618. BROTHER LEO

BROTHER LEO
I am tooling around with nothing to do,
with time on my hands, and I have
nothing to say. Brother Leo, you were
always so calm - none of this would
have phased you. I can hear it now:
"What is it you would have you say?
Something important coming your way?
Pray tell, let me know." Then we'd
both laugh it off - you'd go back to
your pipe and ledger, I'd return to
my book.
-
Today, instead, I visit your grave.
You are gone now seven years
and I've not (to be honest) changed
a whit. I still have nothing to do.
I'm still tooling around, this time
driving some stupid little tan car.
I pass the corners we used to know:
that crazy grocer where you set me up,
the small coffee shop with the wizened
maid. It was all so fun, but now it's done.
-
I whiz the light, barely yellow, and some
fetid little cop pulls me over. He asks -"what'd
you do that for?"... I thought that was supposed
to be my question, and laugh. Of course, he
doesn't get the joke. So I said "I did it for
Leo, my friend who's dying in 15L". A
total fabrication, but what the hell.
-
He OK'd my paperwork, said
to not do it again, and let me
go. 'Go see Leo, and
good luck.'

617. THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION, 1956

THE HUNGARIAN

REVOLUTION, 1956
1. Living in Budapest
Dismal waterwork fanatics, the ones
who watch the meters and the pressures
and the flow; they linger like dead men having
just missed the action at a group resurrection.
Twelve tiny soldiers standing in a row - Slavic
intention, Russian names, a few mangy dogs
trotting alongside the men in a line.
-
The revolution (I noticed) ran to that Wednesday
afternoon - one lined in fur and of a questionable
weather. Then the guys with the real guns (those
wayfaring counter-revolutionaries of small-town
signatures), came out. They'd decided to
'perforate the populace' for easy, tear-out removal
of those trickster, dissident, 'anarchic/tyrannical
bastards'. Yes, yes, we did walk over the bodies.
They seemed to be everywhere, draped on
curbing and fallen in the streets and gutters.
-
With that, the new wind came, blowing the
old wind away. Nothing but eagles of despair
and the swarming of the despondent.
We were forced to play along.
The two rivers, the Buda and
the Pest, still ran on together
in their separate ways.

616. IT

IT
It wasn't you. Alone.
That pear tree, which had stretched
and then withered in your yard, was once
a magnet for bees. Of every stripe. They'd
linger and buzz and alight, dripping the nectar
of a sweet pear juice. The sticky stuff fell
to the ground. It glistened in the sun -
that same sun which had somehow
ruined Icarus. Crashing wax wings,
wildly infused, and suffering.
Witnessing the crash, like
an old Bruegel painting;
a scene no one notices.

615. HE WAS A NICE GUY

HE WAS A NICE GUY
The shot hit his gut and he rang out -
a loud, resounding grunt. I knew
he was dead. His fandango was done, that
last dance was over. Flowers of the doomed.
-
No stallion like that had ever run this
ranch before : perfectly coiled,
ruminatively black, a thick, lush
coat. I shuddered just to see.
That horse, I swear, had bangs
over its eyes; a mane like
an angel should only wear.
-
Brazos, Abilene, St. Pete.
The word went out and
they all went somewhere.
Nothing rivals a dream
like the dream that follows.

614. MEDIC

MEDIC
Well, apart from all that, everything went
well enough. The liver transplant somehow
ended up on the floor, and the kidney was
also dropped, though we managed to retrieve
at least that. Not finding that stupid sponge,
once more we did have to cut; but, no loss,
and all was salvaged. Then, remember, that
Dr. Truncater guy, he was present and did
oversee the operation…and all the liquor bottles,
and two of the nurses also. When everything
was finished, we had a very nice dinner.
He’d forgotten to bring the corkscrew,
but it didn’t matter. By that time we ALL
were tired of manipulating such instruments.
He broke the top of the bottle on the table-edge,
and we all drank it off willingly, and
with glee.

613. SONYA

SONYA
When I had nothing to do
I had nothing to do. They
were yelling for a recount
in the local Ward election -
a few towns over some idiots
were still fighting the brand.
Milk was running over the
carapace like beer on a
college bar-top. It was
all enough to be disgusting.
Sonya (a friend from the nearby
hostel) was whistling a tune
through her Rubbermaid
gloves. I reached out my
hand to touch her hair.
She was not afraid,
just lost in some
other thought.
　

612. ENTRAPMENT

ENTRAPMENT
Oh they broke this mold,
intensified the moment,
eradicated the siding - and reengaged the
big warriors - coming over the hill.
'You cannot make the dead walk or right wrong.'
It was the ending of the salad days : Armageddon
lurked. Seamus Heaney, I can recall, said back:
'the English language belongs to us; you are
talking at raking fires, rehearsing the old
whinges at your age. That 'subject people'
stuff is a cod's game, infantile, like this
peasant pilgrimage. You lose more of yourself
than you redeem doing the decent thing.'
I sat back and smoked another cigarette
while the waitress brought a tray. I faintly
recall the sense of it being a Tuesday,
and - out on the street - the Irish flares
were burning yet. Two girls, wrapped
in scarves like fish for the banquet,
strolled by, silently laughing
among themselves. I really
wished, right then,
I knew them.

611. FIRE AT THE ENTRANCE

FIRE AT THE ENTRANCE
My heart blazed for aching.
Stern four-wheelers of fire
and steam, like a chugging
train my beat kept beating.
I could have set my watch
by the set I watched.
-
It was all merely a
pencil line, once erased,
ghosted now, on a long-ago
dried and yellowed piece of paper.

610. LANDMARK LEGISLATION

LANDMARK LEGISLATION
There should be a mark where the sniper lives,
a discus thrower at the ready, a marksman with
the scent of the arrow and the bow. Some
quiver'd Robin Hood malarkey, dressed in
tights and sequined dresses. Sheriff what's
his name would understand. Hark.
-
Father, I am at your arched bridge now.
I am stepping in the seams you left
behind. I am twisting things, like you
did, to fit. Once, as a small boy, I clogged
around in your big shoes, my little feet loose
and sloppy in your thunderously large-size
shoes - for me. And hat. And coat.
In fact, it seems I dressed up as
you, back then and early on.
-
There was no reason for the frenzy. No
dollars taken from your enormous pockets
where small bills lived.

609. HEARSAY

HEARSAY
Gentle old men with gravelly voices.
'He's saved our skin many a time;
he's a great old cat, a womanly
cow but a great old cat.' Old guy,
bowed down and bent, twisted like
a cripple but with plenty of voice.
'I never had any disinclination to help,
saw a lot of people in my day - and they
wasn't all good, no way, but I never
shied from anyone, good, bad, or
whatever. Who was I to say. It's just all
wooden work. Wouldn't you?'
-
One hundred years from now
I'd still say 'that's just the
way I heard it. I got
a sister in Dallas.'

608. THE COSSACK PEOPLE

THE COSSACK PEOPLE
Now they can tell you in the geography
books where the Enmit enters the Don or
the Splietz drops into the Oder - and it's
all for nothing but to take up space. These
idiots get paid by the word. Illustrating that
word gets them paid even more. Maps.
Diagrams. Drawings of farm wagons in
leftover fields, children playing sticks
in ostracized tents askew on a meadow.
Oxen and chattel, climate and dogs.
All that tendentious stuff goes to make
up a world; not mine mind you but a
world nonetheless. Something that saddles
with shoulders, wears truth and murder as
an ideology, brooms through the system
of man like a plague. There's nothing we
can do about it. Too vague. We're
entitled to a certain amount of time,
and then...we're gone.

607. MEDITATING UPON THE DIVINE

MEDITATING UPON

THE DIVINE
Your grand semblance of irony disrupts.
Now we skim with nothing, now we are
mired in mud. Not in knowing which way
to turn am I spent - time lost is time not
returned. A grand and sporting mind such
as yours needs make sure that nothing gets
lost - your fungoes with the fielder, your
incessant yo-yo of the inner heart. If I saw
you standing outside, alone, or even wrapped
in flames, wherefrom would I know you?
Your semblance of irony would distract me,
right from the start. Yet, as you say, 'no
hope goes forgotten' before you slip away,
I watch and listen and nod. Or was it
'no help goes forgotten' ? either way,
you say, being like a God.

