly, thought really nothing of it.
Blood, the crunch of breaking bones, the
shrieks of panic and pain - who cared?
-
Only much later, when I saw the crippled boys
left behind - that one without an eye, the other
an arm AND a leg both missing - did I attempt
second thoughts; but they too passed. After all,
what did I care of results, and who would listen
to me? I'd been paid my measly Roman salt,
this fucking root of salary's word, and I never
left a body behind to rot. Whenever I could, I
buried my lot, under at least a FEW feet of solid
dirt. A few feet of solid dirt; even that was
more than I ever got. But I was okay with
that, I did my job and took the flak.
Service in wartime is brutal.
There ought to be better
than that.
-
'It's songs like this
that never have an end.
I'm sick of it all, and don't
want to hear it again.'
Militia Man

332. HARD TRUTH/SOFT DREAMING

HARD TRUTH/

SOFT DREAMING
In the morning, when the whitewashed light
of a new sun still paints the dewy trees - this
early in Spring - the bare branches seem crying
out for something. 'Something to accompany us,
please, kind sir.' A sort of cloak, a dress of leaves.

331. ON THE DAY I MET FRITZ FANON

ON THE DAY I
MET FRITZ FANON
The wretched of the Earth were all about,
hands-out, beseeching. Every cry of every
ban, every infant's cry of fear - you know the
drill. To make matters worse, it wasn't just
him. Somehow in attendance too were

Catherine Blake and her husband Bill.
-
I reeled about once or twice,
seeking a comfort or a solace
in the things I couldn't do - no
practical human connection made,
no genuine human friendship would do.
It all had to be perfect, in Heaven made.
-
That's the problem with seeking
a perfect Divine and a perfect Earth.
Neither of them are to be what they say,
and if you still keep trying, you just get hurt.

330. RIDING THE HERD

AND JUST LIKE

RIDING THE HERD
You marvel at what you marvel -
magnificent light at the cylindrical oasis
in the eyes of that winsome cat's meow,
the pattern on that funny fellow's apron.
It's never anything more than this:
passing time, getting by, laughing at
something someone said, making sure
to put a stamp on that letter you mail.
-
I see London, I see France.
I see someone in a trance...
in a trance...in a trance.

329. CUDGELING AT MAREMOUNT

CUDGELING AT MAREMOUNT
It wasn't far off, that overwhelming feeling again :
the coal mines just outside of Scranton, the decided
features of those digging deep into the Earth, fragging
poster-boys of toil and hurt. The steam-locomotive on
adjoining tracks, sweating and bulging with all its fire
and heat, on hold. Finally, no place to go! Staying put
as the rest of the world moved. Overhead, the thick
overcast of storm-cloud and steam together.
Not too distantly removed, once-again, the
old crooked houses hugged the hillside barely.

328. BEING AN AMAZING TRAIT

BEING AN AMAZING TRAIT
Truculence, being an amazing trait, suits
you rather well. In the morning, when you
arise, I hear-tell that you rip the darkness from
the sky and force the sun to rise.
-
The luminous and the numerous;
in both cases you carry them well.
'I hardly have time to read anymore.'
I heard you say that, quite sincerely,
just before you broke your glasses
in two, stepped on the lenses,
and defiantly walked off.

327. CRIMESTOPPER'S NOTEBOOK

CRIMESTOPPER'S NOTEBOOK
Dick Tracy, driving through town,
threw his girlfriend down. She
lingered a week in a coma,
and died. He was apprehended,
and later was fried.
-
Legends and myths have no
real basis in reality - as I know it.
My guardian angels would just as
well sue for defamation then
lend a helping hand.

326. THE PERILS OF PAULINE

THE PERILS OF PAULINE
I am metastasizing time : it is spilling
out of my gourd, over-running to the
floor, and pooling in huge puddles.
Memory serves to only contort.
The wisest lily, I notice now, is
the one placed over the dead.
-
Incredulous moans are
spreading from the chorus
to the loge. The lights stay
dimmed; the half-darkness
suits all things well.

325. YOUR YELLOW SARONG

YOUR YELLOW SARONG
Beneath your yellow sarong, I saw the outline
of your body. The sunlight was brazenly pouring
through with its own glory - only adding to yours.
Translucence is a momentary thing, like the glories
of which mad monks sing.
-
Outside, on the lawn, some birds were pecking
joyously at the seeds you'd just left them.
Up and down, darting to and fro, these birds,
these 'things' which Blake said were just
momentary worlds of delight, reveled
in something of that same natural glory.

324. LANDSCAPE AT BRAVURA

LANDSCAPE AT BRAVURA
I'm leaving an etching behind; something anyone
can see. No special invitation needed, for this,
my gallery. It's of a place I've always loved, or
at least wanted to be. Rolling hills. The rustic
clock tower on the municipal lawn. An old
carriage in the workshed by the wooden bandshell.
Elm trees soaring, their spreading arms the
size of high caverns - making a cove I can
walk beneath. I was 10. I was 20. Everyday a
different parade. The carpenter-gothic housefronts,
and the old wooden church. An owl on the 7th eave.
In the stellar evening, the bats each night, and
the lightning bugs at Summer dusks.
Walking the shrouded streets, with his black bag
in hand, Doctor Madison, again, leaving from
a house. The wagon, at dawn, sliding by with
its clink-cargo of bottled milk. The clop-clop
of that dull old horse. 'Maizy', each day again,
'Maizy'. The regularity of something good;
the distant, far better, once-off, life.

323. EASTER BLUE

EASTER BLUE
This God-like harrowing has worn me out.
I watch the people come and go - past the
old stone steps and up the newer stairs.
A plasticine church, newly built, more easily
elevates them to their new kind of Heaven.
Someone roll this rock away. These days
it's made of plastic anyway. A movie-rock,
which the slightest breeze can sway.

322. SATURDAY'S TRELLIS

SATURDAY'S TRELLIS
Like the trellis of some other day - wild,
fearsome, windy and blown - these blossoms
have tried gamely to grab on to something
stable. In every which way they can, they stay.
Determinately clinging. Rapacious vines.
Anchored in a certain sort of May vanity
to both blossom and display. Those who
come strolling by stop and stroll no more.
Instead, they stay. A very particular Kingdom
of Beauty, from which no one wants to leave.

321. NEAR APPROACHING

NEAR APPROACHING
So much I wanted to do.
The cat got out of the bag.
Sleaze is what you make it -
ease mixed with tomfoolery.
Never bedevil a camel; they spit.
So many things I meant to do,
but I've done so little of it.

320. RAT

RAT
Dead rat dirty rat,
rat rat
rat tat tat.

319. THE EVER-LIVING DEMON OF SPEED

THE EVER-LIVING
DEMON OF SPEED
As if wanting warmth atop an iceberg of glass
or setting fires with matches eternally lit, every act
of my life has somehow presaged itself with omens
of an absolute degree - either dire forebodings or
mindless glee. I mustn't understate this elegance,
you see. Distance and nearness, the same in their
exactitudes, are never what they seem to be.
-
I race with blinding speed through a deluge of air.
No hands on any wheel, nothing between me and the
wind in my face. Glass all gone, airstream foiled.
Resistance distracting my aerodynamic toil.

