921. IMOGENE

IMOGENE
I miss you, Imogene.
I'd imagined that was your
shadow indeed coming over
the fireplace grate out here, near
the table where I sat. Lo. I was mistaken.
You were always a shadow to me, and
would be so evermore (even if I could see).

920. RAILSPACK HEIGHTS

RAILSPACK HEIGHTS
Railspack Heights, the place where the strivers
live, bounded by jazz and calypso. An
unseen mix to be sure, but one more than
worth seeing up close. Doves on the
blanket. Small fish served on bread.
-
We sat back and thought about where
we were. Along the riverbank, where
the mud was still shiny, the limbs and
broken branches of last week's flooding
hung haphazardly over the grasses.
-
I have thought about little else since.
Red wine, spilling like blood,
over the edge of the glass.

919. BY THE WAY

BY THE WAY
By the way,
I wanted to say,
I get the hang of it and
it's all really nothing at all.
I'm sick of my own temperature
and fever and would rather just
lie down and die than stand before
what I see. Gruesome loads of
oh-so-dead fish, now washed up on
the same shore where the equally-expired
seals are rotting. Why cares about Durango Bay
when we've got the whole world at our fingers?
Why limit the damage to one such small spot?
Let's fuck it up big time, and ruin all we've got.

918. CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS

Banishment forever!

One step up from your slumdog Goddess!

Your hands can't touch what your eyes can't see.

Or can they? One step from Heaven or five steps from Hell?

Whichever direction you go, it's always something.
Or, well, anyway - it never was anything I had
to be concerned over. My cloak was never
your garment.
-
Wind in the willows, owl in the tree.
Morning arises like an unsettled marker -
brooding red, deep and orangey-dark,
on the always-dangerous highway horizon.
I watch the trucks sneak by : all their torrid
combinations of noise, leaky fluids, gear-whine
smacks and the gruesome sound of big rubber
on pavement. Sometimes, only sometimes maybe,
I wish I was deaf for an hour.
-
They said some Virgin Mary came here from
Wichita - with a guidebook and an ace bandage.
Scouring the neighborhoods for winsome young lads,
the few she could contact were already engaged.
Baseball. Apple Pie. Mom. Chevrolet.
Any of that old American stuff. Like
Tom Sawyer on a five-dollar
bill. Any of that old,
American stuff.

917. THE ATMOSPHERE IN ALL ETERNITY

THE ATMOSPHERE
IN ALL ETERNITY
I was once just like you -
with two hands in the eastern pocket
and a gumshoe on my wand, with the kettle
pockmarked by rust and wishing to be forgotten,
the lamp in the hoarfrost descending, and the
lonely gilfrist running down. But, you also
should remember, I was - at one time just
as well - really quite unique. With my
marklight overdue and the spacious
argument of the court-cost
lawyer making no real
sense to anyone
at all.

916. THE ADEPT, THE ADROIT SKIMMER ON THE FACE OF THE POND

THE ADEPT, THE ADROIT

SKIMMER ACROSS THE

FACE OF THE POND
Just like the water running its sideways
rivulet through the mud and silt, I'm
sitting where the rocks run themselves flat
'twixt water and grass. A few trees here low
overhang. Over to the right, the long-abandoned
cabin I'm staying in leans and wilts like some old
mid-Summer tree just a'hanging in the noonday heat.
Nothing moves more than a shimmer; the adept,
the adroit skimmer across the face of the pond.
On the outside wall somehow still hangs a
shovel and a rake. No one's imaginatively
touched them for years - or leastways for
seasons. An old, wet curtain, remnants
really, hangs out of what once was a
window and a ledge. Like the Bible
would'a put it...'Dampness was
on the face of the Earth.'

915. MY RANDOM MOLECULAR COUSINS

MY RANDOM
MOLECULAR COUSINS
(the Malarkey Brothers Religous Tent Service, 1972)
Were targa-time remnants to come,
now would be the moment. I am sheathed
in a scarf of ivory - like a sculpture, like
a memorial. Martyred dead, unshod masses,
those slaughtered for what they believe.
In an otherwise broad gesture we too are
marching to a Praetoria, of sorts. Gold watches
hang from chains, wrists on crosses, nailed hands -
all these things bleed, momentary truths and tokens.
All those soulful mourners singing, they march across
the street from where the killings first took place.
A source-book for the redness of the river's blood.
The soda fountain makes a lie of the color red.
Even the Cardinal from St. Matthias' Residence,
he whacks off in rhythm to only the Gods of his
own frantic desire: eternal life, the collection plate,
the resounding success of 'Thy Will Be Done.'

914. THE BOXER REBELLION

THE BOXER REBELLION
(1910)
'There are many Christian converts who have
lost their senses. They deceive our Emperor,
destroy the Gods we worship. They pull
down our temples and altars, permit neither
joss-sticks nor candles, and cast away
our tracts on ethics. They ignore reason.
Don't you realize that their aim is
to engulf our country?'
-
I am resting on this highland hillside.
Near me, a red wing blackbird sings,
and a quick robin scurries along
the ground. The yellow sun is
high atop the sky. I am
seeing this, and I am happy.
Were the Revolution to
finally come, I know I
would not die.

913. AS LONG AS I COULD DO ANYONE, I'D DO YOU

AS LONG AS I COULD DO
ANYONE, I'D DO YOU
(Central Park)
The skyline was bleeding and I was
doing nothing but sitting here reading
a book. What a useless soul! All along
the dismal swamp, beavers and otters were
thinking together : what shall we do
when this city is gone?
-
The fat, rich ladies with their whoresome
daughters - the beautiful ones, the shy ones,
the smart ones - they were just sitting there
to await the tea and the scones, any of those
myriad desserts come flinging. I caught
one girl's eye, and showed her my tongue.
-
What do you do with money? Simply
throw it back in someone's face? Or try
to find finery of velvet and lace? The
line outside the Museum was growing.
Sickening people, standing up to
see the past. I knew things were
dwindling, but not this fast.

912. SASS SQUAD

SASS SQUAD
Quasimodo Alkalai and
all the rest. A guy walks into
a bar, throws his ashes on the floor
and says 'who says you can't be in
two places at once, that's what I want
to know?' Bartender looks up, says,
'Buddy, are you dead or are you alive,
and who's gonn'a pay for your drinks?'
The whole place then erupts into a
Hallelujah chorus. The dead guy seems
to slip away. At that point, flipping
a coin, I decided I didn't care which
way. And, therefore, why then
should you?
-
Straphangers everywhere
need to beware. Mad killer
on board, better take care.
-
Let's hear one for the needle, boys;
I've still got the marks inside my
arm. 'It's my first day on the
job,' she says, 'it's going
really slow.'

911. PASSED OVER BY FIRE

PASSED OVER BY FIRE
(the Holy Ghost)
The wind came through on a pass -
welcomed by no one but present in spite.
Windows shook while the preachers spoke.
Bells rang themselves in a fury of noise.
A cat, creeping by, stayed as close to
the building's edge as it could.
-
If I could have Littlejohn's eyes, I'd
probably see just as well : all things,
intentional or not. Mrs. Wambercotey's
housedress flapping, the sauce in
the bib of her coat. What I could
do with such knowledge would
prove that knowledge is
power. Just like the
preacher just said.
-
Too bad they know
so little. Too bad
they know so
little at all.

910. TESTAMENTARY

TESTAMENTARY
Dark men in hoods, with their crazy lights in the sky.
I am aware of nothing, but I am aware of them.
I have seen the written markings, their ancient
plans of ships - brown markings on sepia and faded
parchments. Stories of the sacred seas. Stories of the sky.
When I went up to their craft, they seemed to welcome
me in, forcing me to sit in a bath made of silver or
lead. I was 7 years old, and, really, quite

dead - 'til they brought me to Life.

909. MORDANT TRESPASS

A MORDANT TRESPASS
I'm walking past the open fence as people stare
out - blank moons with strange lunar craters.
As I pass, they watch. But they are not real.
They are chimeras that I have imagined in a
real pursuit. In my actuality, I am alone,
inhabiting a world filled with figments
and nothing more. I nod; they speak.
'I have lost my garment and torn what's
left.' I smile, and am forced only
to say 'but you look so nice in the
rags you are wearing.' And, indeed,
she did. As, indeed, did they
all. Only I, myself, stood out -
singularly clad in a strange
raiment of gold.