606. A HOSPITAL BASKET SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE

A HOSPITAL BASKET
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
Just as I am happy to be so broken, so
I am wise to be so dumb. Let the
little things mean a lot - all that ice
on the shiny driveway, all those plants
now withered and dead. This semblance
of 'Life' - like some leftover scum on the
black-lace iron of a third-story balcony
nearby - reads me well. I am speechless,
indubitably silent, and bereft - as if
some parent had died, or a baby
brother, found injured, was
now dead in a hospital
basket somewhere
in France.

605. CAPTIVA

CAPTIVA
In this morning light I
met a troglodyte. His
name was Henry, and
he'd been up all night.
Seized (certainly) not
of silence - no, not at all
- he sensed his moment,
dawning, call; and he
wouldn't shut up.
I listened listless, forced
as I was to endure - those
famished words, those
wild enclosures, remarkable
for their less, not their more.
So little then was there that
I saw no pretense in being.
I'd met a troglodyte hardly
worth the seeing.

604. I WENT HOME CRYING

I WENT HOME CRYING
You would have me then;
I went home crying.
Holding hands with Death
in its Kingdom of the Lyre.
Mussel-brine, the tinge of
sea-salt, the white air of
sand and breath and light.
-
I gazed distant towards the
open sea : huge bulks of
metal floating, as if still, afar
along the distance of horizon and
limit and all the edge of the world.
-
Everything, in its way, rounds out
a circumference befitting itself.
This one round orb, watery,
with, everywhere, things floating
upon it. The ship's bells rang
my memory. I went home crying.

603. LEAGUES

LEAGUES
The west wind, indecipherable
how it blows; a circuitous revelry
harboring sides and ridges. The
high corn itself, bending, does so
in homage. Blue sky high, brilliant
cape of sunshine, one routing finish
to day and light and being. All
those things, the very selves of
our existence, hold out their hands
to shake, in this very wearying wind.

602. SIMULACRUM

SIMULACRUM
Only the holy one knows the repeat
answers to the same questions :
said over and over, those catchwords to
the distant stars. We are wearing the
pants of a thousand ages.

601. FIERY EPILOGUE TO CONTAINER #5

FIERY EPILOGUE TO
CONTAINER #5
I can't remember everything.
My fate is my task.
The jets beneath my
dreaming are but the
memories of my past.
I was born to nothing,
from nothing. Now
I find, even that is
fading fast.
-
My room it is in flames;
calumny lit the fire.
It may be a lovely light,
but oh! the way it burns.
-
I'll see you in some morning, Stephen.
I'll see you as night turns.

600. SAINT DISMAS AND THE CRUMMY NICKLE

SAINT DISMAS AND THE
CRUMMY NICKLE
So tender is the night that it's not the
ache but the pain that hurts the most.
All things are meant to be : the fun,
the tragic, the sorry, the sad.
I never believed a word of it, but
the usual words are always said
at the most usual situations. A
tall dark priest in a tall dark hat.
He houses nothing but the holy.
Ministering to the prattle that
sprinkles water on a grave.
-
The woman who read palms
was standing at the side of the
funeral cortege. She was awaiting
a Cadillac of her very own.

599. HERE I AM IT WAS ME AGAIN

HERE I AM
IT WAS ME AGAIN
I am watching an unsettled sunrise
break through the sky. Otherwise,
bleak and idle am I. Wrestling with
mottled clouds, the source of this
equation. Thrusting forth its silent
rays, this sun seems both to glow
and seems to cut - both things
pliant yet harsh against the middle.
But it's always me; I've always
taken the middle way myself.
There is no ground here I'd wish
to travel. Oh people! You can have
all your 'other' places, going here
and going there. I'd rather take an
endless celestial path. You can have
all your mansions, museums and
huts. All those towering things of
a small-town sky, reflected even
now, and bright in a new-morning
way, just distract my intentions,
and take them away. But it's only
just me, again.

598. CALDERSON THE MAGNIFICENT

CALDERSON THE MAGNIFICENT
Don't give me grief. Give me Nothing. Nothing!
Advance the perpendicular, straighten the picture,
overwhelm the manciples with the gripings of
elected rabble. Rapscallions with medallions.
I'd want nothing from charity except the chance to
donate back to the liquid-bastard club what
brought me here. Dad's sperm-shaft and
Mama's twat - together in tandem it
brought me a lot - free acreage on
the Plaines Des Jarres. Dead
guerrillas holding angelic
guns, my overnight
suite on the
Zuider Zee.

597. SWANSONG AND MY VALEDICTORY TEAM

SWANSONG AND MY
VALEDICTORY TEAM
Fourteen people plodding along,
trudging up watery hills where the
flagons overflow, the wayfarers call,
and the awful cavalier still shucks at his
hornblowing partner. Maison DuPres,
in the manner of glee - all that sharkfish
and tuna, but nothing for free. Fourteen
people plodding along. Thirteen wishes and
a fountain of dread, lights on the patio, a guy
in blackface, playing his banjo for quarters and dimes.
I set the torch aside, lit the one adjoining, and sat
back, just hoping to watch the evening unfold.
My balloon'd feet settled hard on your lovely oasis.
Twelve times I thought of you, eleven wishing for
your company and ten seeking to stay, nine for the
wishing and eight for the world to go away.
I could go on forever, right on down to zero.
But. This wine is clouding my focus, Martel says
they're running out of fish, seven bottles of wine
are all that's left. I've told him six times to leave that
guy who changes water to wine a five, get the job done,
or go buy four more but leave me three minutes with you,
so I could kiss your two lips, or we could become
as one, together.

596. SOMETHING CAME THROUGH

SOMETHING CAME THROUGH
That high-powered oasis, darling.
Selever and Broadflint, where the
sunlight plays over the water. Horizon?
It can wait. The dark sky teases with
Cassiopia, Ursa Major and Andromeda too.
I've seen bats flying, past midnight, under
streetlamp and household lighting. One
hundred different ways to fool the cosmos.
Even now, my foot is in the water, and I calmly
suggest - to you - that we should stay ashore
for the night is far too dark and far too long.
Your jacket glows, purple, or a combination of
blue and red beneath the lights. I've always

wanted this, and figured it would be this way.

595. REVOLUTIONARY DESIRE

REVOLUTIONARY DESIRE
I've got to do something because I refuse to
go blind. I've got to do something because
I refuse to go deaf. I am not the one alone,
but I am many together as one. I can research
the spinner spinning the tale, the liar of words,
the one who twists. I refuse to not touch, because
I must remain tactile. I refuse to not feel , because
I must remain hurting. Others in pain are the
pains that I feel.

594. IT'S BEEN SAID

IT'S BEEN SAID
(A Spiritual Vendetta on Some
All Soul's Night)
It's been said (I have heard,
I've been told) that Spirits arise
this night from the dead (kindred,
morphic, ceased to be) and try to
speak with 'WE' (communicate, send
messages, evoke themselves in place and
deed). As if the DEAD have such any need?
-
In some language I have known, there
must be words which have been shown
to mean : 'balderdash bullshit crock of shit
trash cannot be don't lie to me'. I think I
remember such words to be. I DO NOT sit up
beseeching the dead. It is THEM must come to me.
-
My figuring is (while I'm alive, existent, busy here),
that I've much more to do than they could care :
small tasks, insincere things, stuff they've left behind,
in arrears (non-caring, useless, needing NOT any
longer to be done or mentioned). Fires on a hearth,
perhaps in such a way, themselves burn out and dwindle.
-
So it comes to me that WE should hear LESS of them,
not more. And that's the way I'd like it SURE. What can
I share with them anyway - some stupid old re-run,
TO THEM, to me is a brand new play. Really...
what could it matter and WHAT could they say?
-
Of less import to them is
their lack of importance to me.
I, you see, must continue to be,
must struggle, must play, to live on.
As for THEM, I say, 'BE GONE!!'
-
[This 'Halloween' is a bullshit mess-up,
a Dance of Sources for sure].

