2090. WHY WOULD YOU DO IT?

WHY WOULD YOU DO IT?

Arthur Rimbaud, it was - lugging armaments and

ammo over African hills and distant Mideast places.

One leg rotted, on its way to gone, complaining of the

ragged one left living. What was it, all, I wonder :

camels, elephants, tigers, leopards, cheetahs,

and all that? Or something else instead :

the calm of palm-frond evenings,

the shimmering, silent sound of night

over desert, savanna and plain? I

find I have so very much to wonder

about. I have so very much for sure.

2089. ON POINT

ON POINT

I am on point with my dirge, with my memory, with

my all-too-many-witnessed things. I am (and, yes)

already an old man. And these are distant, dallianced

days : my fights with men, the sad surpluses of Alecks

and Mirandas, the severe routs of magisterial decorum

making up mind and manners. All gone, and all, as well

insipid as Hell. The page I turn is already torn from

a Book of Life long tarnished and re-bound by

amateur craftsmen; to be sure, not mine.

-

I walk away on desert sands and shifting packs

of wind-blown soils. No foundation 'neath the

castle, no moat to embroil. I look straight

ahead, and only see - on point, on point

again, the farther goal I've sought for,

now suddenly so near, still dear.

2088. OBLIVION

OBLIVION

My forces of night are sullen and solemn,

like the black locomotive that wisely leaves

the tracks - frightfully meandering, at

one with only itself, striking where it may

go. The edges of reason, sanity, gloom -

they are but selected way stations on new

stops along the way. This mountain

tunnel has cuts, already set, for oblivion.

2087. OUTSIDE OF ENDINGS

OUTSIDE OF ENDINGS

Someone just told me I looked like Archimedes.

Yeah, right. Outside of endings, I like that one

best. I also like beginnings; but you know where

they can lead. Gustatory overindulgence - I

think that probably means over-eating. And

not only humans alone are so prone :

I've seen aliens too get sick on the road.

Well, their road - space, darkness, cold,

and all the rest. Outside of endings,

I like beginnings best.

-

They fill me with happiness, centeredness, and joy.

They bring forth all good intentions and expectations.

They live up to (I always hope) my own potential -

to be where the action is, to have gravitas and

influence, to be present when the best things occur.

-

Today on Sansome Street, I saw a very old man

take out his teeth. He rinsed them in a fountain

nearby. It was blowing water, at the same time,

into his face, wind-driven. He didn't seem to mind.

I wondered if I could ever be like him. I too am now

an 'old enough' man to be considered either ancient or

a pest and, though I still have all my teeth, well, anything

can happen. Decay sets in, and then neglect. Next you

know I'm spitting out teeth like phlegm. And - though

I don't want to be there when any of this occurs, I

actually do. I don't yet want to die.

-

Yet, I wondered still if - when alive - I could ever

be like that: hitching up my pants by tugging with

my hands, washing out my teeth in a fountain,

wearing wrinkled clothes, seemingly slept in, for

any extended period of time. But it's only good

fortune that keeps me this way, and not that.

It all could fall apart at any moment. And then

well, then I'd be happy to be anywhere at all.

I guess. Anywhere at all. Outside of

endings, I like beginnings best.

2086. STAFFORDSHIRE CONFESSIONS

STAFFORDSHIRE CONFESSIONS

Celebrity rate sheets and corporate dog chews?

The hammerhead of cereals, the underwriter of

all these memorial things? Whenever I think

back on Grandma, all I see are steamed-up

windows from another Winter's night of

cooking tomorrow's food. Food. Food.

(All I ever heard about).

-

Fifty years back, I was an orphan, at the

ready in a stultified city orphanage, just

waiting to be farmed out. Grandma did come

to get me, and I got out - but oh all those

long days in her measly hovel on Avenue

this or that. I really don't remember much.

Next door, a basketball court and a parking lot,

even way back then, when I was ten. Then,

they came again and took me away.

-

I escaped on a dark, rainy night, and was never

heard from again. Grandma died in 1980. I did

attend, surreptitiously, her service at graveside.

One of my crazy cousins, I remember her raving

and fainting. No one recognized me. I came in a

rented military uniform and feigned a wicked

war-wound limp. It allowed me to stay in the

background, and no one really caught on.

-

That too was long ago. Then I found a family,

yes, but only to make it with their daughter.

It all lasted a while and then it too faded away.

My life, awkward, wasted, wicked and vile,

has pretty much always been like that,

pretty much been the same.

2085. AND BEFORE I GO

AND BEFORE I GO

Will you oscilloscope my radar-finder and send

the jackal into May? Can you obfuscate this

endive and bring forth healthy motion? Seas

and swings, party planks and outdoor grills?

Anything to this you wish to add you may append.

-

At that point, even I myself - watching the screen

in rapt attention - looked away; for right here

they were killing a chicken. Twisting sternly the

ringing neck - a squawk ungodly, a shriek, and

death. Even at that, unsightly still.

-

I am always enamored of waiters in tails and

hostesses in tiny dresses. It simply makes my day.

Of course, if you had noticed, you would have seen

how I winked first, and crossed my fingers as I

spoke, and did any of those ironic things to

show I really meant nothing

of what I said at all.

-

The poor boy rubs his shoulders with the rich.

The rich girl sits down with the poor wretch.

All in all, things have a way of working out -

and all manner of lively living goes on.

2084. SO NO I STUTTERED AT THE END

SO NO I STUTTERED
AT THE END
(Speedship)
'A wife, a two-year old, a one-year old' -
the guy was saying that as he walked
away - two construction workers in
Carharts, headed out to their jobsite.
Setting up for a game of 'Family'; I thought
perhaps he meant it all for real. Didn't know.
Can't cover the contingency here; constabulary
re-constriction, life's a prison and all the rest.
Anyway, not my problem, raw-deal boy-man.
-
When Franklin Roosevelt died, he was kept
standing up, strapped to an ice-board for three
days. Why? Who knows? In case he came back to life?
When Joseph Stalin died, he was pasted to the
Kremlin Wall and bolstered there with darts and
brackets. They kept two armed-guards there
every hour of the day. That lasted two years,
and then they gave it up. They wanted to see
how the ideology developed, and what sort.
-
There are always ghosts resting on mantelpieces
and spirits in the parlor air. It just goes without
saying - we shouldn't talk so fast, and we should
first learn what we really wish to say. It's very
dangerous for a person to waste all those years.

2083. THE MINISTRY OF ARCHENEMIES

THE MINISTRY

OF ARCHENEMIES

Why would anyone do something that would just make them

uncomfortable? I really don't know. Yes, true, birds fly into

skyscraper glass and die, but they have really no clue what's

up - broken neck, crushed chest, and all that. Those are

our concepts, to be fair. Race car drivers going 220 miles

per hour around hairpin curves are sure to die eventually

...and they know that and accept it, but, still, why?

The addict piercing skin with needles day after day,

merely to stay alive and high so as to need more?