908. OH MOTHER

OH MOTHER

(from 1958 'til now)

The guy at the corner, the guy at the

corner, driving his car through the

meat-store window. Mother, there are

a rather few things I've forgotten to tell

you - that little store is long gone, replaced

now by a derelict and quite shabby 'professional'

building, long after it was, for many years, a big

thriving, chain supermarket. In between, so much

like you and me, it was nothing at all. Also, I now

have noticed a few 'working' girls working the

corner, for the 'massage parlor' inside. Everything

like this is quite a joke. These girls disrobe for free -

only the rest you have to pay for. Professional fees

negotiable of course. Oh long-gone mother, does this

make it, once again, a meat market, and have we

really come full circle like this?

907. THERE'S NO MAD INTENTION IN LIVING THIS WAY, NO MAD INTENTION AT ALL

THERE'S NO MAD INTENTION

IN LIVING THIS WAY, NO

MAD INTENTION AT ALL

Like the forgotten moment's undertow;
'we may have built the pyramids just like
the pyramids built us. A magic confabulation
of mystical likes and dislikes. We confound it all
now.' Running trains on time, signing treaties
on nuclear arms and debt and trade, shooting
dissenters, or having them shot, from distant
windows and ledges and walls. In the long run,
all this nothing will make no difference, and, as
Keynes has mentioned before, 'in the long run,
we're all dead.' Just like the pyramids' magical
undertow, we have all been swept away.

906. MILLICENT

MILLICENT
She keeps running down - like a
tired dog, she slumbers. I watch
her with a mad intention of
magazine pages and notebook
sheafs. At a certain level, all
people look alike. Millicent tries
sitting erect; her thinly trod
pants, like leggings, grip her skin.
Her fingers try holding the newspaper
and the glass, together, as she talks.

905. TOUR

TOUR
It's sometimes hard to imagine
the whistle-stop tour stopping.
Or going on; continuation being
another matter entire. It's never
automatic - all along the way
we've got all those bills to pay.

904. DISCOVERED AT HEART TO BE A SIMPLE MAN

DISCOVERED AT HEART
TO BE A SIMPLE MAN
Yes, that's me. Inglorious and
found at heart to be. Satisfied
with where I'm going, able to
shuffle off at will, determined
still not to be seen. Back at work
and liking it. Seated at a miser's
desk and locked in at the knees.
-
Nothing much more controverted
than that. List of friends - meaningless
if at all; acquainted with doctors, none.
Able to speak with the bigwigs and
kings - 'fraid not and I'm not besot.
By these means, even I, to use an
Orwell phrase, keep the Aspidistra
flying, or at least elevated, or at least
at large. Elated. A simple man at heart.

903. DOUBTLESS HE WAS TAKING RUSSIA FOR AN ISLAND

DOUBTLESS HE WAS TAKING
RUSSIA FOR AN ISLAND*
No, that's not me, that's Baudelaire.
French gruesome politics in a most
laughing manner. This riposte means
more malice than you'd think. It's the
sort of thing we'd like to say, in private.
-
I am holding a bar of lead in my hand.
It seems to weigh about ten pounds -
a sash weight, an ingot for melting,
who knows. Having been found in
the back of an old truck, it means
nothing to me. Linotype machines
used to melt these down for hot-
liquid lead to make type. I know.
I worked one in 1967.
-
He seems to take Russia for an island;
asking if it were possible to get there by land.
-

*After 'At One o'clock in the Morning' ('A Une Heure
du Matin') - Charles Baudelaire

902. PLATYPUS

PLATYPUS*
(my philosophy is hatred)
You would ask why and what is meant.
I knew that : Greenpoint and Williamsburg,
they all ask at once. It's really simple.
Wherever logic and linear thought
raise their heads, I abhor.
The world is not a straight line
construction - nothing matching
hopes and expectations. Those who
say so...they lie. Their breath is
but expectoration. They speak with malice.

-

*After 'A Season in Hell' - Arthur Rimbaud

901. THE HERMIT

THE HERMIT
Why was I holding the moon in my hands,
and who was it said so? No more frozen
ground than this was there - iced intellect
and hardened emotion. I spoke, and in thus
speaking to clowns I withered. With so little
to say I moved on. Eating dead bones and
manners - or, gnawing like a dog on the past -
I busied myself with great things made small,
not small things made great. Tuxedo and top hat
not, formal clothing away - the eccentric mode
took center stage. Simultaneous and direct,
together, I broadly swept the stage. 'I am one
man, yes, but all my own, and that can be enough
to make the difference work.' I turned on all the
lights and set to endeavor my hearts and wishes too.
In no such condition was I to be found : this is
why the wise man hides away. This is
why the wise man hides away.

900. DOORWAY AND FENCE

DOORWAY AND FENCE
Henry and Mark and David.
Jane and Jill and Mary.
Simple names like these
establish presence.
I am looking through a
doorway by a prism of
light on the wall. The
afternoon sun reflects
itself back. Window.
Lamp. Door. Sill.
Chair. Outside, green
leaves ripple in the wind.
The white square of the fence,
it seems, keeps it all in.

899. WALKING MAN ZEN

WALKING MAN ZEN
Harrow.
Harrowing.
Harrowing flight.
Harrowing flight school.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing farmers.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing farmers harrowing.

898. 34th STREET BRIDGE

34th STREET BRIDGE
The bridge and its towers together
rest - stone, brick and metal sunning.
The people talk, looking for their places
this side of a university town. We are
really nowhere, yet I am with you; holding
bags, gripping a luggage - with my free hand,
touching your hair. It is like that, and I can
think of nothing but the future now. The
sound of a train floats in the air,
as traffic whizzes below.

897. ONE THING ABOUT L'AVVENTURA

ONE THING
ABOUT L'AVVENTURA
We go out, leaving through the central
doorway. She wears a white scarf,
entwined around her neck like the
tendrils of a vine. The noise of
shoes on flooring is heard.
-
Raucous behavior, I have come to find,
is not new : Edie Sedgewick and all that
crowd, in and of itself, tried defining
a time by just such antics. Something
about that book always had an ending.
-
Now, instead, I stand outside your
window, looking in. The most
beautiful people in the world,
and all their expenses, are lined
up at the marble counter. Each one
pays their price, and the Turkish
guy, the most suave gent there
is, kisses each woman, gently,
on the cheek as they leave.

896. DISAPPEAR BY INTENTIONS

DISAPPEAR BY INTENTIONS
The evidences of the aftermath remain:
names scrawled on walls, houses disfigured
by paint, vandalism at every corner. Two
old cars, down on their springs, sagging in some
corner lot. The schoolyard fence, fallen in, has
lost its basketball nets. At the corner, the old
red-brick firehouse marked '1894' stands
proudly but forlorn - bereft of any use
and meaning. Kids stare back, at nothing,
wincing to belch or throwing some
stones. It's now a cat-like world -
silent but for meowing, when not
chasing some useless yarn.

895. NOT HAVING DONE

NOT HAVING DONE
(no new enactment)
'Not having done a thing right all
day long worth doing blue under sky
patchwork raincloud vista rubric totally
mine. For now, the new robot rules
the idiot roost but no new paradigm yet
encampment seems in place SO I stand
aside and watch the sky - looking up with
hands at side : notice this they say and watch
fair clouds passing high distant jet plane looming
hawks and vultures and ravens; these things all
skinny-dipping in the Heavens. Why not I?
Then you : my silver-sleeved dreamer,
waltzing now slowly across a
glimmering faint light.'

894. CIRCLE

CIRCLE
(Gather up the men at Carston)
I am yours the way thread belongs to
this coat, the way the nail belongs to
the hammer. The cross to the beam.
The ice to the icicle. All together in
a togetherness - not that I know
what any of this really means,
but, in the manner of the
letters belonging to the
word, perhaps you
already grasp what
it is I mean.

893. FOOLISH DOGS

FOOLISH DOGS
Oarsmen to the helm,
jackhammers to the pavement.
See them go! Hear them work!
All things exist - just as we assume -
for this singular moment in time.
Edifying to think this way! No?
Foolish dogs. Sun in sky.

892. PIANO SPLICING

PIANO SPLICING
'We are breaking up the room
and the space and the sound too.
How? Why? There doesn't seem to be
a science-answer. And anyway all this
is not just physical.' There really was
nothing more to say.
-
Astral spectral solar fissure
space and time with that fleeting
hole of moment we live in. 'Momentous?
No, not always nearly not but
empty too just is.' Moment alone
by one - ten thousand splicing
like sound. Overlapping chords
and learning then to intermingle
singles. Notes like this run on
forever. Notes like this run on
forever. Notes like this run on
forever.....

