1106. MEMORY

MEMORY
(all those old gangs are gone)
How many times I tried to cross your
body-blow that way - over the lawn,
past the landing, down to the pond. The
shapely Springer Spaniel ran to the well
once more with me, sprinting above the
field : we called him, because of scenes
like that, 'Riser'. Everything seemed new
again, and it all meant so much. Each time
I saw you, I would genuflect, and I never
knew why - though I sensed something
amiss. Then one day, like from the
Finzi-Contini's themselves, some
soldiers came and took
everything away.
-
How tempestuous do you wish it to be?
A fearsome faction? Some broken and
fragmented moments, recalled only later
in fascinating horror? Norman Mailer once
was heard to say - in a retort to the tumult
of his times - 'the best cure for cancer is
cannibalism.' He'd meant that the sickness
of his times, his years through the 1960's,
was so malignant that it had run through
all of society - the Left and its hippies
and yippies, and the Right with all that
Wallace and Nixon and Reagan stuff -
and now feasting upon it, from either
direction, consuming as well each,
other was the only way to cure it.
Thus the cannibalism he cited.
-
And probably right yes too.
I miss old Norman, and all his
pugnacious stuff - the bluster and
the homage and that grand old Brooklyn
waterfront promenade old home comfort;
those big, fat ideas and that crazed
ruminative puff.
-
How ferocious you want it? I haven't
heard you say. You've got bullets and
baldercorn, malarkey and fire - each
opposite's intention to aspire. Of course.
1950's teenage Spic hoodlums hanging out
in alleys where now Lincoln Center is, old
San Juan Hill I heard; and the old Dago Wop
killers, lurking at 116th, or far downtown, in
their cheap Italian dens, Mott and Elizabeth
and Sullivan and Prince - all streets from Hell.
Now fighting with Chinks. And all those downtown
dumb maniacs forgetful of both Death and Time.
-
Spinning spoked hubcaps and baby moons in
the constable's face, and whitening Blood Alley
with lime to sop up the blood and the juices.
Carnage and death make no difference now.
Now they're all ghosts, same as their fathers
before them. And I can only live in memory :
before the roads were paved, before the
intersections made. That's what it takes, with
a five in the hand and one memory grand -
a time to go to after the gangs disband.

1105. HOMO FABER (Man the Maker)

HOMO FABER
(Man the Maker)
I may have found the workman's hat,
landing as it were on water. A very
small moment and a very small wind,
pushing forward through the slog of time.
How well we thicken the soup of the
matter we live : girders and concrete,
wide panes of blue glass, doors made
and rimmed by metal frames and braces.
-
Many years back, when Adam was but a
wee lad, the land stepped forth free and
ample and wide - unfettered occasions
made better by all those firsts and
singular moments. Ah, but then it all
passed - the routine of the drudge,
that serpent we hear of : the
marker of the maker and
all mankind too.

1104. GIMCRACKERY

GIMCRACKERY
Fizzle. Swazzle.
Lend a hand. The
fat black fellow in
his gabardine, looks
like nothing but
down and mean.
The old landscape
passes; dirty birds, its
oily waters and marsh
grass bending to filth.
They build to the edge,
then they charge for the
ledge, and let you look
out on their nothing.
-
Fizzle. Swazzle. Lend
a hand. They come by
the hundreds to piss
on your land.

1103. CHILDLESS EYES

CHILDLESS EYES
And now you've really done it:
kept the door from closing, kept
the lights from going out, kept the
ancient waters running. Frank Lloyd
Wright and Falling Water could have
done it no better than that - water running
beneath the structure, undermining nothing
all the while, running. It's a magnificent aged
architecture I'm looking at. Not a sag nor a
pinch anywhere. Beams all in their perfect

circumspection, standing straight and

carrying every load.
-
I want to say, by this :
'these are truly gracious times', but
of course there is no grace left. In
fact, there is nothing worth saying
to say : 'about that which we cannot
speak, we must remain silent.'

1102. SYNAPSE DISCONNECT

SYNAPSE
DISCONNECT
I've had it with the jails and the gaols,
the goals and the holes, and all that
light from the Heavens to which
we're supposed to be striving.
Twist those limbs back again;
the snap is what we've achieved.
-
No more any longer no more.
The iron has covered the island,
and the man with one leg stands
astride at the port. A peg for a leg
and blue glass for an eye, in rags he
looks richly askance. Rightly so.
-
Meander me for a mile or more, oh
crazy hawk soaring. I'd not have seen you
on the crest had I not into those Heavens
gazed. Echoes of the past, indeed.
We know no more than what
we did before.
-
And now, my synapses,
they disconnect.

1101. AUTHOR

AUTHOR
Would I authorize the writer to
sign the sheet? To endlessly plant
words where nothing can ever grow?
Yes, in a certain fit of spite I would.
Only because of this : the world is a
frightening place, a narrow shitted-up shed
filled with the awful debris of dog and the
doggerel of the cat and the mouse. All those
creeps who stand around a bar and cheer
at a screen overhead. What philosophy is this?
A tandem wrangle with a drunken God, an ancient
Norseman in his night to speak of deep nothings
and cataclysmic heights? I have nothing, and was
given nothing and - thereby - have absolutely
nothing to give back. to wit : I am done.
You can say you knew me when.

1100. WRITTEN IN A RUSH AND FAST SOMETHING TO REMEMBER

WRITTEN IN A RUSH AND FAST
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
I am afraid of not loving you :
hypnotise me, you fool.
Ask me anything you want.
The new water washes the
old well well. Therapy
for angels and demons.
-
Staggered failings and all
the lightning in the world.
What else do you want
to remember?
-
When the rubber hits the road, Iris,
I'll be thinking of you, and those
words and those motions and
that smile and those keys :
the tree limb torn from
the tree, that open,
gaping wound,
that scar on
the jagged
bark.

1099. NATHAN CHISELWHITE

NATHAN CHISELWHITE
He hammers the downbeat broadly, enacting any
profusion of sound : native endearments, wild
emancipatings, loud and raucous yells. Bring
them all out - the children and mamas and
whores all together. Make but one garment of
a many-woven eccentric tray. Red thread.
Green thread. Barely conscious fabric.
-
I am the swami you met in Idaraputi;
do you not recall?

1098. POSITIVELY

POSITIVELY
...Fourth Street was a bust
and Thunder Road's been paved.
I see all these starlings hustle,
trying to make the grade - but
there aren't enough nights in
Eden to go around, and that
black nigger-train you mentioned,
it's been gone long ago : it is no
longer found, and slavery's been
pinched, so stop singing your
southern songs. As just an instant
ago, it seems, I averted narrowly
the horror you sought, everything
now seems calm, as it ought. Do you
hear? Can you stand 'til tomorrow?
-
The horseman in green in his
rock and roll seat, now he means
nothing, and the children are dead,
and the shadows are beat.

1097. POINTS UNKNOWN

POINTS UNKNOWN
In a high relief, these are moments of one remove,
notable and noble, and worthy of comment
and constant too. Like a great firmament in
a deep, dark night, illumined by great brilliance
from some other, outside, force, a sudden
grand amazement hits me like a shudder.
I am not one alone but one with everything
now everywhere showing : the grand effluent
of the cosmic mist paints high the world
with its meaning. Stars now sizzle and fixate,
a reality broken by nothing. I travel the
kingly ship drawing its source away.
Like eyes, the brightness around me
lights up an otherwise barren world,
one jagged and sundered, bereft, left
to dangle in a blackened sky.
-
What is it you would have me do?
No, I have already done all that.
Marketing spheres, erasing time and bringing
things back, that would do nothing for the day;
revolving domains, broken trees, dirt in patches,
and watery streams dripping filth - what we have
made of all things is simply a bad husbandry.
Never too late, it is always too late nonetheless.
This world will end with a blink and a tremble.
Twisting consciousness back upon itself, a
new turn will simply recreate the old. We are,
again, held at bay. We wait, in shackles, this better,
new day. I cannot guarantee the light nor the
effort, but I ask for your forbearance.
-
Try drying tears, and you will see they do not dry.
They manage to stay and moisten the eye long past
the occasion of their coming. We are so much like that:
commingling within ether and air, dogs barking, clouds
at play, wistful mountainsides watching out. Everything
new is old again? Yes, yes, the backward passage of time.
-
Bundle me not with your old memories.
They are faded and gone, to be filled with
a solace not to be understood. I peer back from old
photos, only to see your shaded eyes : like the doctor
on that Gatsby billboard, that passage of a Fitzgerald
moment, nothing is what it seems and we all lay down
now in the great valley of ashes. Our own though it be,
a valley of ashes nonetheless.