What's with that anyway? That's all discomfort.

When it's easier to stare into the Sun, walk straight

into the waves, or simply stop moving at all. Those

things, by their realization, are more apt to have

true consequences. It's the love of a life that

really matters; that, and the things one can

hold in one's hands. Objects we can understand.

Not water or powder, no, I mean real things

in the hand, stuff we can touch. That's

the comfort of knowing that Life's

being shared with others in the

same form of habit. Misery. Joy.

Integrity. Relief. Or all those

things anyway the same?

2082. AT MECKLENBERG

AT MECKLENBERG
It seemed this one time the water-wheel was turning,
throwing great gushes of water over some municipal
lawn where a police driver just sat staring from an
overly shiny car. I watched him. He steadily smoked
some awkwardly bent cigar, as if detailing to himself
the varied reasons for doing or not doing something
else. No way of knowing, just what I felt.
-
The door did finally open, and out he stepped.
Walking away, towards the plaza and some
big doorway, he waltzed right in - as if
uniform did bring privilege, as if badge meant
free entry. He was, I guess and after all, Police.
The little town of Mecklenberg likes things like that.
-
Maintaining order, even on a shoestring, gets
progressively easier each day, I would think.
These towns run out of money, no one can do
a thing, services run down, and eventually the
locals just give up on everything and stay distant
and removed all the time. It takes energy to do
crime. You can see it in the kids' eyes - they
stand around with skateboards or phones, just
continuing the idle matter that's stuffed up their
brains already. Just no room to move, or not.
-
The modern world, in itself, becomes the killer.
Cigar-smoking police guys can do nothing for
that. Sit in the shiny car. Smoke that strange
cigar. Wear that funny hat, and let it go at that.

2081. OBSERVATORY

OBSERVATORY

I have decided I want to be at the observatory

with you; settled on the hillside, standing as one,

looking through that strange lens at the far and

open sky before us. You wanted, as I recall, to

guess a number for the stars you could see -

'70, 303', was the number you said, while I laughed.

'They all look the same to me', I said, questioning

instead if they were really there at all. 'I truly

think you've imagined just what you wish to see.'

No better gesture than shrugging could there have

been. You took your hand and put it on my arm.

We stayed like that together, for a few moments,

as you looked high to the forward sky. 'I've never,

I've never really imagined anything like this at all',

you said. 'Funny, I guess neither have I', I replied.

2080. JUST OUTSIDE OF EL DORADO

JUST OUTSIDE OF EL DORADO

The Moon is at my level side, best in the sky,

and partnered in the dawn today with a planet

I really do not know. Morning star, one of those

things. They ride the sky together, in tandem.

-

The morning light breaks, across the water, and

geese are standing at idle, looking so much at

nothing as anything at all. Still too dark or dim

to really see anything; shadows and the weaving

glimmer of light on a rippling surface.

-

It's like this when I want to stay in place.

This summation of the best of times could

only be right now and right here. I try

to listen, but there's nothing to hear.

Goodness is always silent.

2079. MEGA BOYS

MEGA BOYS

Oh yeah, they're all over the place now - those

big, sweaty guys with pumpernickle faces and

hand-held gout. Swinging bootstrap boots and

boxing gloves while they whistle the Marine Hymn

on a motorcycle-guitar drumkit. I don't know where

it all came from, but it started long ago : they drip like

shellac down an old, dried-out wallboard. They change

their oil on kit-cars from the lower domain. Weasel

and Wetzel, names like that; charmed in paint on the

flat sides of open doors. Eating plain bread from large,

open wrappers, discussing Cuban cigars while

hoping their dread will end by the morning

whilst running for home. Oh yeah,

those Mega-Boys do roam.

2078. THIS HEAP (a Dalliance)

THIS HEAP

Does anyone know where the ramps are kept,

the rages, the ridges, the foils of this life? Man juggling

fenceposts on the opposite corner from me; watch him

move, struggling free. Behind him, two cats on a ledge,

tails curled like lions, just staring. Outside of that, nothing.

-

Outside of that, nothing? The mailbox, where the two

Chinese guys just dropped their notes. They are both

walking, with maps, referring. One dangles a small

camera from a small neck. He wears an ill-fitting

carcoat I've never seen before. Talk is cheap. He talks.

-

He talks? Says something about something.

Call that talk? Talk is cheap. Outside of that, nothing.

2077. MY SHINE THIS NEVER TOOK GOING

MY SHINE THIS

NEVER TOOK GOING

Your maple syrup on the shinguard, the shaft

dripping from the tree, the silver buckets hanging.

My very high Vermont watershed inkling, dripping

honey like money like syrup; and all this before the

boiling fire. We never took down our guards, and

the late Winter snows kept falling anyway.

-

Those cows in the lower pasture, all sixteen of them,

busied themselves around the water trough, iced with

the bristles of frost and cold water. They never wanted

coming in, and never wanted going out. That lop-sided

John Deere we kept for special occasions led them

around. They followed it like stupid geese.

-

The one time that Ascor fellow, the Amish one

from the other valley, came over painting barns,

that too was a cold and funny occasion. He slid his

ladder into the chain-drop by mistake, and came

up stinking of shit, 'like a God-awful cow in

every inch' was his exact phrase.

-

And now it's syrup time again : the high mountain

air of a cold Vermont in middle March, believe me

George Eliot, already speaks for itself, and first.

Soon again it will be time to hay. Ah, again

the pleasures of May!

2076. THIS IMAGINATION

THIS IMAGINATION

I broke through the tree line, I entered the realm:

diamonds, jewels, stones, gems, starlight, all those

things in one place, mine. Satisfied to a fault,

I found no more reason than that to remain.

-

My own life had long ago amassed enough.

Around me, precarious and bold, things

balanced on the faintest holds of reason

and belief. Mute people, like broken

chests of treasure spilling their

contents, aimlessly forced their

ways. Manner and custom,

the flag that waves.

-

This was all juice for jerks, I'd

decided long ago. A seventeen-story

building can mean only one thing -

seventeen stories of the flat and

the feeble; Gumby people bent

on a weird survival. Facts and

figures, dollars and cents.

2075. ON MANDOLIN MOUNTAIN

ON MANDOLIN MOUNTAIN

In the time of high manners, on Mandolin Mountain,

I was walking the path through the woods. Above me,

a crazy hawk; alongside me, the running river.

Everywhere, something akin with Nature,

and a language I could understand clearly.

This high up from nowhere, the trapper had

a cabin in the woods; he'd settled in long years

before and I'd met him cutting brush. Just out

from Waverly, along the routing river where

we'd find fossils by the tens. Bristles of sunlight,

coned and filtered, swarmed with light like the

tiny bugs in our Summer faces. We'd pole a

shelter and light a fire by nightfall, three, four,

five of us - each a wanderer seeking place or

a mission. It was 1974, and nothing was everywhere,

everywhere was nothing. The man on the magazine

face said Nixon had resigned. Late August by then.