891. THIS IS ALL CONJECTURE THIS IS ALL SHOT FROM THE HIP

THIS IS ALL CONJECTURE
THIS IS ALL SHOT

FROM THE HIP
Moments like this make me wince - preamble
and recitation and I did the yellow dishes in
the sink but wasn't happy about it HATE the
color too ! the landlord came down the
stairway saying your rent was due and I gave
him one in the face and a kick while he was
down - here's the tip - next month's rent in
advance. So I guess you're set. Do the
library rhumba now with Bobbie. It
never entered my mind that you could
fit through the mail slot - Jeez how
was I to know and why?
Just because you saw
me once doesn't
mean you'll see
me again.

890. AT JUNCTION CORNER

AT JUNCTION CORNER
This is wild country; this is crazy land.
I wanted nothing back, so gave as little as
I can. From serendipity to stupidity, most
any highway runs you there. Storefronts
closed by the mescaline police - gerrymandered
outposts of sadness and grief, an outlook of
dismay. The Civil War era opera hall yet
stands, oblique to its corner like any
angle on a stage of bamboo.
Catcalls from the fat halls.
-
Wham-bam gesture Sam,
acolytes in LaLa Land.
Hear the roaring crowd
explode. All applaud
this lonesome load.
-
This is will country; this is crazy land.

889. TIMOTHY

TIMOTHY
Take a pose. Any.
And they all roll in.
One after the other,
the Tinker Street crowd.
Swear they are happy, all.
Even about the snow in Buffalo.
-
There comes a point
(in every asylum) where
nothing matters any longer.
A residual timeclock is ticking.
-
The craftsman strolls in.
Plasterer or drywall, or something.
White painter clothes, tool box,
lunch box, bucket, container;
carrying everything in his rough,
knowing hands. Coarse by contrast
to the space around him.
-
Erudition and punctiliousness are
mainstays of another, far more
proper, time. And then here comes
Butler Kendrick, with all his savvy
saunter, to do it all again.

888. THERE WAS A TIME

THERE WAS A TIME
Time curved. Images arc'd.
Reality ducked and dove.
Nothing was to be what it
seemed. The first light of
Eternity dawning : before
meanings, before names.
One place. One person.
A vast homunculus of
dawning possibility.
All things. There
was a time.

887. PAIRED

PAIRED
I have been paired with a
magic symbol; we go everywhere
together I know. It never speaks,
just shines immaculate and pure
and pristine. A golden glow. A
vital sign. I'd never thought of
this before, and used to laugh at
all the rest : Immaculate Heart
of Jesus, Sacred Heart of Mary...
whatever all that might have been.
Now I've got my own sacred symbol;
my paired throbbing light from within.

886. PROPERTY IS THEFT

PROPERTY IS THEFT
He's that man with the new country ways,
says 'How come I never heard of Mount
Minuscule at all?' Petty criminals end up
in jail, big ones end up very rich. This was
like Preacher Jimmy Allen, straight
out of the Ozarks, to you. 'Shoutin' the
Word everywhere's I can!' - as he said it.
-
'That sleazy fucking Father Knows Best
pervert called me Princess. If he does
that again I swear I'll rip his throat out
somehow and stuff the opening with his
balls.'
-
'He don't mean nothing. He don't know
no better - it ain't anyways like a smoking
gun. He didn't touch you, y'know. Not like the
last time anyway, with my sister Eleanor.
When he was done with her that night on
the football field, she came home with a
big white stripe across the back of her brown
jacket, from the grass on the field, the lime line.
Should'a killed that mother-fucker then, for her.'
-
Two cars rumbled by - dust-jacket silhouettes
right out of some holy Detroit nightmare, thrashing
the dusty road all dirt and gravel, piercing the clear
air with their metal-plastic thrall.
-
'Just like that, I decided I hated him.'
-
One of the cars halted - a dead-black sedan - and
went into reverse. 'Preacher car, preacher car,
answered prayers here you are!' was heard right
before two shots rang out, the glass-shattering
retort heard on window and metal with gunpowder
shock, while inside the now-stopped car (a dead
stop, to be sure), slumped the body of Preacher
Ronnie McClure.

885. MOONLIGHT EXACERBATED EATING CONTEST

MOONLIGHT EXACERBATED
EATING CONTEST
Everyone took a number and then stuffed
themselves with cupcakes. Or at least
that's what the sign said. Everyone sat
down in a row and then drank gallons of milk.
Or at least that's what the newsman said.
Everyone fell over, writhing on the ground.
Or at least that's what the police report said.
Some new kind of witches, a coven of
harmless fools, a militaristic nature cult.
That was crowd talk. You pick.
-
This is what happens when Mankind gets
crowded, when too many people live in
one place, when neuroses and anxieties
have taken over and prospered.
Cows lick salt. Mankind licks
its own ill illusions. All
this, and a highway
runs past.

884. FREEDOM

FREEDOM

It's the sauce of a man that

makes the spice. Whittled to a

time of his own, space and locus

understood - 'to be, or not...' questions

nothing but the operation. The river that

runs and the woods that move, all flavor

the feeling of Mankind's mood. On the horizon

bleakly sunning, all doubt and reason do I see;

and in shackles, oh poor Liberty.

883. MALVERN HILL

MALVERN HILL
There was a bridge curving over
the river, right there, at Malvern Hill.
I know, I saw it, I watched and I
walked it. The most beautiful place in
the world - something even my
imagination could not take all in.
Like spread fingers split by a
beautiful sunshine, the arms of
trees sheltered all the world beneath:
bright light in the valley, bright light
up above. Past it all, a gentle people
went on their way - the masons and the
carvers and the painters and the farmers.
At the dirt road's edge, near the grand
yellow house, a single rooster
was pecking the ground.

882. ALL THOSE OUTSIZED HANDS

ALL THOSE

OUTSIZED HANDS
All those outsized hands, which know nothing,
which do nothing, are now outstretched as well.
They uphold what, I ask : the faint law of a
retribution, the thieving law of stealth and money?
If so, then we are accomplices just by living.
-
I have watched the criminal and the cop,
two sides of a coin, both go down. I have
seen the judge, gagged and withered,
dying in his robes. The legislator
on parade, a hangman's noose
around his neck.
-
It's all so very simple.
There's nothing
truthful left.

881. DARKNESS

DARKNESS
The man was saying: 'my mother had
an interior life all of her very own...'
I was wondering back to him - 'with you,
or without you?' And then, as the
colored lights in the room came on, I turned
and said aloud - 'for whatever purposes of
mankind or fate, it certainly couldn't have
mattered to her whether you were aware of
this or not, so why bring it up now? She's
long dead, and what do you know anyway?'
He seemed to shudder, and a look came over
his face - the sort of look that arises when
one knows one's been found out. 'I, I never
meant to suggest...' He began going on, and
I stopped listening. I realized at that
moment that most family matters are
bullshit anyway. No one knows
a god-damned thing.

880. THE WREN

THE WREN

The shy wren, singing.

My fingers, hurting and bent.

The laces of my shoes,

open and untied. So

much, together,

in one small place.

879. THE RAFT

THE RAFT
I am adrift. I am afloat on a sea of disapproval.
Disgruntled adults joined at the hips, children
too baffled to think. Past me, on the water's
flat surface, float layers of oily junk. The only
tools present are the new bludgeons of
both ignorance and delight. For
them, I am making a new
language indeed.

878. FOUNTAIN

FOUNTAIN

Well, I came here a wanderer and left just the same:

dazed, unfocused, without a rectification of means

or ends. High overhead, the red-tailed hawk has

just swooped - something monstrously graceful

to watch, though fiercely swift and sudden for the

poor baby squirrel. Enjoy the ride, my little brother!

He has taken you to Death!

-

Simply put, I sit around and watch what happens,

without a care for the value of the deed, or the

world. A powerful music courses my veins. Thick,

like the red-blood of certainty, or the slow molasses

of sureness. In there somewhere, because of that,

I sense some odd existential power I can never trace.

-

Maybe that is where the source of all things

comes from. A self-sustaining definition that

answers back to no one or nothing at all.