1096. ONCE CAN I SAY THIS

ONCE CAN I SAY THIS
Fine computer logic hanged be damned
and hanged again : staccato wildfire purging
the oceans of everything left. The shed door,
ajar and swinging, brings forth an empty
hollow bearing darkness bleak and bare.
That sleeping figurine upon the lonely floor -
only a single dead mouse, curled and withered,
so sad to be seen dying now dead just like
sleep. I bent to cry and feel. I bent to feel
something : emotion within logic within both
time and place. It matters not that we live on.

1095. WANTING

WANTING
I ran away with nothing, hardly looking
back : my past shoulders bore many a moon,
half, full and everything in between, but none
of them had a voice. I sought you out in
bazaars and souks, everywhere turning to look.
Garments strewn over racks, spices and
herbs, powdered and bottled, the great
smells of all the world. In the building on
the cliff, the woman ringing finger bells
and finger cymbals, seemingly oblivious to
anything around her. I wished I was there
forever. In the wind, in the small rain,
prayer flags hung from a string.

1094. MAIDENHEAD/THE BOWER

MAIDENHEAD/THE BOWER
Sing me a song of many things : all those
children running down the ramp, the man with
the guitar, apparently strumming for dollars,
parents visiting the latest dive. Robins and redwings,
squirrels, and two rat-terriers being kept on a leash.
If I'd held my future in my hand, I still couldn't
recognize a thing. The iceman is hanging out
at the cave, the distant priest is singing.
-
What manner of man is this who brings books
to the fire? All new things turning, while everything
old expires? Look homeward, angel, and tell me
what's there ('afire, the houses are burning. I fear we
shan't e'er return!'). Nicolitus, Aramaea, and Theresa
of Avalon too. The ballroom is singing, in fact, of
all those empty saints: a song of many things,
of wishes and wants, of what is's and aint's.
-
It's not nice to wish a dead man dead.
For all the effort it takes, the
deed is already done. (Look
homeward, angel, and
tell me what's there).

1093. VOCATION

VOCATION
I've got your stethoscope down my
throat. I choke! Can you help me none?
Walk away, pile-driving half-man, while
another fellow from your medicine expires.
I can only think of your face on your
mother's mantle; that stupid photograph
from when you were young : that cowboy hat,
those spurs, that vest. Like some medicine-man
in the old out-west, you stagger around in new
clothes, too proud of anything at all. I remember
as well how they used to call it a 'vocation' - that
summons to be a doctor or a priest. And what
a crock was all that - stupid words for stupid
people, back when such things as religion and
service too had a meaning that spoke. Now
it's all just empty twaddle. I choke.

1092. TO RUMINATE

TO RUMINATE
Makes me too much like a cow
somehow; I think. Never knew the
series-ending double-play I thought
I saw. The hangings from the maples
may have been Van Goghs - he
made the skies alive, he entered space
between things and brought that space to life.
And that was a 'Life' that we as Mankind
had never known nor seen before. An
entirely new perspective on the living -
'midst the nature we live amidst.
A new peel on an onion
we never knew.
-
[It was just this once that I thought
I saw you at the station in your new
brown boots. Like budding ivy crawling
over brick, you were headed everywhere.
The tune in my head, I thought,
was Theolonius Monk.]

1091. CENTRIFIGAL FORCE

CENTRIFIGAL FORCE
Today I took my watching indoors
and the windows were barred as the
doors were open. What difference
would it be? None at all, I noticed,
and that was just as I'd thought.
-
Writing to the Muse is a lonely sport,
and one-liners only cause black eyes.
Spinning like a top, I am an abstract
man, but one merely who has done
what he wanted. It wasn't me and it
wasn't you. Let's leave the entry door ajar.
-
Oh, yes, not for nothing it is, but I may
have found out what camels drink at
a desert mirage! They drink their dreams
and wishes - (in much the same way that
Jesus's crowd ate their loaves and fishes).
Imagination is a very wonderful thing.

1090. SANTERWHOPE THE BALTHAZAR

SANTERWHOPE THE
BALTHAZAR
(Christopher Street Piers, 1978)
'Well I came from Alabama with
my banjo on my knee. If it wasn't
true that the course of time absconds
with fate so little would there be.'

-
Outside the balancing act procession
there seemed nothing really there at all.
As I tried to enter the marriage palace,
a hundred people rushed me.
Wondering what to do :
glass globes the world a'wander.
-
Yellow taxis, big black truck,
Texas plates and three old policemen
gamboling and down on their luck sitting on
the rotted pier splintered and oiled wood
and the entire world, like a forest, shaded.
-
Take my hand, little lovely one.
There are holes in it, and my palm
is tattooed with early oil, marks from the
palm frond, messages from one lethal God.
-
Never knowing how I ended up here (I fell
from the stars) I stayed instead - walking
foul beaches with dead fish and birds scattered
and thrown (I prayed to the Heavens) I bent
down to touch the Earthly sand (feeding dreams
to rainbows and terns) and I laid my head down
where the water had been. The whole world was
dry. Like Alexander the Great, I had conquered
somehow all with little effort really on my part.
(I swore not to overstay). I could love you.
I could comfort the lost kitten crying in
the doorway. I could saturate the
world with one embrace.
-
The man asked me what it was I
wanted to do. 'I want to write
the world into a miracle'
was all I said to him.
-

(And the course of time
absconds with fate).

1089. RUMMAGE THROUGH ME

RUMMAGE

THROUGH ME
Back in Elmira, at the Mark Twain Hotel,
they were holding a sale of all their stuff.
Dishes and plates and creamers and towels -
anything you think of like that. The big,
old hotel was closing up, and it was 1975.
I strolled right in through the tattered
carpet lobby and sat me down on a
big, stuffed chair. One of the last;
things was goin' fast.
-
The light was striking through the smudgy
glass - curtains and carpet all soiled and torn.
The piano lobby was a real nice place, a
few steps up and a few steps down.
A side room, a nice bar, and a banquet
room too. Things were pretty swank,
but it was all through.
-
We sometimes outgrow our points of
life like a garment too old to keep...
Sleeves don't fit, elbows worn,
no matter how we try to keep neat.

1088. GENDARME ALOIS COFFE

GENDARME ALOIS COFFE
One hundred fifty moments like this and I'm
sure I'll die before morning. The lake-stead
was running high. The rivulet running out to
the sea, I noticed, had turned dark green and
salty somehow with slag. Nothing to do but
go on. I lit a flashlight, looking into my hands
to see how bright it could be. In this darkness,
how the entire world seemed bleak. The only
hope was in the light I held.
-
A man was once heard to say he 'couldn't go on.'
Shouldering too many burdens, those rigid bones
broke. It was the end of a cruel, unfair life.
'That's okay,' he opined, 'I only came here
for the time it would take.' Funniest
words I ever heard spoke.

1087. COPYING

COPYING
Amidst all those ones and twos, I am
decidedly singular. I am making one-of-a-kinds
which have never before existed - oh totally unique.
-
'Mom, is it a funny message? Is it a funny
message? I think that you might know.'
Precocious youth and their precocious
parents. Always and everywhere, Dad
then asks, 'are you having a good time?'
-
My daughter is tying knotted ribbons on the
wintry, dead tree. She says it means dismay,
and I think that she would know. She is a
beautiful creature, just now growing to
something, but, as she puts it, 'my hands
have grown pinkish with lust.' I tell her
back : 'dismay is not distrust.'

1086. DOUBLED OVER

DOUBLED OVER...
With laughter, with pain, oh
why are they both the same?
I've got the workman here to my
side - his languishing manner of
painting aside, so wide with that
brush, so inviting, so restful, so
lush and so dreary. Are not they
each the same? He leaves his white
trail on woodwork and lattice and then
he takes his metal ladder and walks
off. I hear the Chevy van starting,
stuffed as it is with all those old
painter's rags. Another busy soul
taking another busy place.
-
And more! Mankind, they say, the
human race, is peopled with kingship
and kin and papers and grace -
green-shirted man, broom-carrier,
proto-dweller and lowland ape.
Doubled-over, using twigs as
tools, jabbing at tree trunks for bugs,
hiding out in jabberwocky caves -
painting walls, after all, in one
thing or another.