Who cared? Atop this line of trees, it seemed here

everything had turned to evergreen and conifer.

Nothing left, were October to ever come, for

leaves to fall from. No incentive to bring

a natural death to a place so filled with life.

By September tenth we were all, each,

already gone ourselves; and the trapper

was alone again and on his own.

2074. LINKAGE ABC

LINKAGE ABC

Cannot this be? The watch and the wonder,

the saddle and the strife. A million ways for

a million things - what makes up a life.

And only then do I see the tremendous

yellow orb, running scat along the edge

of an ever-widening sky. Down here,

below, I feel entrapped. Up there,

this feeble mind can wander - better to

tell the shapes and the hidden meanings

of things. I know the littoral tracks which

cross the bridge, meandering and

wandering, can only be mine alone.

This life, like water, falls

from my hands.

2073. HOW IS IT I WAS FEELING YOUR ABUSE?

HOW IS IT I WAS
FEELING YOUR ABUSE?
There are certain varied things at every water's edge
that change and alter with the wind. The way the wide
tides rotate sideways before they shift, the swift and
reverse flow of water running out. Even the windmills,
catching the force of something unseen, now turn with
a frenzy. Perhaps, if all my friends were helicopter pilots,
helicopters and rotors and wind would be all I ever thought
about. But, as it is, none of them are, and I go on my singular
way without that thought. By the same token, though I
cannot walk on water, I am at least watching the sea.

2072. THE MODERN FACE OF DANCE

THE MODERN FACE OF DANCE

To make the entablature fit we need three things:

pliability, willingness and, of course, energy. You must

bend the very bones which hold you back. Use a

countervailing weight to impel the structure forward,

back, and sideways too. The muscle-power used

can only show the flex and the artistry of all those

sinews stretched and displayed. A decorous human

sculpture, in motion, lithe and dynamic. We can bend

the arch, we can twist the waist. It all comes together

as beauty and sense. And - haven't you ever noticed -

there never are any words involved. Speech here is

only a vice, too tight, which holds things down.

2071. (TO SLIP AWAY)

(TO SLIP AWAY)

-Sandy Hook, NJ-

Mabel Trench and all the rest.

Blue Bonnet barbell breeders

with all those horses at Sandy Hook.

Egad, we rode those steeds right into

the sea, and oh how well I remember.

The rip tide in your face, the open ocean

current pulling at your arm. Three old

seafaring scows, piled high with trash in

heaps, heading out from Brooklyn waters.

Beneath the billowy sky, the terns and seagulls,

flipping about, sought food and fish and whatever

let them eat. I fell asleep, for but a minute it seemed,

on some old gun battery placement, looking stupidly

out to sea, looking stupidly towards the open waters.

2070. THIS PICASSO SPEAKS TWICE

THIS PICASSO

SPEAKS TWICE

How I hold onto nothing at all;

this wizened and demonic figurehead,

all glum and serious, this wasted

federation of all consideration and

sense. I see she sits, hard-backed,

against a pea-green wall. The man

next to her seems better than I seem,

for sure, and he's hers. That's to the

good. More power to him too. Both

figures manage a sensibility I lack.

Double-faced in their cubist domain,

I watch profiles and noses and eyes.

I've grown against all that and am, by

now, well-hurt by what it brings : I

try simply to get over it and then,

by chance, I can't. Those dual faces

facing out, that lightly patterned

shading, that pea-green wall.

This Picasso, I realize,

speaks twice.

2069. MEPHISTOPHELES COMES HOME

MEPHISTOPHELES

COMES HOME

I dragged Him from the fetid swampland by

the hairs on the back of His hand. Fat cat

alley rat slime bastard that He was. Shot

Him down with one fell swoop - or whatever

they call that crap in the theater. Houselights

dimming, dip-crack of thunder too, lights

back up bright the sky. Any kind of Murder

will do. He was Mephistopholes, that 's why.

-

He said, from many years back, He'd never seen

a milkman, a glazier, an artist, a carpenter nor

anyone who ever drove a truck. He was quite

medieval in his cantankerous ways - drinking

raw milk from a cow's very teat, killing His own

food and game. Starting fires with His eyes - yes,

yes, that's the one that got me the most. Enflamed

me, in fact. Starting fires with His eyes, and then

taking incendiary pleasure in everything in ruins,

all those people hurt, all those lives destroyed.

-

Not by any modern logic would this fly.

I told it to Him, right before He died.

He had to go - the wind was breaking

the treetops, and the whistling sound of

its fearsome speed could only mean danger

and doom; a trifling damsel this was not.

-

And then for myself, I saw the speeding train

approach. I spread my arms out wide and

suddenly sprouted wings. Able to fly and soar

the Heavens, I went where any urge led me.

'Ain't no mountain high enough to keep me

from getting to you...' You all know the rest,

or I hope you do. Mephisopholes comes home.

2068. PROFESSOR NUCLEUS

PROFESSOR NUCLEUS
He religiously watches his coffee brew.
He's worshiping smoke, and aroma. Two
hands 'round a very small cup. I religiously
watch the windows steam up. Unaware.
Unregarded. Uncorrected. I am such a
neutral moment. A sleeve prepares the
enemy down : ten new bullets on a
field of war. We know how it will
always be. The man needs his
moments prepared to precision -
and buttons are pressed to achieve
what we send. Think not there's a
reason for Reason, for all is ideal in the
end. (And this is but a picture frame).

2067. KEEPSAKE GOODBYE HEART

KEEPSAKE GOODBYE HEART
Don't ruin a thing don't you don't.
Carry that bag like a two-armed
stevedore today. Board on board,
away (oh well, Caravelle) and
may you travel like this forever.
-
Exponentially entrenched, are you?
Bring forth my missive forward
and straight on through. Dividing
the horizon line in an infinite
perplexity will then
just have to do.

2066. INTERREGNUMS OF THIS, INTERREGNUMS OF THAT

INTERREGNUMS OF THIS,

INTERREGNUMS OF THAT

The parlor was filled with ice, clear cubes of frozen water,

like crystals awaiting drink. Two dwarfs lounged, in

an irreconcilable frenzy of papered animation.

Board games and cigar smoke. Golden drinks in

golden glasses. I sat alone, in a velvet chair.

-

Feeling very much the flush freak myself, I

decided leaning back to sleep could work. I drifted

away, like container cork on a sea-foam of brine,

turning this way and that in a dream. I couldn't

make surrender, I couldn't make it seem.

Nothing that well worked. A dark red corduroy

curtain came down, shutting out the light.

Laughter too subsided.

-

My mechanical invention had here cost me

dearly - an automated looking glass that

sucked one into the scene. Everyone fell

for it...and now they all were gone. Which

side of that mirror was I now on?