877. AS IF EVERYONE POPEYE

AS IF EVERYONE POPEYE
You can't make the transformation from the
railroad tracks to the superhighway by reading
magazines on the ferry, Captain. We all know that.
And I think, because of it, the entire world wilts.
-
The Sirens out on the Aegean - those august
things we read about but can never place -
their voices linger on the watery wind. I want not
to listen but do so anyway. I live. Time passes.
It's all a story I'm convinced, but not convinced of.
-
High overhead, while I sit at a roadside table, a
commercial jets tears the sky. Seemingly rugged, it
- right now - looks as delicate as a needle coursing
thread. I can almost hear each fiber pierced: a
sort of silent but lilting scream, like Nature itself
dying in a valley, or the Yellow River, undam'd,
breaking fierce once more over rock and land.

876. THE FRIENDS OF LIBERTY

THE FRIENDS OF LIBERTY
Amidst all sinister apparitions came forth this
day - preening like some peacock with plumage
bold and garish - to strut an obtrusive phase
across my silent, green lawn.
-
My reaction - instead of a selfsame nod or
one more yawn - was to run and hide to a
martial retreat, a frenzied trot, smoke flying
and horses wide-eyed; a Lafayette and a
Washington combined upon a revolutionary
field. All of this, and more, athwart some
frozen, lazy river, iced in by Winter's wrath.
Trentonians, even, perhaps but for a week
or two, my spirits acted as men bivouacked
now alongside a raging stream.
-
It cannot be : this Freedom was always too
torpid, like a Whitman indeed - splurging
homo sensitive greenbacks over baleful
young men, aiding the wounded and then.
"Urge and urge and urge; always the
procreant urge of the world...I effuse my
flesh in eddies and drift it in lazy jags."
-
What real difference, oh Sons of Liberty,
Daughters of the Revolution, what difference
does any of it make? What difference, in fact,
has it made? It's all in the sexual loins, these
meanings we seek for. I tell you, it's in the
loins indeed, for only there is Freedom's need.
-
So I wandered the glade, seeking the innocence
before it would fade. Though all had, by now,
been long gone. I carried through, I stumbled on.
-
'I hear the trained soprano. She convulses
me, like the climax of my love grip.'

*Walt Whitman

875. FRENZY

FRENZY
Pretend for a moment I am not me and
you are not you - what I am and what
you are. Eighth Street's old Jumble Shop
of course would have nothing on this -
a mass of apprehensions frothing over.
Mountains of transformations, appendages
not before heard of: Medusa heads of
our very own, with eyes for hands where
hands for eyes should be. (I tackle here
a shorthand with words even I cannot
fully understand).

*'An external object of any kind is an unsupportable abstraction.
In order to conceive the development of the world, in the service
of geology, let us say, we have to present it as it would have looked
had we, with our bodies and our nervous systems, been there to
see it. But to say that the world was as we describe it, a million
years ago, is a statement which overlooks the development of
mind. The nature of a rock, that is, depends on the nature of
the mind that observes it; we can assume that rocks were different
things a million years ago, because we assume that minds were
different as well.'

874. POLENTA MODERNE

POLENTA MODERNE
Would they have taken the half-life
of Eider and waltzed it away had he
been free? I rather think not. This
one-time, strange aplomb, nearly rare,
less than extinct but by a moment,
followed him down the corridor and
even out towards the gallows, post and
noose. And, incredibly, guards watched
as he side-stepped a puddle on the way
to his death. We, then, have nothing
more to show, nor hope for, on this
way past our own lingering lives.

873. WATERLOO AND GOD, FORTUNE AND VIETNAM

WATERLOO AND GOD,
FORTUNE AND VIETNAM
This beautiful late life on Earth:
I think that God is with me, waiting
on human things too. The curve of
that little, bared foot; that ripple of
indented skin and the pattern behind
the knee; the moist glisten of eyes.
A million other things as well, as wise.
We should not doubt for a moment the
presence of a greater sense, or this
little life on Earth imagined bears no
being. The watchful two - over there -
speaking quietly in their corner: pale
skin, quick chin, each detail formed
with care. An embodiment by another.

872. PARADOX

PARADOX
'The reader brings,
the writer sings.
Context is a factor
of a hundred things.'
They each have their little moments
at the side table where the dirge is
sung and oft repeated. One thousand
hands, bringing supplication to a small,
round, wooden table. I notice no man
stops for anything his quest. The small
votive light, as an incessant Buddha of
untanked desire, weems its flicker forward.
A highly polished marble presence remains -
'is Carrera marble ever used for floors?' - I wonder
to myself. The high loft-ceiling, arc'd, cantilevered,
whatever the terms this architecture uses, also
soars; like words of a prayer, like songs of praise.
Bird-high, lifted, wild, wide and witty. So many
things, falling together, that everything stays in place.

871. DEATH IS THE REMEDY ALL SINGERS DREAM OF

DEATH IS THE REMEDY
ALL SINGERS DREAM OF
Chloe and Simon both together.
They pace the floor like two mad
gendarmes on parade. 'Thinking
about leaving?' one says to the other.
'Oh, I have to. There are no choices left.'

870. DECLENSION 25

DECLENSION 25
Window glass strains the elements:
pictures distorted and we think that's
a bird - some thrush or a sparrow.
Can't see really, can't tell.
-
Fire-truck speeds by with that
city-blare so often heard: flames
or carnage or trouble somewhere.
Window glass strains the elements here.
-
A bus-load of prisoners seen turning
towards the Tombs: dark green bus,
windows wired before glum, dark
faces within. Time does its time,
yet time never wins.

869. MIRROR

MIRROR
I may once have been you; I cannot say.
That reflection within you, it won't go away.
-
Of what use is all this philandering possession?
Why do you hold this God-forsaken image
so fast? It moves, I think I see, only as I
do, or in its opposite, perhaps. Really, too
confusing to even hold my interest.
Were I to exercise my choices, I'd
have them out on you - you'd be
gone like the lemon icing on
someone's classroom cake.
-
There is very little wonder to this world.
What images do appear, find their reasons,
linger awhile, and - fatefully - do disappear.

868. CONFESSION

CONFESSION
There was a fire on the edge of the fire, the sort
of complication no one ever wants. A doubling of
intention, a twisted-twice force of trouble and ruin.
Small craft were falling from the sky, but, no, not
really. They were dropping trails of water or something,
and as the wet-trail fell, before dispersing, it almost
looked solid. I was a witness to this, but never
wanted to tell the story. That meant a reluctance
to talk to authority, and a really glum view
of the world. I'm quite comfortable
with all that, as such, the way
of the world.

867. ONE LAST MOON

ONE LAST MOON
Like a head in the sky hanging
and staying in place, or trying in
a solid desperation to do so, this
roundness remains suspended,
sensing a farce instead. Impassively
immobilized in the thick liquid of a
white, morning sky, a celestial blue sea,
dawn's quiet wakefulness, Nature's cure
sounding. We stand, remiss for sure, only
if, by a tactless avoidance, we miss
what overhead occurs.

866. WILLY LO MAN

WILLY LO MAN
Seeing Death of a Salesman as a
comedy to be withstood, it seems
to serve little purpose either to

applaud or hiss and boo. One or

the other gets you there - same
key, is it, for different doors (darn
now, I really forget), or same door,
different keys? No matter; the simple

drama increases itself at will.

865. ART LANSING

ART LANSING
I was there a while, and then I left
and another while, by Detroit, I ran
into Nathan. Nothing decisive either
way, just more of the same. The February
storms kept brewing - out over one lake
and back in on another. They took it all in
stride and no one thought twice. The dark,
red old bricks of the ancient brewery
building - all burned now - with its
blackened timbers still standing and
those bricks re-baked a darker red
towards black, stayed put. Trying to
find the NuLand Art Museum, I
at first thought that may have been
it - but it wasn't - though it
could have been; great
conceptual show, all
about burned-out
offerings and new
things to the
old Gods.

