3163. TALLOW

TALLOW

Markers along the treeside, high atop the hills;
where crested woodpeckers yet sing and the
high-vaulted fly-hawks soar. A long and
patterned time below. The land rolls on
before us : rocks as old as what is said are
still lined atop these ancient heaps - old lines
and scratched marks of this and that entreaty
from a hundred years before. I can hear the
bold echoes yet running. A distant light
marks the curvature of this Earth.
-
My mind and my vision drip - as a waxen
image too close to the Sun; softening and losing
shape, sliding down into inconsequential forms
and meanings without meaning. My soul talks
back and somehow yet I know I am alive.
Far, far off, just where I can no longer see,
I sense the distant river curving away.

3162. ASHBURNIPAL

ASHBURNIPAL

'Well then you come do it - smoky sky on
a broken horizon. Have I ever told you how
I feel? Legal sanction now awaits me -
I can hinder what you unreel. The last
farrago at the final moment, and all that
foolish cheering for none. Go ahead then,
see if I care. You will do what you will,
whatever and a day.'
-
'Stop your stinking sacrifices. Your smells make
me retch - your flesh and your carcasses, dead
loins and fire-burned lambs. Offerings such as
these? I'd rather have Baal's lonesome daughter.
There are no words, really, for what you are.'
-
Then I will stop saying your name. The day of the
Lord is here. The readings must stop, the lists
are pronounced, and all those names of the
already-dead, that long roll-call of prisoners,
must we sit here and listen to it once more?
Grant me dispensation, oh God, to leave
your house and fade away.

3161. (ALL) PILED UP DARK

(ALL) PILED UP DARK
I went through Ealing, Epping,
and Slough, and Bradford and
Spalding too - all that old
Vaudeville circuit, now near
finished and gone, emptied of
clowns, and blackface, and
jesters, and cons. All the old
ballrooms had fallen down, the
tentcamps were gone - all that
were left were the surreptitious
failures of broken windows and
crumbling closets, the dives of
old Devils in Hell, carparks and
fractures and more : just one thing
after another, all piled up dark.

3160. MIS-FAVOR

MIS-FAVOR
Yes, yes, now the Gods are armed
with their many new charms. A
gallantry of novelty, long before the
new wears off. Electrons warding off
danger, neutrons slaking thirst,
dark matter, black holes. These
Gods have many arms. How
well they manipulate things.

3159. AND THEN I SAW NOTHING AT ALL

AND THEN I SAW
NOTHING AT ALL
I am so small - startled as well -
among all these tall and darkening
men; the ones with wishstones on
their brooms and carnage upon
each of their faces. 'We've lost
entire families to boom and bust,
to make and waste, the bombed
out billets of border and line.
It's all been maddeningly so.'
Saying that, once more he
threw his lit match onto his
pile of gasoline cuttings. 'If
you wish to continue believing
it's all been allegory and
apocrypha, go right ahead.
Your funeral, Bud!' The flames
shot wildly higher. 'The Damnation
Conflagration, I call it!'
-
There really was nothing to do.
I'd read all that stuff before - lists
and plagues and first-born slaughtered
boys - all gibberish to me as well. Frogs
and locusts and strange odors of Death
upon nightmares of dreams. Yes, I'd
been all there and done all that. Now
some crummy, waning Lordship wishes
to come right at me? I'd think better of
the chipmunk than the tree. 'No thanks!'
I said. 'I couldn't hear you the first time,
and when it finally came around, man, I
was really busy.' I noticed a hummingbird
buzzing the feeder. And then I saw
nothing at all.

3158. THAT'S FOR SURE

THAT'S FOR SURE
Only by the glint of
both manner and
hard work are all
the things we really
treasure made.

3157. STATION IDLE

STATION IDLE
Before the extinguished day
dissolves away, that single light
will go out. It too has been on for
so many hours; a thin, yellow
bath on one, very old, posted
schedule signboard.

3156. SOMEONE'S UTTER CONFLAGRATION

SOMEONE'S UTTER
CONFLAGRATION
There are just so many ways to skin a cat -
though there are more than one - and we've
probably seen them all. Watching transfixed
at some late-night TV image playing, over
and over, that shot to the head, the assassin's
video, the long-range leap to someone's death.
Tall buildings pale by comparison, even if
they do gently bend down to swoop up
the jumper. It's more of the same, what the
eyes see or foretell. The contagion loop
of expectation, like that famed rock wall
surrounding Riverdale itself, where the
old 'Injuns lost it all, nay, gave it up,
walked away having lost - yet again -
right before the slaughter, another
parcel of land; something they
didn't know about at all.

3155. THIS IS MY JUMBLE AND I AM THE ONE

THIS IS MY JUMBLE

AND I AM THE ONE
Nothing like this : ruminate the floy, calculate
the chaos, bring home the source. The Mayflies,
long gone now, are dead as well. Listen - there,
the tinkling of that churchyard bell on the hillside,
it means another 7am Mass is being run. Some
cadaverous lecher of a priest, and his two altar boys
caking the magnificent for a few elderly women sunk
down in the pews. This goes on forever, all the detritus
of a lower world. I resign myself to nothing more.
-
Sink me down, just as well, in the cases of
mis-chanced fury I've witnessed here. The 7th
Street flowerings, the two cops beating a hoodlum
senseless, the pretty girls twirling their rainbows
on the Washington Street pavement, hollow horrors
filling their veins. I remember seeing Rudy Grillo,
just before he died, like a heroin ghost leaning on
Death's fence. He wanted to see, but could no longer
focus. It was just like the end of the world, for him,
and for me. Now it's all nothing but some Dalmation
story being told over and over and more. Jack and Jill
went up the hill and Jill, it seemed, came tumbling down.
-
I lost the story, I lost the honor, I lost my broken
arm, I lost my daughter. How far should any of
this carry? I look at those old pictures, all so well
and all so bright. I want to be somewhere else,
and then I realize, alas, I probably already am.
This is my jumble, and I am the one.

3154. AIR (first day of Summer)

AIR
(first day of Summer)
There's only so much I can tell - I've done my
Hamlet and my Tempest too. Perhaps Macbeth
and King Lear await, though I would not know.
As long as Andronicus looms not nearby.
No froth now, mind you, let us speak
strongly of those things we may. Your
cut-out clouds are lining the sky;
like paper formations, they hover.

3153. I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP

I REALLY NEED
YOUR HELP
(madness)
If I could just cut through, get
someone to listen; but no, no, no,
my words are dead on the wharf -
sinister movements and the
dead-heading sailor asleep
on the creosote post. And
I am sorry for that.
-
I bead-buckled my final cadaver,
lit my last torch and singled-over
my final double-indemnity, sitting
like Boethius in my solitary cell
for you and the rest of your sainted
Mankind all, going about your
wayward ways : now park that
car, now make that call.
-
It does seem, these days, that people
really are born already on the phone,
jabbering their junk all right from the
very start. By contrast, my pale
temperature boils. I miss, oh dearly,
my pleated shirt and all that it
brought forth; its glory, it solid
inattention to detail and form.
-
But now, having reached my own
impasse and crossed the station
over to my own mental ward, I
ask - do you know any of what
I mean? Why Dilling finally
blew his head off? Here, here,
I really need your help.
-
If there again was just someone to listen,
someone to hear me out, then those
thrumming registers of low sound
would be howling instead my own
forceful name - astound, absurd,
wastrel child me. They've made
a ring-coil from but letters of
my name. Let's try and forget
the doubt. Just go. I really
need your help.
-

Dandelion millweed tiger's paw.
Decibel departure Miami suture.
Everything like this, brought
together at last. What a ghastly,
ghastly world. I really, really
need your help.