2065. ALL THESE REMARKABLE ALLOYS

ALL THESE

REMARKABLE ALLOYS

I am listening while I watch the Sun - hearing

its noise, a steady thermal hiss, a large cosmic

hum thrumming. It colors the spaceship I'm on;

stark blues ands raving mad reds. Elliptical shadows

thwarting each other, and the deep blackness of

Space as I see it. There is no end in this sight,

nor can this ending see. Ethereal as some leaden

mouse hiding frightened in a large room's corner,

I too hover and shake. I do not know where it is

I am, and my wandering eyes - to behold something

at all - look about and see only the ages before me,

and behind, stretched. Time in becoming, or matter in

decay. You know how it is said the 'past is proloque';

well it happens the other way too. 'Life', Samuel

Butler said, 'is like giving a violin concert while learning

to play the instrument.' I'd imagine he meant all at once,

at the very same time, learning and doing, in public.

Somehow I find a meaning there, and here - beneath an

obtrusive and settling Sun that wants to burn my face

but cannot. Instead, I swelter in the heat of thought,

realizing only faintly where I am, and where it is I

am perhaps going, and, alas, where it is - all - that

I have already been. I am listening while I stare at the

Sun; hearing its noise, all its steady thermal hiss.

2064. METAPHYSICS ANTI-TERRESTRIAL

METAPHYSICS

ANTI-TERRESTRIAL

I am going blind. It's fairly simple. An effect

of overuse, visionary over-reach, what you will.

I can still see horizons, and the ends of big things,

mind you, but the fine print, the small things,

the substance of what passes for detail...no.

It's all over, diminished, occluded and accompanied -

as this Dr. Mariento says - by clouds of effusion

amid notions of doubt. Whatever. I asked him,

'can I still see Reading?', meaning, of course, the

Pennsylvania town, and he answered (like a jerk)

'Reading? No, it's the reading that's done this!'

No sense going any further than roadblock #1,

I thought to myself. And anyway, if I'm blind,

he's obviously his own Helen Keller already.

-

You see, the trick of vision is the visionary life.

None of this idle bullshit back and forth for me,

no grave matters about finding fault and who's at

wrong or right. I live cleanly and pure - straight

ahead, telling the truth and seeing the truth the

same. Which it all is, after all. No shadings of

matter to color what is. That's where the blindness

comes in. Staggeringly dense and stupid, what is

after all, darkness but a stubbornness of not finding

truth in all matters. We should cut the trim of

that fabric with a very sharp knife.

-

Anyway, Mariento says it's soon over for me -

all those lights and the glee and the fun. Maybe

so, but...ah...who really cares? Not me. I've

seen the future, and I'm not in it.

2063. EPISTEMOLOGY AND GANGRENE

EPISTEMOLOGY

AND GANGRENE

And this devil has a way with words : those

cantilevered and spinning, wavering or about

to fall. He knows a few things about cause and

effect, guile and guilt, and the rest of that all.

-

Today is nearly February's end, and, in one

fell swoop, I am walking along 53rd and all those

other interior blocks which rest in this city's

crazed middle. Lights, camera, action. I

think of the people from a few years back -

those whose names are on walls and such -

and remember them now as, only alas, gone.

-

I've been called in once more to watch some films,

a few things by Warhol and one by Cornell. My
ancient friends, I listened to, and showed up with

dispatch. We sat and watched. Others, to whom

this was new, I found them laughing in the strangest

of places. Each spot in the films, evidently, we saw

differently. Two old people next to me stared steady

and straight ahead. The man had a walker, and the

woman guided him in, carefully - even though it

took him ten minutes to get settled in place.

Like watching a lamplight light.

-

Then I decided, in effect, that - all my life -

movies have bored me. Any movies at all.

I can't watch what I'm watching, can't

stop my mind from working, and can't

force myself to believe what they're

telling me I should be believing with

each scene. Somewhere else and far

away, I'm hanging, so to speak, instead

clouds on trees. Even these, sorry.

are better to see.

2062. AFTER BEING TURNED OUT AT WICK HOUSE

AFTER BEING TURNED

OUT AT WICK HOUSE

The gears that run the gearwheel turning are

seen to be always in motion. A grease, like a

spittle, is shagged about - leaking down,

running over, loosening its viscous hold.

All things run loosely, slobbering with

stealth before breaking down.

-

The grand foyer held a portrait of Lafayette.

Why him? I'll never really know that. I

think it's more as decor than anything else.

No chamberpot in the erstwhile bath

ever held his water or waste. The

chubby girl with whom I talked

pronounced his name, oddly,

'Lafiatte'. Who really knows?

-

He's never been heard on recording,

never spoken on a phone, never watched

movies in mourning, 'Gone With the Wind'

'Revolutionary Road'. This whole modern

jangle of nervous things would have

broken him down anyway.

-

I asked a few questions, and they

turned me out as 'profane and

rude.' It was quite alright with

me, I was late anyway. Checking

my George Washington-faced watch,

I saw it was 4pm and they wanted

to leave for the day.

2061. THIS GOD IN HEAVEN BEARS WATCHING

THIS GOD IN HEAVEN

BEARS WATCHING

It's really pretty simple if you think it over :

how, once, before you die, you should take

a moment to put things in order. That's all.

Put the pens back in the jar, the paints in the

paintbox. After all, it's true, is it not, you're

done with the making, you're done with

the paints? That long wheel of time can

be elongated no more. Turning back on itself,

it has somehow (Yes!) found your name. Go

then, get settled, and back whence you came.

2060. THE HEART DEVOURS WHAT IT CAN'T UNDERSTAND

THE HEART DEVOURS

WHAT IT CAN'T UNDERSTAND

I am far and away from Brooklyn where the climbing vine

climbs and seduces the sky. Standing next to one or another

glass building, I can only wonder why. Examination of the

particulars would afford me little : you are already far and

away from all that. Just like me. Two taps, and a selfsame

faucet. I really want to talk. I am up all night, from outrageous

dreams, and you are far and away the best thing I've seen.

Window panes reflect the sunlight above, strands of shading,

broken into filigrees of color and light. I shield even these -

my eyes - from some glory, something blistering, blastingly

bright. The father behind me is telling his stories : the usual

wartime hits, days of old glories, the things he never got over.

Wearing it now, like an old, worn coat, it's obvious to anyone

that no one cares, gives a shit, gives a hoot. But, alas, that's

how old men die, telling war stories beneath a wartime sky.

Some things just never change. The heart devours what it

can't arrange. Your fingers, I am seeing, are blessed and

lovely; not with jewels, but with the polish of a skin ivory

white - a porcelain charade of trim, translucent beauty.

How it's done is always beyond reason and I

surrender my arms to your charms.

-

I am duplicated at once by the shadow you cast - in the

background, that bridge, with all its wild graffiti. And that

makes two. Of us. As one. High over the water, where tugs

and fishers swarm. Nothing worthwhile there but water taxis

with all their dead people, skimming back and forth as if

to Hades. Ladies, take it from me. There is no better there.

The heart devours what it can't make disappear; and I

am probably lonely forever. A paltry charm 'neath a

gimmicky, festive sky.