864. A THEORY OF ART DESIGNED TO UPHOLD THE VALUE OF SERENITY

A THEORY OF ART DESIGNED
TO UPHOLD THE VALUE OF
SERENITY
The ships are sailing where nothing
else runs...antediluvian smokestacks
and pennants with flames. They've
manned all the catwalks and bridges
with clumps of people now dedicated
to the onset of Love and Freedom.
-
Apparently - fleeting and gull-like
though this may be - I am alone in
sensing that nothing exists. Sensations
and manifestations, my flags and all
the buntings, have been scattered and
blown about. Distant, farther fields
await, someplace, where matter - like
the girl nearby, talking fast, to a friend -
takes yet another form.
-
This is both speed and stillness together -
everyone clapping in a soundless noise.
They've registered the floral path up along
the roadway to the alley. Those who
come first can pass. All others must
bow and genuflect or curtsy, as if
it was another place and time.
-
I sense nothing now left but a
rambunctious format where the
cut-outs used to be : and, oh, all
you empty-headed rascals, the
trimming and the cutting I can do
without. 'Where there are no bones,
anyone can serve a goose.' *

------

*T. S. Eliot (last sentence, marked)

863. A MANIFEST DESTINY

A MANIFEST DESTINY
This sky rolls over forever, stretching out
and crossing every great divide. There's not
a match for this : steeple, carport, ranch house
shed. Every acre for a fool, and an America
made grand again. Lockstep the darlings.
-
Thinking about it now - how the moment
is experienced, I really see nothing at all. I
need to say, first: 'how is it that I know?'
And every such useless question to the fore
flies high. My pestilential mind starts wandering.
-
And that's how things begin : 'Images,
connections, observations and conclusions.
The immediate feeling where Knowledge begins
is, I think, the first moment of a true observation.'
-
I regale you with scenes of a brook - an
avid distance - running quietly under a little
stone bridge, and the people, above, walking.
The moment slowly passes. Red plaid,
dark denim, flannel, and a shawl...

862. VOCATIONAL YARMULKE

VOCATIONAL YARMULKE
I am hanging alms over the precipice - ethereal
items of disposed-end dreams and dreamings
of you. I don't know why. The radio plays some
classical tune - a nasty romp of both viola
and oboe, or another concoction of sound.
In the small metal guardhouse, the black
watchman sits staring, a white plastic
coffee-cup in his hand. The contrast is
bleak, as he folds the contours of
his now-Sunday paper.
-
On the edge of my peripheral vision,
I note, a few families are passing by -
guidebooks and schedules in hand, they
avidly grasp their trade-marked pencils
to check off where they've been. The little
one is chewing gum, her bouncy skirt skipping
right along with her. Glumly, the mother and
father are trailing behind. The art museum looms.
-
A campus cop-car saunters along,
ever-watchful for the spite or the
arousal of something wrong, a thing
out of order, a synapse, perhaps,
disconnected. Wild things
grow wherever they land -
wanton, errant seeds,
all over this land.

861. GENESIS TWO

GENESIS TWO
I was reading today just how Science
always wants its proofs. That's okay,
and understandable too. I'm handed
coffee in a cup that is hot - 'don't
spill!' - That proof will do.
-
The morning light sits around like a
lion, waiting : paws neatly tucked and
eyes alert. The thick fog of a cooler
daybreak hangs along the canal waters
and Carnegie Lake, as a paint still waiting
to dry. Scientists will want their proofs,
and I'm still wondering why.
-
It was myself - I, me, damned - fusing
that light on the first morning of the
new world. I watched the jetty with
someone's intent, knowing all to be,
knowing everything still to come. It
went from the sky, and came away.
-
The scientist, still talking, says:
'If we can make the world anew,
if we find a Second Genesis, then
maybe, only then, can I believe
in the search for another world.'

860. SYMBOLISM

SYMBOLISM
(the Pathetic Fallacy)
We are ruled by only what appears; the
pathetic fallacy is all. Unbelievers strain
at nothing, and no leash holds. The symbolism
of want and figure - to wit, the Lie.
-
Indictment as such is forced upon us :
the schoolmarm saying: 'thank one of us
if you can read.' The home-schooled kid
that can read at three? Now whose thanks
should that kid be? Of course, we know,
she's not meaning 'read', she's meaning
'more; and only for me.' Once more,
the Pathetic Fallacy.
-
It's not that you read, it's what.
Can you even spell 'graffiti' my
fellow? 'Noxious writing, mold-
encroaching, destroyer of the common
weal; electronic momentary seconds of
half-distracted imagery...' There, I've defined
all that and just for you. Well, well, I don't
know. These burial mounds anyway
are all just noxious heaps.
-
Ah, but you seem to listen so well,
blond one, my morning dose of love
and honey. Such well befits the attitude
you display to my eyes. 'I am friend to
everyone, and with me stay; we shall
let our footsteps wander together.'
-
We are ruled only by what appears.
The Pathetic Fallacy, yes, is all.
('Wipe your hand across your mouth
and laugh; the worlds revolve like
ancient women gathering fuel in
vacant lots').
-
'The conscience of a blackened street
impatient to assume the world.'
This life, we must live, like a
flag unfurl'd. And I am once
more reading Wordsworth
with Eliot at four a.m. - like
tea with my coffee,
and then again.

859. COSMOASTRONATURALPHYSICS

COSMOASTRONATURALPHYSICS
[Oh I don't know and for what I don't know
I am calling you back - what I don't know
is why. The stars have a million reasons,
the depths of space, apparently, have but
one : homage and hindrance alike, a place to
hide things, a light-ridden cloth, a fabric of
globes. When the stars end, there is, still, light.]

858. WARRANT

WARRANT
It's not easy coming to terms
with old age - the wrangling divide,
choosing the theme, between tempest
and where to hang one's hat, on which
post, and - of course - for how long.
I warrant nothing but the bitches who
come forth. It's been a nice enough
ride but who knows?
-
'I sometimes hold it half a sin
to put in words the grief I feel.
For words, like nature, half reveal
and half conceal the soul within.'
-
I do not know if Tennyson
ever really laughed. I know I hope
he did. And I know that, humorously,
my own fingers do not hold as tightly
to time and death as did his.
-
When death comes greeting, I hope
it's on a coach of foaming froth,
on a coach of foaming froth
and nothing more.

857. WILLIAMSBURG

WILLIAMSBURG
This distressing animal alone does
its cart-bends beneath the evening stage.
One hundred and fifty people entered.
One fifty stayed. The intermission
never matters; it brings on other things.
-
I have no energy anymore, Alice.
When I stayed with the Jews in
Williamsburg, they tried to convince
me I had no future. They rendered
me thus obsolete, feeding me Psalm 88
with their fingers : 'I am a helpless man
abandoned among the dead, like bodies
in the grave, of whom you are mindful
no more.' Somehow this made them
satisfied. I, however, soon grew tired
of these Israelites (within this quaint
religious honeymoon I did my best -
neither soiling their daughters,
nor adding to their mess).
-
Outside this Quakerbox arrival
every new intention was written
on the wall : 'Come one to this
Gehennah, to Gan Eden come all.'

856. JUST NOW

JUST NOW
The brass band was playing
Old Man River down by the riverside -
a swatch of old guys beneath a shoreline
gazebo hung with bunting and flags. The
sort of down-home town square scene
one could find in a poster book of the
joyous American way. Marshall Flaghorn
came sauntering on - to introduce the act
between tunes. But no one is listening.
A few kids run off, a few pigeons fly in.
The slight breeze rustles in over the water,
making ripples along the surface run.
-
As I crested the hill, I noticed the soot
of some down-home squire. Nothing
very special, mind you, just another
riverfront guy - some concrete bust
of Napoleon on the rolling front lawn,
or one of those Gallic others running loose.
It's all made for a simple sauce - river
water running to mud, and the old canal
yet standing by. Those few turtles on
that sunny log? They seem to know
nothing about anything at all.

855. LOVER GIRL

LOVER GIRL
You. You. You.
I've changed so many things
now, even the mirror won't let
me look. An escarpment of mind
over matter, I suppose. What difference
does anything make? Breakfast in the
breakfast nook isn't like lunch in a
luncheonette. I carved this ring from
soap, so be careful with it. Like the
stain of a kiss, it will eventually wash
away. Eagle at night. Owl in the morning.
Tramps like us, and we like tramps.
Gone without warning.

854. SNUFF FILM

SNUFF FILM
The protagonist was already dead,
like Greek fish in a dockside webbing.
I hear that filthy sound: 'you make me
puke, barf asshole, and get that
rope from around my neck!'
The man in the manacle said to
me: 'Starlets always talk that way.
Little crumpet whores are good for
shit.' At first I was terrified...only
then I realized : at union wages,
this wasn't so bad.