3152. MIRABILE DICTU

MIRABILE DICTU
I wonder never long about anything
at all. It's amazing, it's a wonderful world!
Starlight and the sun, both together mixed,
are generated with my very blood and tissue'd
form. I am all that which I step. My feet are in
the Earth and of the land I walk - implanted,
to the land, as my head is to the stars. Mirabile
dictu and wonders of all that! Amazing!
It's a wonderful world!

3151. THE FUTURE WAS NOTHING LIKE THIS

THE FUTURE WAS
NOTHING LIKE THIS
I remember you went to Pittsburgh -
blue pants, a funny hat, sunglasses
and all that driving. You said it made
you feel young - 'being out on the
road, moving along, owing no man
no thing.' I liked that way of a phrase
you had - a glide, a quick and a glib
tongue. 'Owing no man no thing,' I
thought, was pretty unique. Most
people probably would have said
instead - 'owing nobody nothing'
or maybe 'I don't own nothing to
nobody.' I hope you understand
what I'm trying to say.
-
Blue glass, blue Pittsburgh glass.
'PPG they call it!' That's what
you said - craning your neck
sky-high out the driver's window,
watching things go by - wind in
your hair, wind in your eyes (which
the glasses hid). Funny to see you
steer, at sixty miles an hour and more,
with but the tip of your index finger.
-
'Mostly, I want for nothing. That
sounds great, yeah, I know, like I'm
rich and can have everything. No way,
man - it's actually the opposite. So
freaking broke that I've learned now
to want for nothing, 'cuz I can't have it.
Get it? Just to get by.' Yeah, the future,
back then, was nothing like this.

3150. MY HEART'S FIRE

MY HEART'S FIRE

I kindle my heart's own fire with love,
flighting fiery sticks like arrows straight
to someone else's heart. Kiss me world, I
kiss back. Open my palms, famed nirvana,
I start fires with my thoughts - tongues
of flame leaping my open hands. Heart to
heart to enter Love. Call me ever, call me
thus, bring me forth, cause my lust. I am the
blazing one, coming forth now to save the world.

3149. ALLAH BE PRAISED

ALLAH BE PRAISED

Marksman deadly accurate shot man head
right between the Nairobi eyes. The girl
with the blues, the one I love, just washing
her hair with some new-found sludge. In
my dreams, she's shattered by rocks while
sunk in the sand, like those Middle Eastern
Muslim perverts stoning broken virgins.
God almighty what a petty world you've
made - all those mighty assholes proclaiming
what they say. Rights and freedom gone away
in a death and slavery here to stay. Pigeon-headed
Gods come crying, all that Allah Yahweh Jesus shit. Look
at what they've done with it, just look at what they've done.

3148. YEAH, I CELEBRATE MYSELF?

YEAH, I CELEBRATE MYSELF?

Make no stinking rationale for where the street ends up :
willow tree sagging over the marsh, the end of the block
slimy with crud, the old metal swing set sinking in mud.
The old sanitarium, now a condo-set, makes me laugh
still every time I pass - Cherokee Arms, now it's called.
Big bunches of Puerto Ricans stabbing the park with
love; Jets and Sharks and Houseboys and Wrens.
-
I dare somehow saddle up this horse and ride, and slide -
East River metamorphose right there into me. Tugboat
pushing barge, sloop and craft, slighting, listing
pleasure boats. Two cranked girls in little white
bikinis, sunning their ass on deck. I went home,
and there was no one there. I went there, and
there was no one here. All my friends are dead
and gone. No father, no mother as well.
-
I find that I rot and stink with the rest of them all.
Laying back in the sunny grass, feet up on a railing,
watching birds and squirrels scuttle and run. I don't
care that I don't care and I don't care if I should care.
Or not. That rotten weasel apple-mazaneer, the
man with the plaid-silk hat, no I do not know him,
have never seen before. That dog he's walking,
Jeez, looks more like a cow. I smile, languid to
a fault, and celebrate. I celebrate, myself?
Them? The world around me? All.

3147. BAUDELAIRE'S ALBATROSS

BAUDELAIRE'S ALBATROSS
Why here in these crazy, frozen wastes?
Why now in this ice? What makes me think
now of these sudden and remembered things?
Like the albatross of Baudelaire's poem, tethered,
and with those big wings drooping deckside while
captive and tied, the sad and awful paradigm of
limitations holds me down as well. I am as if
frozen in some cumbersome block of ice.
-
'Its great white wings drag at its sides like a
pair of unshipped oars' - that's how he says
it exactly. Broken, defamed and unsettled
spirit, hold still. I hurt by just the thinking.
-
My mirage, as well, it would seem is solid
and heavy; holding me down the same.
The ice and the mentor'd fantasy, they
are both working to rule me, settled,
broken, defamed. Unsettled as well?
Yes, yes, both myself do well define.

3146. ORION'S MIGHTY BELT

ORION'S MIGHTY BELT
As difficult as right now though all may seem,
so in contrast my lightened spirit soars. The
nighttime heavens above, Orion's mighty belt,
the roaming, wielding, shooting stars, the
asteroids and planets - all that rich, thick and
textured blemish of my conscious life - brings
me out, lifts, propels, takes me with it. I am
off, to such a gloried atmosphere as no one
pale astronomer, none, has ever seen. This
is a rich and brilliant happiness, one to wish
for, gloat over and strive ever towards,
(as difficult as that all may seem).

3145. NIAGARA

NIAGARA
(search results for Niagara Falls)
I'm sitting at the rainbow window watching
water fall down - colored mist and white sky
flying high, Good God! And here come a
Troupermania Trio singing on : some putrid
folk songs last heard in 1964 - 'freight train,
freight train, goin' so fast...' Old Libba Cotten
herself couldn't have sung it no worse, and
that would be 1905 'til now. I'm sitting at
the rainbow window just wanting to smile -
freight train, freight train, to 500 miles.
-
The mist fogs gladly the gadfly glass -
sends shimmers and ripples along, all things
glazed, it seems, with something; akin, that is
to this : folk songs in an old time lodge and,
below, the Maid of the Mist! Please don't tell
what train I'm on, so they won't know I'm gone.
-
Freight train, freight train, goin' so fast,
how did I come to this at last?

3144. NEW PRESENCE AND NOW

NEW PRESENCE AND NOW
I have entered the unfound world :
syllogism silence logic and sense.
How often the lone bell ringing sounds,
bereft of the ordinary context; a cuckoo
without manners, a vane without any
suitable wind. I have entered the
unfound world : syllogism silence
logic and sense. What things together
coalesce. I wear a cloak as finery and dress;
and humbled such a servant is. I carry
the new reality all with me as I leave.

3143. TYRANT (he is not a one, but a many)

TYRANT
(he is not a one, but a many)
Yes, yes, the tyrant sounds!
It is good to kill - most times -
what things need killing. Do you
now understand? Arise for the
ramparts to slay this new King.
Yes, yes, the tyrant sounds!
And yes, in a spite, he must die
and his voices, all, must fall.

3142. AND NOW THIS NEW OVERTURE BECKONS

AND NOW THIS
NEW OVERTURE BECKONS
We set out for the open sea,
in a leaky, shitty craft. The
journey was 70 years long,
so they said, and we steered
wherever we were headed.
Winds blew fierce or sometimes
not at all. We took refuge in a
million shoals and narrows;
illusory, not really there,
and - always - gone
before tomorrow
arrived.

3141. RIMBAUD

RIMBAUD
I've waltzed like a retard covering
'Last Year's Man' - strumming along
with Wind At the Oasis playing chords
blindly insensate. All these mannered
rhythms going nowhere, and I am not
myself, I am someone else.

3140. LEICESTER TROLLEY

LEICESTER TROLLEY
Until the robin's egg runs dry
and silt fills up the borders,
that's how long I'll stay to wait
for you : holding air in a watery
palm, forsaking other moments
for now and only this alone.
The Leicester Trolley Bus
just went by. I should
really take it home.