2059. DR. DOOLITTLE AND MR. WEDGEWORTH

DR. DOOLITTLE AND
MR. WEDGEWORTH
He entered the room wearing plastic rain boots
and a safari hat - green khaki pants and a face
fell of glee. Saying 'I love the rain, always!' he
moved along. I liked his manner, but couldn't
place the song. At the other end of the room, a
dour Mr. Wedgeworth sat.
-
There are always funny things to remember -
how misinterpretations color the memory, how
information gets misconstrued. Like Thoreau
saying 'know your own bone' in his nineteenth
century manner, meaning - as Anne Truitt put it -
a writer should 'force himself to work steadfastly
along the nerve of one's most intimate sensitivity' -
now being pointed to as a secret masturbator,
these things are usually stupid and dumb.
-
It meant more about 'write what you know' than
anything else. The varied 'Self' we each are.
'Know your own bone, gnaw at it, bury it,
unearth it, and gnaw at it still.' What the hell,
I always understood.
-
Now Dr. Doolittle and Mr. Wedgeworth, I notice,
are sitting together. The newspaper between them
carries a dense crossword puzzle they seem to
love doing - together, in tandem, as one.
The usual harmonies of unity and oneness -
know your own scene, do what you mean.
It can't be more simple than that.

2058. IN SUFFOCATING THE LINDSTROM

IN SUFFOCATING

THE LINDSTROM

(a vignette)

There are one million varieties of the spoken word :

the singsong, the chatter, the ideal and the real.

None of them alike, they all can be made to work.

I watch carefully as I climb. I present my membership

card to the wild girl at DIA Beacon, and she accepts

with a smile that lingers. Two men nearby are suffering

the mood of the bookshelves nearby. Art books on

Joseph Beuys and Blinky Palermo. Imagine!

-

I enter the room where the Chamberlains are -

old twisted clumps of colored steel. Nearby, a broad

room of repeated Warhol motifs, like bringing forth

the Aladdin from its pedigree of damage - all things

sourced and frothy. I seek only Michael Heizer. I seek

only Smithson and Beuys. Myself, I suffocate

in the Lindstrom.

-

A few hours later, I am having some food at the

Homespun Cafe. I never eat alone, as I always have

a companion and she is always with me. We do tricks

with money. We drink coffee alike, sitting shuttered

like art in a crate, in this 10 degree cold.

Everything just seems right.

-

I've written before of these moments, so watch

and you'll see the repeat. The girls of the town

are strolling in. They whip out their breasts and

start feeding all those daddy-less kids. There are

one million varieties of the spoken word :

the singsong, the chatter, the ideal and the real.
I am left with these endless variations, these
modern Madonnas, adrift in this world.

2057. TOMORROW AND THEN

TOMORROW AND THEN

I am aghast at the things of Man : the sepulchres

that make the sadness, and the sadness that

makes the sepulchres. The outright lies and

posturings that go into the rooting of the

false pretense of inconstancy, of being without

control or limit. Here, here...it is all here.

2056. ATLANTIS CAPSIZED

ATLANTIS CAPSIZED

I bet you've got money to burn, like the exalted
captain of some wheezy ship adrift on a wine-dark
sea; you look about, scouting wives and warriors
all together alike. And, by the way, those islands
in the distance disappeared a long, long time ago.
Atlantis capsized; the world turned upside down.

2055. HART CRANE PARTIALLY

HART CRANE PARTIALLY

When I was a young man in the dark New

York cold, I read my Hart Crane and swore

I'd never get old.

-

Now, windows have been shuttered with the

planks of indecision. Reason itself mars the

table with its jagged knife marks gouging.

The swooning sun, the sunning moon,

everything out of kilter, fading soon.

-

I make my meek adjustments to the

world beyond my window. I do nothing

to disturb the frost and the cold. I remember

Jack Frost, when that name was given to

the spindly ice lines along the glass.

I caress the lost kitten found on the curb.

-

My poetry slams doors, opens doors, and

shatters walls and windows - all things

at once. I want nothing more than to be that

which best I can be : listen up! : 'Thy face

from charred and riven stakes, O Dionysus,

thy unmangled target smile.'

2054. WITH THAT, MIRABELLE

WITH THAT, MIRABELLE
There is, for whatever reason, a
new snow on the ground today -
and someone is telling me of it,
as if it wasn't self-evident already.
Curious, how the jumble swarms.
I live in a castle of glass, a pure
place, one where no salt stains
the glass nor discolors the mirrors.
There are (I must only admit),
so many things I see thus - with
a gentle backing, a silver like
that mirror - only by reflection.
Such light wavers and distorts?
-
An old, carbuncular man is looking
down at me, attempting to make
sense of my ways and means. He
does not understand poverty or
paucity, or - for that matter -
particles of any granular reasoning.
By the very same token, I don't
wish to explain, and, with that,
Mirabelle, I leave.

2053. ONE VERY PRETTY CAT-LIKE FACE

ONE VERY PRETTY
CAT-LIKE FACE
(three globes/Hudson Street)
'I'm not hankering for that moment -
as well as anything else that in itself
can keep my mind afloat. She's got
a tincture of innocence swabbed on
that smile, and I'm thinking back,
eagerly, to where I was when I
first saw that style.'
-
Three globes somehow pressed into
the surface, a roadway glistens nearby.
Yes, he is eccentric, and I cannot
stop him. Won't even try. She, on
the other hand, whets my interest
like butter on a well-tossed loaf.
-
The blue sleeve of a newspaper bag
reminds me where I am, where I sit
to sunder my means. All this pawnshop
stuff, and here comes Little Miss Broadway.

2052. BLACKFRIAR'S BRIDGE

BLACKFRIAR'S BRIDGE
Saint Camilla and her Dancing Cups
are seen standing as they laugh and
smile. Holding markers in their
only hands - and so different
each from the other. Scarf-dance.
Ritual enticement. A fantasy beat.
The enhanced band plays for the man.
Lights go down at Brickfriar's Bridge.

2051. TOURIST

TOURIST
...Does everything thus then need be
a jumble of words : the broad, the sad,
and the funny? They've been inclined
since day one to travel. Happiness,
sensation and glee.

2050. CHICKEN WITHOUT A HEAD

CHICKEN WITHOUT A HEAD
Or like at least the farmers would say -
'running around like a chicken with its head
cut off'...I heard that stuff a million times; never
did want to visualize that, or ever see it happen.

Like blood and thunder, far enough away is

close enough for me. I always understood - on

the other hand - happenstance to be something

that could just occur, could just hit one when

one was not even thinking about it. Like a meteor

from the Heavens, one that takes out a town,

or a ballfield full of people. Smish-smash-splatter.

-

I grew up under the eaves of a garage, watching

big men argue while fixing cars. Drinking hard

whiskey from bottles in their hands, while the

other held a wrench - sometimes too with women

at their sides, they'd be feeling this or squeezing that,

and it had little to do with cars. But things got

fixed, all the time, nonetheless. One or twice, in fact,

I heard them say even LulaMae 'got fixed.' No matter.