318. URITURBI

URITURBI
I was on the Mount of Olives with you-know-who.
Withered like meat on some cross of wood, the spoken
intentions went far afield - enclosing every emotion of the
future world in a droning brown of doubt and death.
Standing alone, with the Devil at my side too.
'Regard all this before you as yours to rule.
I offer you the world' - those words, spoken with
a lethal smirk, for a moment took my breath away.
I gazed out with narrowed eyes - all I could see
was a Heaven; nothing at all of this world
of which he boasted. He always was a fool
and a coward. A real craphead, smothered
in smarmy intent. In reality, he could
offer me nothing at all.

317. ON RUINATION DAY

ON RUINATION DAY
I saw the crazy man again dancing his quick-step
along the same silly street. He seemed heading sideways
while pulling his cart. His arms are always out for
something; wishing a broom, looking for dimes,
seeking alms from the passing minions.
I want to say 'cohorts'? I wish to say 'suckers'?
No, neither - though I'll never really know what goes on.
I noticed him again, even though I'd tried pretending
not to see : he was in the midst of traffic, now haranguing
the cars and the drivers. 'You'll not get much if you curse
them out - and to their faces, no less.' Well, that's what I
wanted to say. But who am I to give advice - to the lonely,
to the broken, to the stalwarts of sadness and mystic gloom?
Not my place at all. At some sad level, I come from the
same beginnings, I come from the same raw source.
-
They should have a holiday for the losers.
Called 'Ruination Day', of course.

316. LEAVING CHELMSFORD

LEAVING CHELMSFORD
Please don't have me leave Chelmsford without you.
It would be as if, having entered a great Tunnel of Love
in the dark and the chill, I were to turn to see, next to me
in the empty cart, nothing but a vacant seat. Bare trees
all over again. A trim, despotic pond iced and frozen over.
The same sort of cold which would coat my heart.
-
Entreating you for this again, one last time,
I simply ask - please let me stay, have me
remain, or, for pity's sake, come away with me.

315. A THEORY OF COLOR

A THEORY OF COLOR
See the hand so nicely settled.
The eye, wishing for solace, will follow
the line easily. What matters most are the
blocks of colors - shaded and bold, stark
and washed. Vivid and strong, these forceful
hues and areas enclosed are what will bring the
focus to attention. And - all of that - is what Art is.

314. AT CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE

AT CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE
So they dragged this up from the Alexandrian sand
and mud: obelisk and markings together -

bragging rights about exploits in battle.

How purely mundane.

-
Now it sits before setting suns, atop

what's called a knoll. The Metropolitan Museum

of Art crowds it from one side, while the endless

streams of Sunday's pride - runners, bicyclists,

and walkers - stroll.

-

Attesting no longer to anything, this measured
feat, this awesome relic, stands silent - trying
only to dip before the passing sun.
Heliopolis this is not.

313. SHORELINE AT RILE'S POINT

THE SHORELINE AT

RILE'S POINT
Had the watery dip of the roiling sea not
moistened my face already, I would not have
looked out to see the vague ships passing
in a fog of light with no edges. Some fifteen terns
along the sand ran and screeched, while seawater
foamed and the sea-grass blanched. Bent by the
wind, thrown about, as some oasis of fury, the
broad beach seemed screaming and angry.
I couldn't help notice the lack of a horizon.
Foreground and distance, in a merging of
Nature's way, had married - as if to say:
'We are here as one, together today.'

312. A DUE RECOMPENSE

A DUE RECOMPENSE
Bearing forth with little, the judge's
robes sat down - pronouncing sentence.
From the small riser, a sentence of time;
'six months for this, and probation is thine.'
It sounded so regal, serious or biblical.
Yet I couldn't help but smile, realizing the
mistake had cost this man his time.
I wasn't him at all, for I had done the crime.

311. CARNIVAL EYES / THE RECOGNITIONS

CARNIVAL EYES /

THE RECOGNITIONS
Enormous cities of the past - groveling,
misshapen hulks of human shape scratched
out of harbors and hills - spitting forth humors
from rot. Entire cities of the past whose voices
echo still, in space. Huge comminglings of
noise and voice, searching for one finished
message in a spread layer of sound.
Enormous cities of the past.
-
The anguish of Humankind, seeking joy,
debates with itself what that joy should be.
As such debates go on, the waste amounts
to so much retro nothing - with no one
recognizing the stakes at hand.
-
Carnival eyes, red-painted lips, heads
which go in all directions: the faith of
people connecting souls, all to one another
in their farcical tranche of deliverance and
salvation. Kinships of Gods: governments of
ideas, great moments of the past, pyramids of
dialectic. Everything living on, in eyes and
motions still roving through this day.
-
'I've wanted to tell this story for a really long time:
how I entered Philadelphia covered in grime and with
a mystique I'd forgotten about, but left just as quickly,
thinking of you. It was an enormous cavalcade of funny
things - the hustlers along Walnut Street, and all those
young kids drinking beer.'
-
In 1964, when I was 14, I played Walsingham
in a Shakespeare play. I skittered on stage, said
my few lines, and went off, on my way. It was just
a moment for me, back then, to surmise what
public presence should be. I was not impressed.
The curtains, in fact, took all my attention -
their fabric, the way they separated to present the stage,
and all those grotesque faces, barely lit, looking up
in some strange and awkward Edvard Munch-like way.
High above me, the wires and cables and brackets of lights.
-
Enormous cities of the past; yes, yes.

310. UPON CLIMBING MOUNT EXCELSIOR

UPON CLIMBING

MOUNT EXCELSIOR
The winds at the top, I have noticed, are
never a problem at the bottom - all those women
in their balloon crepe hats, slanting sideways just
pretend. The five gents nearby, with their carved
walking sticks and leather chaps, have something
else on their mind - perhaps a jaunt through some
deep, dark jungle canopied with vines.
Oh let all wild beasts beware such
civilized men are arriving!
-
It's often like this. We sort our thorns amidst the
ideas and places we first conjure, and only then
prepare well to walk straight into battle. Most
often, a battle of our very own making.
-
As the high winds frolic - themselves too above
our very heads - we can see how all things
twist and turn. All that we see loses its
point - outlines and definitions changing
before our standing eyes.
-
On 33rd street, the man with corduroy
briefcase has real trouble with
just closing the taxi door.