3139. PENNSYLVANIA DUCKLING FARMHOUSE

PENNSYLVANIA

DUCKLING FARMHOUSE
I can't write more than my hand allows -
ragweed ragamuffin chandelier doctor.
These aren't just figments that play on
the wall - flowers and carriages and
one old, red barn. Why, why, why then
do people continue : homily to heritage
and all that nostalgia for what's gone,
when nothing will really do at all, nothing?

3138. WITNESS

WITNESS

An unwrapped gauze of circumstance, he held tight to
the green-painted railing. Some blood was trickling
from his mouth and his small hat had fallen from
his head. Next to him, a man with a ukulele was
stupidly singing on, as if nothing untoward was
occurring. Some standard of sub-standard uselessness
was making itself felt. On the ceiling tiles, the light
was refracted into false rainbows, a scattering of broken
light and rays of indistinct texture. Learning long ago
to have nothing and live with that, I offered no resistance
to what appeared to be fighting back - a variety of
useless and awkward bile. Thinking to myself, in a
telegraphic fashion, 'was this the way things always
are?' I ascribed new meaning to the moment : disgust,
disfavor, and a dissimilitude of want and need - neither of
them representing, really, anything at all. I watched
another man spit as he sauntered by. More waves of
revulsion swept over me. Short of Death, only a gun
would do justice to this scene. Calamity, I saw finally,
now had a nation, a land, and a kingdom of its own.

3137. THE GARDENER'S GOOD TRUCK

THE GARDENER'S
GOOD TRUCK
It was morning, and the wet grass was flooding
my shoes; the lone sentinel of a hawk looked
down from atop an elm, beseeching the world
below to deliver Death to it. Never bidden,
Death arrives; just another roadkill bird to
remember its cry. All was peaceful and still,
and then the gardener's good truck rolled by.
-
We are so bemused by things, and we just
keep going : the Ferris Wheel round in the
sky, still lit up, turning, from the night before.
The abandoned fairgrounds, now quiet and still,
merely dances eerily, its fabrics and tents
blowing in the wind, with not a word from all
those sleeping carnies in their drowsing tents
and trailers. Why, or why not? No difference.
-
And then the gardener's good truck comes rolling by -
trailing a flag and a container of spray poison, and
something else alike to fertilize the ground and
kill the weeds. Ah, so, then we should all reach
such lucky a station : the gardener's good truck,
the riven tents, the slaughtered bird, and the hawk.

3136. A BETTER FIT

A BETTER FIT
That train, with its black and charcoal tower,
moves through the air with smoke and power.
It pushes things around as it slices through
this world. Huddled all atop it, and all along
its sides, those crying hordes of Calcutta
and Delhi, the hunched and broken forms
of distant lands : they stay in place, wailing,
as they are dragged through this swirl in
time. I watch from a platform at that which
I cannot partake. Squeamish, I blanch at the
image. My token time, this iron before wheels,
is made - by contrast - of skyscrapers and
grime, of window glass and riches and
returns; great bevies of money and tables
set with crystal and gold. That contrast
is striking (truth to be told), and I can
only shudder as I walk away. The clinging
men, I watch them in their robes and
colored silks. Their mouths, in a grimace,
say something, but I cannot the language,
ascertain, and my silence is a better fit.

3135. OVER

OVER
I am in a foreign land. I am outside, without
language, without understanding. I am wop
kike, nigger, hunky, chink. I am all the rest.
My words have no effect and no one - not
a one - understands what I attempt to say.
I am distant. I am kraut. I am spic. I am frog.
What can you lend me? What can you extend
my way? I spread out my hands to you, to
ask, to beseech, to beg. I am loser. I am
dying. I am dead. Will you remember
these words when you yourself are
gone? Will you take a moment to
think of me, in absence? Wash the
sick? Clean the sores of the dying?
Before it is all over, it is
already too late.

3134. ONE LAST VISIT

ONE LAST VISIT
One last visit to these highlands intact,
before the brazen light of day hits the
painted wall - the sad surf tumbles,
leaving its trail behind, shining shards
on darkened sand. High above, some
leftover daylight moon witnesses
silently this oceanic parade.
-
I am here, in a cubicle of dark, of
my own. I can sense the departure
of each wave, every breaker pouring
forth, in the same way words flow.
Now if I can only listen. For what
reason only they know, mad gulls
emblazon their time with noise.
-
So many things matter.
So many others do not.

3133. DAYBREAK

DAYBREAK
I saw two deer at daybreak dancing -
as light they stepped across the road,
just ahead of me, in a balletic frisson
of stately grace and a very composed
inner fury. Eyes lit, ever sentinel,
looking. For that moment, in the grass,
they stopped and, with a graceful
twist each of the neck, stared back
at me, over their shoulders watching,
while the sky, in a gentle light,
transformed itself slowly to day.

3132. SO TO RAISE THE HACKLES

SO TO RAISE THE HACKLES

...And pump the fucking post, mail the water
in hats, generate the overflow which winds
up in the gutter. Where the rubber meets
the road. It's two-twenty-nine, I see, and
yet again the old guy is sitting there reading
the newspaper from Trenton : "Man screws
rubber ducky hidden in child's hand! Three
scrawny cops in whorehouse scam! High
school proms run amok!" It's almost
always the same - all those high crimes
and misdemeanors in a ten-year-old's
game. I merely note the time of day
to show : nothing ever changes, and
we are - ever - all the same.
(No, no, I take it back. They
can all go to Hell!).

3131. SOUTHERN GREENFIELDS

SOUTHERN GREENFIELDS
Mount Holly and a million words
and new South Jersey towns, all
between nothing at all : clams and
glassworks, each betokened thing,
over the ages, alas, and now gone.
The last of the baymen's huts, they
just told me yesterday, were burned
in '83; nothing else, no one else to see -
in this empty town, in this empty, barren
place, in this awful vacancy. Someone
is playing music, way out on the sand.
I hear that awful racket like it was right
here in my hand. This modern day, so
much to see, they have so much to say.
This awful town, this awful, barren
place, this empty vacancy.

3130. THE PLEDGES AT GREENWARD

THE PLEDGES
AT GREENWARD
Standing straight like trees,
in uniforms and stripes, these
soon-to-be oligarchs and routed
little soldiers take their pledges,
salute, and shine; and insist
on marching away.

3129. THE TREND OF MOLLY

THE TREND OF MOLLY
(reasons for Molly seeing)
Molly paints, Molly pants.
Molly faints, Molly glances.
Molly has a million good
reasons for being.
And, alongside that,
everything pales
by comparison.
(More reasons for
Molly : seeing).

3128. PIPER, PIPING

PIPER, PIPING

Having been baked in your Vicarene, I lost all
awareness of place and time : carnage and murder
meant nothing to me. The lost wages of sin, or
whatever that was I'd read in your viclactic book,
escaped me now. Looking around, I only saw clouds
and, from them, the distant birds in and out. My mind
had lost all sense of time. I wandered, aimless myself,
just as any one of those middling clouds. 'Piper, piping,
sing me wild, sing a song both fair and mild.'

3127. FOR CAMILLE

FOR CAMILLE

Jeez no Jeez almighty. Don't
say stuff like that - too much
bug spray in Avenel. Goodness
gracious not. I remember times
as well, just like that, rolling an
endless ball down Livingston Ave.,
chasing the Ford Diamond along
Clark Place, writhing with the
simians at Demorest and Pike.
Remember, I want to tell you,
remember, even if it's deep like
good coffee, you might like tea
better. I'm sorry for that, Camille.
You know, it was Abe Lincoln who
said, in a crappy Virginia hotel, to
the waiter who brought him some
really bad brew: 'Sir, if this is coffee,
bring me tea. If this is tea,
I'll have coffee instead.'