1085. THE OCEAN CAN BE A TREE, THE RIVER CAN BE A MOUNTAIN

THE OCEAN CAN BE A TREE,
THE RIVER CAN BE A MOUNTAIN
Yes! Yes! I affirm - the world is so
much nothing that names do not adhere.
We are living that twinkle of moment, that
place in the now, that disappears as it manifests.
We are nothing then, and we see nothing then.
We name nothing, and we live nothing.
-
All categories have failure as their main;
an ephemeral contagion secondary to the
momentary and all that layer of being.
That gutter man in the Beacon square,
that squirrel running up and down the stairs
between trees and starlight together.
All things are, forever, between :
a paradoxical, enigmatic, and all
pervasive notion. The river can be
a mountain, the tree can be an ocean.
Yes! Yes! I affirm! Yes!

1084. AT CHUMLEY'S

AT CHUMLEY'S
Well anyway : when we used to sit.
Bobby Beddia and all the rest, sack-faced,
those two dogs, that shadowy smiley jukebox
tucked on the wall, the owner in the alleyway
watching the rest. Gone now gone all gone. Shit.
-
What's left for living is the leftover feel of
encumbrance and not much else. My feet in
your face, up on the table top where we forgot to
pay, your dog-faced wanderings and Mary Kay.
The Tupelo brothers with their toothpaste faces
and, all the while, the fire in the fireplace, the mantle
and the cases. All those old bookcovers upon the wall.
-
Where are they, now, that nothing's left?
The broken building that leans like mud, the
words we all spoke in fun, the serious girls
in the back, from Long Island, and the
ones who only knew firemen? I say it's
over. Now. And Bobby Beddia is dead again.
-
Shoot my brackish backwater down,
drink my slag-heap India Pale Ale
and drown me in the dregs. I just
no longer want to be at all.

1083. DEFEATS OF THE SEASON

DEFEATS OF THE SEASON
I heard the barrel in the night
of that bold train running. It cut
its slice through darkness and Hell.
Piercing by might of its powerful
light, ripping open the fabric we dwell.
'Where are you going, oh powerful one,
to what destination do you head?'
-
The cruise ship sunk!
The balloon in the festival
blew up! The river rafters are
all dead! The bear ate two children!
That mother at the campgrounds miscarried
and died! Two cars went off the cliff! The air-
show was a disaster! The main theater tent fell
down onto the crowd! Egads! What a season was this!
-
I heard that rumble in the darkest night :
the season of mayhem and death. Oh
mighty, foul one, where do you lead us next?

1082. WHEREVER KENNELAM MAY BE

WHEREVER KENNELAM

MAY BE
(things, they, them)
From deep and far out in the texture of space
we take meanings, plucking things at will and
deciding what to name. Name as if to own.
With nowhere to put them down, they float
in our own reality, until we let them,
perhaps, land where they may.
The land that beckons: thin, covered in pine,
riddled with streams and hills. There is nowhere
in such a place to place the feet of a traveled man.
He jumbles things instead; he can't find the settled
place. I have gone high, and seen the present vista.
-
It wasn't stars or the cosmos. It wasn't a Belgium
to me. I heard the sound, and far off too, of everything
left as it swirled and remained. Before the dark had exited
the stage : Earth-globe-twisting : I had sat down already
to watch. The man came - the one with many arms - and
the sense I got was that he said : 'you will watch what will be
and will see what has been. What you cannot see, really,
is the Present that is around you. Upon mastering that,
I shall set you free, to wherever Kennelam may be.'

1081. HERE AND NOW

HERE AND NOW
"You have met me on the way to an illusion, my dear friend.
As all things are illusion - but too the fence was a mirror.
As are all things - both and illusion and a mirror of
ourselves back to ourselves, endlessly."
-
Nomenclature and division - the absolute two
grand prize winners of time and being, and here
we are all twisted up trying to fit into that jacket.
-
"I am not here, just as I never have been here.
I care for little, as the string of a blighted death,
the thread of me, hanging, tightens its noose
around what is called my 'neck'. Full disclosure:
not truly mine at all. Come with me again,
let us visit new graves.
-
From deep and far out in the texture of space
we take meanings, plucking things at will and
deciding what to name. Name as if to own.
With nowhere to put them down, they float
in our own reality, until we let them,
perhaps, land where they may."

1080. PREMONITIONS

PREMONITIONS
The man was talking to me,
this historian, named Italo. We
were sipping cappuccino while, behind
us, the group was playing 'Tremonisha'
by Scott Joplin. He said : 'Did you know,
in ancient days a monkey could have
left Rome and skipped from tree to tree
until it reached Spain, without ever
touching Earth?' I laughed a bit and said
'No, never heard that one before.' He smiled,
almost wistfully sad, and said : 'yes, yes, it's in
my 'Baron In the Trees' but that was long ago, and
anyway I phrased it as conjecture because it can't
possibly have been. I checked once, and there may
have been perhaps a southern route.' We smiled together.
-
It goes like that in the smoke of dreams - the places
that once were, and the might-have-beens. As it were,
had I pinched my skin with a knife, yes, I would surely
have bled. It was that real - like the lilac upon the air,
or the frog-croak you know you hear. Neither of these
things can be seen but in essence are as remarkably true
as the last breath of the last human person.
-
'Take my hand, remarkable man. Hold my arm, darling
woman. Walk me through those lively trees, let me feel
this wind and air. We find the groundhogs peeking their
heads a few inches out of the ground - their holes well
burrowed beneath limb and stump. We see flocks of jagged
birds, in hundreds I'm sure, sweeping black like waves
across the sky. We marvel. We wonder. It is nothing like
this, here or anywhere, ever before. I know this much is true.'

1079. ONE SMILING FEATURE

ONE SMILING FEATURE
I lost Ken Leone in the theatre - he was
playing the Bard in a featured solo performance -
and, having just lost thirty dollars, I found I just
couldn't afford any more. Like a wayward UPS
man, I'd grown callous and sour over every little
thing. Overzealous and intense, I just knew
I had to get out. Left the window down,
I did, and simply drove away.
-
My red arm was red from the sun and the
window. White where the watch had been.
My other arm, cloaked as always in a
shaded interior and not darkened at all,
looked ghostly as I left the car.
Two halves of one man, fighting,
both for some bad attention.
-
I thought from afar - 'what am I doing
all this for anyway?' I knowingly had
the choice of my own life or not.
Nothing was taken away. But,
the silver clouds on the tinted
glass, my God, how they took
my heart. I found I couldn't do
anything but turn back and
start, once again.

1078. MEMORIES

MEMORIES
(Tolkenberry Kindlestuff)
Your name was taped with Mystic Tape to the
back of your soiled old book. Though you
weren't a mystic, I thought you had what
it took. Tolkenberry Kindlestuff, and the
other flavor you liked so much - I
rather forget what it was.
-
As I remember, we tied our shoes together
at 12 years old, and both tumbled then
down the same incline. Entwined together,
banging heads and hitting arms, we ended
up - somehow - in different places together.
I can't tell much after that. Was it your
sister, then, I once was married to?
-
Or was that your cousin Bravera, the one
who'd taken off her clothes for us a
hundred times before, singing country songs
and old tunes from, she said, the Lake District.
Lake District my ass, the only water running
around her was the stuff she pee'd in the grass.
She used let us watch, for free.
-
Now, Harmon, everything I mention was so
fucking long ago I feel I died with the
dinosaurs - and so, to you I raise this glass.
How did we ever survive, let alone surpass?
Let's roll up the carpet and die.

1077. ALONGSIDE TOWNSHEND

ALONGSIDE TOWNSHEND
They said the name like a buttery waste.
He was a man from Sheffield or somewhere.
His mother had been Baker Blair's daughter, killed
in the second war. No one really knew the rest.
I hung out with the kids from Harlin Hall, maybe
three years at the most. Aways the same.
Gay English fags, running off at the
fey drunken mouth.
-
We took the long-rifle from the cabinet
and started shooting at cars and lorries.
Nothing major, mind you, no shoot-to-kills;
just blow out the tires or break out some
glass. Something to rile the lower-class
bastards up. All these trucks and cars; they
so loved their 'owning' of things.
-
Not us, we had it all already and
always already did. Or, as we
used to say - laughingly though
not without some horrid mistrust
(of each other, I guess) -
'born already with a
silver dick in our
mouths.'