853. HOVEL

HOVEL
Honey, it's all there: Give them a place
to live, the dreamers - though not for
long - any hovel will do, one being the
same as the next. The hallways, cramped
and narrow, should well contain them all.
-
I am listening to soundings on your
sluice-pipes, and then hot-dog Johnnie
comes home, sucking yellow Lifesavers
just to keep from breaking down. How
come, how come these people talk like that?
-
Yet, give them a place to live. Hollyhock
and Bleeding Heart - all those stupid and
quasi-religious garden plants make me sick -
like still another rendition of an 'April In
Paris' I disdain. Some soft-jazz over-arranged
voices done again by some bleeding-cunt
swooning. And no, that's not a garden plant,
though it should well be.
-
The cameraman is dizzy, from turning
'round and 'round, as he takes the
Kazan shot. The close-up fight is over,
now only the long-view will do.
-
'Do you have mine? Someone stole mine.
I think my landscaper stole it from my
garage, or took it from the shed, thinking
it was his maybe. Or something.
Do you have mine?'
-
As I said before: 'Give these dreamers
a hovel to dream in. Any place will do.'

852. SAILING

SAILING
Circumnavigate the globe, Magellan,
do it once for me; circumnavigate the
globe, Magellan, tell me what you see.
-
'I see the mist over the cemetery at
Grinnell - hanging low and clinging,
it cedes nothing. As thick and harmonious
as it is itself, it covers the very death
it conceals. I see the gulls and the terns
of eternity sailing ertswhile over western
seas rounding 'round this rounded globe,
perhaps, for you, then once for me.
For - other than that, why do they fly?'
-
Circumnavigate this globe, Magellan, oh
do it once for me. Circumnavigate the globe,
to tell me what you see.
-
'I see the steeple and the chapel in some
Hampshire wooded glade, the crotch of
endless mountains, and the valley in
the shade, and the child with his clover
staring straight the sunlight bright,
and the clutches of mother and father,
their tangled love within the night -
and these are each momentous things,
as embers burning bright. I have rounded
now this globe for you, but did I make it right?'
-
No, no, that was not a stipulation! 'I am drinking
cups of my own lost world. Whatever I do is stupid.
I cannot heed, I cannot genuflect (the Padre we had
brought along, Lord, I have thrown him overboard).'
No, no, let this situation heat up! 'I am frozen in a
mannered fear that keeps me steady, enamored,
here, and oh! there must be simpler things than this.'
-
Before the time I was born, if I was born at all,
was no more than an incendiary bas-relief
smoldering, and now I am ready, myself, for
a newer season of things - the matter-mark of
a modern man! I think I will circumnavigate
the globe, new Astrolabe in hand.
-
'Remember, you, how I have rounded shores
of far, illicit things - all hope and all surprises,
and the disappointments which they bring. Beware
then, 'ere you go, beware that western wind! It
can lead you where it wants to. You can never win.'
-
Ah! How like a thesis play conveniently proving its point
this all is coming to be. My words still wear the husk of
their ideas and all is not just for beauty and show. Nor
am I out to but prove a point. I illuminate instead
the experience of living today. And I am now
exploring on an inland sea.

851. LANDESMAN

LANDESMAN
I sense myself within the lines of
a Klimt; a painting both colored and
dour. Some ashen-faced woman, standing
straight, awash in luxurious color and fabric.
-
I sense myself within the lines of a Munch.
A fearsome, twisted, grotesque face arched
to a jagged yet silent scream. The inaudible
horror of the noise a painting makes.
-
I sense myself within the lines of a Picasso,
my half-witty face bearing two eyes at the
place my mouth perhaps should be; a fabric
of clown-cloth around my shoulders, the cap
of a foolish man askew upon my head.
-
What am I to do with all these things?
Images of far-away, bleeding from within
me, trying with no explanation to pin down
who I am and what I wish to be. Alas,
like a watercolor with too weak a pigment,
I am really, really nothing at all.

850. CHANGE THE CARRIER

CHANGE THE CARRIER
In Hiram's orchard, it would seem, there never
was time for a gleaning. The Magyar King was
freezing me out, and his sister was the girl
from Rheims, I only later found out. The
black car they'd arrived in had plates
from another state, and a sticker on
the rear which read - 'Alternate
Carrier Needed'.
-
When things like this lose their meaning,
the day gets confusing as Hell. Do
you remember Eliot's 'Lady of the Rocks'?
He'd named her Belladonna, 'older than
the rocks among which she sits', as
Walter Pater put it. On her dressing
room walls hung the 'withered stumps
of time', and all her 'strange synthetic
perfumes' are mentioned. That was
but the entry to the era just lived.
And now it is all gone.
-
There was a runaway dog barking hard
on Charlton Street. I saw it moving its
jaw, making such noise as if anguish
was its daily food. The withered
leaves were falling all around it.
It seemed, again, as a
changing of seasons
should seem.

849. KETTLE FISH

KETTLE FISH
Kettle fish, the mystery of life, the huge
ocean trading its oasis for the space of
the whale and the porpoise. Looking over
the horizon, landward, I realized how far
I'd gone - it was only a rumor, this
land-mass over the sky. A place for
feet and purpose, where ideas are
brought to try. I turned again to
my right to speak to the wounded
mate, still bleeding slowly from
that cut on his thigh. 'I know
I'll not make it back, my
friend, but at least you
can give it try. Give
my regards to....
Broadway,
isn't that
what they
cry?'

848. MARKERS

MARKERS
Nothing comes from nothing, it's said.
I believe that like I believe hams can fly
or pigs sprout wings. Your mania for
recognition reminds me of a movie mag
in 1948. Dark shots of a famous woman
in a kerchief, sternly glaring back into the
camera's face. All for naught and
no one cares about a thing.
When they first made the Eiffel Tower,
they made it out of glass. In a
certain French light, deep afternoon,
one was able to think it wasn't there
at all. The light ran right through it, the
obstructions were gone - nothing
there against the sky. An awesome
Gallic mystery it was.

847. DID WE MEET?

DID WE MEET?
Eyes open, hands extended, it must have
been a moment. The scene was in a glade -
bright sunlight, a few birds gone crazy
with noise. I'd just awakened from a
hundred-year sleep, and already
wished to go back. My identity was
some fluorescent bower, lilting and
easy, already moved by nothing.
You had a Springtime face, one holding
lilies and light, spangles and love.
I bowed to your glow, and left
it at that. Where did this happen?
Did we meet as a fact?

846. CANTIOKA'S SCREED

CANTIOKA'S
ANTI-IMMIGRANT
SCREED
(an overheard verbatim)
"What writers used to do, bomb-makers and
gunmen now do. They have taken the territory
once inhabited by writers : entering the inner-life
of the culture. We are, by reflection then, so
lost as to be obscured, so vile as to be obliterated.
In fire. In blast. In all those things fast. Unrecognizable?
The wind in the marsh trees has more sense and
presence now than we do. We should execute the
bureaucrats and careerists and just walk away
from it all. But yet, alas, it is really ourselves who
have, after all, allowed this to be. Taxpaying
trinketeers and moralists of malaise, claiming
to be yet free!
-
And now the fast-talking Spaniard steps in.
But these alone are not the men from Spain;
these instead are a South-American mixed
race crazed mestizo Andean Peruvian Mayan
Colombian Hispaniola horde with all their
little women and carriages and babies and
bales. There is nothing to be done, it is
already too late. They sit, these migrant,
errant laborers, and try to read the language
on the wall, locate a place, find a reference
they can keep in this unknown new land.
'Yet we are human!' they mutter, 'and so
we are', they say. All of us are, I answer,
but that so little matters here, it's just not
worth the saying. Your meaningless
countervailing brings us down."

845. WHEN

WHEN
A priest-bound empire of necrophiles
worshiping a grotesque pantheon of
animal-headed Gods. At least they've
gotten rid of the animal-headed Gods;
though they now instead teeter on the
pinpoint of entertainment faeries. And
though we generalize the interview and
the interface with 'God' (now itself the
surviving One) we know that no answers
are to be forthcoming. A strange and
silent universe we inhabit.
-
So, really, the dummies are in control.
The beautiful girls in thongs and underwear
shirts are now our Virgin Marys and we
sluice-pipe fuck them when we can. And
in the can if we can. It's our pornographic,
prophylactic world which has gone crazy,
not us! Oh, Irony abounds! Now God is a
capeador, a rumor-mongering bastard;
these days anyway.
-
It serves us right; the world's gone foul.
We stand on edge, and try to howl.
It's all we can do to remain centered,
as the Sun - it has been found -
really does revolve around us!