3126. THE SIGNIFIER HITS PAYDIRT

THE SIGNIFIER

HITS PAYDIRT
(down at tompkins square park)

Long tall Sally and the little red Corvette,
they're both sitting 'midst weeds down by
the dock : sick of everything and just
wasting away. The game is in overtime,
the crowd's beginning to trickle out, and I'm
watching movies on the infield wall.
-
Helene Krempa and some Nicole Kidman
lookalike doing gymnastics on the schooner
Mirage. High seas and misdemeanors too.
A couple of miles off shore, and, damn, you
can get away with anything at all.
-
The guy in the Big Beat sweater, that's me.
It's 1966 again, and once more I'm down by
Tompkins Square; kissing four-eyed angels
named Margaita and Rosalita. They've got
a nasty brother they call Pabolito, but he's
away in the Vietnam War. Lucky me.
-
I pick up the loaded dice.
Somehow (beats the hell out
of both them AND me)
I roll a twenty-three.
Down at Tompkins
Square Park, just
them and me.

3125. TWICE (in the ring they flipped, and the mind was unsettled, like America)

TWICE

(in the ring they flipped, and the
mind was unsettled, like America)
1. People work while things happen
and the massive tree houses a squirrel
as the sunlight rights itself through these
branches - or as much of them as I can
see. Rough bark torn and scarred still
shuddering with some rude shock now
so grown over and forgotten, like our
own bedeviled birth. Oh the Earth
is our loom as the fabric is doom!
-
(In the ring they flipped, and the
mind was unsettled, like America).
-
2. People work while things happen.
The massive tree houses a squirrel.
The sunlight rights itself through the
branches, or as much of them as I
can see. A rough bark, torn and scarred,
still shudders with some rude shock, now
grown over and forgotten - like our own
bedeviled birth. Oh the Earth is our
loom, and the fabric is doom.
-
(I see Marienne with two fingers
hold open the slipping door).

3124. MADE TO STAY

MADE TO STAY
(henry street settlement, nyc, 1970)

These things are made for fondling;
the entire patchwork quilt of it all.
Listen decidedly hard, transient one:
the night is made for crying, the milk is
made for spilling. Outside the Ken-Ken
Dairy Bar, where three old Jews are
still smarting from their memories,
a new form of consumption takes
over their eyes. 'We shall have this
land, now as it is, or we shall have
nothing.' The other person - her
name was Mara Kein - barely sat
down on the steps to weep before
the others walked away; not a
dry eye in the house after that.

3123. THE QUERULOUS

THE QUERULOUS
'Mind you, faction; all
those listed and adumbrated.
The wild bridge crosses an even
wilder river, and the sunlight
now grazes the two. I am here,
standing beside myself, watching
and questioning all that I see.'

3122. PALATINE (the mystery deepens)

PALATINE
(the mystery deepens)
As Rome was built upon Palatine Hill,
so too shall I stand sparsely and only
later grow atop my own ruins. Eight
meters deep, perhaps, and more,
these ancient soils amass and pile,
deepening both the mystery and the
ruin. The abject and the flaunted -
a white-marble enclosure around
the rim of a fuller disclosure.

3121. I AM NOW IN AMERICA

I AM NOW IN AMERICA
Tease me, taser, televised all,
from Tulane to Tuscaloosa. I am
- just like that image - ten new
feet tall. And out of joint as ever.
All the old caves and by-ways are
gone. That forest closes me in.
From the straight road (yes) I
woke to find myself (yes) alone
in a dark wood. And I say (yes,
yes!) what wood that was! Its
very meaning gives shape to fear.
-
Damn Dantean scowl, kept wrapped
and cloistered here at home: for whatever
reason we ride, those selfsame voices be.
They speak of rogue and habit, neither
of place nor strange. And, ah! how
ordinary now all things have become.
So rank, so rank, so arduous then,
this wilderness left behind us.

3120. MUST YOU?

MUST YOU?

This fellow I knew, the
laboring one, all fat and
bombastic and proud, now
he's posting lewd and obscene,
all in the name of his Lord : the
one with the money he worships,
with the cat-mouth and padded entrails,
the one with the secret ambitions and tales.
He lieth like Mofito. He fibs to tell a story.
This time, gone a bit too far, we've got him,
posting pictures on a poster, backed with
his own excuses, of some dark girl getting
it in her tail, from behind, from the very same
position he lives at. So fine. It's all understandable
however; trying and trying and trying.

3119. POSTING AT THE CENACLE

POSTING AT THE CENACLE

Now. One hundred things I've listed and
never have done : to be done. My life seems
a very simple salve for what it is that ails me.
I turn in place, and nothing seems amiss.
Keeping orderly things in a row is easy,
like a spouse to talk with. Putting down
the renegades and rebels, now that's
another order. They insist only on
doing what they will.

3118. WILY, STRANGE

WILY, STRANGE
She's somehow become an autocrat,
a Horn and Hardart Automat, dispensing
whatever I want : small change and coffee,
cold drinks and dollars and scents. And all
this without reading the words on the menu.
From cents to scents, it never was as if any
of it was anything I'd ever wanted before:
That very cold Winter's day, the manner
in which we walked broadside to counter
the wind jostling us around, the biting,
bitter cold, the comfort, and the seats
behind the banner in that very warm
(by contrast) luncheonette.

3117. FREE-FORM BASTILLE

FREE-FORM BASTILLE
Watch, look and listen to see;
they've placed the new chairs
along the lawn, upon the grass,
by the walkway, where people pass.
Straight lines, as a badger would make.
Unsettled squirrels race about; the
pure birds are singing in the air.
Everything else, hanging limpidly by,
wilts. The heat keeps rising, the light
itself is hot. On the tabletop, someone
arranges water cups and lemonade.
I feel as if I've been here before.
-
Some Civil War days, when the old,
ragged band tried playing beneath the
painted gazebo. When those wounded
fellows, still cut-up and bandaged, tried
stumbling by to salute. At something.
Red, white and blue bunting, hanging from
rafters and fences, where ladies sat smiling.
Keen to be seen, yet, in the same way,
sorrowful to be there. A few horses shit
where they may - swatting with
tails all those flies.

3116. NOT DEAD YET

NOT YET DEAD
I can no longer hesitate, must go straight ahead, calling
your name, shouting every word and thought like
Camelot once come to naught : battlements,
bullets, ballistic, defrauded, befriended and sought.
La Dolce Vita and five wagons coming, the surf
was pounding on the rails, the overhead banners yet
displaying your name : beleaguered, belittled, be still.
-
I am so sad as I realize Life will leave us lonely,
and you will die and so will I; and all the rest of
us remaining, we too will die and pass...
Old paint on porches I see peeling;
sometimes tattered flags as well, ripped
to shreds. Too many Summer winds,
too many Winter suns.
-
Please, I ask you, do not make me need
repeat all I have just said. I am
tired already, but I am
not yet dead.

The most of the matter has never left me,
pale perhaps as my face may be.

3115. LEVIATHAN

LEVIATHAN
Was just here, left by the train, took the
stage, ran off by coach. Yes, a large
being, but no different from the rest -
all that fervid posing and huff.
I sat him down to talk, and
we passed the time by
bluff - bluster and
rhyme, babble
and mime.

3114. RECITATIF

RECITATIF
(south bandermas mountain)
I had worn my hoops, my skirted
Scottish garter, the twine-dress
given once by Mallarme. Every
line, every instance, I knew just
what to say - had memorized
the words a million times, recited
anew by heart and mind.
-
We walked down to the valley; a
longer trek than I'd imagined it would
be, talking constant, nodding strenuously.
Every little nuance found had its meaning.
Head and shoulders above the rest, he
managed to bring me along. Docent and
protege? How would that go? By the
end of the final sentence, as well,
we'd reached the end of the line.
-
This was the little town, he said,
of heartbreak and loss, wherein
he'd been dwelling for years.
South Bandermas Mountain,
the well by the inn, the old
carriage depot where the
lumber yard stood, the
canal and the water,
still running.