309. THE HOWS AND WHY OF THE WERTHEIMER FACTION

THE HOWS AND WHYS
OF THE
WERTHEIMER FACTION
Truly then something was wanted.
They had made their motion and voted
their calls - and then, of course, guns were
taken down from the walls. Enamored of nothing
so much as themselves, collegially they took to the
streets. The chanted phrase, the bombast, the
inevitable beautiful broken glass; each of these
things came together - for the cameras, for the joy,
for the idea of communitarian bliss.
-
At one time, Marx and Engels. By the time
the camera crews arrived, it was 'marks and angles'.
'God damn, at least we do know how to shoot!'
Bullets, guns and cameras - shooting all together;
the off-livery of the broken stable, the fractured
hand of the landless man. 'Rentier Politics' across
the land of France.
-
I hadn't been home but an hour when the doorbell rang.
A man from the Morning Herald, seeking an interview
at the door. 'What did you think of the mob's behavior
this morning? Have you any feelings towards the issues of
war?' I smiled my famous smile. 'Nothing worth saying
has ever been said, and, to paraphrase Wittgenstein,
what cannot be said we cannot say, and we can't whistle it either.'

308. OF FLAXSEED AND ROSES I AM SURE

OF FLAXSEED AND ROSES

I AM SURE
The critics who floored me were cleaning up their mess -
whatever they'd said had already fallen away. They
re-sharpened their knives to try once again.
An elderly maid brought fresh flowers
into the room : Windjammer flaxseed
and Lilywhite roses.
-
This long vacation (as I understood it) was now
over. On the face of my new watch was
reflected Philadelphia. A man along Walnut
leaned over and said to me 'how are you?'
The girl I was with gave me her mirror.
I peered at it and said 'still here, at the least!'
-
William Penn and all those things;
the studied subterfuge of the
Penn City Hall.

307. ON THE KLONDIKE VERGING

ON THE KLONDIKE VERGING
A twisting verdigris; the sudden impetus
thwarted exit. The old veneer itself
was now sodden - air and moisture
having done their work. A joy in
the making, the expunged designs
of old webs and patterns were yet
barely to be seen. We entered that
library singing, and glad to be alive.
-
Floor to ceiling, patterned books, arcades
of shelving and storage bins. Higher than
hope, the eye ran. Along that fresco'd ceiling,
what charmed us most was the distant day:
markings of the past being reflected
in today's fair heap.

306. AS I PARADED

AS I PARADED
While I paraded my thinking past the minds of
old, what came to the fore was simplicity. As if
injurious to mind and matter, the round sound of
logic (coming back upon itself) ran its circles -
un-coiffing the sureness of illusion. My world
was a loser, being factored in the win. How could
this be? I wondered. Metaphysics under such
a tree is shaded by great limbs of doubt.

305. MY STRUCTURED ANATOMY

MY STRUCTURED ANATOMY
I was born with one foot facing
the other way. It wasn't quite twisted,
but it wouldn't quite stay.

304. THE CAME THE HORDE

THEN CAME THE HORDE
Then came the horde in the year of our lord,
and all the swans went to Geegle-La-Gesa.
'Boys will be boys' was the only thing said.
Gasoline was poured out and lit - the new
flames sparked light for a hundred feet.
Startlingly rapid, the fire followed itself
sunningly; twisting and turning like rope.
Wherever it went, fire and heat, fire and heat -
and that rippled, blurred vision only hot air
brings. The world was suddenly quite flexible,
as seen through a new and different lens.

303. FUTURISTS IN CAMBRIA

FUTURISTS IN CAMBRIA
(the Walking Purchase)
I. In lockstep with the external world:
'Remaking the noggin' and The Fuhrer of Reputation.
It was Arnold Schoenberg and his 12-tone scale
that really did me in. No partita of Bach-elegance this.
It sang industrial harshness, it sang brute force.
Broken edges and the sundered sutures of a wartime's
burning flame. The flame that never went out.
I'm not really very happy; a death-bred slob.
Who in my condition would be?
Who in my situation would even try?
-
II. The Walking Purchase - we showed them a river
that wasn't there - or at least not where we said
it was. That was their starting point...and we
said: 'as far as you can walk in a day will be yours,
from this pointed river towards that.' But, the river
not being there, we already had them securely in
our hats. They were doomed from the start; and
anyway, had not a clue of what we were talking.
It was, really, a holiday for all of us involved -
and probably our very first one in this new land.
All Fool's Day, I should think, sums it up nicely.
-
III. Those ecstatic nuns of old, and all their garments.
Fuck 'em all, I say. Visions are the cheapest
versions of reality to be found.
-
IV. Felix Canada said: 'as people start dying,
they get mean, not nice'. I was there when
he said it, and that quote's quite verbatim.
-
V. 'Really well done; but the girls never like me.'
So I'm reading some slave woman's account of
when she was young, as a girl, and newly liberated;
'freed' in 1865. The first thing she wound up doing
was being a whore - that's what her new Freedom
gave her. The words were like from some old
N'Orleans street back when the levees yet held.
'If'n you'se ain't still movin', 'den 'jes mebbe'
you'se movin' still - either ways, don't make
no nevah to me.' She smoked cigarettes while she
talked 'lighting one after the other as if the fire had
to be continuous or the flame eternal.' Like any
other monument, some people liked it, while others
just didn't. Freedom brings so much to learn.
-
VI. 'I been fuckin f'om befo' I kin remembuh!
Shit yes! Wit' my old man, wit' my brothers,
wit' d'kids in da street. I done it fo' pennies.
I done it fo' nothin'...An' you know whut,
Mistuh? I got a quatah fo' sucking off a
ol' niggah yestiddy!'*

*Natasha Trethewey, 2002

302. ALL THOSE CRAZY MEN OF OLD

ALL THOSE CRAZY

MEN OF OLD
In tenuous grip, something stern and wild -
like wind in the air and fire upon the
water below - they held their sticks
like lances, thrusting across the land.
-
Voyagers and soliloquists, naming continents
and vacuums - places without definition,
meanings without import - they planted flags
where they chose. It was the searching, always:
the search for gold or endless life or wisdom
or God. Revelations underneath great boulders,
and empty tombs where caravans had passed.
The drifting sand covered things over - all things;
their exploits, their vast palaces, their tracks and
their dreams. Words were carved into stone,
lashed onto the backs of camels, and hauled
great miles, to be erected over doorways and columns.
-
Everything passed, as everything does.
That tenuous grip, thrusting across the land.

301. THE NAME DELPHINA

THE NAME DELPHINA
Delphina was my mother's first name; she said
it was the name of some Greek Goddess of Doom.
I never believed her for an instant. She was just
trying to scare me, keep me in my place.
Later in life, I looked it up. Such a thing
never existed. Now, neither does she.

300. TAKING ORDERS

TAKING ORDERS
And once the angry man said
'I don't have a life, I have a wife!',
I knew there'd be trouble coming.
It's the sort of thing I hate to see.
Then the crowd took up the chant:
'I hate everything, I'm sick of this shit,
I just want to burn this whole place down,
I've had it up to here with all this crap!'
-
There's always an edge to which one
should NOT get too close. Mental gymnastics
and the sleight-of-hand, eventually even they
fail. The entire edifice crumbles like dust.
It's so bad, actually, that you have to
walk THROUGH it all just to get out.
-
In the Army you're trained to take orders.
The pizza guy on the other end of the phone,
he takes orders. The salesgirl in the bridal
department, she takes orders. The whole world's
a mess. Oh my God! I'm sounding just like them.