593. BEWARE OF JOHN FORD HOAXES

BEWARE OF JOHN FORD HOAXES
It's not in the way of seeing
that we see - long vistas and red
river rocks mean nothing. That
carbine, wrapped around some
rustler's head, could just as
well be on yours. Everything
as one, folded and fondled
twice over, is meant to
leave a message : something
crass, about the regularity of
how we live and die.
A corpse in the copse,
meat on a campfire to roast.
Beware of the John Ford
hoax.

592. MARMOSA

MARMOSA
Your white shirt.
The little stretch of garment between
hours of air. A watering sprayed in
the sky - where the squirrels smiled,
the white bird soared.
-
I never took the card you gave me
from the deck you put it in.
All along the Boulevard,
there was always
something
different.

591. IN THE ANCIENT RAIN

IN THE ANCIENT RAIN
I am walking the rocks of a million years;
skipping over the bonefield in the
more-than-ancient rain. Everything I pass
is all asunder - meanings, extrapolations
and designings too. Salt runs from rocks,
as well as from all the old passages of time.
An indecision now certainly marks my
decision to go on. I am in turn now only
bleeding for you. Emotion. Heart. Head.
-
Nothing different between those three
makes me pledge myself to such a unity -
the way the world is held together, the
regal manner of ice-age and death and
extinction. This ancient rain (and yes, yes,
I am still walking over the bonefield)
resounds with its echoes of all that was.
-
Forever is a long time.
The instant is now.
The ancient rain has
dissolved all things :
all empires and castles
and kings.
-
We are like children of a storm,
silent and struggling, while trying
to play in the puddles it has left
behind. This ancient rain draws
pictures in the clouds, reflections
on the water, and - in the distance,
like raindrops peppering the puddle -
shimmering ideas of what still can come:
Chimera and overflow, malice and doubt.

590. CONTALDO

CONTALDO
I slaked my thirst at Marigold's, where the
waters parted the sea; hybrid flowers wilting
on the wall-shelf, an abused piano calling to me.
I sat down to play and some angels brought a
harp. Nothing too great, but it did for a start.
-
In an instant, some hoodlum came through,
asking for money and taking it too. His name
was Contaldo, and he spoke with a leer -
'gimme any shit, and I'll take it from here.'
I think he was pointing to my chest.
-
The only assumption I could make was that
he had a gun - otherwise why walk into a
place like this, unless you're really dumb.
Oh well, here we go again. I gave him my
fifteen dollars. He wanted to hear 'Happy
Days Are Here Again.'
-
I told him I didn't know it; that was good
enough for him. He said it didn't matter
anyway since he didn't know the words.
We both got up to leave, together. He let
me exit and I let him go. Some guy was
eating his lunch on a small table outside.
-
We waved to him as we passed,
keeping a steady stride.

589. MY SOPHISTRY

MY SOPHISTRY
I threw your line-up card in the waste basket of my mind -
your profile portrait and your curriculum vitae too; all
that stuff, whatever you called it. Give me a fist
to the mouth instead - that I'll understand and
listen to. Your engineered infractions of
my time and place...I think not.
-
It wasn't gravel that wore down the
ramp; it was the unending pitter-patter
of thousands of distracted feet -
going about their daily grind,
unflinchingly wise and noble
as well.

588. THE AGE OF AQUARIUMS

THE AGE OF AQUARIUMS
At each end of the great world,
in each direction, there is fatigue.
I met Christopher Columbus and he
said that to me - likewise Vasco DeGama
and Magellan too - each of them told me:
in every direction, fatigue, and a tired old end.
A world of edges and flotsam on the sea:
broken things, hanging over the end, fat sea-mammals
gurgling as they die, bereft of both water and air.
Piles of coral, as sharp as daggers, cut the world
with Creation's original intention - to tear apart,
to rip asunder, to stab and hurt and maim.
Like old ladies on their way to Sag Harbor
(why not, where they belong?) the endings of
time and being show the hand of their despair.
"I am tired of this queer life. It is weary, here.'
-
Through the sky, a comet whizzes.
From some far and distant celestial
port, a line of dazzling light sizzles above,
coming down eventually, to crash even itself
over the edge of this vast yet dissolving place.

587. 1933

1933
The men who hurry are none
but worry; they make each
bromide safe. 'Every day, in
every way...' and the rest.
Folderol, Faddy-do!
-
Oh buddy, Mr. Subway Brain,
Dr. Pepper, Ryan's Emulsion,
and McLain's Weekly - everything
conspires to afford the contingency:
Yes, Yes! Those really are your
Warclouds on the horizon.
-
Don't color outside the lines,
God-Damn it! Now Daddy's
outside in the car beeping.
What am I going to do?

586. OVER THE FAULT LINE

OVER THE FAULT LINE
There was ever a moment like this :
the grand city of the vizier, running down
on its heels, its armies discouraged, its
banks sacked, and only moles left to
tell the stories. Men around campfires,
armless men, broken in battle, crippled
and defeated on the distant plains - they'd
struggled home, dragged on tree-trunk litters,
salvaged in animal skins, carrying the parts
they'd lost in battle. The string of arms and legs,
gathered together, bore a wagon of its own.
Sadness and sunrise, each morning, went together.
Their mothers and wives had died; nary a care
was left except the new urban worries of pain
and money and food and sustenance. They told
stories around the fires at night. Some swore,
really swore, they'd seen that man, one distant
midnight ago, arise from the dead and walk on;
'arise from their graves and aspire, to where my
sunflower wishes to go.' Someone else swore
they'd heard those words - recited back from
what he'd called a 'future,' but couldn't tell
if real or imagined. The others, totally
weary and beat, merely shook
their tired heads.

585. LIFE ON THE EDGES

LIFE ON THE EDGES
Quadrillian fandango going nowhere,
stepping sideways over rockfields of
doubt and motion - delicious proclivities
for love and abeyance, for reading
stories in the fossils of huge stones:
'this one flew without wings, this one
left thought-patterns on the outside of its
skull, this one, while technically blind, could
only see THROUGH things.' I sometimes just
say a simple 'yes'. If I really believed these
tales I'd be mad with fear by now, AND long
ago as well. We are, after all, only the human
sum totals of all the crap we believe in. I
want to understand you - maybe that makes
sense - and don't really care about the rest.
A full and total understanding would be best.
What you look like naked, how you moan beneath
the moon and stars, where you hide those
little things that make you precious. Special
moments beneath an oh-so-ordinary sun, one
different diamond in a boxful of coal.

584. OMINOUS

OMINOUS
I put your hand in my boot and we felt the lining:
it was made of dimes and quarters shining. Then
you bent down to show me your cloak. I
laughed, thinking it was some sort of joke.
Between the two of us, only a small sense
of change was made; a jacket of glass,
to wear in the shade.
-
The idea was to wear down each other like the
water which wears down a rock on the
simple-stream aspect of repeated abrasion.
But not really abrasion - because in 'human'
terms we find it difficult to understand
that 'WATER ABRADES' as some
science tome would say. 'Abrade'
means 'wears things away.'
-
Some little kid with a red toy engine
was sparkling by off in the hedgerow.
He made sounds like a siren, pushing
dirt and pebbles. I wondered, if the
land caught fire right then, even with
his toy fire truck, would he know
just what to do. 'Innate' means
'inborn, as if natural.'
-
Yes, well,
I guess so.

583. FANTASTIC PAJAMAS II

FANTASTIC PAJAMAS II
Maybe a real moron just says 'No more!'
and lets it go at that. It's a vernacular
architecture, anyway, these days and the
languages we use - fifteen moments
for the fine old calf, another half again
for Mabel Mercer and her Wandering Realtors.
Silver still shines like gold in the carriage-house
of the deceased. Claude Rains in the ashtray,
Cecil B. DeMille at the water-wheel pounding.
('You really are the cat's meow!')...

582. THE CRAZY MAN IS CRAZY

THE CRAZY MAN IS CRAZY
'Just like your cunt is my pocket,
wherein I put whatever I want;
that sorry semblance of stars and
the chemical beakers which hold them,
those slab-sides of new in a very fine,
calm brooding - of which full lips can
only start the story.'

581. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

(Too Much / the Car Wreck)

Just like something for everyone, we have
the habits of the scroll; the baby-talk fast-
feed lingo of the Soul. 'An idle mind, the Devil's
Workshop.' 'Pick what you want, pay for what
you pick.' ...and all the rest. They stand the test.
They come out best. BUT FIRST please retire
the bullshit, the horrid crap, the over the median
crazy car-wreck; glass and loosed tires flying
through the air, the singe of rubber and metal,
gas all a'fire everywhere. It's a terrible scene.
The focus is rare. There's now something for
everyone, but TOO MUCH is there.

580. AD MAN

AD MAN
Somehow I grow very weary of all the noise
I hear : jetplane rampage train roar whirr.
Just like that, some permission has been
granted to totally assault my ear.
-
I cannot turn around, to someone else,
and ask why. As I cannot stop some
bastard from trailing banners
in the sky.

579. EPITAPH

EPITAPH
(Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1978)

'When I was alive,
I was dead. Now that
I am dead, I have never
been more alive.'
-
At Gravesend, where the river markers
mark nothing but dirt, the old Citadel
church still welcomes whatever vagrant it
can hold. A can of cold soup and a few
prayers, whittled like a talisman over
unsuspecting heads. So little, going
for so much - while so much
goes for so little.

578. ENCASED IN IVORY

ENCASED IN IVORY
I am greeted by so many sights,
things strange and new to me : that
warrantless tusk, an elephant in
distress, blue water running down
the face of some African rock. This
gentle fellow, holding stolen jewels
in his outlaw hands, smiles, gleaming,
as he anticipates the moments ahead.
-
We hold such wild greenery as sacred
and rare - moss on rocks, thick and
varied growth overhanging every path and
trail. Somewhere behind us, the unknown
sound of a monkey or cat : a banging in the
sky, the gleeful cackle of another natural
force. Isn't that the seeming sense we've
striven for these decades on? If so, we've made
it work now, for both ourselves and all of 'them'.
-
An African river hunt with the spoils
of the sport going for naught.
A hollowed-out bark, skimming
swiftly, watches with the eyes of
those within it, every move I make.

577. CHAIN PLANT RECKONING

CHAIN PLANT RECKONING
We've taken the blinders off the dairyman's horse;
now it can see what it passes. No more than a simple
'clomp, clomp', its welcome noise colors the
morning. Ah! That should fix things!
-
Rooster engaged, making sunlight noises.
Old barn door, on weary hinges, creaking
its song. I walk on ahead, holding a
pail filled white with foamy essence.
Morning light, morning milk - both
seem equal for me - the
wonderful sensation.
-
Toil, labor and sweat.
Hay and straw, silage
and manure. It seems,
sometimes, I swear, the
pleasure of life comes from
its work. Nothing less,
nothing more.

576. BIOLOGY

BIOLOGY
All
species
make
feces.

575. THE DOCTOR OF HAPPENSTANCE

THE DOCTOR OF HAPPENSTANCE
Provisions for the horizon, the art teacher said,
must always be made first. One can prepare the
ground and the colors, but must know - before
beginning - where it will end. In other words, no
walking blindly through the forest of knives.

574. A GREAT WEAPON

A GREAT WEAPON
('The necessary musics of a needed age')
To be used right a great weapon should
be used on a great battlefield. Thus, (saith
the Lord?) I have dominion over you...
(You know and I know that story holds no water).
There's nothing great about living like this:
a sorcerer's jackboot stomping down, the
bad hands of an apprentice making rookie
mistakes, the liquid vehicle of a bad gland
dispensing all that semen.
-
When I was 9, a great thing happened to me:
looking up to the awesome sky I saw five thousand
1950's stars blinking on high and every one, in an
unwavering path, heading straight for an ending
already foretold. The man with the arrow, some
celestial archer, bent down to lift me up. I was
fearsome and proud, deftly traveling through the
ages of time - something Man would call it anyway.
He offered me a plug. I took it. In it, he said, were
held all the secrets of the cosmos.
-
When I came back down, he was gone, and I
was, somehow in a slightly different place.
Every measurement and distance,
slightly changed, amounted
to completely new things.
The universe sang on
the ground, with, he'd
said, the necessary
musics of a
needed age.

573. LEARNING THE MULE

LEARNING THE MULE
(look it up in the Temple)
You came into town on a crippled ass,
one walking sideways, cross-eyed, and swaying
while braying, bumping into all manner of things.
Everyone laughed, and then you fell off.
The townsfolk, unzippered, swore they'd
have their way with you - as their Bible
foretold. I was then a scribe, writing
all this down. Ignorant people amass
ignorant things, and this was, most
certainly, a sight to behold.
-
Behind the lemon tree, a girl was
playing sticks - longer straws for
gain, smaller twigs for loss; and a few
pebbles for use to easily keep score.
I wondered why I was always losing.
I realized only later she was a cheat.
-
The rabble sure can talk. Ten million
words a minute and not a damn thing
said. The fellow with the stern blue
eyes - every word he spoke was brutal
and insincere. I found myself hating him,
and wondered if that was right. Nothing
really, just the guilt-heavy sort of upbringing
I'd had. I'm sure he could have not cared less.
-
The Realm of Barbelo (in case you hadn't
noticed) is still alive and well.

572. YOUR OLD CAN OF STUTTER

YOUR OLD CAN OF STUTTER
...has kept me up way past the night, here comes
the light and it's right through the shutter. I wouldn't
know what else to do had I not read your
book : telling me to wither and die but never
give in, remembering the Alamo in so many
other ways, Sam Houstoning me, in fact, right
past the garden doorway and onto St. Ambrose
Street. Where the icing is free but the cakes
are immensely expensive : Heaven-sent malarkey,
fifteen girls for nothing, thirty men painting
thirty walls, one in each color of lightning.
That old chorus cat you called Mr. Finch,
it still sits motionless on the window ledge
right where you left it. Going in, going out?
-
I came home from Akron tired as a dog.
-
('Automatic poetry always makes me sick...')
graffiti found on a washroom wall in Ohio.

571. KANDUHAR

KANDUHAR
(Man Alone)
Morgana at the station, lining
the wheels. Ten minutes before daybreak -
a part of the moon still in the sky. Leftover
darklight, pounded by stars. Some lethal
infraction amidst bare bulbs and lamp-lit
rays splashing shiny light from pillar
to post. Coffee maven wheezes passing by.
An upraised hand, by Tommy Braden,
passes a 'hi' to his friend Tim-o Smith.
As solid as that bag upon his shoulder,
they've known each other for years.
A newspaper left on the bench extolls,
for whatever reason, the Yankees and
the Phils. Covering all bets, placing,
shills. Everything's in play before
the early morning's light.
OK with me.
I just want to be
alone.

570. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
Where are you going America ? in your
solid chrome-headed plastic filigree
watchtower-dome hat plating to tag
the Tag Heur to paint the new room
gilding the lily until the landlord dies :
swan-swocket land-locked Myra-prism
artfield naked ranger wearer of stripes
and douser of all fires water-hose-weasel
splendor-splattered orgasmatron water-pistol
expansion-loving troglodyte with one leg held
high up stepping the fruited plain jumping rock
to rock in your excalibur surge to reach the
onion-silvered stars and all that Heidi-Ho!
Where are you going America ? and
where is it really to which you go!
Go moan for man go moan.

569. MAN UP EARLY TO DISTURB THE RAIN

MAN UP EARLY
TO DISTURB THE RAIN
I have no excuse for the wobbling of the planet -
how space elides the stars and everything above
us changes. I just know the errant meaning
of what we judge. The past, made of people,
is nothing. Every Swanson and Lechmor,
merely names to learn. They've mostly
paved Chicago with stories of ale-pot
fury - old industries now gone to seed;
Detroit too, Cleveland, the whole
great Monongahela.
-
Over in Pittsburgh, those storied and
furious mills are now silent and shut,
as quiet as some nun in an outhouse,
seething with embarrassment to publicly
pass her shit. It's all no matter what came
before - we are doused with our own
new stupidity, crippled, and wobbling too.
-
It is said the stars pass no judgment.
It is said the planets, ever silent, don't
even see us in our folly - thus we are
more aware of them then they are ever
of 'we'. They have no concept such
as that. They just rest, as a fired mind,
blazing - a wild consciousness drawn
deep into space; a wild mind
setting the furies afire.