3113. STILL SWIMMING NI THE VESTIBLULE

STILL SWIMMING
IN THE VESTIBULE
And why? What was that you said?
The speedometer, melting like words,
was speeding past eighty-five, and
our faces yet seemed in place. By
that lone fact, even I was amazed.
-
The old man played the dulcimer
at the edge by the pool. The tired
waitress, she kept singing as she
walked along : 'My love, he leaves
in fire, comes back in ash, a broken
pile of a man' - a sad, old Spanish
love song, she'd said. While other
cars kept arriving, bringing people to
the stage, we stayed in place, just
waiting, in what you called the
'vestibule' - to me, just another
place, some ante-room of Hell,
a closet in which to pace.
-
'Haven't you ever been in a place
like this before?' I asked, 'like
an open porch, from which to
see, but there is nothing there
to see; endless waiting, for
a play that never begins.'
-
'Why do you ask me these
questions?' she said. 'Why do
you as them, again and again?'

3112. ALL THAT EVER WAS, IS NO MORE

ALL THAT EVER WAS,

IS NO MORE
'We have all died in vain, and the cities and
given and gone, and true fires have destroyed
all that was - even God's vast aircraft had
their hands in this. Turmoil has, as its brother,
vengeance, which once was the Lord's.
-
Just as I spoke this, Washington fell, that
District of Columbia faulted and gone.
Grand Manhattan as well, now burned to
a crisp, and - along with all that - its millions
of miserable, striving people, torched where
they sat. Heaven-sent fury is certain of glory.
-
From Tucson to Amarillo, Chicago to Maine,
everything which once was is gone again.
Look not to see what you can find,
it is all gone again. Amen.'

3111. OASIS TO MAGIC AND MORE

OASIS TO MAGIC AND MORE
The shambles of me goes out
from here, far and away, to
soar skies on high while
hallowing as well the ground,
keeping those senseless things
in tow, from traveling to a false
currency and fool's gold. All idol
worship stops right here -
at a doorway now in ruins.
-
My hat, which had been flung to
the stars and stayed, suddenly fell,
dancing downward like electric blues
made serene by tremor and doubt.
It floated, as gently as a wind careening
a feather, right back onto my head.
-
Realistically, there are those things
we can effect, or not. And I stand
low on any perspective therein of
merit. Or height. As if crystals,
my lightning eyes do scan the skies -
only to see what is coming, only to
see what may soon alight. Really no
matter at all, an oasis to magic and more.

3110. ANTON MESMER AND ...

ANTON MESMER AND ...
(this travel changes the world)
Wring the hands from the hat
and shade; all sorts of nonsense
like that : taking fake photos of
the Malibu flats, dolphins and
porgies and castles and bats.
'Boys, we've boarded once more
the wrong train - now we're on
our way to Abilene and Kansas City
and Tulane, all those retro places.
So, might as well sit back and enjoy,
while this travel changes the world.

3109. SPECTRES OF BELLES LETTRES

SPECTRES OF
BELLES LETTRES
It was all washed and cleaned -
words pressed like cloth in a Victorian
suitcase. A solitary black raven had
settled down, already quite comfortable,
on its writing-room perch.

3108. 'WHAT AM I TO DO?'

'WHAT AM I TO DO?'
Now the patient rejects the conclusion.
'The diagnosis, it must be wrong. How
can one, any, mentally unbend the spoon,
put back the contents of the egg, reseal
the vacuum'd seal?' Standing as we are
on Promontory Rock, you mention the
impulse to jump; to end it all. This
fever'd pitch, the incline to Destination
Death. 'They've found the tumor, mind
you, in my gut, and won't operate. Things
I don't understand. I just listen - 'we can't
operate really; once the air hits it it will
multiply quite swiftly' - good Jesus what
does that mean? I don't feel sick exactly,
just humbled. It isn't, after all, like I've taken
a dose of pride.' You looked down, and you
cried. 'What am I to do? What am I to do?'

3107. 'THINGS' (John Ashbery)

THINGS
(John Ashbery)
And all the flat cities
I've seen before me,
bundled, as if in a
vestibule of night.
The severed hand
that stands for life -
well, much besides
your life depends on
it. Remember, call me.
-
Look down now from
this hapless window - the
wafer-thin pedestrians
are still passing by.
-
Seasons like this end.
Worms die upon worming
their own way out from
the compost heap.

3106. GRANDMAMA'S STORY

GRANDMAMA'S STORY

My great-grandmother, Shari-Lea, she
was the one who brokered this deal. Herself
having been forced into a badly arranged
Italian marriage, she wanted nothing more
to do with men or their wily ways. She
stripped boldly to the waist, at twenty-three,
to illegally bathe in the Arno River. Yes, well,
they took her away; two weeks in Doma Santa
Fillipa taught her to mend her errant ways.
After that, I'm not sure she was ever the same.
She used to tell me the story, from when she
was in Bayonne, some supposed he-man
accosted her in a elevator; undid his pants
and whipped it out. She stayed, in her words,
'totally calm' and stared the man down, saying
'Ha! You probably need a derrick to get that up.'
Somehow, she said, she shamed him into leaving.

3105. THE CUT-SHAVERS

THE CUT SHAVERS

Police work bores the hell
out of real men. Taking notes
at the scene of a crime like some
useless girl positioning bloodstains
on a cotton mat. Playing softball
for the PBA. Donating money to
rotten kids. It's all such baloney.
-
A cop is a criminal by any other
means - so it is said. The firefighter
setting fires, the mortician killing
people. Everything the same : we
envy what we most wish ourselves
to do. Hanging out, with drinks,
beneath the carport at nine.
-
My documented notebooks all show
you to be a creep. We've studied
your mannered ways - you've got
nothing to show but your bad reputation;
however that came to be. The prison
guard with the one bad arm, he says
you were the one who did it all.
The culprit behind every caper.

3104. MY OLD LONG-STANDING PROFILE

MY OLD

LONG-STANDING
PROFILE
'...Just doesn't no more fit, just no
more makes no sense, bears no
resemblance to anything at all.
All the trolley carries are features
from the past : stop at Akron, visit
the Missouri, pass the Continental Divide.
Like anyone else ever did it before, we
can go where you select to ride.
Mr. Floyd White and his wife
Marjorie; having seen their photos
right there, I know what they mean.'

3103. TOO MANY FOOLS AT TOO GREAT A PRICE

TOO MANY FOOLS AT
TOO GREAT A PRICE
You say something, and it gets lost
in the roar of this nibbling crowd: all
gracious losers, pushing hard against this
counter, this food line, this betting window
where no one redeems a ticket. I should
just as quickly see the Formica shine from
off this plastic grate than find a dose of
goodness or allegiance in any of this rabid
hate. I wouldn't shake the hand outstretched
of even one here sent and filled with glory
and money and lust. No, there's just nothing
there. Outside the place we stand I see the
dense green foliage of hedgerow and trees,
a manicured lawn of vast proportions, kept
in line and guarded by minions of mower and
cleave. They cut the sky, they trim the trees,
from buckets with saws and power on high.
Small cars rounding the perimeter police and
retrieve the trash and the dirt. Everything
perfect is in its place - for nothing more than
these : forty thousand foul souls leftover from
Hell, forty thousand cheering throngs of ones
and singles, attracted couples and married
fools. They link their loins to procreate.
They bet these horses, they wait this wait.
'Let the servants procure for us whatever it
is we wish. We shall soon be awash in riches.'

3102. TERPSICHORE

TERPSICHORE
I wouldn't delve to deceive this
wanton battlement - look, look,
they are dancing on the wall! How
flagrant their fabric'd costumes flow!
As if some cloud, dropped Heaven-sent
as from above, did needle and fit its
own way in. Demonstrative, indeed!
I would fain this lady-like charm
embrace would it but once come
to my face - to see me and settle.
Yes, alas, they are but charms
and fairies and nymphs - those
long-imagined of my hearts and
souls now dancing upon this castle
wall. I am lost in such a reverie
I do not know my present time
at all. And, no, not now, nor then,
nor ever shall I ever know at all.