844. GREATER ISRAEL

GREATER ISRAEL
I watched the movie running on -
the Balfour Declaration, Herzl, Begin,
all of them schmucks alike. It was funny,
thinking of Irgun with a gun. Some
scalding coffee in an orange grove, sands
blowing onto the leafs of foreign trees.
I used my saliva to clean the screen,
not sure what I was seeing - dust on glass,
or the irreverent interference of some
outside force muscling its way back inside.

843. WHAT I WANTED TO SAY

WHAT I WANTED TO SAY
What I wanted to say - mostly - was
pain and hurt and solitude. Those top
three listers are my personal triumvirate.
I wash my hands with a rough soap,
but nothing cleans the mess : water in
the drain, as if speaking to itself, goes
round in riddle-like motion, finally ending
up gone. How like adulation all that can be.
-
God, how everything hurts. The migraine waves
of an ocean-space within, pounding and retreating
and pounding again.

842. THE DIRECTOR REACHED A HUNDRED

THE DIRECTOR
REACHED A HUNDRED
Not without a doubt did the circus-lines
cross and the old, foul man come stumbling
in. At five-fifteen I sat on a bench. Two
men like that who were hiding. All
Life is a mystery to me.
-
The bus - a town bus, local - ran by
secreting tears and noise. Windows
pinched out little faces looking this
way and that. The federation of
trees around me winced : 'these are
all such simple people', I thought,
complexly, to myself.
-
I want to ask the finance man why he exists.
'Little fellow next to me, let me comment
on your eyes. Each day another newspaper,
another set of numbers, another peek at
such unreal figures? No? Have we not yet
reached an end? For this is a sadness
I too am part of.'
-
The circus lines (this time, this tiny circus),
are taken down, and the tent falls in the
old man's eyes. Yes! Yes! The tent falls
in the old man's eyes, (which now are
both gently closed).

841. PEOPLE TALK (the meaning of things...)

PEOPLE TALK
(the meaning of things...)
Xerxes was flipping quarters at
the corner while Rashmonda watched
the garbage truck cruise by. There was
no winning for endings, nor any threat
for beginnings. And the scar on his hand
just grew larger not less. These then are
the qualities of things : what we cannot
carry goes as we enter the depths of
our own sensations. And that ! is
the meaning of things!

840. TOLLER WAS APPALLED TO DEATH

TOLLER WAS APPALLED
TO DEATH
Dorothy Thompson, Lady Astor, H. G. Wells,
Ernst Toller. Oh dear, I could go on.
A stupid, useless list of old names and
the people attached to each. Ernst Toller
hanged himself, in 1939 at the Mayflower Hotel.
His fate was to love the world and Mankind and
most unhappily...with incredulous eyes. What
they saw appalled him. He was appalled to death.
-
Yes, and then so am I. No whitewashed
fences will fool me here. I sit in Lady Wilson's
garden, watching curtains of flowers grow, and
I wonder why and what they are. I should be
so moved. Liquid crystal cellulose held firm
in the shape of leaf or bloom - but not too
firm, as I can crush them with my fingers, see.
As Life can crush me. As the Sunlight is hot.
As the burden is oppressive. As my eyes can see.
I am appalled to death. I am appalled to death.

839. THE SWEETEST ANIMAL EVER

THE SWEETEST
ANIMAL EVER
And all things are blocked off :
my veins are clogged, arteries filled,
capillaries jammed, organs wasted.
No different than any of the rest, I
will die saying fulsome prayers to an
animal God. Filled with loathing, one of
us, anyway - either this God for me and
my kind, or me for whatever that Word represents.
Disgusting Kingdom, spectacle of lies, mis-represented
natural states, bastard men taking advantage, cheaters and
killers, mother-fucking soldier-types stealing from Mankind,
even in the name of this God, missionary nit-pickers knowing
it all. I stand aside from everything I see. Lost in grace, I be me.
-
The only true capital is Creativity; that
intuitive longing for place and time, that
far palace of the sun, that fair Kingdom, set
on a distant hill. High atop a distant hillside, I am
secure and confident (and distant too) - and I
only know that what will do is the making of
a system of my own, for that of another man
will never do.

838. THIS CHILL-OUT DOCTRINE I'VE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT

THIS CHILL-OUT DOCTRINE

I'VE HEARD SO

MUCH ABOUT
Durable fantastic and all the cartoon characters
one could want, most ably waiting at the
corner stoplight. The Magnolia tree I see
has dropped all its petaled blossoms to
the ground. The sight - now upon that
ground - is awesome still and the scent
still bravely roils the morning air. The
black, metal fence - old style and right -
itself too gets proudly petal-draped.
-
I haven't the matter to make a
motion nor - mainly a care in
the world. The spin-top rotates
its virtue on an Earth which - for
all purposes here - might just as
well be a tabletop flat.

837. NOW YOU DID IT

NOW YOU DID IT
Mantle-max the monstrance Michael.
Now you've really done it; the stained-glass
window man is coming at us, spewing forth
his ridiculous information while asking
where we're from. I say nothing. You
answer, 'Oklahoma'. He buys it all, I
guess based on your silly fake accent.
Being a 'tourist' was never this
much fun. They were having,
right then, a 'wedding', he said.
Could we please come back
another time to look at
the stained-glass
windows?

836. THIS IS HAPPINESS

THIS IS HAPPINESS
Mark your choices, all you separate Gods;
this is the one steely place in which evidences
reside. The signification of the riverside, the
flat, planar reality of the lagoon or the bay.
-
You should have known all this before you started -
thus I can only assume you did. Full knowledge, due
diligence, all that sticky and usual legal stuff.
The swoosh of the baseball man's mitt, the crack of
the bat, the sound of the swallow, the crash of a car.
There is nothing, really, dividing the dark from the light,
the sound from the fury or this today from the
yesterday that was, no wasn't Either way, the grand
fable continues in a soft, joking voice. 'I live inside
a bubble of summer even in winter.' And that little
boy, who turned out to be, in fact, a cross-eyed,
albino philosopher spouting lyrics to Irish songs, he
was really my heart, at full sing-song tilt, running on.

835. TRAVELING MIDWAY

TRAVELING MIDWAY

My raiment is your blue coat.
Swaddled in a form of human ash,
the light coating becomes us both -
we look best in this light dusting,
an elemental brush of mortal man.
-
It is swingtime in the country. The guy
with the fiddle is tuning up, while a
few others are throwing hay-bales around
the old dance-barn floor. Ladies with pies
make an entrance.
-
From Oklahoma and Missouri to Texas,
it seems, they know best how to do these things.
Animals laze in the nearby fields, while the
fiddlers and the dancers play.

834. ADDLE-BRAINED CORKSCREW CONFUSED MONSTER-MAN

ADDLE-BRAINED CORKSCREW
CONFUSED MONSTER-MAN
There was a time when, between moments of clarity,
my raging sensations made me seem quite mad.
My father had me sent away, my mother wrung
her constant hands in anguish - it was always
as if the 'other' shoe had not yet dropped.
Perhaps they thought I would blow up the world.
Her washcloth and dish towel, I remember, used
to hang distended - one around her neck, one over
her wrist - as she cried. Mostly about me, and the
anguish I was causing. All of this made me feel quite
bad, yet I could never articulate my pain.
My father, after the occasional beating
he'd inflict on me, on the other hand,
never said a word - certainly no 'I'm
sorry', and nothing that ever, in any
way showed reflection of what had
been occurring. Eventually, I
went back home with them.
-
No sainted martyrdom was ever more pathetic.
My life was a sorry spectacle, and I grew in
clumps I couldn't recognize. A few years of this,
one of that, another that - anger, hurt, creativity,
compensation, existential rage, love, lust.
Everything a'kimbo and all jumbled harsh
together. I was my own worst guardian,
oftentimes not on speaking terms
even with myself.
-
Addle-brained corkscrew confused monster-man.
Confusing, mixed-up, angry, delinquent vogue boy.
All those things, and so much more, they said, was I.

833. PINCUS BARKER

PINKUS BARKER
I am dissolved in flames.
I have left my notebook
at home. To itemize for you:
it is blue and on its cover is a picture of
some buildings now long gone. The binding
has become quite weak, so that the pages move,
sometimes up and down but most often sideways.
The hand on each of the pages is my own - black pen,
lines and lines of words. Here and there a drawing.
Of something. Whatever. Tales, poems, stories, notes.
-
I cannot usually be this clear abut anything.
The simple cataloging just now done has been enough
to drive me quite and veritably nuts. Distracted.
Annoyed. Usually, by some form of a vague,
broad-ranging intuition do I do such things.
For me, my fellows, life is simpler that way.