1076. MAYHEM : VIOLENCE DISORDER AND CHAOS

MAYHEM: VIOLENCE
DISORDER AND CHAOS
The solid block where you start off, well
at least it gets you rolling, fellow and friend
of mine. We are listening to Artie Shaw
as someone asks - and they all seem to
know - the tune the place the year.
Then, he says he had to look the word up
(and yes, I saw him doing it just yesterday)
and I was surprised. 'Mayhem'. All the while,
behind me, Stardust and Begin the Beguine
and the rolling horns roll upon themselves as
the lone guitar man strums, somewhere, alone.
Yes, my friend, some things need looking up,
some things you just have to get right.
-
Bring in the drums now and what
have you got? Mayhem, is it not?

1075. AND THE CONCRETE DOG

AND THE CONCRETE DOG
I find I must myself
meditate upon your
four green umbrellas.
They are out in the sun,
at a slightly darkened spot
where no direct rays are
hitting. Beneath them I
note the grimace of the
concrete dog - it seems
an anguish or a pain, and
it must always be this way.
The concrete does not change,
though - yes - the air and the light
and even the colors all will alter
with time. The four green umbrellas
seem unrankled, unfazed, right here
at the Joseph Henry House, now bathed
too in its own yellow light. They will remain,
these umbrellas will. The tables are shielded
and the sun, now adding to this new batch,
shines too its own yellow light on the
white-patterned trellis and wall.

1074. THE MAP OF SEPTEMBER ONE

THE MAP OF
SEPTEMBER ONE
Associated metalwork, and the clang
from that workman's hammer.
Nothing makes sound like metal.
It is here, all around, the first of
September again - the old edge of
a Summer rolling to Autumn, the
quick-turn, one hopes, of all
leaf and color. Not yet, no,
but too soon early.

1073. CARAMEL DOWN

CARAMEL DOWN
'Don't forget the edges and the corners,
be sure to coat it all.' A few flies buzzing like
tramps around a feeder, a cat on the sill, watching
what happens. Nothing like fire in the deep of the
night to make a man feel primitive again.
-
Over the near horizon, a waning moon dips its
waning song - pale light, half-eaten away, and
only a lunar memory of the primitive tribal within.
'I carry nothing out, because I carried nothing in.'
-
These are all my quotes, and you can look them up.
You who imitate the others, you who copy copies
endlessly - 'before rigor mortis sets in the rigor
will win. You'll be taken out in a box.' No, no,
I never said that last one. Now leave me be.

1072. THE ELEVEN YEAR OLD MARIONETTE AT THE HOUSE OF MY AUNT

THE ELEVEN YEAR OLD
MARIONETTE AT THE
HOUSE OF MY AUNT
He came with an Italian goatee. It was
1958. This Aldo. He was then told to
shave it off and - in the American way -
was given twenty-five dollars by the
men to do so. He complied. My uncles
and some others I did not know, they
where seemingly threatened by whiskers,
though not by the show. They'd had a good
time with this. An understandable oasis
in that late 1950's Amerika of shadow and
play. Aldo was from Italy, made bereft by
something, and visiting. Just in time. The
America he wanted. Beatnik guy glory
swaying and suave in those great leather
shoes so loved by all. He wanted - I heard
him say but didn't understand - he wanted
'to one day maybe return to Italy exhausted
by sensuality.' Everyone laughed and would
not leave him alone. 'Oh Aldo, how Aldo so
much wants a girl he can call his own!'

1071. OM DADDY NUPRIN

OM DADDY NUPRIN
Who would ever call themselves that?
Too hip for me, or not hip at all.
I am viewing art as sacrosanct.
That goes for it all - words, paint,
music maybe and magic too. I read
whatever I may into the big white clouds.
-
Om Daddy is sitting here with me, reading
his book. He's from Bratislava a long-time
back - and now he nods assent to, well, almost
anything American. Coffee in that cup and
that muffin in his hand. Oh well, too. I
watch, but I am not amused.
-
I want to ask instead : where is Cezanne?
Has Pollock or Rothko been here yet? Those
guys from the Cedar, can we meet them later?
deKooning, perhaps, both Elaine and Willem too?
Otherwise, I won't know what to do!
-
Who would ever call themselves that?
Those crazy 50's guys, those all-freaked-out
smokers with their tomes : hip fat-guy lumberjack
flannel laughter, fucking women wherever they are.
Coitus Intermingulus prophylactus nihilissimus bang!
Smack! Wallop! Om Daddy Nuprin ain't been there yet!
-
I'm just now realizing all these things, and
it's way too late for me. Harvey Keitel and
Dennis Hopper as well are just as soon here
to see as any other hep dead cat would be.
Om Daddy Nuprin. Best minds of my
generation, lost in that conflagration,
and - really - he don't know a thing.

1070. SELF DECEPTION

SELF DECEPTION
Self deception is like the copying
of a status given by one's shadow -
oblivious to a fault, one stands
tall nonetheless. Wee matters
to matter not much.
-
I am watching the man water
his garden. He stands back from
the flow from the hose he holds.
How ingeniously odd. Distance
covers (thus) so many spaces.

1069. HUMORESQUE

HUMORESQUE
I'll put a poetry trace where the pastries should be.
I'll slather your face with cream. I'll dance on the
head of that angelic pin - for you, I suppose. The
one filled with the faces of angels, the one the pedantic
mystics argued about all through those middle ages.
Pneumatic idiots. How's that for my Greek?

1068. ORNAMENT

ORNAMENT
Brother, brother, watch the many-faceted
world unfurl - apples and grasses and fruits.
Watch the water collect itself; the dew from many
mornings, the rain from distant sources. We are
right to circumvent the globe, to lunge through
nearby spaces, to leave on moon and mountain
our fading, trifling traces. Without all that anyway,
we are only what we ourselves proclaim to be.
Figments of imagination, raindrops on a tree.

1067. SHE LIVES UPSTAIRS

SHE LIVES UPSTAIRS
Yes, and the boa harp, the stern arm, the rigid
fist - one and all of these things, reminiscent
of what might have been, now are but symbols
on some sick coat-of-arms. Framed by nothing,
but mounted kingly on a broad-room wall, even
the lowest servant must bend a knee.
-
I am talking to Nancy Ransom on the shore of
the Hudson River. Across the way, the other shore,
the massive ramparts of West Point are to be seen.
'The United States Military Academy' she says,
gesturing. 'How'd you like to be me, having to wake
up to that each morning?' I shrug and say it will
never change - 'at least you're sure of continuity?'
-
I phrase it as a question to see what she will say.
'Don't be so sure of that, my friend, the way
things are changing these days.' She runs
a small antique and art store in her little
town across the river from the fort.
Her windows front the river; she
lives upstairs.
-
Accidental prayer? No such thing.
Momentary lapse? Happens often enough.
We both watched the flags flapping over
the river, and wondered at the emergence of
wind. Bannerman's Island? 'Yes', she said,
'it was up there somewhere, out at Cold Spring.
All ruins itself, ever see it?' I had to answer, 'no'.

1066. THIS COURTSHIP FALLS FLAT

THIS COURTSHIP
FALLS FLAT
Samantha Jackman feeling boxed in.
Twenty penny-whistles and an old tin
of Honduran cigars. I knew these guys
from a long time ago. Trouble was
brewing, but it all meant nothing at all.
The kid with the crayons had come down
the stairs; he was about ten and tried to
be happy. His father had prospered with
some bad union work, and now he wanted
a mate. The marriage of Heaven and Hell,
Mr. Blake, couldn't get worse than this.
Coffee was brought in, by the Turk, but
what these assholes wanted was beer.
'I haven't got any,' I said with a smirk.
('Samantha was just leaving, you jerk').