3101. 92 MACDOUGAL STREET

92 MACDOUGAL STREET
And so may you drip my sleeve,
cowboy wakening doom. Fitter
at work, starlight blazer. I
jimmied your lock long ago.
Now regnant, I look to you
in arrears, past the old bread
shop, the sandal-fitter's
counter, the music store
and more. Even your
trellised guitar now
sings music.

3100. NOT PARIS AGAIN ?

NOT PARIS AGAIN?
Fog dips gray thick like
foreign soup. I grog the
sewer lines at my feet.
Long, dark passageways,
lined with brick. I am
writing, oh Paris,
in the rain.

3099. THIS HAPPENSTANCE CATHEDRAL

THIS HAPPENSTANCE
CATHEDRAL

Corral the intimidator! Beat down all those
who follow! Decimate the renegades!
Let's take back the hollow!
-
Just like that, the words dropped from the
book. We were outside Grant's Tomb and
someone named Brother Joseph was
spouting his revolution. A few distracted
tourists squirmed, having themselves
just left the cathedral nearby. Riverside.
-
'We are so confused,' the one said. 'Being
hard from Indiana, I'm not sure I understand
this querulous story he's peddling, and why
here, at Grant's Tomb? Does it mean anything?
Is it connected to Riverside Cathedral's politics too?
-
I gave them a simple answer. 'Here is a place, you
see, dear folk, where everything is connected to
everything else. You should be glad to witness it all.
Like nothing else in the USA, and Indiana then be
damned - not that I'm meaning anything bad by that,
and 'A' never does have to follow 'B', you see.'
-
Corral the Intimidator!
Beat down those who Follow!
It's all the very same to me.

3098. LIKE SHANGRI-LA

LIKE SHANGRI-LA

Between foresteps of indirection
and a bushel-full of rhyme, I saw
you standing in the rain, drenched from
head to foot. You, not me. It was truly
a wondrous sight. I gauged my eyes
by your composure and saw, in that
way, by what demeanor we'd stay in
place. Little pleasures don't often take
such grace. You smiled like a curtsy
first as rainwater seeped your grin.
-
Meanwhile, I managed to stand with
my hands in my pockets. Deliriously
enamored, abated of interest in any
other world, the slinking portrayal of
a portrait-sitting damsel stayed fresh
in my watery mind. You were so liquid,
so fresh. New paint dripped from
your eyes like water.

3097. THE PRIVILEGE OF STONES

THE PRIVILEGE
OF STONES
This is all too settled, solidly
serene and - of this too calm
wind - the passage made far
too easy thereby. And oh,
I am restless again! I hesitate
to stay and thrust forth as
if to go, untethered like a
wild horse not yet met of
its horseman or groom.
There is no stable this
foursquare by which
the rope can hold my
neck; in vain, in vain,
the sky would close.

3096. MY OWN 1924

MY OWN 1924

I am in the narrow zone, and haven't
you already had your share of yelling?
It seems like 1924 again, with guys
like Waldo Frank and Hart Crane
still beaming down. Ferries and
freighters, crazy river traffic
beneath the bridge, with
steamers and tugboats
and skiffs. Freddie, for
sure, would lie about
this; Freddie lies
about everything.

3095. FERDINAND WANTS ISABEELA

FERDINAND WANTS ISABELLA
It was only last Saturday that I walked straight into
the sky, long and definite steps ahead of me. Near my
eyes, the water was running, as if the falls before
me dispensed water and blessings the same. Two
women, eating crackers, sat serenely by, while a
man with a camera strolled across the scene.
I had just spent 6 days reading Hamlet, and
was ready for a new suspense. Who had done
this, and where and why? Identifying
myself as King, again I sighed. These
all were trying moments.

-

If I was ever saddled with you before, or
even the guilt of wanting, and then having,
and then losing you once more, I had long
ago forgotten. All I do recall is the thin,
dark girl in that wedding party looking
up at me along the higher ramp. She
was holding some flowers, and had
quizzical eyes. A waiter from some
Bolivian crew was busy dispensing
chocolates. All those female hands,
reaching out for sweets.

3094. WHY DO ALL THE KIDS LIKE CONEY?

WHY DO ALL THE
KIDS LIKE CONEY?
Hotel towels, tattooed feet,
junk-swept beaches and
freighters that float,
popcorn breaches and
a candy-cane heart,
mermaids, clowns
and screeches.
Why do all the
kids like
Coney?

3093. STUPID OLD MUSIC

STUPID OLD MUSIC

This stupid old music wears a crown
while the two ladies talk about someone :
"Too much information. I've decided just
to leave her alone. It's only my son's
business and no one else's. There's an
old saying for this. She meant well,
but it didn't work out."
-
No, I never did find out what
they meant, neither the saying nor
the event. 'Find out about someone
only from someone who knows that
other person.' Yes, yes, that must be it.
That stupid old music is at it again.

3092. ONLY HOW THINGS APPEAR

ONLY HOW
THINGS APPEAR
Truth be told, there are no
stars. The firmament is a
fiction. We are lackeys
of our own mind.

3091. SKINNY DIPPING

SKINNY DIPPING
...I'd thought, was an old
American frame of mind, but
it's not; as old as ever, in fact,
and worldwide world over, as
flesh to world and world to flesh.
A shrapnel, weaving itself over a
frame while an icy aqua flows anew.

3090. FORESTER

FORESTER

Can you follow me, oh Forester, through
all these chops and channels? As I link
behind the what's ahead to what will
follow and what will stay? The doorway
that looks like a gate is always open.
A trap it may be, but so what...it
is open and flowing and gay.
So many things, all jammed
together now in one
small moment.

3089. THE MOST POST

THE MOST POST*
Crenelated and twisted, as if
some architecture by Gaudi
had right now come to life, I
tried to look back from where
I'd just come. The strange form
of the Municipal Center, still dogging
my thoughts, seemed less a foil than
feint. How buildings can always deceive!
And inside, I already knew, those cheap
careerists with three-dollar ties and
bargain-bin suits try reading their
updates and bulletins and codes, they
still stood around probably yet gawking
at girls - the ones fresh from high school
last year, who'd gotten the job through a
family connection, that old battered aunt
who clerked for the judge, or the uncle who
stamped overtime tickets. Now they were
stuck in some far, other land - buying tight
suits and low-cut blouses to wear to work,
just to enliven the guy with the pen case,
bring him to life, otherwise a jerk. Egad!
What a stilted paltry life we can lead when
given first to choose. No brain of distinction;
nothing to bring forth the new flowers with
new petals of gold or new blossoms
of silver and silk.

[*from 'Iolanthe' - "The constitutional guardian I/of pretty young Wards in Chancery,/All very agreeable girls - and none/Are over the age of twenty-one./A pleasant occupation for/a rather susceptible Chancellor!"]

3088. DESTITUTE ARMS

DESTITUTE ARMS
And they fractured all the time,
the rhythms taken from us, the
staccato richness redefined. We
looked for glee, but found nothing
at all. Beneath the lamplight shade,
the cars, the buses, the small yellow
truck - each idling and each as well
for nothing themselves. The best we
can do, finally deciding to do, is
define and select definitions. By
the end of the day, yes, yes, that
is how we capture the world.

3087. THE NEW CRISP IMAGE

THE NEW CRISP IMAGE
Tokyo girl, the new crisp image,
the way she says things,
all the things she does.
Nothing like the foremost,
and all the swirls behind.
The banner headline reads :
'Such crazy words, deliberately
spoken, in haste! Tokyo girl
repents!" And I bent down in
supplication, and prayed."