299. I WENT TO HAVERSTRAW

I WENT TO HAVERSTRAW
...Where I stayed two weeks in the old Cedar Hotel,
overlooking the concrete ships in the Hudson - those
leftover transport-hulks from World War Two. The
story that crazy guy told me in the hotel lobby : they used to
fill them up and send them down the Hudson to New York
Harbor but no one ever knew why. All the locals scratched
their heads - concrete ships with concrete hulls. Who's
ever heard of such a thing? It worked for a while, and then -
for whatever reason - the idea was abandoned, and the ships
were just left in river. They became quite the attraction.
Kids played in them whenever they could. The town
finally had to make them off-limits.
-
That was when I was living alone.
The small windows had curtains which
blew in the breeze. I always left them open
to catch the river-air. It was a nice, Springtime thing
to do. One day a bird flew in. It stayed. For a few
days I had a 'guest' I actually enjoyed.
-
Who'd ever heard of such thing?

298. FIRST SCENE : ON EDGE

FIRST SCENE : ON EDGE

The scimitar and the scabbard,
both lifted from another place.
Along the compartmentalized edge,
the devotion is apparent to all -
the drama unceasingly builds as the
actors attempt to cavort. Emotions and
intentions both clamor for attention.
'We walk like soldiers straight into the storm!
Hie and fie to all those others, for they're
all as good already as dead! For God and
King - and aren't both the same thing?!'
-
Bolt-action rifles make their great noises.
Cannons are wheeled to the scene.
Somewhere overhead, the black vultures
float; waiting for a feast. All along the
forest's edge, it would seem nothing
is present but Death. Death, that great
deceiver - never written into the scene,
but making a grand entrance nonetheless.

297. ONE DAY

ONE DAY
(Orphan Annie)
One day I swear I'm just going to quit.
The living's over, the bridge is out.
Leaping lizards, Annie, this is the end!
As I scale that final wall before the jump,
I think I'll look back once - thinking of
something bizarre, like Chairman Mao
on a Carnival Cruise, or Conor Cruise
O'Brien playing center field for the
Milwaukee Brewers. Anything of that
nature just to ease the pain, that
final moment before that final splat.
Leaping lizards, Annie, this is the end!

What do you think of that?

296. SCRIBBLER

SCRIBBLER
Like a traveller far from some distant and
other world, I staggered into this world dragging
memories of things already done - vertical skags
of adventures and words, tales and stories already
written for things which hadn't yet happened.
Somehow, already prepared, I knew it would
happen this way - and so was ready for most
anything as it occurred.
-
The tenuous circumstance of a momentary existence
brings with it ten million items of equally momentary
exposure - minute brightnesses which arrive and
flame and go away. We - in both an expectation and
a reaction - adjust to what we see; yet we linger
too long and with too much self-importance
on these smallest things. The vile man runs to
his violence. The man from the parish tends
his parochial concerns. The scribe,
like myself today, scribbles.
-
'Pale moon, burning sun.
When will I see my only one.'

295. AGAMEMNON

AGAMEMNON
It was an awful inspiration,
walking those twisted streets at
four in the morning. I had a small
knife tucked in my robe, in the expectation
of any trouble which might break out.
In those early days - as we weren't a warring
people - every quarter of the sunny city was
held by one or another group.
-
It was hard to live by the rules:
the wind disobeyed, the grape vines
went wherever they chose, the blistering
high skies, torrid heat and long hot days,
brought people to the testy edge of anything.
Tempers flared, and those 'Gods' - the stupid,
fiery ones - they never showed for anything.
-
Each day was another adventure of
some reckoning - wild animals, roaming,
pierced with their cries the endless night.
The next day broke, and then the next.

294. WELL A WEEK

WELL A WEEK
It's been well a week since I saw you;
that letter in the mailbox, the postcard on
the mantle, the small photo, pressed between
leaves of a book. Nothing helped and nothing
mattered. It was like dining for two when only
one showed, or looking with both eyes as
only one worked. A boxer would know
better, fighting a shadow in the ring, the
ring to which the 'other' had never shown up.
-
One and one, it seems, can sometimes equal nothing.
Other times, one and one can add up absolutely to
whatever you'd like it to be. Remember the old
days, all those immigrants in the darkened movie
theaters, staring up at screens with newsreels endless,
repeated over and over, trying to learn the language
of the land? Impossible sometimes to achieve.
When you leave the Old Country as an idiot,
you're pretty much still that when you arrive here.
Some things never change; the spider with his
web, the beetle caught within.

293. MALEUS MALEFICARUM AND ALL THE REST

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
AND ALL THE REST
('the hammer against witches')
I took the quiz and failed miserably.
Rilke on the shelf, next to something
about Gauguin and then 'On the Road'.
The very next morning, the flagrant
mice had entered Lyons and taken
all the cheese. It was like cavorting
with the wife of an errant bishop,
or some local priest, excommunicated
long ago. Pestilence I knew about already.
There were names for the things I'd
seen - the Canarsie local, the old guy
with the white tiled butcher shop,
the German with the exploding ears.
-
All of us together, we sat down to read
history, nodding our heads in a repeat
motion to agree with the speaker up front.
The lectern (wrapped in a rubber gauze)
had been made bulletproof so he could
continue his droning words. It went like
Christmas Eve, slow or fast, depending
on your point of view and expectations.

292. MY ONE GOOD ARM

MY ONE GOOD ARM

(when the hobo played the oboe)
I only have now one good arm.
The other one is useless - it's still
there, mind you, but useless. It drags the
ground. Flies adrift in the wind. I cannot
control it, nor make it do a thing. Somehow
it seems a vestige of something that, maybe,
once was. If so, that was long ago. For
myself, I can't remember a thing.

291. HISTORY ON ERECTION STREET

HISTORY ON
ERECTION STREET
I was standing once more at the
corner of Bedford and Barrow, reading
the sign on the building's edge. All
those things - people, movements, places.
The material of my life - stories I
knew so well. The spit of a horse
was heard behind me, and then the
torrent of its piss upon the ground.
The old, hard-packed dirt was worn
to a coarse frazzle - milkmen, wagons,
horses and whores. The ancient revolution
of the proletariat was once just like this, here.
-
Everything now is destabilized. Red
paint on the windows where the edging
used to be. Varnish on the ledges - dried out,
peeling and old. Hippolyte Havel, Polly Holladay
and Mabel Dodge. Lincoln Steffens. Hutch Hapgood.
Right there, God damn it, I knew all those people.
Charlotte Taylor and Harold Brubaker too.
-
Espied through the glass by the looking-glass eye.
Soiled and burned, wasted and washed, the
strangers never stopped coming. They fucked like
wild animals, and drank just the same. We talked
issues until wee morning came. Politics and philosophy,
and rant and the future - which is now, of course.
Son of a bitch, it really DID arrive!