568. MAL DE MER

MAL DE MER
After so long I am charmless,
and dizzy, mysterious and lost.
I can't turn around without hitting
myself. In trying to look up now, the awful
dispersal of time and its days drops me back
to bedlam - some wicked sort of dismay -
a distraction I can never place. I sleep
among my figments and imaginings; truly
my very own Hell. Looking up, lethargy
paints its sky with a crimson color only
fiery clouds and pits of disaster know.
Somehow the dead know the dead in the
same fashion as the living know others
living. Alas, I know neither; neither
one nor the other know me.
-
In trying to look up,
in looking up, I
am nowhere.

567. NORTHWAY

NORTHWAY
I wasn't always holding things in
the manner of some arctic traveller
making straight for the Bering Strait.
Dogs on ice, braying for bones.
Someone blowing a bone-flute, the
little sound, alone, scraping over
the snow and ice. Wind which howled
like a rampage sung the tune of forever.
Each morning, a dim light awoke the horizon,
which then trumped lazily its next approach -
more, more, more bright white bright ice.
We never seemed to move, though we
travelled all day.

566. DOWNTOWN

DOWNTOWN
There was a catcall from the welter
of noise - someone rudely shouting
a name. No one looked up to see what
was the matter. An inauspicious, noisy
muddle such as this certainly marred the
day. Workers in coats were struggling home,
wrong buttons on heavy jackets, smokes
from chimneys and cigarettes too, dwindling
upward in the dusk of a frosty night. 'We'll
save whatever we can if the big frost comes,
but for now all we can do is wait. Everything
else has already been taken in.' I couldn't tell,
really and for sure, if that was a gardener
speaking or a tailor. It's always like that in
this jumble'd eve of a city racket. Noise and
chatter, smashing together like pots and pans.

565. SHROUDED MAN

SHROUDED MAN
(for James Fenimore Cooper)
Let me put it this way :
the icicle is in the bowl, the
hand is on the water. What is
before me is the glass-image mirrored.
A life of death, a resemblance but not
the real. Why does the glimmer-glass
shudder, Mohican man? How far the
golden path through these Algonquin
hills? We've lost the world eternal.
All we've got now are settlers, hustlers,
roustabouts and bastard misfits knowing
nothing of either world. The Natural
calls the Supernatural, but to them,
nothing answers back.

564. YOU CAN'T NAME ME

YOU CAN'T
NAME ME
White wall, white shed, broad barn,
rural scene, city head. Two hands
holding candles - each a'lit - and
both looking for each other. Fire
into fire, flame into flame. The
reason it's different is 'cause
everything else is the same.
-
I awoke at dawn, and knew
you were there. I got up and
wet my face, opened again
my dreary eyes, and tried to
get away. Opening a faint
door to the greenway of the
dark, I felt like nothing so much
as returning to the deep deep
dream from whence I'd come :
a place of malice and mystery,
a place of silence and dark.

563. SOME IDEA OF AN EXPANDING AFTERLIFE

SOME IDEA OF AN
EXPANDING AFTERLIFE
All stars and moon and a
thin line of clouds - the black
and inky sky looked like nothing
but depth and presence, a new
brightness opening to some other
time and place. Idea? Brilliant
light? Bright opening? Opening
Light? I think otherwise in a
sporadic jazz-beam of broken
prisms and scattered rays; the
stuff one can't pin down. Like
passing shadings on a grayed-out
wall, they last for a moment, or
two, and, moving, are gone.

562. FORENSIC EVIDENCE

FORENSIC EVIDENCE
Magic dodo-bean airship palaver
keeping sentry on the high-topped air.
The handgun of the salient, shown to go
off, resounds with an echo unceasing.
Anybody hurt? Dead too? Put the
important ones in the important
cemetery, the rest throw into the
field. No one ever said a Civil War
was easy. We've run this river red
with rebel blood, and they've done
the same with us. Brother against
brother, blood against trust.
-
At the Southgate Seminary, two men
studying the Book are praying as
they nod their heads. They know
very little, and have chosen God
instead. All before them, out on
the modern field, it is Decoration
Day - where not just that one,
but every War is remembered

561. THE BLUE CARD

THE BLUE CARD
So many people smiling at one time.
Speaking biographies in wide, open space:
'we're alive and vibrant and happy.' I hear
such a gloried message is the style of the
day. Unknown to the others, the ceiling
has a crack, a major flaw widening. All
I can see is daylight through the air. A thin
airship pierces through the horizon.
(Were this a Magritte painting, I'd
swear a train was due, coming right
in through the fireplace too).

560. HARRY THE COMMUNARD

HARRY THE COMMUNARD
Contempt for the masses never ends
happily - they bend and they sway,
while from their little fields wild
flowers grow. On high, the
roofs of barns and corn-sheds
appear as nothing but extra
buildings on a sad movie lot.
A few sparse scenes, filled
with people who never move.
People who never move at all.

559. PROCLAIMING THE DECORATIVE ARTS

PROCLAIMING THE
DECORATIVE ARTS*
(dedication foundry)
'Bare, ruined choirs, the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune, all that crap you hear
on rabid commercials and the airwaves of
sloth and lethargy - I don't want to hear
no more. Pounce on the tiger like it's
eating a bone. Burning bright...in the
forests of the night....Yeah, that
William Blake can eat my hat.
-
He - and all the rest - they can go straight
to Hell too, if they're still waiting for
rides. I've got a '67 Chevy that'll
take 'em there. A little gas on
the pedal and we're off to see
the shtetl, or whatever.
-
Some bawling infant on the
sidelines of the pale - it's
seemingly never happy
and continuing to wail.
For that kid alone, I
proclaim the decorative
arts. Hats off to Larry,
he's got a good start.'

*For there is hope, of a tree; that if it be cut down, it will sprout again. Job, 14:7

558. APEX BROTHER

APEX BROTHER
'Everywhere I go there's nothing but conflict
and pain. Everything's composed of aspects I
can't deal with nor understand. The cat and the
canary, they both know what I mean.'
-
He squatted down while he talked,
lighting a small fire in Central Park;
next to a moonbeam rock, clustered behind
a stand of old trees. 'This small fire's just
to burn all the things I've ever written - and I
aim to too.' He pulled piles of papers from out
a valise, a satchel he'd carried in. Banded and
wrapped, he said what they were : 'these are all I've ever
done, my works; a novel short stories, essays and poems.
All these wonderful ideas. I just can't live with them anymore
and I made a vow to myself. They're all being burned.'
-
The little fire fired up - an unsightly reddish flame
and a glow of which I'd never seen, nor wish to
see again. Black spirit and white sprite, both
it seemed rode up in tongues of flame and
flared away. He was crying by now, all
a horrible sight.
-
'Everywhere I've gone, it's all been a
terrible flight. Nothing but conflict
and anger and fury and pain.
Everything's made of stuff
I don't get. The cat AND
the canary, they both
know what I mean.'

557. THE LIGHT OF ANOTHER DAY (Miranda)

THE LIGHT OF
ANOTHER DAY

(Miranda)
These endless square miles of plinth are killing me :
listen to that man talk boy he can talk he never
shuts up and it's only 6am before the light
actualizes before the room ends spinning before
whatever I'm supposed to do is even materialized.
Two rogue dogs from the driver's kennel have
taken to licking each other, or something, and they
stretch to bend in a contortion I only can
see in a half-light of the morningtide and then the
cute little votive Spanish girl once more steps
off her morning train from Elizabeth and waves
to me as I watch her walk away - in a red colored
Fall jacket she bedazzles with sway. I'm thinking of
some President or another, speaking off-the-cuff
from some pediment along the Shasta range - the
usual crap about preserving our natural beauty and
wonder. Yeah, I think I know what he meant.
The world is a sorrowful, dog-licking place and
the only beauty that comes around is when you
can find it in the face of another warm and pleasant
human being. I am watching her walk away.
I am watching her walk away, and the
light isn't even up yet, the light
of another day.