3086. MARGATE

MARGATE
This pendulum swings; buddy you better believe it.
This morning I'm up, by evening I'm shot,
and there's no real difference between it.
One world, one big manner,
it's all the same to me.
-
Just like the Maltese Falcon, some symbol
on the edge of becoming, I stand apart, with
a withered hand, seeking your quarters
and nickels and dimes. Do you hear me,
Lazarus man? Have you not already risen
from the dead where I still am? I hold
out my withered hand.
-
Bent like a stolid reed in a windy marshland
setting; I may give a little, but I survive
nonetheless - and I suppose with no
thanks to you. Treble the features
where enmity lives.

3085. HOW LIKE ARIEL

HOW LIKE ARIEL
The bird sings below the swift-moving sky,
an early morning presence running by;
presaging something yet to come, and
its rain and wind and sun. Perhaps
the bird already knows all these things,
who sings - oblivious to a fault and
rich and happy just to be.

3084. I NEVER FELL FOR DAMASCUS

I NEVER FELL
FOR DAMASCUS

(my new doggerel)
I never tumbled from my horse, I never slid
down the hill, I remained always intact. My
dream was a surrender of sorts : bowing to
the oasis, drinking from the secret spring,
knowing where the stories were kept. Like
it was, always in abeyance. I mined the
underbrush for something to say.
-
'Are you powerless yet?' That was the man's
one question I was unable to answer. I'd been
to the pond, I'd been to the island, I'd carried
myself, on stilts, into even the museum. Yet,
I'd never looked him in the eye. Verily.
They said his name was Pablo. I was
ready to agree.
-
I can't even walk down the street, or I
find it hard to do, anyway. Without you?
Partially, perhaps - but that's not the
entire reason. I never learned the ease
and grace that a rich man has - 'I'll see
you in Paris, in July. I'll be there for
the month. I'll be in London on June 21.
Will you be there then too?' Old science
would speculate about the stars. Now,
we've even given all that up. A clarity
such as that is nothing more than crap.
-
I look forward to remaining. I missed
the Damascus trap - Paul thrown from
his ass, any and all of that. I never
started a church of my own, never
really even had a place to call home.
Two policemen I see, standing on the
corner. They radio in; something
about suspicion, something about
doubt - there was much more to it
I'm sure I'm leaving things out.
'Are you powerless yet?' I was
ready to agree...

3083. FIND YOUR OWN COFFEE

FIND YOUR OWN COFFEE

Then, don't bother me. Tartuffe
and lightning storms, all together.
Everything sounds like it wants to
be a flavor. I just don't know. The
potted plant on the diagonal seems
withering or crowded in its own
abrupt way. The lampshade with
forest painted on it - not that very
convincing. I'd rather meet the deuces
at the edge of the watering hole. John
Wayne, Roger McBride, any of those
old, dumb figments - a long, dry culture
gone dead and to seed. Buttonwood,
willow, hemlock, oak and elm. Everything
alike in one big definition. Nature calls, far
from home. It has lost its way as well. Now
seeking guidance, it finds it has lost the
means to speak as well. Oh dear,
this God is really dead.

3082. PENURIOUS

PENURIOUS

Give me something to pay with,
something, anything, and I don't
need a house. I don't mean a lot;
something simple would suffice.
I am lost and withered, falling
back, an indivine indigent now,
soon to be a wayside hulk.
Something has been lost in this
vital translation - I missed
so many words, I guess, and
there's no getting them back.
Divine guidance is free, yes
it's true. But a lot of good it
does me; does it do for you?

3081. THE LAST WHITE MAIDEN

THE LAST WHITE MAIDEN

Gloves of gold and feet of silver; clouds running
fierce and fast. That wand, beforehand unused,
now twinkling stars and light. Fixated on nothing
so much as a moment, eyes blue stare straight.
-
I need space and I need quiet.
A place so forlorn to go to and
return when...the new dawn
comes, the new people arrive,
the entire world is changed
over once more.

3080. THE WHITE PAINT MARKER

THE WHITE PAINT MARKER

A man was putting down white lines like
a child puts down white lies - voracious
by appetite and spread everywhere. All
that work for one piece of candy. Up above
the heads of the people, I saw a single
low-flying hawk ferociously swooping,
intent in a gaze steered from fury : pity
the end of that flight's line, I did. How
harsh it must be to have to live that way.
-
I am out of the line of fire, and I am
not some mad bird's prey. I am walking,
instead, a land full of lines, going this way
and that without end. From on high, that
too must look like a crazed man's deadly
scribble : touched by fury, touched by
fire, strange white lines all over the land.
-
Shake hands, my friend, with the person
who walks the land. Shake hands, my
friend, with the white paint marker,
the man with the wand, the
Johnny-Come-Lately of the
Johnny Appleseed Brigade.

3079. LYING DOWN BESIDE STILL WATERS

LYING DOWN
BESIDE STILL WATERS
They'd never told me the ending hadn't been made up
yet; flowers in a vase, the mantelpiece dripping with
fragrant honey, some sort of biblical reprise like
things I'd heard twice over already. That jet above,
slicing a piece through the sky like a labor of love,
it made me think of seven hundred other things
I'd only wished to do. Sitting beneath the maple
tree, the outer banks, that field, and you. I never
shaded a word before. Nor was I ever at a loss for.
-
The old key fob, I found it in the hedgerow, looking
as if it had been there for twenty years. Cracked
and weathered, the brown packet held a few keys
and - yet oddly alive - someone's old photo of a
girl. No one I'd ever known (of course not) but
instantly recognizable as a creature of comfort,
a horse to exchange for, a tie-dyed figment of
another day : all admiration, gentility and grace.
-
Well, perhaps. One takes one's comfort where
it's found, after all, and only goes on from there.
Anyway, all this Lord is my Shepherd business, it
was always peripheral to me. Never had a sheep,
never had a lea, and took my rest wherever
I happened to be. Every item in this dream
has always been in fog (and no one ever
told me what the ending would be).

3078. WALKING THE HILL UP TO CORNELL

WALKING THE HILL
UP TO CORNELL
It can only be that book I read, the
one with the bridge on the cover. Aisles
of accolades and words by the ton, everything
precisely going nowhere. The adventures of
marshland hawks, the last words of Henry
Inglemeyer, the lost direction of Samuel Clemens.
I already forget all that. I've been killed by words
and decimated as well by every punctuated
sentence ever penned. Egads! Unpin me Mr.
Nabokov, I am no butterfly to you at all.
When In Ithaca, do as the natives do, I
suppose. Climb that steep hill, bent into
the wind, as any San Francisco Chinaman
would do as well. My name is Thorstein
Veblen, please now take me in.

3077. TAKE IT FROM ME

TAKE IT FROM ME
(14th Street)
He's got an old name that bears
watching - yes - and I am
watching for you. A few new
beers in hand, some guy
slouches forlornly by the unlit
corner, and that odd, old
serving window framed in
ancient green wood, fronting
the street. They just don't make
things like that any more, there's
just nothing like that left around.
I know the corners and the alleys
too; you can take it from me.
-
Yesterday has come already?
My God, what does that mean?
I saw you, startled, in that great
white dress, all yours and yours
alone. You looked wonderful
there, take it from me, and
without the sun even the
heat's not warm. I am
watching for you.

3076. MY PRINCETON DRIVER

MY PRINCETON DRIVER
...was a rough looking lesbian wearing
a British driving cap. She'd left the
Cadillac running. She sat behind the
wheel - door ajar as she slouched
half out and half in together, smoking
heartily a cigarette whose puffs she
threw jauntily out to this world as
she waited. It was an early morning
farce, and I was instantly amused.

3075. TWO TOWERS

TWO TOWERS
The short end of time, that
thing you were left holding -
remember, it's yours and it's
already shortening up. Hold on,
or it's taken away and you know
it not. Two towers there are,
in town and city. I see them.
One bears the brunt of infraction
and age - it crumbles along the
banks of the old running river - while
the other, proudly bearing something
still, like a bawdy poet prancing by,
stands straight and stiff across from
Mt. Beacon, which is where I see it
now, which is where I see it now.