290. I WAS RAGING WITH BOETHIUS

I WAS RAGING WITH BOETHIUS
'Lady Philosophy, now let me ask you,
is this what you had in mind?' - the settled cell
with the stone seat and the bare-bricked wall,
the cut-out for the window, letting in air.
With nothing so much as a shudder, she entered
and stayed. Tales and stories and then questions
and answers. So many it all seemed endless.
-
I was alone, if only for a moment, with Boethius
just then. I tried to have him say something.
I asked him : 'Primitive? Pagan? A form of
Nature Worship in its way? Tell me, won't
you?' For the first time since I'd known
him (beleaguered and sad) he smiled, and
said : 'It's no difference for me to be,
one or the other. I am merely
here.' Then I realized,
he was but a scribe.
-
A writer of words doesn't really need
the threat of impending death to
prod him along. There are
always a million other
things to do it for him.

289. MY SOLE SALVATION

MY SOLE SALVATION
My sole salvation was in waiting at the station -
for you, or for any of the others coming by.
Those carrying the cross of their habits or wares,
those lugging bracelets of charms and trinkets,
those with amulets of despair held clenched in their
leering teeth. When the weather came, no matter what,
it seemed Winter again : that low sky, dark and braying,
falling down with the skittering snow and the spatter
of rain; the rim of an icicle on the ledge of a drain.
-
The sound was made of all music gone bad.
The hungry hustings - that place where they
put mad men - was filled to its capacity with
both scoundrels and their fools. My sole salvation,
other than in watching you, was in walking away,
in a gait not recognizable as rushed - a
Chaplinesque of my own, a slow shuffle,
with an innocent whistle to throw people off.

288. AT THE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE

AT THE ART STUDENTS LEAGUE
(3/21/09)
First of Spring on 57th Street.
Fire trucks feed the swell - all noise
and rumble and I am driven to tears.
Rizzoli's - just down the street - covers its
books from water in fear while those firetrucks
lurk in the street. I am dazzled by the lights.
-
At the Art Students League, I am watching the
girls as they pass through the stairs. I am noticing the
reds and the blues - in the curtains and in their
eyes. Color is the pane of glass I'm looking through.
If art can be taught, then - really - it ought.
-
Those firetrucks do what they do.

287. OK THEN

OK THEN
OK, then. Here's what I think:
That title has to go, as does the story
where the debonair old fellow brings that
beautiful young hooker up to his room. None
of that works - in context or out. Old men can be
disgusting, and young girls are a cliche.
Well, that's what I say.
-
OK, then. I could change my mind if
you forced me to, or - perhaps - if she came
my way. In the proper respect, with the distance
a wealthy old guy deserves - sitting regal and
exalted at the Carlyle Hotel where his table always
awaits - I could understand (maybe) the situation better.
She would have to wear white gloves and a very stylish
outfit. Beautiful hands and beautiful eyes. Maybe then
I could figure what the story describes.
(In that case, I'll be waiting).

286. COOKING TABLES

COOKING TABLES
Counting almonds on the yellow shelf just where
someone had left them - a recipe book open to
circles of red and a moonscape of crumpets and bread.
Simple advertising photos anyone else would overlook.
I thought of taking the whole thing home,
the almonds and the book to cook.

285. HORSES

HORSES
The clip-clop of this distorted horse was different;
one leg, perhaps was lame. The two cops atop,
sitting high and regal, had come out of the
Hudson Street Stables some five minutes ago,
and were making their way slowly uptown.
The sound I kept hearing was hard, like
a hammering on the roadway's surface
with a higher range, a tenor tone, a
flavor I didn't expect.
-
These two horses, I was sure, had
thoughts just then of their country lane -
the Hudson Street of archetypes embedded
in their equine brain - a well-trod dirt path,
a few ground animals scurrying about, and
birds flitting tree-to-tree. (So foreign to them
this pavement and traffic should be). The
tall buildings around them, silent and
coarse, welcomed nothing but shadow
and darkness.
-
The sun going down
was lengthening the street.
Shadows grew long
and dark grey.

284. EXERCISE IN D MATTER

EXERCISE IN D MATTER
Though I've never loved another I was
never very smart. Now that that's out
of the way, maybe I can start. The bat,
hanging from the walls of that cave, has
more sense than sense ever gave - me.
-
Insidious, like water and gravy, these
very incendiary things cause dieting
and angst. The lips of the child -
still stuck on the ice of the pole - will
have plenty to remember, for the rest of
their life. It's, truly, nothing that can be avoided.
-
Like Chopin or, earlier, the sounds of
some mad madrigal, the insensate
singer tries reaching, ever more distant,
for a note still farther away... from here.
But, in all actuality, it's neither here, nor there -
and it's never where they say.

283. THE TALLER TREES ARE APPROACHING

THE TALLER TREES
ARE APPROACHING
Starting out with a little something.
We have the haven.
Take what's mine, but
please want what you take.
Now we must make it work.
And not for nothing are
the taller trees approaching.
This music fills the air, and thus...

282. IT'S A SAD, SAD WORLD WE'VE PURCHASED WITH A DIME

IT'S A SAD, SAD WORLD WE'VE
PURCHASED WITH A DIME
I was watching some moment go by me,
(not as Frank O'Hara said: 'I can ignore it;
it will go away without me'), but rather a dusty
James Dean-like poke in the sand - covered in
oil-fake molasses. Whatever brought that out
is today's best subject and I shan't let it go.
-
A photograph dangled from his mirror:
a far superior car than the car should be.
Some girl, in white shorts, standing near a
lake and holding a multi-colored ball. Next
to her, looking up, was a small collie.
That was all I saw.
-
I could have been 1956 again,
for all I knew. Another guy,
I noticed, was trying hard to
light a cigarette against the wind.

281. FOREVER

FOREVER
I'm mixing my drinks with your drawers
or at least with your fingers; now that the
echo-chamber has died down I can't hear
a thing, so I just keep drinking.
I might have walked the ledge
on the seventeenth floor, but I'm sure that
was before I knew you'd be there soon. I
came right back in once I found that out.
Pretty simple idea for fun.
A good time we'll talk about
f o r e v e r.
-
I had a brother back then darling -
wearing a brown corduroy jacket in
some dark shade of molasses - he
sat down by the drum set and, just
like that, never having done so before,
began playing like he'd been at it
f o r e v e r.

280. COLONEL HOOKER

COLONEL HOOKER
('like, man, 24/7')
I made the wrench work for me in the sand,
prying open anything I wished - in the sea
or on the land - flopping fish or languid clam.
-
She came to the store wearing barefoot clovers,
and I saw right away in her eyes the gleam and
the joy of watching cadavers roll over in their sleep.
-
How silly the howl. Whichever direction was
Bethlehem, I was sure to get there by morning.
I tried to surmise the genteel traditions of manic
and panic and surcease and foam; but nothing
-
came of it, and I wandered home.