556. THE OFFICIAL HARD SURFACE OF A GOD

THE OFFICIAL HARD
SURFACE OF A GOD
I'll take my hand and put it down
wherever I please and whatever
the surface. You can make no
distinction to set me off. The
mica gleam, the stone hardness,
of this world and all creation
is but an echo of the perfection
of all my Paradise : water that
is not that at all, air that turns
solid, wind that runs like sound.
Every determination (you should
understand) has already been made -
ahead of time, as you say - by Me.

555. CANDY KISS

CANDY KISS
The ground was littered with silver,
the glittery kind, of cheapness and
fun. Someone had spilled, and
left, a big bag of candy kisses -
a vague, chocolate of a type,
wrapped in foil, in a gumdrop
shape. Teardrop, gumdrop,
elongated oval, silver-wrapping
tear-tag toil. Pull it back and
tear the foil. They literally
littered the ground.

554. BEAUTY

BEAUTY
Oh that Summertime bulge which
leads me right to your heart - again
and again and over and more. It
is the sweetness of an orange sun
broiling over the ground. Orb celestial,
Summer wand, charmed glade.
The roundness of your fullness,
plump, now glides me on.

553. I HAVE A CADENCE I DO WANT TO KEEP

I HAVE A CADENCE
I DO WANT TO KEEP
I am stuck with James Joyce in Trieste
and we are awaiting a train - one that
runs the waterfront slowly. And Nora
Barnacle who too has been waiting
has just now heard of the arrest.
We'd been brawling in a canal-side
bar - nothing very close to nothing
quite far - a few punches thrown
among others (thankfully) held back.
We were apprehended and taken to
jail, released after a hearing, and all
that. She is apoplectic at all the
time lost. We laugh it off as
a moment past its prime, at no
real cost. A water-taxi passes,
headed for Miramar, as we
decide (only so reluctantly now)
to dart up towards the summit of
San Giusto's hillock on the
Karst - the old city center
on the summit atop the hill.
Carlo Morpurgo and Lloyd
Trestino await us up there;
already quite drunk, we figure,
they are biding their time as
the birds do the air : a wavering
flight, a sway of the hands,
a certain cadence they
do want to keep.

552. TRAINMAN

TRAINMAN
The African conductor,
who was standing tall,
I'd seen before at Limerick
or Bordeaux; somewhere.
One of those dumb and
paleful places where tourists
flock to eat. He stood straight
as a tree and - as I watched -
hardly moved a muscle
but to blink. I imagined
him at some Sahara stand,
idly watching the wind and
the weather blow.

551. RIDGEMONT

RIDGEMONT
Egalitarian humanity takes turns
hugging other people - one by one,
filled with love and cookies. Children
stare up at the prison on the hill.
Its granite and stone walls, ever-foreboding,
try speaking to them in code. Like lollipops
of cherry-flavored goo, they melt away,
smiling to hide their fear.
-
Near the top, where the guard still stands
sentry with an afternoon rifle and scope,
some wily hawk swoops down, and plucks
up a screaming squirrel. It's over in a flash -
a pluck of air, some noisy crunch, and,
falling back to the ground, a severed
leg or a broken-off claw. The
poor grey-squirrel never
had a chance.

550. SKIP TO MY LOU

SKIP TO MY LOU
I wanted to press you till I broke you,
bend back your back, crack your neck,
twist you until you were twisted. These
were all my secrets. And still are.
The new word, for something that both
'was' and 'is', is 'wais' - which I shall
use, from this point on.
-
It always wais that I could love
you like a sergeant-at-arms, pledging
fealty at the meeting to maintaining all
order at whatever possible cost.
-
I wanted to succor you breathless
leaning leaving frolic at your
minions of frappled desire.
-
Be that as it may,
I must now retire.

549. THE SEPTEMBRISTS

THE SEPTEMBRISTS
(the gallery plot)
Art and speed, speed and art, somehow put
together at Lothario's pace : the gliding slime
that comes from oil, the running colors, the
certainly-not-frugal drip of a cow-painter's
wild brush. We make for images like these,
while broiling in flaming heats, under broad
shades and wide-brimmed hats. Hipsters,
flying low so as to dip to the tips of trees.
-
A crippled reporter enters, dragging a leg.
Trying to speak, she talks instead with a
pencil piercing her forehead. 'Concept
Art I had no conception of,' she writes
as the red blood slowly trickles, forming
a crimson lick around her lips. 'I'm not
famous yet, y'see, but I soon will be.'
-
That was the young artist speaking.
He wants to buy the gallery, if he can.
'Easier that way to sell my work -
just that and nothing more.'
-
Here's the baker. Here's the
maid. Here's the clarion
clapper. Here's the late
artist, so recently
deceased.

548. THE UPPER ROOM

THE UPPER ROOM
At my entertaining entrance - all the things to
be made sure of for certain - they do go on.
The parties of endless people and their
effusive old songs, the sour smell of an
old dog's breath. Someone playing Mama
Cass on an old thirty-three and a third - some
rotating black disk of trouble wailing away -
and God I can hardly listen. Both sense and
sensibility, in its Jamesian way, all gone.
The threadbare attic waits for a dance.

547. MY DISMAL PORTRAYAL

MY DISMAL PORTRAYAL
I sometimes feel like I'm in prison, serving
a life or two, with the people doing infantile
things : a sister buying a cake, a padre with
a fedora, a Clem Henley drawing a doodle.
I can do nothing but witness, as pain rips
through my gut - the wrench of a stiletto,
or the grace of a perfect cut.

546. COMMINGLED MUSCLEMEN

COMMINGLED MUSCLEMEN
The haven of the elixir went south for the
season reading with the light off and reaching for
the stars while here and there the two old train guys
frolicked with some lithesome badger carrying a torch:
'I salved my regina on Saturday last. What about you?'
The entire place erupted in laughter, the kind the doorbell
sells - madman cat-crawler Buddy Brittanica himself steps
up just the to say 'Ah, hey, before we over-reach, let's have a
minute of silence for the men in blue' and nobody understands
a word - 'guys with the blues?, fishermen with their catch?,
whaddya' think he means?' they said, parodying Carlton
Faraday the old bootlegger of Kensington Road. A round
of lame applause ensues. 'I'm warning you, don't do that
again!' is heard once or twice from the carbine tower
wherein the switchhaggler lived. 'All is calm in Littleville,
all is calm here indeed.' That was the last thing I heard.

545. POCKET CHANGE FOR COLONEL MINGLER

POCKET CHANGE FOR
COLONEL MINGLER
Eggshell bullfight horsehair majorette.
Carmen paralegal doorman omelette.
Never luscious cape-coat flathead,
roving garment handheld hatchet.
(How I wish the charming reed
forever formed the circle -
aqueduct, azalea, alpaca).
We remove at our own
peril every hazard
in the way....
Landing strip
ozone,
low-zone,
tray.

544. MORNING

MORNING
There is (to be told) no glare in the
sky this morning. The gray man's
own dulcimer light shines, with only the
most faint and distant reddish tinge to the
clouds in the heavens above - which
aren't really that, you see, for it's always
been thought that 'Heaven' (and even
then at that) was always far above the sky.
But anyway, I give this sallow grayness
credit. The leaves of the paper birch -
still quite green, an upland tree - are heavy
before the morning sky and massive (it
seems)...right here, where someone is
dragging a broom. The new light tries
to come forth, with birds now
just beginning to sing.

543. SHED THE CHARADE

SHED THE CHARADE
The horses, two of them, have stayed
near the gate - far too long for the afternoon
it seems. Harry the Haymaster, or whatever
the name of that little Mexican guy with a bale is,
comes over to see what's occurred. He doesn't
speak much, English anyway, so I don't even bother
to talk. Another guy, Eduard, I know, walks from the
barn with two mesh pails filled carefully with new
brown eggs. Forty or so per pail, I guess, makes eighty;
sold by the dozen in the farm-store nearby. Sorted
and packed in the usual egg-crate, they don't stay
that very long. Pricey but good. Free-range chickens, or
somesuch crap. In the yard here are three of the
noisiest, meowiest, cats I've ever heard or saw.
They've waltzed around in little cat circles, meowling
and bumping into one another - it's absolutely crazy
to watch. What they want beats me. To my left - two
precious goats with the softest ears and noses, and some
ridiculous Shetland pony with too much mane bumps up
against his corral, almost in annoyance. 'Too bad pal,' I
say underneath my breath. Maple Ridge Farm, Colllier's
Orchard, Pierce Hill Dairy : whatever they call themselves
here works for what they sell. Poultry. Milk. Eggs. Meat.
The gravel parking lot, bare except for maybe two cars,
seems slim but steady all afternoon long. One customer, then
another. Down along the side, the old farmhouse beckons.
　