1065. WRINKLES

WRINKLES
The old man and the broken heart,
I could see them both. He was leaning
over the iron fence, looking down at
the passers-by below. Probably a lifetime
from mine, but not that far away. Distant
nonetheless, but not that far away.
-
How sad does one need to be anyway
to continue on? One without hearing,
but not deaf? The entire crowd with
the pots and pans banging? The big
black truck just idling by?
-
He stayed there, watching it all.
Distant nonetheless, but
not that far away.

1064. MANDALAY

MANDALAY
Pipes freeze overwhelm stature
riverbed catboat gambling-man
capture. The high-linked sky
falling down over Mandalay.

1063. LEAVING THE LUNGFISH AT BAY

LEAVING THE
LUNGFISH AT BAY
Leaving the lungfish at bay, the
ocean angler kept walking away -
down from the dock and the fresh
water shed, I saw him puking down
into the water. By the ship. My God,
he really looked sick. And then -
just like that - he got up and ran, a
long running start, and dove into
the dockside waters. Beneath and
between the boats. After that point,
I never saw him again. I moved on
to other things. But that dive, I'd
give it a ten.

1062. LIKE LOST CONFETTI

LIKE LOST CONFETTI

(all they have to say)

The youthful marvel concedes time's only way -

passages and markings, small items falling in

one breath from windows and sills, while down

below those oily, minion'd masses cheer and swirl.

The spinning top and the bright-faced lark,

all together, go on. Life's drama knows

only too well the stage.

-

Watching even Shakespeare on a screen is nothing

more, really, than light - moving, cinescope images

beaten and lame. Then the laugh line, then the girl.

Then the worm, then, of course, the corpse. It's

all and everywhere the same.

-

To those who have never lost anything, it

is said, 'take this back, you mutilated savage.

You seem too insincere for all this good fortune.'

Mere badinage, all that is - a broken line once

more, from a drunken Shakespearean play.

-

The secretaries are lined up at the window.

Six or seven floors up I see them bending over

the ledge - all those guys and girls so happy

and choice, throwing papers from windows

in one huge voice - 'we are limber, and we

are sound, and all this life is joy! Yay, perhaps...

but that's all we've found.'

-

And then I realize, in a moment of my own,

one too tortured to enjoy, this is (all well)

all they have to say.

1061. IN WHAT I REMEMBER OF ANITA O'DAY

IN WHAT I REMEMBER

OF ANITA O'DAY

All it is I remember of Anita O'Day

is some smiling ghoul of a face - one

smothered and colored as a postage

stamp would be. I think she sang,

though she never sang for me.

-

What is it we want from our wallets?

Talent and wealth in abeyance alone?

Nay; I think it's more a memory we want -

something tender enough to go home with

after the lights of the club have gone out,

after the party is over and the following

morning arrives. She is a genie in scanty

clothing, but one that I can't describe.

-

All I remember of Anita O'Day is a musical

phrase on a black and white screen; some

late night variety show, with a band - but

I'm not sure of that at all. My both hands,

much mellower now, seek something before

I die : something to smother, to fondle, to

touch or to grab. My personal and essential

wind blows through the gap both out and in.

Nothing substantial, mind you, but the

foggy air of thinking back.

1060. CONFESSON (crazy man glue)

CONFESSION
(crazy man glue)
'Yes, I killed the concierge. He was
straddling two worlds anyway, and
wasn't worth a damn. Two Pakistani
wives, as it was explained to me; one
here and one back there. That on got
to see him, over there, every half a
year or so. The rest of the time, for
her, I don't know. What do Pakistanis
do? Do they have dildos too?'

1059. TO STAY BECALMED

TO STAY BECALMED
There is a moment, a fissure, like a
thin feather caught on invisible current,
turning around in the invisible air.
When we surmise that the time has arrived,
we are beckoned once, and in that quickened
moment must answer or fall. Of this message,
you get one call.
-
The sun rose orange today, and,
in that coloring light, I took a long walk.
See the treetops! How even those firs
are illumined in the orangey glow of both
yellow and red. High up, where everything
seems all right to my little eyes.

1058. THIS AIN'T PARIS

THIS AIN'T PARIS
Or at least not anymore since the
benches are smaller and the tables
are gone. Things are crimped now
like Delmore Schwartz. Sitting back
like this, two books in each hand,
I still try to settle your wandering
corpse. Delmore. Del More.
Delmore Schwartz.
-
What was it your friends called you?
Del? Those you had who stayed anyway;
the rest went straight to Hell. No, well,
maybe. This ain't Paris, but neither yet Hell.

1057. IN NAME ONLY

IN NAME ONLY
The Holy Land was burned and torched,
since it never existed at all. The stars of
any Mecca's mosque were found to be but
glimmering 40-watt yellow bulbs. That fine
fat fellow getting sick inside the synagogue,
he turned out to be right after all. It's like that
everywhere. Catholic puzzles with the hair of
a rat woven in, Presbyterian elders cavorting with
black Baptist whores. 'I ain't been anywhere, but I
want some more.' The man with the calliope toupee
said that, while I watched him decay in the back.
Jesus' newest cross is made out of playdough and
plastic. Lighter, and made more for travel. Fantastic.
-
Ribbons of starving bombastic monks, Tibetans and
Hellacions too, are bent over the water-hole feeding
a yak. Someone said the prayer-wheel was in its ass.
They figure, even with digging, they'll never get it back,
but attachment to all Earthly things must pass.
Hare Krishna to that.

1056. JUNTO BROTHER BABY FRIEND MARKSMAN TO THE STARS

JUNTO BROTHER

BABY FRIEND
MARKSMAN TO

THE STARS
Nothing's been settled nor ever even finished
and the ever-gaping sky stays open for any
possibility. Like petals from on high, spacecraft
come down to play music upon human ears.
Hearing nothing, they scuttle away; small
creatures on a jarring planet.
-
Lending a hand to self-sufficiency, the great
engine God steps in just every so often to
twist a this or that. Divide the oasis, dissect
the feud. Mankind and matter, which is more rude?
Entire books and their chapters have been written
on this - and blood too flows to show it.
-
Myself, on the other hand, sitting back here
in the garden, holding cards and reading
the messages : hangman, water-bearer,
raptor and all the rest. I see nothing
amiss really; only mis-placed
vanity and unsound logic.
-
I am satisfied by that,
and settle in to
watch.

1055. CARLISLE THE QUOTIENT MASTER

CARLISLE THE
QUOTIENT MASTER
With five hands he's all over you in an
instant. He wants as much as it gets him;
no matter the reverie or any of that. He'll
take his time to stop when it's over and done.
The cathedral down the street, its bells are ringing.
Loudly traipsing like carrion home to the fray,
small people are walking their way to church.
-
'But why, Dr. Denley, would anyone do that?
I can't fathom the reason for want. And what's
with the cops stopping traffic to let these feeble
ants cross on their way to their church?' The
doctor, a black soul-teacher in a starched white
shirt, said nothing really back, just hummed.
-
I'd heard him sing before - in his own Baptist
church on the hill, about a mile away - 'Shiloh
Heavenly Means Church', or something like that.
Those black-guy churches always have funny names.
-
Call me when it's over - or at least that's how I felt.
I remember a Reverend Wallace McKnight much
like this too - a little man with enormous hands.
Made me wince just to see. Simpleton that he was,
he always said they 'gave him a better grasp on
the rungs of the ladder right up to Heaven.'

1054. TRUTH AND WAKING

TRUTH AND WAKING
With such a tendentious wakefulness I
smother the night with my watching : moonlight
starbright, this can't be Earth. The silent white
scratch of meteor and comet makes me wince
while watching time unfold.
-
Ersatz rude awakenings too keep me alert
to the ever-changing tides of myth and memory.
Neither can this be where I've ever been, this
rock I'm sitting on, this spinning Earth.
-
Like tired poodles at the end of a leash,
we sit around in the darkness, candles and
late-night coffee holding our way. Barred
or open, every door - like every word
spoken - makes me think of you.

1053. AUDACIOUS TACT

AUDACIOUS TACT
The pleasure's on the hot side,
the din is in the vale. The
Brookside Literal Mansion is
open for business today.
Ten people I haven't seen in
two decades are already waiting
outside. What key shall I turn to enter?
-
Kyrie Eleison is what the soundtrack
plays; we enter one by one at or against
our will. Either way, we're in.
-
The carpets are made of memory,
the wall hangings, more than flat,
can be entered at will - a new dimensional
plane through which can flow the present.
Giving the idea of 'come and go'
an entirely new force.
-
The child is the father
of the man?