I was just a country boy, and that's the I learned how

you learn. Like that chicken, running around without

a head - you never keep what you don't first earn .

2049. A MARKER OF FLESH

A MARKER OF FLESH

I am honing in on something I know I can

never buy : a perfect reason for biding my

time, standing still, staying in place. Wasn't

it Socrates, I just learned today, who said -

'I go to die and you to live; who knows

which is the better journey.' Curious

to have to know that anyway.

-

There are willow limbs in the swampy

alley. They are awaiting a Spring which

will boost them back to Life. If only the

moisture holds, and the swamp stays

wet, and no drought again ensues. Yes,

these are all, then, conditional things,

much as is Life itself to us.

-

I think today I will wear a yellow

sweater. A scarf, perhaps, around

my open neck. Be a dandy, brash

and bold. Live like forever,

what the heck.

2048. BROKEN GLASS ON THE AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

BROKEN GLASS ON THE

AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

Only the pitfalls of other men and the wind that

cuts like a knife can bring me back from this edge.

I am walking sideways, beneath tall buildings and

overhanging ledges. Never knowing why, I move

along evermore. Clouds like inflatable balloons

skitter past my eyes, shapes and curls advancing

in an open sky. I'm looking for comedy, but it has

long ago left this tired and distasteful town.

Broken glass on the Avenue of the Americas,

what they still try calling it anyway - shards

and razor points flying through air.

2047. I LANDED IN THE SOFTNESS OF ANGELS

I LANDED IN THE

SOFTNESS OF ANGELS

Like dense down, like the feathers of a God,

someone or something who'd made all this

stuff - soft needles and luscious pins - I'd just

looked back to see the highway disappearing

when I happened on your presence. Glittering

appearance, like the suns of a million stars.

I took a moment to stop : stunned as I was

at this science. 'Never let me go,' I muttered

and then stopped still, realizing it was all but

a painting on the wall. White horse. Yellow sun.

Old brick walls with that drooping flag. And

there, in the lifeless corner itself, the ragged

girl whose image had just caught my eyes.

I felt myself bedraggled, crazy. You were

then but an echo - of something far away.

2046. OK SO WHAT?

OK SO WHAT?

So, what they're saying is that I am dead.

I've found my name in a newspaper of the

future and - yes - they're mostly right. 2019,

or somesuch date. Like Albert Pinkham Ryder

himself, I've passed the fig-leaf of life and gone on.

-

Death rides a pale horse? I've heard that before and,

lustrous as some cracked enamel with a shine,

my surface is now marred by disbelief. I am nothing

at all, and have never really aspired past that.

Anyway. Nothing. New. OK? So what?

2045. SPONTANEOUS ERUPTION

SPONTANEOUS ERUPTION

Oh the heave and oh the ho of it all!

Silly and simple, things meander. Getting

to nowhere, like getting to know you.

What sort of leather is that chair? You

are bent down, in it, as it seems to swallow

you up. Looking for a pen, or what?

-

The sign on the wall, some self-made

paper, says something like 'Things are

looking up for me - after the fire burned

down my house, I found I had a wonderful

view of the valley below!' Effusive optimism

and motivational placement - have I ever

told you? - really makes me sick.

-

The other morning, in the waning of the dark,

I was startled while thinking about dreams and

the world around me, by the rapid crossing of

three ghostly deer - bounding high above a

roadway as they silently passed. I was astounded

by their eerie grayness in the smoky thin light.

I really wasn't sure I was present, or - if I was -

where it was I was present at. I know it all sounds

confusing now, but at the moment the thought was

crystal clear, and I knew where I 'might' have been.

2044. MORNING GLORY

MORNING GLORY
She is there having her tea.
A mulatto blemish, a secret blend,
some mix of the herbal and the
maladroit. By the glass, at the
window, arms crossed - only
something Sphinx-like, that
makes me think - sonorously
I suppose - of mystery.
-
JoJo wears suspenders and is
whistling his happy tune. I hear
the talk of the town, going
his way soon.

2043. FURY THROUGH THE FAMILY

FURY THROUGH THE FAMILY
There is not a public policy
statement to be made : I have none.
She perished in 1931; some form of
plague and fever - and she was
not alone. This is not as bad as
1917's influenza epidemic. People
died there in droves. There is an
old, neglected cemetery alongside
Tonnelle Avenue at Jersey City -
now vastly under construction right
there - where stone after stone
denotes family burials, each within
10 days of each other. Fathers. Sons.
Daughters. Mothers. The fury
swept right through the family.

2033. VOUCH FOR THE CHAIN

VOUCH FOR THE CHAIN

(very fast)

That thing is finally over and good

tidings for that - maple tree and willow

both down by the pond. I can't remember

a thing except what I was wearing - those

same dreary clothes I wore everyday for weeks

and the shoes from under the pew and that jacket

with darning for holes and no pockets. I called it

my lucky one, for all the good it did me.

-

Overabundance never killed anyone - least alone

not me. And I never had it to know. Your cigarette

racer and your devil cabana. I slept for days in your

'hood. The old lagoon, where once grandma and

Aunt Mill had lived, that shambles of a shed, and

those boys with nothing in their heads but ill will.

Never got tired of that one - violence and adventure,

hand to hand. Like a dog's leash, tied at the neck.

-

We finally swam away - as I recall , swearing to reach

Brisbane or Canberra or one of those joints on a

good Australian current. How much more stupid

could we have been? Not much, Charlie, not much.

2032. EXPERIMENTAL #3. 'And To the Wife of Bath'

'AND TO THE WIFE OF BATH'

(part 1)

This battalion loves you, this entire army of subterfuge

is here at your feet. The fir trees are waving in the wind,

for you. Let's not pretend (any more) that you do not see.

All this love amasses at the silliest of borders : where the

rivers twist and the men decide who owns what, or shall.

We may decamp for the night, our little entourage. But I

cannot, by myself, think of other than you. I cannot see

without you. I want to suck your toes, caress your limbs.

Oh God above us, how has it come to this?

-

I am not alone, mind you. There are fourteen men right now,

just like me, under darkness and night, thinking of just you.

Granted, all this is crazy, but so what. Listen! Listen, as I

spoof to be a contender in some future, modern age. How

different all things will be: I shall see you (naked) on the

back of decks of cards. Somehow, this occurs, as men hold

the cards, sitting around strange tables. Others, it seems,

are viewing you in pictures that really do seem to be moving.

How time elapses whatever may have occurred, I'm afraid

I simply do not know - nor the time or place I find myself.

-

We had no schooling, remember; everything we did we did

ourselves, lance and hammer. Sword and driver. Whatever

did not die, we bludgeoned until it did. Oh, Wife of Bath, now

please can you here help me? I am rigid, and alone.

2031. 'THEY'RE EXTREMELY INTERESTING'

'THEY'RE EXTREMELY

INTERESTING'

I've seen them before and my imagination is kept.