542. FLANEUR

FLANEUR
Reading Christopher Isherwood along the
city sidewalk - a cantilevered street, with
people overhead. The wide crowd pulses
around me. Highline. Lowline. The same
perverse junk. That man in the fedora,
thinking he's Henry Gold, walks by as a regal
scold. His woman, with him, scowls down from
some nagging height. Fifteen legions dense,
the people are watched by the ranger with
the clicker in her hand - carefully counting
heads. I walk up to her, smiling, and say -
'can you count me twice?' She smiles back,
and says, 'no problem, good as done.'
I swoop my hand over her neck, and plant
a kiss on her bureaucratic face.
'Please remember me, just this
way, forever,' I ask of her.
'I am a camera, looking
at you.'

541. ELEGY IN A CONCRETE GRAVEYARD

ELEGY IN A
CONCRETE GRAVEYARD
My name isn't written in the past -
neither is it written in the future.
I am enmeshed you see in a present
of sorts : one amazing tranquility, of
prospects and dreams quickly going
down the drain. Trying to sketch a
perfect bluebird, I end up with a
terrifying hawk. Water, flowing softly
beneath the petals, rushes suddenly to
a new torrent and buckles the pavement
upon which I stand. It is all so incongruously
true that it must be taken as fact. It
gets (simply) no simpler then that.
-
If you pass my grave in your wandering,
please think, perhaps, to tip your hat.

540. IN THE SAME SPELLBINDING BOX

IN THE SAME
SPELLBINDING BOX
'If you looked at the really big picture
you'd see you couldn't blame us.'

539. FOR CAPTAIN MARBURY

FOR CAPTAIN MARBURY
I dog the coastline, seeking whatever
arises - things sticking out of the mud,
broken wheels where once a carriage ran.
Silhouettes and noon-time shadows, both
indifferent to each other, spend each their
moments in the sun. Alike. Apart.
A wailing cat in a similitude of grief.
-
They say once a great liner foundered here.
Burned and tipped; dropped its bastard
cargo a mile from the shore. The blaze - seen
for miles around - scorched everything. Its people,
their bags, their pets and all cargo too.
Only the Captain and crew, walking somehow
on fiery water, managed to survive,
arriving onshore to tell their insane tale.
-
No one for a moment believed a word :
virgins with balls of fire on their hands,
starting fires with their eyes; timid
travelers, singing of Trieste and of
the Hapsburgs, tying things down with
strings; mountains of red mud,
falling down, straight, from the sky.
All fantastic, and all thought a lie.
-
The Captain died, a lonely man, some
twenty-five years later still huddled in
his grief. Fear was his only daughter,
and sorrow was her cloak. They'd
let him live, if only to suffer more.
-
A public story of such great import
gets told over and anew. We read it
in history's reports, as arrow-like, it
pierces our dreams - part of our
unconscious noise, still, a
hundred years on.

538. HAM-FISTED

HAM-FISTED
Arrested development of the sort they talk about
in journals and quarterlies : the man with the
infantile projection, the woman who thinks she's
three. Operative personalities which, usually
grown out of by nine years old, linger.
A fellow who pops his eyes, the lady who
whistles through her skin.
-
We let them live, it seems through our
own form of genuine kindness - just
as they, seemingly, allow us our own
time too. Time to go on and prosper,
time to make what we do.
-
Some heavy- handed, ham-fisted God
named Fred or Harvey, I'd suppose,
very busy with tedious work,
just let some things slip
through those elusive
faint-line cracks.

537. NEGATIVITY

NEGATIVITY
Yes, well, we hired a mourner for use,
but he didn't know what to mourn and
couldn't find any reason to search.
Yes, well, we hired a flower-cart for
blossoms and blooms, but when she
arrived with an empty cart, she explained
'That's just the way it always is.'
Yes, well, we hired moonlight for some
moon, but when it showed up 'twas but a
sliver to what we'd expected to see; a
slim crescent moon to our full degree.
We all shrugged and figured 'it had
to be better than the dark.'
Yes, well, we hired a gravedigger
to dig out a tomb, but he arrived with
a rubber mallet and a simple teaspoon.
'Well, there's nothing more to dig,' he said,
'or we'll all be expired soon.'
Yes, well, we wanted to hear something
special, the best, so we hired an orator

grand from the envied halls of Congress.
He wouldn't speak a word, and
was a dumb mute no less.

536. STEEL

STEEL
I walked past the old mill, the old palace, and
the old bowling alley - where everything now
had fallen in. A roof turned into a floor and seagulls
roaming freely, the less-than-distant splash
of the ocean frothing in. As if, in some demented
vacation scenario, the sea had moved ashore,
the cowboy hats on the horsemen, the horses
within the carousel, even the broken bulbs
once lighting the roof line, had corroded and
died in a sea-salt reverie. Doom dripped like
salt water from every metallic surface.
Was someone screaming, or just
the gulls along the shore?

535. ARCHIPELAGO

ARCHIPELAGO
I broke my ten fingers on an over-arching
rock, shimmying up the mountain from bottom
to top. I never looked back - since I was
unable to - or had I not mentioned, my
eyes were gone too. I later lost my hearing
when I realized there was no noise - nothing to
listen for, little to avoid. It seems, somehow
now, as I stop and think back, it was an
Evolution in reverse - I gave it all back.

534. INVESTITURE

INVESTITURE

(pour 'A')
'How my high-toned repertoire takes in
so many lying friends baffles even me.
They've made stories up - under-handed
and stupid - about lives they've never led,
sequestered as they are instead in squalid
little rooms of no real conversation. And with,
then, no one to talk to, they have to make things up.'
-
I'd known all that before, but thought to
go with the joke to be in at the punchline.
'Denouement.' You'd see, I'd see.
-
A dirigible, scaling the sky.
Nothing floats like that, nothing,
except a big, floating lie.

533. THE HANDS OF MICHAEL FRIDLY

THE HANDS OF
MICHAEL FRIDLY
I saw the hands of Michael Fridly as they
were digging dirt with a spoon. A few feet deep,
he thought, would do the trick; 'I have these
memories to bury.' He said that, looking back,
to where the monstrous elm tree, still deep in life,
spreads its spangly branches overhead. A few
gracious squirrels cavorted for space, and they
tripped both up and down that giant trunk.
Michael was nonplussed by all - 'there's only one
thing I need to do and I'm doing it.' Dedicated to
devotion, managing to get it done.
-
As if an angel had descended, a new strange
light was present - casting bright powers on
leaf and on limb. Michael kept digging, with his
silly spoon. The more his head was down, the more
his face would frown. 'But Michael,' I said, 'look
up now and then. A wonderful light is around.'

532. WHITSUNDAY

WHITSUNDAY
They are amassing at the border,
all those puddle-jumpers and disenfranchised
slackers refusing to budge. The lights are
down in the canyon, and (they've suddenly
realized that) not a one among them can
read. Papers fly about and a few laggard
mothers scream. 'My child will be paying
for this forever!' The fat Russian lady
holding the tupperware cake falls
over in a swoon.
-
A man from the Central Bureau stops by
to see how (any) progress is going.
'Aleck', he asks, 'has anyone
here seen Aleck?'...of course,
no one answers him back.
-
The tar is still soft 'neath the feet.
That odd guy from Pennsylvania
is singing alone. 'Has anybody
seen my gal, has anybody
seen my gal?'
-
He gets it all right,
then he gets it
all wrong.
(A curious partaker of melody, he).