1052. BIRD LANTERN LANE

BIRD LANTERN LANE
(Battle of Dulce, 1460)
Rilke had a fetish - things to be gentle,
certain to make comfort, nothing harsh
at all. The opposite of all which bodes for
progress and advancement. Like medieval
warriors cracking heads with sticks, eggs
gathered in a basket, loose and leaky, the
only thing recalled is the violence and the
gore. Stupid lanky men and their insipid,
facile Kings. Storybook adventures with
storybook endings. And here, on Bird
Lantern Lane, it is said, they once buried
over 600 British soldiers after one battle
of this or that. In a private aside, the
local guide told me of the horror never
mentioned - how the bodies were cut
and mangled : 'mind you', he said,
'that's really 600 heads, 1200 arms
and 1200 legs. Can you fathom
what I'm saying?'

1051. PETITFOUR BIFOCALS

PETITFOUR BIFOCALS
(at the wake for a friend, at the Baltimore Central
Hotel, at the clinic for cerebral hematomas)
You must know that I can't see you
even as I squint, Divine One. Blower of
clouds and winds and all that surges.
Liner of hearts and minds. Taker
of all which was given. Beyond a
shadow of a doubt, this much
ascertained is certain to be.
You are the life, and
the life is we.

1050. THROUGHOUT THIS LIFE

THROUGHOUT THIS LIFE
Taking accolades is only half the battle -
candlelight, harbor and stove. Bowing
to lanterns and skeleton heads takes
more exertion than our world allows.
One would think, like the witches:
'Toil, toil, witches' broil on old
Nantucket's oily soil.'
-
But, no; I've never seen more sunlight
than this. Watching the waves drawing out
from the land after they've pounded the surf
makes me quiet and keeps me still. A
waterway's own surge, a meaning
all its own.
-
I've learned to breathe in this time machine :
so now let me take you with me. Let me
take you home. At least let me take you in.
Brown house. Green house. Shed house.
Shanty with rain on the roof.
Pitter. Patter. What's the matter?
-
(Throughout this life I've heard a
million things, from every corner
of every mouth. The snide, the
supple, the happy, the sad. Yet
now, an absolute nothing does
cover the land. We are bowing
to lanterns and skeleton heads,
even though it's more exertion
than our world allows. Taking
accolades is only half the battle).
　

1049. RUGGED AND TRUE

RUGGED AND TRUE
Though I may not be the one to err,
you may be the one to find me.
Day-lilies and Shakespeare folios,
long-drawn curtains and a bull-frog
at dawn. These may be the things
that matter - only these
and nothing more.

1048. PLATO'S BIGHT CAVE

PLATO'S BRIGHT CAVE
My great cantilevered architecture has suddenly fallen,
taken a dive, tipped over, crumbled to the ground.
All that glass and molding; matter to be dusted
now for nothing else but clues. I heard the creak
and the groan, right before it fell. As they say
that dogs and birds can sense impending
disaster, so too I myself felt something
wrong right before the moment
came to be. A few bricks first
fell - things I'd thought
so solid before.
-
No remorse, no looking back, it's over.
Memory like a movie, some now
flickering light on a moving
image screen. The motion
is jumpy, like something
old; there are, I note,
huge blobs too
on the image.
-
Early movies within the mind?
Plato's cave again? All
that what we sense to be,
can it really be? I'm
sitting back, to
watch what
I see.

1047. TRULY I FORGET

TRULY I FORGET
Those brutal waves of wash between the
walls of Hebron and the sea, they make
me think of something faraway. Paracelsus
and all that ancient science, perhaps but not.
The fenceline, single like a dog, wires its
funny way along the ridge and soil. It
knows to twist and turn, but that's alone
the hand that placed its doing, and does it
keep things in or out? Truly I forget.

1046. DIXIE

DIXIE
The Inland Brothers Wrecking Yard
was already retrieving the scrap. Scouring
like horses, they'd worked hard enough and
already had filled two bins. Nowhere to
go but down. The ladies in the jelly hats
were passing out drinks - something cold -
to anyone who wanted one. All takers all.
On one side, by the corner, were stacked only
the wood re-usable, good enough for future
reconstruction. All the rest of the charred
remains were dumpster-bound. Harlen Hikes,
one of the previous owners, had stopped by.
He'd said: 'A long time ago, I can remember
when my Granddaddy and my daddy built this
place, must'a been 'bout 1947. Previous to that,
of course, and of course too, this IS after all
Dixie, this site had been a Nigra whipping ground,
where all the Hikes' children was taken too to watch
any malfeasant (as we had t'call them then) get his
punishment. I can remember hearing the stories,
though, truth b'told, I never myself had to witness.
It was all over then by my days. The new house, this,
was built over the sores of all the old. And we alls
just carried on like it'd never happened at all. But
ain't it funny how so things can change. The up
now was once the down, and vice versa too.'
Old Harry stood firm, drinking slightly as he
talked - that crazy old, light lilt in his voice
reminded me always of the past. And
before I knew, it was over and gone.
What once was a house there, was
now going to be a pond. Up to
down and, down to up again,
I'd guess to say anyway.

1045. ENTERING THAT EXIT

ENTERING THAT EXIT
Having tried the past and found it wanting, every
fiber of my being formed another stance within
itself, genetics be damned. There wouldn't
be anything to show in this mirror. I would
be an angular man. Wearing the suit of the
sun and the armor of the day. Tapping new
rhythms along dusky paths of paper and chalk.
Not even children would hear my tales.
-
Such plans for tomorrow took me far : steadfast
along the ancient river. Filled with words. Running
high current along the shoals of indifference and
tearing up the land. Bridges needed rethinking
after I passed, and the cold, clear logic of the
old engineering went for nothing across
my entered fields.
-
Look! I have built houses of mud and
sentry-sheds of solid gold. My paths
and roadways, somehow, have no turns
but are not straight - yet they always
bring one back, after time, right to
the point of one's departure.

1044. NOW WHILE I HAVE THE TIME

NOW WHILE I HAVE THE TIME
(glory staccato)
Does anyone know how I smell? Does anyone
sense the cleanliness or not of my clothing and
hair, the cut of my nails, the wavy sheen of
my dire skin? I would hope there's no one
around for any of that. The new girl, in 12B,
she drives me crazy - beautiful in her ways,
carrying herself like something I'd love.
I don't have a notion of what to say to
her, so that we never meet - since I
make no effort to seek her out.
-
Her brother, some creep like a carrion,
is a blue-shirted cop in this city of love.
He comes around now and then to check
on her - and I'm certain if he ever knew
about me he'd have something to say.
-
Like - 'What's that smell? Who's that guy
across the hall?' I make sure we never meet.
It's really boring to live like this. If I had, in
this manner, a rock to crawl under I'd
probably be better off. Not for her,
but for myself. Living like this
can sure bring on a headache
and cramp. I really want to
amount to something, let
her see me that way,
move along to the
good. But it'll
never happen.
I know.

1043. 'PLAGIARIST SENDS A MAN TO HELL'

'PLAGIARIST SENDS A

MAN TO HELL'
'What the Hell went wrong with you; what's the
matter now? You're telling me you couldn't
disguise what you were doing? People had to know?
They should have never been even able to find out.
You asshole.' It went on like this at length.
Philadelphia's Walnut Street, by Rittenhouse

Square, people sitting around. The little
Orange Bank Coffee Shop, serving
Peet's, where people sit around pretending
not to care, or at least to not being envious.
This guy next to me, some kind of writer or
something, was being berated by another guy,
a coffee companion at least, a big, fat guy all
worked up and sweaty about the face, over
a piece of writing he'd turned in that actually
was found out to be someone else's work,
barely disguised. The fat guy, for sure, was
acting like it was a capital crime, a Mafia hit,
for Christ's sake. I mean, I could understand
the deal, but what the hell, who really cared?
Next thing I knew, the fat guy's on the floor,
gagging and blue, on the way to dead.
no one knew what to do; the plagiarist guy
bent over, said 'See, I told you not to get
so worked up, now this!' He wasn't
excited, but turned to look up - 'Can
anyone please get some help. This man
is dying!' 911 and all that; the EMT's
arrived, picked him up, plopped him on a
gurney after doing all sorts of their work on
him. They declared, 'I'm sorry, but sure
this man is dead.'