279. THE FINEST PERSON IN THE WORLD

THE FINEST PERSON

IN THE WORLD
Just as I ran out of time,
time ran out on me.
-
In a most peculiar fashion, no less.
My peach-pit eyes both darkened in the web,
my mouth, always agape but now in awe,
settled on words in the fabric I wore.
A message from the farthest time : something
like death and decay, and blossom and bloom;
all those unforgettable moments in the modern sun.
The major girl I was with had just stated that she
'wanted nothing, and nothing else', and I was
forced - like a riceless peasant - to agree to her
words. It's really not the nicest feeling to be
the finest person in the world.
-
('I would not stop for Death,
so Death stopped for me'.)

278. THE GUEST LIST

THE GUEST LIST
Let us try for Tristan Tzara
and Emmy Hennings too.
Let us try for the Baroness
Von Henkle and the Molten
of Gregg. Let us re-name even
the Markovsky Bridge : something
regal - no? - like 'Fiddler's Diamond
Transverse' or even 'New Rimrock Trestle'.
Like all the rest of our local rabble,
we can congregate there. We can walk
then through the crowd and proudly carry
our placards aloft : 'I Am Certain It Will Be You!',
'This Is A Little Mill Town Alone!'.
-
Whitbread can wager his silver coins.
Hardford will watch from his library window.
It will all be so simple - as to be - just as well
so absurd.
-
And then, in moonlight, the speeding
cars can thin the crowd and we,
thereby, will learn from our
mistakes.

277. I HAVE NOTICED

I HAVE NOTICED
...The moonlight is overtaken
by the artificial light until then
the artificial light is overtaken
by the sunlight which then in its
turn takes over - again - the
moonlight...until we realize then
(how little we see)...

276. READING IN FURY

READING IN FURY
My erstwhile adventure my maladroit conquest
my incessant clamor my fury my anger my verve.
Amidst all these, what stands the tallest is power:
the fist in the swing, the dichotomy of the hem and
the haw, the largess of a monsoon, the finish.
I reluctantly agree to abide by you - my shadow ghost -
and all your ticklish ways. A horse, in wild gallop,
would be no worse.
-
See the mark of that plane so deep in the sky?
It is, while blameless, at work on its own faults.
Metallic sheen, glow off the sun, thick windows
of airplane glass, the white jetstream of invented air.
-
I, down below, look up squinting. Trying to read,
I welcome no distraction - yet there you are,
again pointing up. A nettlesome pest, to be sure.
I again look up. Now there is fire in the sky,
a huge globe of flame falling down on our
heads. Are we to dash simply for survival?
Is fear our last amend for all this fetid living
we have done?
-
Alas, it is over that quickly.
Nothing hits the ground,
and everything, it seems,
goes again on its way.

275. VISITING GRAVES

VISITING GRAVES
Two places local I often go -
just to clear out my head - are
the graves of two fellows I'd still
like to know, even though both
of them are dead.
-
Allen Ginsberg and
Stephen Crane lie not
too far apart - perhaps
three miles at most, but
most likely closer than that.
-
Both are in small family plots -
an odd arrangement I always
thought - two fellows so separate
and different, in death put in
with the lot. If eternity can
be the same as forever,
a wide and unending shore,
at least they're in with the others,
they'll never be alone any more.

274. DEAREST DARLING LILY

DEAREST DARLING LILY
I just wanted to write and say I love you -
and that you left your clothes in the back of
the car. How'd you get home that morning?
Naked as the evening star? Did I drop you
off bare-ass naked? Did I at least walk you
from the car? For myself, I can't remember a
thing - but that's often now how things are.
I promise I'll cut down on my drinking, if
you can cut back on the love. All this
fornicating has got me thinking - we do
well together, like fingers in a glove.
I always want it to be this way,
though I know it probably
can't last. If that's going
to be a problem, let's
keep going and
get it done,
fast.

273. STEADFAST IN ARMOR

STEADFAST IN ARMOR
The man was a Grecian urn.
The man was a knight in armor.
The man was a Reading Gaol.
The man led the life of a dog.
The man was a principled matter.
The man was a calculated risk.
The man was a flying fortress.
The man was at the top of the list.
-
The man was nothing to speak of.
The man was as dull as they come.
The man had the wisdom of Solomon.
The man was amazingly dumb.
-
The man was a whistle-pot kettle.
The man was a vat of iron.
The man was a barnyard favorite.
The man was a real pond-scum.
-
The man had a way with words.
The man held a gun aloft.
The man put the gun to his temple.
The man blew his head right off.

272. CRAZY SQUARE

CRAZY SQUARE
How sweet the puddle of daunting courage
I cross. The twist of motion, the delicious
time, the splash of mirrored water along
the feet and legs. A certain trefoil of green,
with light in a certain blue, shimmers along
the land : passers-by, derelicts, squatters.
The entire small world turns. It is nothing
I've ever seen before. This statuary of
existence, every stroke and dot, is played
out before me as in a sculpture'd garden.
-
Philadelphia has its lazy streets.
I am standing near the wall along
Christ Church - 2nd Street, between
Filbert and Arch - and I peer up at
the steeple of Benjamin Franklin's
subscription lottery. Tourists around
me are peering at his grave. Both these
two remnants of Franklin's day remain:
the famed steeple his lottery built, and
the grave within which he still keeps a
repose. Nothing now moves, I notice,
except traffic and people, tourists
and branches, like those bare, ruin'd
choirs, where once the sweet birds sang.

271. UPRISING

UPRISING
The matter is intact everywhere I go;
the old globe standing spins, mountains
risen remain. There's nothing different
about the world - everything intact stays
the same. Risorgimento. Vermehrung.
Uprising.

270. EMPIRE HOUSE

EMPIRE HOUSE
I lived for a while at Empire House in
Philadelphia's brainfed ghetto - now it's a
karate studio on its lower level - when
it was still a place to be. It may have actually
been 'Brainard' as I recall, but we were all
so messed up on creativity we called it
'brainfed' and laughed it off. A vast
library on the second floor, a sitting room,
like nothing you ever saw. We kept two
dogs there as well; fine, upstanding whippets,
sleek as hell. I painted in my small studio
on nine. The mechanical elevator, pulled by
levers and chains, always groaned. Plenty of
warning for any approach - which was its only
good point. Its bad point: it seemed to take
fourteen years to get anywhere. One day,
I just ran out of time.
-
It's awful like that - out the doorway, a few
fine trees, the song of a catbird in the air -
and then one day the seasons change, the
contractors come, money changes hands,
and the yard turns into pavement,
and they've taken all the land.
-
...As I've said, (though there's nothing
left around it) Empire House
still stands.

269. TEMPTRESS WITH THE LAUGHING HANDS

TEMPTRESS WITH THE
LAUGHING HANDS
'I drank that girl like tomorrow's lemonade -
big, dashing gulps, stuff dripping down
my face. The fortune lady had never told me
this - it wasn't supposed to be, had not been in
the cards. Not that it ever mattered : you remember
the thousand times, I'm sure, you yourself have
thought of things that weren't meant to be and
did them anyway. Like a fissure in a rock -
a great oozing magma just pulsing out.
Sometimes, I swear, it seems
you've just got to
go with the
flow.'