Not knowing where, I must abstain from telling more.

I look. I look about me - watching the morning arise,

the ice pass from sidewalks and the thin crusts of

graveyard snow fall from stones and markers.

It's all I can do to keep from laughing.

-

Time is such a tendentious thing : gravel in the

throat, bad air in yellow'd lungs, succor at the

sight of disaster. I can't translate the cards

into any winning message. As interesting

as they are, hangman, urn, trickster, all

the rest just fades away. I realize, truly,

that there are no 'things' anywhere to

behold. Life has its answers, and keeps

them, damningly, to itself. We stand

aside, and must let things pass.

2030. FOR THIS MOMENT I OWNED THAT DREAM

FOR THIS MOMENT

I OWNED THAT DREAM

(non-existence, again)

(Inconsequence : like jail, like a fixation on counting

days down. No meaning at all. I pale by comparison.

-

Now there is nothing less than that famed 'zero' - the

piper's own ticket to the flute factory, a one-way ride

back to oblivion, steerage in the schooner Mayhem,

pants with the legs sewn shut. I am lost in a thicket

of everything with a 'de' - delusion, despair, despondency,

desperation, you know all the rest. It's demeaning to me.

-

I walked the ice-clogged river, listening to the groan

and croak of every slab. I want to find one, to ride, to

ride, far, far out to sea. Somewhere I will never be.

-

No more, no more, no more, for me.

Yes, for this moment I owned that dream).

2029. MANDIBLE

MANDIBLE

I was once there. I was not. Gone. Looking

out for anything - long since past and done.

-

The service revolution seemed most certainly

'over.' All kindness had already left. The table

of girls, they filled with babies. A lot.

-

Every girl smiled at everyone. I kept watch and,

sure enough, soon my turn. They haggled and

they laughed. Beauty wears a human face.

-

Coffee and some grapes.

Water in a pitcher. Sweating

bottles of beer. All these things,

in one place. It seemed, I swear,

a total human party.

2028. SAVAGE DELIGHTS

SAVAGE DELIGHTS

And they make them welcome too. I am the

in-between man, standing at the corner of

17th. My brim hat, wide-floppy, seems right

to protect me from the rain. It falls around me,

and puddles beneath the building. I am just under

an old window-eave. Something from 1917.

Curious is that, no? Men say on this site one

hundred fifty years ago was a thriving brothel.

A whorehouse to the stars, in effect, of its day.

The rich, the fat, brocaded men with diamond

stick-pins in their lapels, standing about for their

cherry delights. A hundred choices in a velvet lobby.

-

It's all, of course, nothing now, and all those men

long gone. They died, at least one would hope -

just to give them a gentlemanly break - with their

dicks in their hands and a girl beside them. But

probably not. Counting-thieves, like pennies these

men encumbered nothing; small-change nonentities

in a far-larger war. The thriving might of Manufacture,

and the throbbing pulse of War and its productions,

led them on to the rich and comfortable life.

And then dropped them like Death's very own

hag herself would be dropped by them.

-

I am standing under this building, still and steady.

It's the site of a million past emotional couplings.

Now, the rain falls without even a blink,

and the gentle, wet world goes on.

2027. EDITOR (Very Orange Indeed)

EDITOR

(Very Orange Indeed)

"This goes on for a very long time seemingly

forever without any pause and without any

punctuation as well - and we gather around

to make sure it all gets talked and heard. These

voices, having visited other places, now come

back to tell us where they've been. Matthew,

headed for Vermont, tells me first of his two

years just finished in Turkmenistan, where

he 'dispensed pharmaceuticals' to the local

Turkmenis. And then in the background and,

for whatever reason, the second time today, I

am hearing 'Orpheus In the Underworld' being

played on some classical channel. Not the jingle

we know from the media, mind you, but the

real tune itself. And then, just to my right,

someone only recently met tells me how much

she likes my artworks on the walls. Paintings.

Collages. No one ever seems sure what they are.

I should be as rich as my heart is in the wealth

of hearing kind words. Magnificent compositions;

and the sun is going down, just outside this window.

Very orange tonight; very orange indeed."

2026. MY COUSIN, AT THE TABLE

MY COUSIN,

AT THE TABLE

Yet only now I chastise these intentions :

my cousin, sitting at a table, drinking wine

and listening to nothing in particular.

2025. INTENTIONS

INTENTIONS

Not to delve too deeply, but I am caught at this

moment within the cave of a dream of my making :

tendrils and vines of wish and intent, twisting and

gripping my every exposure. Light itself furrows my

arguable brow. I wince at distant things, ignoring

what is close be me. The sound of the yellow canary,

at home in its cage, breeds such familiar intention.

I know precisely what is meant. I understand each note.

2024. HART AND REINSTEIN

HART AND REINSTEIN

'Wish I knew what to do. Love to hear people

say this is good. Can't seem to exit my mind.

Thinking always of you.'

-

There was nothing more on the back of the card.

A picture of Albert Einstein wearing a very funny

grin. As if 'King of the World' knew all things of

the world. Unified Field Theory, the hell with that.

-

I remembered you (I'd thought) years back

wearing white linen and sitting in the very rear

of that little room. You never spoke, and we only

loved from afar. Oh well. Unified Field gone to Hell.

2023. THOR HAMMER GODS

THOR HAMMER GODS
Just like that; the long stretch of
possibilities, the summoning of endings.
Watching (once) the guy with silver hair,
spray-painting iconic images of Jesus
onto canvas, I was reminded of a play:
the long-lost sailor, now home from the
sea, cannot get the image out of his mind -
five maidens cast on a rock, illusions to be
sure, yet singing in very beautiful voices
the praises of all creation. And now, the
sailor on land, weak with his own diminished
mind, seeks them out once more - every
corner bar, every alley, every warehouse
entry. He leans on buildings, captivated.
He smokes away his time, lost in reverie.
And then, just once, he sees a glimmer:
somewhere, rounding a corner, he sees
them. Then they are gone. Nothing left,
he knows, but the guy with silver hair.

2022. GILGAMESH

GILGAMESH

I am reading my fingers where they enter the womb,

catching the sunlit rays of glory from far-off ancient

days. We roam the Earth this way, together - building

walls and breaking clay, running with a brother and fighting

bulls. Wild things abhor us, and we sanction all the earth.

Encompassed by such, I hug the Earth while scanning

the sky. Cedars roar back at me, and, all over, the gate

to another world is opening wide. Not walking on water,

I instead slog beneath it, peeling mud from angry faces,

realizing Mankind in my ways, seeing Death and finding

an end. I cannot escape what it is I am. I go forward,

unto Death, and then I, passing, die. With my one

final breath I say 'I want to live forever!' And in

this way only - by my works living on -

do I myself so live forever.

2021. ANABASIS

ANABASIS

Marvelous, this nomenclature, like science and grit :

words tied together, supple and sound. One word

suffices. This high up, I see the entire valley as it

is spread before me. All those old, shuttered mills,

the factories, where once the water-wheels churned.