1042. CAPTIONS

CAPTIONS
Before long I was feeling nothing:
the astronauts had fallen back into the sea,
their flaming spaceship like some antique
basket tumbling from afar. Cameramen with
big nerve nosed right up to the window.
'Tell us how you feel, what you saw, what
it was really like.' They all seemed to talk
at once. Then I envisioned what I saw as well:
the capsule door opened and, amidst pale
orange flames, a tall man stepped out, in
his clumsy suit, and began quite simply
walking away on the water.
-
('Bird's-eye sing-song caterwaul chap,
who's the man in the pink feathered cap?')...
Telegrams were falling from the doorway
slot stop white envelopes lined in blue
stop will return stop later perhaps
stop yours forever stop garland.
-
The city awoke from its very grave sleep:
two more dead men, three more shootings,
four babies somehow thrown from roofs,
five rapes, six homicides, and seven minutes
away from the doorways (plural) to Hell.

1041. PRACTICE GOING TO BED

PRACTICE GOING
TO BED
You'll want to be useful doing something.
There are thousands of choices, I'm sure
you'll understand. The magpie dips at the
break of dawn, the river flow suddenly slows.
Each of these things are, in their way, almost
humanly possible and sure to convince.
Contradictions? Yes, I am sure. 'Sentenced
to life' is, for all intents and purposes, the
same as 'sentenced to death.' We live,
we breath, we die. One side of the wall,
or the other. Wouldn't
you say?

1040. MAGELLAN'S MAPMAKER

MAGELLAN'S MAPMAKER
('sights and visions')
'The only way to know where anything
is is to put it there yourself. In that way,
understand the whole entire world - or
what you claim for it to be.' I thought I
could understand that - easily, like music
on a barge-trip, or those scat-singers
I'd heard in that old Cleveland church.
As he spoke them to me, I realized he
was gnawing on a leg of lamb. By
contrast to his words, that seemed
more strange to me. But then, I'd
already forgotten where we were.

1039. CURBSIDE TREE INVOLVED IN A HOAX

CURBSIDE TREES
INVOLVED IN A HOAX
Aroma enforcing enticement inducing
world globe spinning on. Cars trucks
buses spew food counters open-air
dining the wash and wish of a million
mouths. Line by line the hordes are
noontime passing deadly silent and
voiciferous together - lounging laughs
of stupid nothings fervid talk and
words of love and observation all in
one union with the mastered mix.
Contentment. Oasis. Curbside trees
involved in a hoax. Keep us happy,
running on. Lies and truths
and fears and hopes.

1038. MY EPISODE 29

MY EPISODE 29
The man was talking like he had all the time in the world
at his disposal : 'parallel dichotomies, you see, are handled
quite easily. They are things appearing as opposites
yet actually quite the same - like war and peace, or
joy and sorrow. Love. Hate.' I threw my gloves down,
and left, having heard all this before, to weariness. The
window to my right, hanging open to the night, was
propped with a simple board - 'no dumber than a
bad argument' I muttered to myself, almost wishing
to jump. Four stories down, to end with a thump.
Loft city, to nowhere at all. Instead, I began to
marvel at the things I saw - light and glimmer,
all those weird, late night reflections, and
so much more. Entering some second
twilight of my subdued mind, I
simply sat and stayed in place.
To think was not the worst.
Episode 29.

1037. FORECAST LIVING

FORECAST LIVING
Curls of smoke along the sanctified ridge,
a carnal infestation of desire, a piercing
fault straight to the heart - those were
the horse-bits my saddle was riding.
All around me, blue sky blasted
the world with heat. Infernal,
like waves of a fire,
astride a brutalized
world.

1036. ALARIC

ALARIC
I love everything equally : loving nothing less.
The squandered geometry of the open sky;
light, spacious, wide and growing. Nothing
less than that will hold me anyway, so it might
all as well be real. Long doze and the wintry,
dark night. Deep black sky, moon and stars.
At once, and all together, this time ties its
knot. String theory, indeed!

1035. FOR MARIAN REVERE

FOR MARIAN REVERE
Oh listen now to me. I never snookered
your non-conformist blueblood vein into
an unwilling situation. I took you by force
but once. And as I recall you smiled for hours.
Picking up your clothes, your ran off like a
She-Goddess prancing to light. Anyway, the
report I had said your mother had millions, and
it was all coming to you. I ventured to bid on that
stupid ashtray you wanted from Sotheby's big
auction room. For you, not me. Once owned by
Emilia Carthwright Forbes, whomever. Seventeen
thousand three hundred dollars later, it was in your
hands. On that fireplace mantle it stayed for a year.
Millicent finally made you move it somewhere safe.
No, no, I never said a word. I gathered nothing;
neither moss nor notches in my gun barrel, though
I could have counted whenever I wanted. That
little 2-seater Morgan you drove around in,
a pile of nothing, I always thought. But oh what
a showing you made. Horse shows, trade fairs,
polo roundelays. Many were the days I'd have
rather walked straight out into the ocean than
go through another strenuous afternoon.
With you. But I was brave. Like a work
animal, I slathered and slaved. All
for toil, and none forgave.
Oh listen now to me.

1034. I OBEY

I OBEY
Lenders of last resort:
the tall men who grovel, the
ones who plead and cry. Mercy.
Belle Dame sans Merci.
Do you remember that?
-
Carving fenestrated bones high up
in the Alpine attic. Then jumping from
the rooftop to the snowy field below.
Carving defenestrated bones back into
non-broken shapes. 'Twas that the
Ohio doctor's goal?
-
Music like this was never magic.
Yet, I noticed, the man who was
saying that was deaf. Hmmm.

1033. THE GRACIOUS INTERMEZZO

THE GRACIOUS INTERMEZZO
Here, faulted as a golden shaft, stands
the better of the two : 'We are between
worlds, my friend, and it's us alone.'
Sour mash and conflagration, like a
July Fourth nightmare in an over-crowded
harbor. Agitated and riled, the crowd sways.
River water runs. Clouds skim low. Out on
that bay, the boats and the sails at play.
We never skipped the retribution, or
the paying of our dues. Whatever
came down, we accepted.
It was the least that
we could do.

1032. CLEMENTINE

CLEMENTINE
When they told me you were coming it
was too late, you'd already come and gone.
It's always been that way with me.
The breakaway glass bottle on the
side of my head in that bar room scene
in the western we filmed : wrong glass,
wrong bottle. The knot, remember, that
was supposed to slip open under pressure
when put around my neck for the drop
at the hanging scene.

1031. HEREAFTER

HEREAFTER
The right man came to the wrong place
leaving nothing trailing behind
but laughter,
and all they could talk about
was how different it all was
from all that had gone before.
Someone nodded and the lights went out.
One broad melee ensued.
-
The right man in the wrong place.

1030. DEBUSSY AND PILLAGE

DEBUSSY AND PILLAGE

-a dream-

La Mer, la mer.

The crusaders have returned

from Lyons. I see them, hugging

their wives, on the trails along

the jumbled waterfront.

It’s like they never left.

Marauding as savages for three

years and more, anything they violated

they violated for God himself,

while the old humdrum wives waited,

planting tubers in the dull dead earth

or singing songs of ecstasy

in a very different note.

1029. THE FRIEZE OF THE MONOCLE MAN

THE FRIEZE OF THE
MONOCLE MAN
Under the streets of Paris - there's a pretty old tale.
Laced with skulduggery and the corpses of
faceless thousands, the only sounds left are the
ancient peals of revolution's bells when they
were new. Sounds like that linger. They
never depart, nor are they forgotten.
-
Now, what's left, up above, reflects nothing.
Not so much as even a map of old would
show. Rubble and paste - things where
streets used to be, tarmac where the
ancient forest wandered. Only the
ghosts would know, and I am one.
-
Gentility makes a mockery of class.
All things that are useless, you see,
must now be put away - for only
new science, in its test, can rule
what's left existent. While once
all that was given over to kings
and nobles, now the sly Devil,
in whatever proportion, is
given sway to take whatever
He so chooses to take.
As for the rest, we
put it all away.