3074. THOMAS EDISON IS DEAD IN HIS YARD

THOMAS EDISON IS DEAD
IN HIS YARD
(west orange, nj)
You can make mystery if you like; everything is,
after all, no more than a question. How was it
early man did bridge that fjord? How was it
they learned to cook and horde? Now, eons
later, we've practiced and perfected so much
of this human craft that it seems to go for nothing
at all. Old men tire and die. The young girls,
birthed and battered, rotate and grow old. Even
the rattly stories of tires and cars, battles and
wars, are worn from the telling, and (yes) Thomas
Edison is dead in his yard; a burial plot, right
there, with his wife. For them it's all over, this
living and strife, this porridge and rice. And
it little matters either way any elephants
they may have killed, electrocuted, or burned.

3073. ALL THAT WE CAN DO

ALL THAT WE CAN DO
Circumstantial evidence surprises;
at evening the whetstone, still turning,
is honing the edge of the wheel : the
blade tickles as the sun goes down.
We release ourselves from bondage,
thinking back to how much savage
nothing has been left behind. I am
sitting, in a cleavage between two
buildings, a fire escape between
me and the next. A dim light escapes
the fold, and it is 1964. Across the
way, as I watch, the girl in the other
window, somehow, is taking off her
clothes. She seems so proud of her light
and the views afforded. I do nothing
but gaze. Circumstantial evidence again.

3072. 'WE ARE A LITTLE EARLY' (how things appear)

'WE ARE A LITTLE EARLY'
(how things appear)
All things appear : unfold and
then (of course) appear to unfold
just as well again. I am your raincoat.
I am your brother Henry. Mark well
and list all the contents twice :
marble marble, loaf, loaf,
bye, bye.
-
It is too tiring to uplift my arms.
Heaven too wields its stick. I come
forth otherwise undone and unknowing,
unwise and unseen. The falling moon
is all I have seen - and - yet contrite,
I travel the windswept roads, otherwise
each without vapor except the cloud of
my breath. In such an early morning
tactile I note each blade of grass wearing
each its bead of dew - a gemstone effusion
like the brutal touch of a gentle God, or,
perforce as much, the gentle touch of
a brutal God, I know not which.
-
The way in which I see you?
No, to Hell with all that. Lime-cast,
slime-coated, ground-crawling weasel,
remember that song : the ship, the
black freighter, Pirate Jenny, and you.
-
Remaining perpetually intransitive,
a portable heirloom handed down by
a pioneer, a slave-girl drama, my
sermon of the unconscious...it is
all these things, and more, how
all the world appears.

3071. LACHRYMAE CHRISTI (with Hart Crane)

LACHRYMAE CHRISTI
(with Hart Crane)
'Sphinxes loosed from the
wine of Death have freed
my tongue from bondage.
I now can speak - without
the fear of punishment
or whip. Nature itself can
weep these human tears and,
now, with me, even the stones
can learn to speak (of all
that which I am seeing).'

3070. THE AGRIPPA CONSTELLARY

THE AGRIPPA CONSTELLARY
It seemed useless. No fun at all.
A black tie and a jacket. Standing
in place for hours. The man said
we were there to look at the sky.
An observation point we should be
privileged to be part of. Two months
notice, a sky map, darkness. And
that was all it took. Watching
planets, stars and oceans of
things in the sky. Oceans of
things in the sky.

3069. WELL YES

WELL YES
(really was no real escape)
Well yes, I rode that drunken boat in on a wave
of seeming heave, riding the crest for a moment,
then dipping the dive as it crested. The passing
glint of sky was all I needed to remember.
Lashed and buckled, my feet tried every way
to stay in place; wild hands flailing, mouth agape.
Well yes, I rode that drunken boat. There
really was no real escape.

3068. AT THE HOSTILE GARRETT

AT THE HOSTILE GARRETT

Samuel Barber and his Adagio for Strings,
why yes, OK. I listen again. Outside the
window, another form of weather strikes,
the low sound of some creature pines, and
the wind whistles the branches soon green.
Low as this, the sky too groans.
-
We are together like a fist. All across the
room, a dim light gathers and each corner
still dark allows forms to jumble. My
new friend, Mr. Arcora, I watch as he
slithers back into his jacket and the
newspaper falls from his grip.
It splashes the floor like paper water
and we are all still listening to that
Adagio for Strings.
-
There is no field joust as good as
any of this. The thin girl, with the
graceful hands, she rounds up
her things and prepares to leave -
this room, or this world, I'm not
quite sure which. I spoke to her
once, and she laughed back,
energetic and happy, it seemed.
-
Outside, in the street, I see now that
new raindrops are falling - hard, they
splash as they hit the pavement. In
this early morning light, it's as if
a new sort of bombardment,
small and soft, has begun.

3067. STRAITJACKET

STRAITJACKET
This straitjacket begins hurting only as the arms
enclose me and it enfolds me like a travel plan.
The creased paper retains its itinerary - all those
things I must follow. The being here and the being
there. I am, right now, in fact, walking the dead-end.
-
Fallow fields lie short before me. No corn stalks
grow, and my hands are bartered already away :
traded off for the things of the mind. That rapt
and circumstantial bird, that evidence of creation's
only growth, has taken root within me. That is
what I feel, and still my arms are somehow tied.
-
Alas, as a spirit soars so do I; but to no real
effect nor gain. I know neither the language
nor the end of all these people's words : those
tongues so engaged, those reams and reams
of idle verbs. Supplication little matters.
This straitjacket has me tight.

3066.THE JACKAL AT SATURDAY

THE JACKAL AT SATURDAY

'One swarm warming,' the old sign said -
it read like a child's writing on a kindergarten
blackboard chalkface. Something about bees.
-
For myself, I passed it right by. Who's to care
about such things except the science-mind, and
what it brings? Certainly not for me, and not
myself at all. I went for the higher wall.
-
Entering the artist's lobby, I knelt for a
moment in some awesome mental prayer -
all those lines and colors, imagined, even as
my imagined kneeling felt. I genuflect to really
nothing at all. And, to be sure, I rather dislike
museums and galleries and all that collection
stuff : post-dated warnings on whitewashed
walls. What is art anyway, but what someone
else calls it for profit and motive? Never see
a dime of anything for all it's worth.
-
Jangled nerves suspicious and tight -
the man with the special jacket tries to
impress. No, not really, already he knows
his place : some stupid, cloying walkie-talkie
guard at pace; slowly turning as he walks.
-
'This was once a cutting edge of stated design.'
Blah, blah on that. Now the lights go out.
The lights go out at 6, all over the entire city.
It is December 22, and getting very dark.

3065. IT'S EASY

IT'S EASY
Act as if a rich man;
as if cavernous with money
secreted in a vault, buying small
islands, isolated, alone. Act as if
some whimsical, tyrannical habit
has you by the throat, keeps you
jagged, makes you run. Act as if
happy - like a crazy man just let
out from school, some sex-fiend
in a teen-age playground running,
some autoland voyeur speeding past
the cars. Act is if the rich man, buying
drinks at bars. Noodling on guitars.
Sunning where there's absolutely
never been sun at all.

3064. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE

JUSTIFICATION BY
FAITH ALONE

'Saul of Tarsus, be damned. Go ahead and storm.
Fuck you, delirious rabble-rouser. I kill where I
choose to kill. I am no master to no man but me.
From the skies we bomb and peril, little children
and all the infirm and lame, the aged and not
already dead will be. I am justified because I
believe in what I do. Dead end, rifle scope, run
away, antelope. Yes indeedy, don't be greedy.'
-
Parade grounds and tenters in the square;
playing taps for all to hear. Lightning
strike. I fall to the ground and think
of nothing, really nothing more at all.
-
Waiting for Winter; and Summer
hasn't even yet come.