Everything now shuttered and forgotten. Looms to

no end, spinners, tanneries, acid pools of runoff.

The strange figure eight far below? Nothing more

than a tangle of roads, leading 'round in circles so

shoppers can park.

2020. HOMETOWN SUBMARINES

HOMETOWN SUBMARINES

They came through here picking at the small

things, those fiery men in jackets. Toothpick

tassles and wire-rope bales; with their faces

aligned, they all looked like toy soldiers to me.

Gadabouts singing their singsong lines :

cadets on an abbreviated, quite local patrol.

2019. GHOSTS (a very true story)

GHOSTS

(a very true story)

I call it like I want it and leave the pickings for

the others - the ones who scratch and save, snare

and wonder, watch and remark. Journalists and men

with pens and snark. Disease filters through the

aisles where hundreds of others have sat. A

pilgrimage to a sacrilege, and that, my son, is that.

-

Today I was snug in Chelsea and left for dead in

the Village. On Perry Street, and then Charles, I

took it upon myself to saunter in where I chose.

An old lady had died, and left me all her clothes.

Her acting jewels, from 1967 and before, all still

arrayed upon her Broadway bed. Robert Preston,

Ed Gwynne, and more. I sat at her piano. Its

sickening sound made me abhor all else:

old, tired keys, so out of tune to be fired.

-

When I turned to see, there were only ghosts,

dragging through the kitchen, pretending to

play in the parlour, and, there, on her outsized

walls, all the posters and kettles and pictures

and rings of her eighty oldtime years. Those

ghosts were just staring to space.

2018(a). SHEEPS AND SHEPHERDS

SHEEPS AND SHEPHERDS

Just as I heard it I report back to you : 'the state of

health care today is a media medicare entertainment

frolic; some sidweays squankling over nothing at all.

The dead stand in place and the living willingly die.

It's that simple so very simple.' OK then, we leave it

at that. Scalpel, knife, blade and suture.

'Sheeps and Shepherds, head to the future.'

2018. MY MINDS ARE BROKEN

MY MINDS ARE BROKEN

I'm at the point where I've reached astral ends,

my minds are broken and my heart amends.

These are quality things, of which I must be aware:

the signification, the edification, the purpose I wear.

Looking up, the false full moon I notice it throws its

cloak over doom - the light and its shadow, the halves

of each other, duality soon. I shrug and I wander.

I've left that room.

-

Place my hand in the ether - a wide-open sky,

darkness and blemish. I wonder not why.

2017. POET MAN

POET MAN

(Joseph Stalin was a people person)

I sat down with the poet man and a major one

at that; knew his name, he doffed his hat. Had

rim-shackle hair and an ice cream cone face. Said

his 'name be Paul' and said it in haste. The point

he made 'a poem shouldn't be long. Who wants to

hear or read all that stuff?' Then, quizzically, he

turned and said - 'at least that's the way I feel

about it. What about you?' I laughed and said

'well, yeah, sometimes maybe but on the other

hand I like to think 'let it splurge' just throw it all

out there, line after line, grow run and sputter

until you're done.' We left it at that. He said 'later'

and took the stage. Everything was fine, except

I couldn't hear a word he said after that.

That crowd never did shut up. Only

thing I remember, he said, 'Joseph

Stalin was a people-person'.

2016. MY LIFE IS A DOSE OF SICK

MY LIFE IS A DOSE OF SICK
I'm getting crumbly around the edges, and
I don't know what to do. Eyes well up with
tears just thinking. Cosmic infanticide. Eternal
euthanasia. Selective breeding, dogs, cats,
angels, turtles and all the rest of that
bio-structured crap. I'm looking at pictures
of the Cassady family - Carolyn and her
daughter, the one in ballet form. I can't
fucking stop from crying. Good God,
I'm so measly gone. It's not as if I
haven't lived myself; I've done all the
rest of that matter. It's more like the
pregnant pause that's about to explode.
In sirens. In fury. In fire.

2015 YOU'RE GETTNG FAT

YOU'RE GETTING FAT
(live from Duryea House)
Better be satisfied with a brick.
Happenstance has its own constellations.
The essence of of all things is a certain
form of Love. (Valerie wears no hat).
-
I took a jimbro to the Brothers Four.
Max and Mike and Evan and Steven.
Their sound together was - it is true -
harmonic, sensating, sweet. Satisfying too.
What God has joined together, let no man
take apart? I think that's how that went.
-
Reading a Shakespeare under a limb.
Bare, ruined choirs, where once the
sweet birds sang.

2014. THE SHIP MAY YET SINK

THE SHIP MAY YET SINK
(but at least there are no passengers
in the lower compartments)
Which of course makes no difference at all,
has no bearing on the end. The ship goes
down, and everyone, to be sure, goes with
it - topside or bottom, no care.

2013. AFTER THE FIRST OF THE COFFEE

AFTER THE FIRST
OF THE COFFEE
Once the tree limb fell down onto the black
Mercedes, I looked up to see : the crack
and sizzle had caught my attention, all that
ice and its sound descending. The wide fan
of the very big branch kept it from thudding,
but it landed on the car nonetheless. Slap. Crash.
-
A few minutes before, I myself had driven right
over a branch large enough to cause me woe.
The car swallowed it as an ant swallows a dog.
You get the gist. No damage, I don't think. A
bump, and a scratch. All the crazy ice again.
Everything coated as if by glass, and I want to
list my mentions : doorways glazed, sidewalks
as killers, roadways lit like ice rinks in the early
morning streelamp glow. In all, lots of fun to be
had but only if one sought it out.
-
I mostly ignored the adventure. Everyone else, it
seemed, was scurrying. Running to the window to
see what they could see, ('My God! There are two
people in that car! You sure they're OK!). Then the
cops came, those message radios blaring. Down the
street - but from other places and on other cases -
the Princeton ambulances ran their long, loud run.
Sirens and lights, tight, fast turns in slush and ice.
What a morning, and wasn't it nice!

2012. I REALLY THINK I'M MOVING IN (Feltville)

I REALLY THINK

I'M MOVING IN

(Feltville)

I have lost many things over the edge of fear and

panic. Like the dental-phobic patient screaming in

the chair, I want to run and disappear. There is

little more that I can do, having to stay, and live,

for you. Thirty years of schooling, and a union-card

to show the devils I exist, can keep me, no matter,

back from nothing and just returned. Go figure.

-

I ate my own nascent children, swallowed my

cat-gut fire, doused the flames in lemon-lust

before realizing it was merely desire. I played

cowboy at the fenceline just to keep you sunny.

A million magic spaces, a hundred thousand times.

I finally learned silence, but only after I'd lost

my voice. I used my hands in a pantomime,

and it was, always, all by choice. I have lost

many things I've forgotten about, and now

all I can do is aimlessly walk, thinking of you.

-

There really is an abandoned town I've found,

called Feltville. I think I'm moving in,

I really think I'm moving in.