1028. CONTINENTAL AVENUE

CONTINENTAL AVENUE
Now they have their way.
The little men can say -
'How ferocious is it that we
are living in such modern times!'
You know, kind sir, everyone says
that about the times they live, it's really
nothing new and not unique to you.
Dope the jelly, wrap the wound.
-
These 12 acres, if you've not noticed,
have been paved and lined for cars.
You wish to call that 'modern times?'
I shan't stop you, go ahead,
but I shall hide away instead.

1027. HOW THE HAPPY HEART DROPS OFF THE DRUMBEAT

HOW THE HAPPY HEART
DROPS OFF THE DRUMBEAT
'There's no answer. Remember Oh Henry - the
comic strip not the writer - he ladled his
soup with paste and gruel and the spoon
eventually fell off. Such a useless tool.
-
This was the dominant barricade, when
the Alamo fell. But now? Why oh why oh am I
writing this on the 65th anniversary of the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima?
-
I'll tell you why - because the 'horror-imagination' -
as the Japanese call it - still keeps kids up at night
thinking of their place in the world - vaporized and gassed,
just blown away. Burned like Momma was burned.
Fried like Dadda was fried. That's what I'm

telling you. Everyone else has lied.'

1026. SIGNS & PORTENTS

SIGNS & PORTENTS
I've grown wild. I've become tired
of my own elixir. Weeds and seedpods
of my own imagining have grown
up around me until I too have
become my own Mother Earth.
-
Watching the saddle of the rising sun -
up, up, over thou the east - I see a
single leaf fall. A gold of the fading
maple, so early it tumbles down,
flopping over and over upon itself
in new light. Illumined by a morning
sun, it soon gives up its earnest fight
and tumbles down to earth.
-
To live! Is not that all we want?
To stay in place and make sense
out of what is present. All we
see resounds: time, and
place, and energy.

1025. MAKING SENSE NOW

MAKING SENSE NOW
(Hopewell, NJ)
I may have signalled something by the
hat or torched instead that little pile of mud.
Nothing making sense. Unknown messages
and unheard things mistranslated at will.
Who will hold me responsible for that?
If some God is a figment of intention,
mine was to go straight to somewhere else,
not necessarily the name of 'Heaven' I knew.
Skin is soft. Coats could be made from hide.
The Lindbergh baby, for instance, had a tale
to tell, but not one making much sense at all.

1024. THE QUOTABLE GESTURE

THE QUOTABLE GESTURE

I am reading Walter Benjamin as a lark.
You can't do that. I know. He's much
too serious for that. And dour. Every
sentence seems like an...hour.
-
Baudelaire found the physiognomic (!)
type bred by this new kind of life -
a prostitute scrutinizing the passers-by
while at the same time on guard (with
those same eyes) against the police - to
be delineated nicely in Constantin Guy's
numerous drawings of prostitutes :
'Her eyes, like those of a wild animal,
are fixed on the distant horizon; they
have the restlessness of a wild animal...
but sometimes also the animal's sudden
tense vigilance.' I, one the other hand,
now get fixated by the duality of all I see.
-
There is but one way in and one way out?
I am confused in the sense of not knowing
any longer the place I am in? Simply put,
now that is the problem. Tense heart beating.
Suspicious eyes wandering. That girl, with the
lipstick, has quite a city smirk. 'Dullness' also
says Baudelaire, 'is frequently an ornament
of beauty.' Yes, yes! Dullness is truly an
ornament of Beauty!

1023. ROCK STONE DOG

ROCK STONE DOG

You can't find a promise in the

seeking. Surmise the instant, and

take it away - for you are but my

memory of things as they were and

I have no kindred souls any longer.

Just look how want has blistered the

ages! The common folk are grown

wanton and bestial. Their foolish

waters run now crooked and then dry.

They try their cloak of vengeance,

wearing it as it is too big and does not

fit - so they simply grow into it.

-

The stars are far ahead of thinking.

Selfsame finger-darters, men who nod,

and galaxies out spinning in the air,

or the non-air, of nothing at all. The

cosmic nod comes from the Heavens.

It is, however, deep within us where

these matters befall. We can't simply

look away and expect to go on.

-

The still objects are solid, and this new

morning light graces my eyes. I am

like a monk without judgment, fallow

and soft, watching all this life unfold.

Do not talk to me, I cannot hear you.

I am not from here. Rock stone dog

before me, this life is all depth and

depth's own perception : hedgerow,

tree, lamp, table, hedgerow again,

green glass, light, mortar, brick,

rock, stone, dog. Slate on old soil,

now painted in something new

from Heaven.

1022. GRATING MAN JOHN

GRATING MAN JOHN

That smile came out of nowhere -

and was as unearthly matched as

a delight for damage could be.

Acorns, tree limbs full, and a

squirrel with no tail. Amble precariously,

now, oh little one. I am with the kingdom

of all ages and each thing shall live forever,

decreed. Time - transparent as the skin

on an onion - can both exist and not be.

So I thus see it twice - once as it was and

once as it was not. The roaring hide of the

mastodon was just a story to be told;

something once created by fragment

and as still concomitant in the telling

by its non-being...by the fact that it

and its time and its story did not

really exist at all.

1021. (I CAN'T ERASE THE MOMENT)

(I CAN'T ERASE THE MOMENT)

Reading the entrails while drinking

the blood - a true double-feature

like nothing ever seen before. This

campfire, I could tell, meant business.

The lady with her daughter (spare

carcass, I suppose) sat around laughing.

'Who could ever mix things up? Confuse

the one with the other? The living with

the dead? Oh, hardly a difference between

them.' In my own way, right then, I

had to find happiness eating the root.

-

'Power me from this day!' I took the

elevator down and it only took a

moment. All those people hunched

and bunched; the cackle, the chortle.

Telephones to ears and little screens

to hands. Whatever happened - I

wondered - to briefcases and bags?

But Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, 1938

was a long time ago.

1020. CAN'T BRING MYSELF (Bartleby)

CAN'T BRING MYSELF
(Bartleby)
Can't bring myself to cross,
to pass the exit, to waver to
a stop. I just go on, do I?
There, where the big, round
tree once stood, now merely
the stump. There, where the
door was always open, now a
closed entry. Nothing more.
Can't bring myself to that.
Sit down and find the moment.
Think how words can be.
(Just ask Bartleby).

1019. SANHEDRIN

SANHEDRIN
Some form of arms hold
these worlds together.
Brash Grey and its darkness
holds this morning's dynamic:
awash in colors yet stuck in
place. Like those final High
Priests of the old and ancient,
a balky, convulsive blockage
keeps out true beauty as Truth
and Love too fade. We are amazed
at nothing - how little the brain
holds to be apprehended. It
is all an open book.

1018. GLIMMER

GLIMMER
(rain and mirror)
Pelting, the water hits the
window glass. Beyond
the reach of gales and
bluster, all things within
this house remain in
place: cards on a table,
water in a glass, the broken
reflection of a cat and
some books. It is
too soon to make
this matter. The
material world, a
pale glimmer anyway,
tries once more to
be what it is not.

1017. MR. LENZ, HE WITHERS

MR. LENZ, HE WITHERS
The small box in the parlor made me think
of you. Dim lighting accentuated the depth
of the colors on the walls, bringing me
forth from the moment to something other.
I remembered how, in Madrid you said,
the water in the central plaza fountains
runs at only certain hours, in tune with
an old religious tradition. Nothing I could
recall exactly, but the memory stayed.
This tiny box, too, looked like that : it
could have held a saint's bones, or
some other such sacred item.
-
People have ways of marking time.
Those bundled masses I often see,
crimped and dark, walking over
the bridge - crossing water, high up,
silent, engrossed in their own place.
Some talk, yes, but it's only a feint.
-
Three boys, I remember watching, once
were throwing some coins down on cars.
I don't know what ever came of that.
I heard of no accidents, nor arrests,
but I said nothing and decided I'd
rather just let it be. I too walked on.
When I told you about it, you said
I was wrong, should have said
something, should have been
'strong'. Yes, that was
the word you used. A
word I never got over.
-
Am I weak, I wonder now, for letting
these simple things haunt me? I would
rather arise from a sleep in a dream-walk
than have to grapple with other folk. That
small, silent box in the parlor of Mr. Lenz,
it really does remind me of you. Yet,
every time I ask about it, he looks
distant, and fades away.