832. THE ODDS OF ILLUSION

THE ODDS OF ILLUSION
(Gnomes)
Don't just count the gnomes, knock them
over and destroy them. The odds of
illusion are in your favor : a makeshift
factotum, which is yours for the taking.
The altar, I swear, was burning.
-
The hem runs too fast at situations
like this : a swoosh and a swirl, a
gingerly girl twirling about in the sun.
-
Artificial tintypes would do this scene no justice.
-
Two swift brothers were walking by, all eyes :
nosy noses, into everything peering and
'had to know'. I cannot say this sort of thing
in certain polite company, or shouldn't,
so I won't, thus didn't.
-
Guess what, Nicole? You have beautiful wandering
breasts - let me think to say - 'wandering out
of their shirt this hot today.' We each live,
and we learn, I'm thinking. The sterner
fat, over the open flames, drips
to the bottom of the pan.

831. A MERE BAGATELLE

A MERE BAGATELLE
You weren't supposed to notice how this really
sounds like a Mid-East person's name instead
of what it is - Emir Bar Gatelle, or something.
Yet, despite talking, the Sun paints a yellow on
the sitting room's fancy, the light in the glasses
clinks. The man selling rosaries two doors down -
he's still running that stupid Christmas lightning
nightly on Nassau - walks around like a dwarf
looking for height, nodding and reaching. All I
can do is assume he's (Good-Great God) praying
again! It's two holidays later and he's still lighting
up the night. Fitful buggermaster, I'd bet.
-
It happened once at the harem. And Buddha
arm-wrestled Jesus, while the winner took
on Mr. Mohammad. Thirty-seven and sixth-tenth
Virgins were ready, in Heaven, to assault the victor.
Or, something like that - I really forget how it went.
All that pathetic Doctrine knocking and banging
inside my head. I want to run home screaming!

830. THEY WERE PLASTERING THE NEW PLASTER WITH PLASTER

THEY WERE PLASTERING

THE NEW PLASTER

WITH PLASTER
(Talent)
I didn't know why. A good dose of something
bad had gotten to me. I cursed even the
swagger of the Sun and Moon. Looking
for Gods, I checked my cards.
-
I motioned to Philip Guston, and he stopped
what he was doing, came over, and laughed
at my cartoon. A big-footed man was trying
on a very small shoe. 'If I bought five of these,
I could at least cover my toes.' The caption,
we agreed, wasn't really worth
the price of admission.
-
The same thing happened when
Sunday arrived. We talked about
Nietzsche and his 'Theory
of Eternal Recurrence.'

829. CRAZY MAN BLUES

CRAZY MAN BLUES
Don't [please] go by me [now], I'm crazy.
I froze in July. Membo-premaic cozy
was I - shrugging the froth right over
the open. My fantastic nightmares, remember,
were your pork-lined simulacra [forced by
meta-matter really shagrid hooey]. I rode
in my Ameriko lines on your chop suey.
[Can I hold your hands yet, Madame Cantooey?].

828. DOUBLE AMALGAMATED SWEETNESS FACTORY

DOUBLE AMALGAMATED
SWEETNESS FACTORY
How they came in hordes, those minions -
walking bared planks to ship-berthings and
wild docks. Some sailed and died, some
managed, some puked and survived.
We had children born and doused
below deck too. It was a crazy
cantilevered passage both
bitter and hard - like
this life too, but with
a promised place on the
other side, on that other
shore : unknown walkings
brought this fervid tribe to
fruition. Harbor, heart, homeland,
homage (but Heaven, not quite).

827. EASTER

EASTER
Geometry is an asteroid devoid of
form, chunking its way endlessly on a
winding trek through a darkless void.
I hear a voice discoursing on matter,
and I want to wonder too - 'what
really is the matter?' At Easter,
they say, even the bread has to
rise, and the river, and interest
rates, and all the rest. Dead again,
oh, dead again, really, everything
must rise again. Now, tell me,
what actually is the matter?
Geometry is an empty void
chunking its way on a winding
trek through matter. Dead again,
oh, dead again, now everything
must rise again.

826. THOSE ORIGINAL MAFIA TRANSACTIONS

THOSE ORIGINAL
MAFIA TRANSACTIONS
...They kept me from sleeping right, left me
always on edge - the orange powder in
the coffee, the bullets kept in the bottom
of Lorenzo Laurentia's shoe. On the corner
of Baxter or somewhere I'd just as soon
forget - near where Orange Street once
used to be - they gunned down Ace Lombardi
and his butcher and his kid for something three
years back. I could never figure these things out.
-
It's not a man of strength who keeps things
going, I've noticed; it's the strength of Man.
It's not a Living Will you need, it's a
will to live indeed you need.
-
'Gates of Heaven/Eternal Light' was the
cemetery these assholes used. They may
as well have been walking a Disneyland of
Crime, for what it mattered - all that pomp
and circumstance, carloads of flowers, arms
under the elbows of some weak and willowy
widow. For nothing it was, no more than a
Pope's obeisance to the Divine and Death :
something that axiomatic, the circular ramblings
fully reflective only of the true nihilism within.
Dead bodies carpeted with stone.

825. THE VILLAGE OF ERSATZ

THE VILLAGE OF ERSATZ
Sable mushroom tree-bark branch;
flowers across the landscape, and a shed.
Looming, at the edge of the scene, a bell-tower,
a campanile, something which looks as if it
was there for five hundred years.
Of course, it wasn't. This entire
place was only groomed and
put together last year. Like
a fake wine in an ancient
flask, it's an easy trick,
until you ask.

824. I'LL HAVE THE MAGIC POTION

I'LL HAVE THE
MAGIC POTION
Standing at the brick wall, with the
yellow and blue grafitti all over it,
those two fellows look like walk-on
characters in a play of someone's dream.
Bad or good, I'll not say, but I like it either way.
I watch their hands as they're turning something,
each, over and over. I don't realize what it is
until I watch them really closely - and notice
they're each holding kittens. Playful-stage kittens,
not too young and not too old - kittens who still
cavort and chase with their eyes and paws.
'How'd they end up with those?' I ask
myself, of the two guys. The
answer I get is direct and potent:
'We painted them, and they came to life.'

823. REGRETS AND MORE

REGRETS AND MORE
Ahead of a million miles are a million
more - meaning, I think, that one never
gets where one's going. Although it never
feels like that - all the burden is felt behind
and not so much ahead : where the fun's
supposed to be. I wash my hands of that.
-
Periwinkle and willow.
An old farmhouse at the
edge of a stream and meadow.
Together they've probably fought
five-hundred storms. Wind-whipped,
cyclonic, crazy atmospherics. The fog
ripped through here, one March, like
a fiery furnace on legs of steam - a
weather-born locomotive ripping and
clawing at each item in its path.
Everything survived.
-
I realized, just as quickly, that I'd
mixed things up one too many times:
metaphors, people, situations. As soon
as I had spoken, I realized the wrong
words had just left my mouth. Well, I
guess you can't blame an orphan for
its parents, nor blame the tiger
for the lamb.

822. YOUR BROKEN BROADWAY RECORD

YOUR BROKEN
BROADWAY RECORD
A waning moon rides over the open
field in the early morning bright; the
flat water too dazzles. Someone's
shimmering light, Gatsby-like, dances
over the wet expanse. Reflections ripple
as things appear to gobble each other up.
Colorless light, light with color, no matter.
We remain - the sum total of all our moments
as people. We drink, therefore, from a cup -
a final goodness, a thank-you fellowship, a
summing up of grand polity and grace, together.
-
I cannot watch the kick-steps the wild
chorus-girls are doing - no Sunday In
the Park With George for me. This so
quickly turns ribald and raw. I ache, in a
never-ending tooth-like pulsing, and
want relief. Can you hand me that
Broadway moment, please?
-
The quick-talker eludes - his
fast words escape both meaning
and full intention. Such park-bums
in Summer just say what they
will, say what they say.
-
'Beneath the lilies and antelopes and
blue monkeys are darker things :
the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the
double-faced axe inscribed on
an ancient death-sacrifice pillar.'
It would seem, (would it not?), that
all of this remains OK with me.
I am the voiceless one, the
mute disciple, the monkey
clambering now up that
slick, greased tree.