531. WHAT DID HE MEAN?

WHAT DID HE MEAN?
When the river was Scotch was the river
in Scotland? I couldn't figure what he meant:
'Him, with his foot in his mouth'...remember
that one? Riverrun. Remember that?
Escarpment over the fox terrier, the full moon
over the glade. I was watching them dance, all
those weird country people. Banjos and fiddles
and guitars, gaps between teeth, and other teeth
missing. The little kid in the 'foyer' (they called it)
standing there in his pajamas watching two people
kiss. Someone flicked the lights on and off, on and
off. Everyone laughed...for no real reason at all.

530. DELIVERENCE

DELIVERENCE
What hands have grabbed the sky tonight?
I walk in the dark where it used to be light.
-
Xavier and Quentin, whatever the names,
they each bequeath me something -
starry and bright, glowing and round.
High overhead, swirling millions of stars
and planets, as testaments to what should
be. Dark, deep sky. Heavens open high.
-
There was a time I entered Paradise alone -
walking hunched, heavily burdened and
sad. I sat down where I could and watched -
endless, squirming people realizing, suddenly
they were free - every assumption and attribution
they'd once given to the world was now gone.
-
It didn't last; it couldn't.
Now, I looked forward to
seeing a morning light I'm
rather more familiar with -
a man with a rake, seeding
old grass, putting down sod
where only brown dirt used to be.
-
What hands have grabbed the sky tonight?
I walk in the dark where it used to be light.

529. WITH ALL MY DREAMS IN FLIGHT

WITH ALL MY DREAMS
IN FLIGHT
In the confessional mode I'm at my best -
rushing home to check out the mail,
examining the sky for its passing fleece of
shapes in clouds, or just worrying about the
weather - casting all that as the fading
movie-background of the thing I call a
life. All the items I live to tell about.
I lose nothing in this matter-of-fact deal,
you see - let me tell you that.
Like shredding the fabric of wheat
or like some of my father's old faded
upholstery cuttings - items left over after
death has come and gone...all these
transformed things, yes, they may suffice
but can they make it sensible? All these chance
encounters and the meetings of beings and souls?
Our automatic bodies bob and weave, nod and
function and bend - we are the sum, here, of oh
so many parts. Everything, within a mystery without
a plot, within a puzzle without a solution. In the
confessional mode I'm most comfortable with,
the mystery stays, but it lessens a bit.

528. BRING ME SOMETHING NICE

BRING ME SOMETHING NICE
The high plains are interesting -
a place where birds seem to swim in the
air and only the most reverential moments
survive. We remember only what we want.
I shan't bother to relate again all those stories
and tales : that sharpshooter who lost his
lunch and got sick on the balcony roof,
the country squire dandy with some regal
but local whore wrapped around his arm.
Ah, but, lest I go on and do exactly what
I said I wouldn't do, I'll stop.
I must forget you too.

527. DO YOU KNOW WHAT? "!!"

DO YOU KNOW WHAT?
"

(It was Marcel Duchamp who said
'Art is the forgetting of the hand.'
I'd like to believe that Art, instead, is
the Word - and not much else.
Put all that mannered bullshit aside
and listen : !! : I can iconically say
the image is crass and representation
sucks. Don't you see? Can't you?
-
[The Helen Keller School For the Blind
had an Art Show in kind. No one arrived,
but then again no one stayed late. And
the art to be seen was so out of date.]
-
I am enamored of you Jillian Weaver.
I watch your trembly eyes in the movie
of my mind. I paint you secretly in
the dark while my dreams take flight.
In a (very true) painterly fashion
your cloak and your colors shine.)
"

526. INTENSIFY THE PROPOSITION

INTENSIFY THE PROPOSITION
This morbid semblance of life and death has
got me scratching heads : yours, mine and
ours, as we're all about this in together. No man
whistle-stops this treasure-train, and no
whistle-stop does it pass. We're all
in this about together.
-
I sat by the window, almost to cry.
I rolled back my eyes, to treasure the sky.
Moonlight becomes me and so does the
effort, the push, the effrontery.
I wonder, why?
-
Can I find not a language to squeeze
out the truth? In the words of Nepali,
perhaps : 'sas pherna sakdina' means
'I'm having trouble breathing' - and
'malai chahina' still simply means
'I don't need it.'

525. THERE IS NO THADDEUS MEDIVARKIS

THERE IS NO
THADDEUS MEDIVARKIS
I have come here humbly; bearing
rags and a pail filled with water. For two
days I have kept vigil with the Sun in
its risings and settings. If it can be
that you believe in something, it must
only be to believe in the Sun. We are,
in that respect, all primitives seeking
solace in light. Every mythology since
that beginning ends up at the same point:
whatever God you would call it,
it is the reborn Sun each day you seek.
-
Without that, this Life would be as water.
A passing flush, a useless flow.
-
I have heard the many words before.
I have seen the tall ones and the short
bow down or genuflect before their lucre
or power or wisdom or strength.
Everything fades, my foolish cherry,
everything passes away.

524. HEAVEN

HEAVEN
Align a dutiful heart to a
heavy hand and the result is
a profusion of chains and trouble:
the list of 'cannots' is awesome -
and one wonders 'why live at all?'
It's was always like that, the sparse
story goes : 'don't touch, don't look,
especially, damn, don't eat of this!'
-
Adam's first wife was named Lilith.
I wonder what she had in mind, to
disappear just like that. Go ahead,
precocious one, you can look it up.

523. ON SICKMAN'S MILL ROAD

ON SICKMAN'S MILL ROAD
That time in Lancaster County was spent wisely;
a little engaging of the locals and a run at the
Constabulary. The tobacco barn shuddered to
think, rolling onto its side with a ear-splitting
shriek. Two doctors and cow, nearby.
From over the top of the hill, another fellow
with an old Dutch name slowly sauntered over:
'What's gone on to here?' he said - and we
laughed and answered back, 'Not much yet,
but we're sure this will right itself soon.'
By three pm the sunlight was already angled -
set to the pitch and as good as movie-lights
themselves would be. 'Start shooting, let's go,
roll it now!' The miasmic Director himself
was speaking, 'I want no noise except for
that cow!' Slim the Slender he soon came by.
'That'll be enough; sun's goin' down,
we'll cut for the day.'

522. ALL OUR WINDSPENT LABORS

ALL OUR ABSURD
WINDSPENT LABORS
You cannot reach me, willpower baffle,
overspent crusader, darling fluorescent.
My absurdity has (long ago) been acquitted
of any crime. Letter-writing, that ancient craft,
itself seems over for now. Ten times ten the
years must change - and only then will things
return...to what they, as they, were, whenever.
Outside, the high clock tower rings its tone,
Trying to tell me something. We all turn deaf.

521. HANK THE BUCKLE

HANK THE BUCKLE
(at the Hudson Street pier, 1968)
And then there was all that:
folderol, the bridge at the river,
the lamp on the corner, the strange
door on the shed overlooking the harbor.
Inside lived one Henry Hyde, know as
'Hank the Buckle' to those who knew.
It had something to do with his
stripped-down manner, that name did.
Not a rifle, but a pistol, often near his
waist - belt and buckle together. All that
made for a mysterious name.
-
No one ever really knew what he did.
Card-shark, looter, car-thief, shooter.
It hardly ever mattered, for where Henry
went, there Henry was. Good for the
goose and good for the gander.
All that crap you hear.
-
He left one afternoon about 4pm,
and was simply just never
heard from again.

520. LEONARD THOR

LEONARD THOR
'I will make your moments glisten with
the sweats of your doom and death. No
Hammer of the Witches this is - instead
a pale shadow on a paisley wall. It's enough
to make one sick. An electric bridge in
Idaho, and someone bestial - like Kim
Carnes - locked in a freezing cellar.
That's what I call the comforts
of home.'
-
He was clearly crazy; sending me
pictures of re-touched women
from magazines or cut-outs pasted
like kidnap and ransom notes.
I just couldn't find time to
find time to care.
-
When a liar lies, he lies forever.
When a dead man dies he's
dead forever. Either way,
there's really nothing to
redeem - whether time
or spirit or soul or
mind.

519. TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

TWO SIDES OF
THE SAME COIN
You came to the tree of my
crucifixion and gently let me
down. I took you to the place
of my resurrection but - alas -
I clearly saw you frown.