268. AGAINST YOU

AGAINST YOU
The boys who returned have already
been carted off; or they've been placed
in homes or are cracked-up in asylums
or dead. It hardly makes a difference, see,
for all these places are much alike :
the winsome drool, the very soft toast,
the weakened coffee, the food, the routine,
the over-cooked roast.
-
All things that they have seen are terrors to
them still : keeping crazed men up at night,
whipping through their memories, withering their
sex, despoiling any pleasure they might find.
Their life - as it is - remains a wounded paradise,
a paradox wherein bad images stalk as windows
which never close, letting some foul air in, or
a reeking stink of death itself. Mysterious
elves slink along their floors - little figments
holding candles that never go out.
-
Curse the darkness, or light a match.
Remain deadly silent...
or shout.

267. PROBABLY LOW TIDE

PROBABLY LOW TIDE
Probably low tide is an ordinary thing,
since water is the element we are most familiar
in. The only element we're comfortable with.
It douses that which would singe, smothering
the selfsame forces we thrive on for heat
and flame with its wet blanket of stifling
wetness. A film, as thin as ice - when it freezes -
is the very same force which kills the masses
as it breeches : water-wall, bulkhead and dam.
Tsunami and flood; the associated crud of
mud and infestation and damp and mold.
Surely I could go on - but it gets so 'old'.
Right now, this faulty rain annoys - spitting
downward and wetting all things. Tophats and
raincoats and umbrellas and cars - each bead up
with the little bullets of water; fallen, perhaps,
just like Mankind. Fallen, just like Man.

(If I may be so bold).

266. WHO CARES (ALREADY)?

WHO CARES (ALREADY)?

-my Purim poem-
If you have to ask 'who cares', then
probably no one does. If you have too
stanch the bleeding, then it's probably,
already, seriously late. If the barn is empty,
and the door was open, chances could
be that the horse is already gone.
These are not merely mischievous
quips, but quite often
the real megillah.

265. TRUE PROPORTION

TRUE PROPORTION
I've run out of time : that same time
the lily has, and the flower which pushes
itself up through the ground; that April shaft
seeking light, the blistering effort to live.
All I have left is the strength of the proportion
of all things : the round modicum of the real,
the painted simulacrum of the imagined.
It is - all - like a masterful circus of the unknown -
characters in black-face, minstrels acting out fake
motion, mimes stretching muscles in tone.
Something watches, and something else applauds.
Passages and deliverance, both together, bring
all things this way. Home. Light. Ease. Rest.
I turn, one last time, to look back - only to
see the shadows, which are resting on the grass.

264. LIKE TIME

LIKE TIME
....Raised up in a bottle, like time
and the weather. The most important
part of a watch is the mainspring. I was
told that after I said I thought it was the face.
Someone else said the crystal; another thought
the band. It was (actually) right about then that I
thought to myself - 'what the hell am I doing here?'
I wound up leaving.
-
OK, so that was a joke of sorts.
-
This time - so late in the ending of Winter -
makes me think of other things with a wild
abandon of will and intention. I want to see
those crazy forsythias bloom, and watch
the purple hemlocks and dogwoods prosper and
throw out their flowers like a bride's own confetti.
-
It's time for a change!

'...and ain't I a'ready!'

263. NO PANACEA SHE A

NO PANACEA SHE A
....went about her way in silence
dropping depth-charges in hearts where
she chose; countering conclusions made
in haste, without changing anyone's mind.
I saw the commingling of gold, and blue beads,
twisted once around her neck. An enticing
moment - something seen from above.
Why else would anyone look down?

262. GALAHAD GLEN

GALAHAD GLEN
Fourteen houses with no end in site;
leaning doorways and twisted yards.
Over the horizon, far different meadows
creep - hillock, burdock, clover and tuft.
Silence breeds like a fever. Milkweed pods
sneeze themselves forward and scatter.
-
'I'm working this from memory, kid'.
The guy said that swallowing salad by
the forkful. He continued: 'When I was a little
boy, it seemed everything was brand new -
everywhere I went things still had their shine.
Now, by contrast, it's all crap and garbage.'
I wanted to (at least) pretend to get his point.
-
No matter how I tried, I couldn't.
'Well then,' I said, 'where were you when
it all flamed out?' He looked at me and
nodded, still gulping something down.
'By then, I was living in Galahad Glen, and
everything was good. Why should I complain?
I figured. I'd just live as best I could. That was
long ago; anyway, now it's all over,
and here I am. Still enjoying life,
believe it...or not.'

261. COMING NO ONE MY WAY NO MORE

COMING NO ONE

MY WAY NO MORE
Consider the lilies of the field...these items of
secure devotion, innocence and rapture, whatever
they are, they neither toil nor work and yet - well,
I assume you know the rest. We're supposed to find
a solace in all of that too, I guess.
-
I'd rather the wind.
You know, that which tears the lilies to
shreds, rips them from their moorings, lifts
them from their beds. Something about
the adventure; keeps me on edge, better
apt to energize, more inclined to hedge.
I just like it that way.
-
This life, you see, has a geography all its own.
Coming, no one, my way, no more;
I guess I'm going home.

260. FIFTEEN DAYS

FIFTEEN DAYS
Oceans and seas together contort, ropelike,
twisting knots around ample necks; things
ready for taut pressure and deep squeezes.
As if, beneath the waves for two weeks or
more, some madman's mind would coalesce
around a sea-foam'd moment of wreckage.
An arc of delight, gone sour and drowned to
some soggy death. We would only watch in
wonder as certain things transpired.
-
My peg-legged Ahab shouts back now
at everyone else: Queequeq and Starbuck,
themselves long lost, are embittered and
feeble before even starting out. The sea cries
its pity, but goes about its day. Drowning, and
death by water, are the only seemingly valid
results. Ishmael, in some biblical sense, seems
now the only fitting name to give me - and, with
these salt-sea dragged open hands, I accept
whatever comes my way.

259. AS I CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE

AS I CIRCUMNAVIGATED

THE GLOBE
(Meant Snows, Shrapnels)
I don't know what was done - neither the reasons
nor the ways. If I once knew, I've anyway forgotten.
All those things are lost like soldiers in the snow.
-
The only thing I know about the shoreline is what
the water tells me - yet I can contradict all that by
what I see. The sure mark dies; and with it my
genealogy. Those who have seen me have seen,
in like fashion and time, the end of all other things.
-
(I, together with the end, am all that is
and has been forming. I create that vast voice
humming that you hear thinking on all those
messages calling. Space between words, and
meant snows built on letters both deep and
dimensional as well. I am that brigade, and marching
with it, am of that army armed with inner battles,
fragments, and shrapnels of the mind.)
-
I don't know what to teach you,
for when the Leader too is lost then
the source becomes confused, not knowing
where to turn. And I am that marksman,
seeking now for the target's center.

258. PARSON EDUARDO RUTGA

PARSON EDUARDO RUTGA
Unraveling wordgames makes me sick :
undertakers at a dance contest, barracuda hunters
entered in a knitting competition...what is all
this about? At the country church along
Wickensham Row, the parson is unwrapping
silk and hanging pictures by the stool. He thinks
it's all worth something. Never in his readings
(Sunday sermons or Saturday lectures) has
he mentioned the 'Fool', nor even the
'Hangman' from his tarot deck. So many
things go without saying. Places and times.
Socks and shoes. Only his chambermaid
knows. She's the one who empties his pots
and unclutters his papers as stacked
on the edge of his very messy desk.

257. CARTWHEELS AND THE CRAZY

CARTWHEELS AND THE CRAZY
The afternoon sun had already left
and the relaxed shade of a late afternoon
came rushing in : lemon-drop soup and
the shoes the maid had worn were all that
was left of worthlessness. I was askance
at nothing, and I sweetly dozed while the
old pick-axe swayed. Lithesome music
came drifting in.
-
It was all different before the war.
I'd not yet committed Little Gidding
to memory - that Eliot poem presuming
to tell me of air-raids and shelters. I was still
a young boy in a sparse suburb of Londontown.
-
Felpham Manor, William Blake, Fuseli and all
the rest meant nothing to me then. I sprinted like
a horsemen to the charred kingdom's chambers:
torture and reprieve and then torture again.
-
'The eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
the Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.'
('This is your mystery, man. Take it
for all it is worth')...

256. TUNCKHANNOCK FALLS, ITHACA NY

TUNCKHANNOCK FALLS,

ITHACA NY
You know how it is when water runs off a ledge:
that final gasp of air and mist, that color which
'makes' the falls, the joyful halo of rainbow
and hiss. The draining pull of beavers in
tow, the rant and pillage of muskrats
and fish. The whole world joins in.

255. INSURMOUNTABLE THE ODDS

INSURMOUNTABLE THE ODDS
Once I awoke, the straight line to the door
was easy. The razor-thin margin of turn and of
error meant nothing to me just then. The die was
already cast - streetlights flickering off, sunrise
approaching on the eastern ledge, and a few candles
still sputtering where they hadn't burnt out from
hours before. I felt liberated and, at the same time, as
enslaved as if my marrow was molten lead.
-
Hours later, I saw her again - a weak signal from a heart
still strong enough to beat but struggling to maintain.
Ice on the shelf where the fire should be. A few
sparrows pecking at some feeble seed, a timid
squirrel too shy to eat. I knew the feeling myself -
and she'd never even once looked up.
-
Had I ever the time to re-live this life, I'd do
it all over again - this time with my hands
tied behind my back and my eyes - fixed, gazing -
so sure of nothing else than of staring at Heaven
alone; and nothing less than that would do.
Insurmountable the odds, that I'd
ever be here with you.

254. STARS AMID THE ALLIANCE

STARS AMID THE ALLIANCE
Startling aperture; an awakening into the eye
of a God. The unblinking awareness of tumbling
dice upon a glass-covered table. Appearances seen
as rolling forever - off the notion, past the edge of
anything, and over the falls of contagion.
-
I swear I saw that ham-fisted man coming at me again.
This time he had knives and a fork, not just the loaves
and the fishes. Maddening to a fault, I sat down
and decided just to listen. Flagstaff Arizona could be
no better than this. Not to worry - every meter was
filled with coins, and each spot held even
more than a car.

253. LIGHTHEADED AND NONE TOO STABLE

LIGHTHEADED AND

NONE TOO STABLE
The last thing he said was 'I'll be okay!'
Subsidizing the pizza guy and walking through mesh,
caning the forewarned and washing out the corral.
Using the hose to water the walls; lashing a mundane
hammer to the roof of the barn. And then, all of a
sudden, the old blue car came up the papered lane,
stopped in its tracks, disgorged a few passengers,
and sped off. The pom-pom girls were left speechless.
'It was nothing I said, I hope', he muttered that to me
in the last second before he jumped. No big deal -
three stories down he landed in mud. Rolled about
a bit; got up and tried walking away. I think maybe
his ankle was broken, or something. His final words
upon parting: 'Lightheaded, and none too stable,
but I'll be okay.'

252. POLITICS IN THE TRENCHES

POLITICS IN THE TRENCHES
Far greater things have happened than ever those
that have fallen to my hand - I have seen the colors
and the paintings and the caverns and the land.
The Lord of Kingship has visited. The reigning Queen
has vied for time. We are all 'in this together'. See
the twists from the vaulting wind - it is sweeping
and it is carrying anything in its path. Briars and
bromides together are useless in this place.
We stand to gain by the support we garner.

251. ELEGY

ELEGY
I am not now where I once was,
and where I am going is not where I will be.
I've not always known how to loosen my arms
- as if playing a piano straight and with very
loose fingers. To all of that, I say 'alas' - while
both thinking of tomorrow and letting it pass.
I am nothing here but an unencumbered soul,
and - sincerely - wish for that to remain so.
I have no shadow and I have no ghost.
What I see now is yesterday, at most.

250. SWELLED HAND

SWELLED HAND
He broke April into pieces - this wiry wind,
this awesome wetness of shower and the pelting
deluge of raging flood. Everyone of course knew it
was coming; the signs had been on the walls for years,
the markings someone had left at every corner post
and pole. Ignorance is no defense, or - as they say - 'a
willful disregard of the signs before your face goes nowhere
towards proving you are innocent'. Blindness is not a plea
once you've entered a movie theater.
-
They took down the bunting from the stadium facade.
The authorities, having already removed those whom they
considered repeat offenders, had allowed the crowd, or at
least its remnants, to stay. Cumulus clouds overhead had
puffed and billowed into formation, while the lengthening day
threw its shadows about. As one, the hoarse roar of the people
groused and hollered - something with great ingratitude, for sure.
-
Once the smoke had cleared, it was obvious everything
was over: heaps of the dead and still-piles of the living -
it really made no difference - were positioned all about.
Fragments of smoke and flame yet pillaged both
wood and flesh. A really pitiful scene, but
not one you could call a surprise.
As obvious as a nose on a face.
The swelled hand had
done its work.

249. CLAIRE DE LUNE

CLAIRE DE LUNE
They launched (as ever they should) from the
launch pad waiting : a taut dirigible, something pointed
straight up to the sky. No labels, no names - just the old
preachment of a once-perfect timing. Ten nine eight seven...
and all of that. A countdown, and one for the ages.
The full moon swept in to watch, as Mars and Jupiter
jumped their pirouettes across the clouds. Stardust.
Cosmic dust. The Asteroid belt itself was scattered
anew. These are the parts for which we all tried out.
Now we must attest to having won the role, and
with all our best effort, play the part well.