3338. CAST OF COLORFUL CHARACTERS

CAST OF COLORFUL 

CHARACTERS

Like the Oakland A's of '72, handlebar moustaches,

Rollie Fingers, and all the rest of that perturbed

malarkey running on, I too stood on a mound

and threw: fastballs to the face, and a broken head

from where the bat hit me square. There were

people in the stands, screaming, I swear,

obscenities at me. What could I

do? It all had to be.

-

I was borne by my mother's hand, thrown out

to this foreign land  -  and now, only the same

various uglies yelling, with all their various

vanities vain.  The wedge-shaped writing

at the edge of the cave, it read : 'Abandon

all hope, ye who enter here. No one is saved!'

-

The sacred harp and the river tree, the holy

grove, and all that which places a goodly light

on all the world  -  I note that it remembers

even me, betokens a holy smile, brings forth

a redemption tree (of wood, of branch, by 

which the Son of Man is brought to Death is

brought to Life, that Death should never be).
There should never be such a salubrious

nature as this, and I should be, nodding

 by acquaintance, on great and holy

terms with all things. (for hark! this

Herald Angel sings!).
-
We dance on, living, in
spite of all the fears.

3337. AS WE KNOW IT NOW AGAIN

AS WE KNOW 

IT NOW AGAIN

I haven't ever understood the nodding relationship

between this end and that place : the small girl

in the black robe holds her arm out, with a camera

at the hand, the light flashes as she snaps away.

Gentlemen, in their old skin, walk stiffly off, one of

them archly smoking a pipe. The razorhat brigade,

all over 70, it seems, comes snappily by, being

driven in carts. Old pros, professionals anyway,

limping along though too limp to limp. The blue

sky above festers in its own moment; a new

presence in a very old and tired drama. Life!

Life as old as sin, as we know it now again.

3336. NANCY MCGUIRE ALONG RIDGE ROAD

 NANCY MCGUIRE 

ALONG RIDGE ROAD

McNamara Meetinghouse along the iron edge

of old Ridge Road. I took Nancy McGuire to a

dance there once, a very long time ago. She was

simple and sweet, and we kissed for an hour,

it seemed. The deadlights were flashing at the

end of the lane, where lovers, I think, kept

traipsing in and traipsing out. None of that

mattered to Nancy; she wouldn't budge an

inch. All that I learned, I learned in that

cinch - just wishing I knew more.

3335. SAME SHADY MATTER

SAME SHADY MATTER

My life is a saddle for a horse never ridden;

the straight line runs to the horizon, east or

west, up or down, it never mattered, I've 

always forgotten, and there's no difference

anyway there. Same light. Same slant.

Same shady matter. I've put down

my stirrups, and long ago

left the barn.

3334. DO NOTHING 'TIL YOU HEAR FROM ME'

DO NOTHING 'TIL 

YOU HEAR FROM ME

('her voice lutes brokenly like a heart lost')

Whilemena!  Inanities!   Gershwin!

Ruling Dead Triumverate Magnificent!

(and here comes Billie Holiday!).

-

Now to look around: over there, over there,

that's Eugenides scratching away - yellow pad

and papers and flipper over scarf. (Yet it's

not enough to find that tantalizing touch!).

-

And here's the scoop: the white line moves

and tingles. There seems to be soup in

every window, as American as ladeling

pies from the old farmer-lady's porch.

(Oh the backyard is brackish).

-

'I thought I could do something to ease

the contradiction between immanent and

universal ethics which I thought was my

problem and was what I hoped to gain

thru therapy like any evolution presupposes

an involution and all tha kind of thinking.'

-

(Whilemena! Why am I reading Kerouac again)!

3333. I HUNG MY HAT

I HUNG MY HAT

(Part One)

Penny-whistle anteater ceramic form:

'Call it what you want', the strange sculptor

said. Hi-hat with a tribe, a nail-gun throbbing

loudly - 'Why do you operate this way?', said

I, 'almost annoying, don't you know? So much

force and noise.' He was throwing things down 

now, from a scaffold. Everything stayed still.

-

'Watch, watch, the new light on the hedges out

there' - we were looking at morning coming over

the hill  -  'then try duplicating that in your mind;

perfectly defined light, living its own place, shading

green hedges doubtlessly.' I looked and saw  -  a

nice light, with well-defined angles dripping down

over the white-metal lamp-post and hitting the hedge.

He was right; it was beautifully bright.

-

He'd written me once before  -  'No barfy teen-age'd

snot writing snarky lyrics to his mother. Why then did

Rimbaud stop writing? He damn-well better have,

that useless piece of crap, teen-age angst and all

of that.' I'd guessed he didn't like Rimbaud, though

I never asked and he never told. A few lines later,

he wrote 'youth is wasted on the callow, fucking

young.' I wrote him back, 'So, you only seek

maturity? And now you work in wood and stone?'

'Yes', he'd replied, 'it changes less.'

-

 Now I was drinking coffee at his table, while he was

downing scotch and probably drunk as well. He slammed

his glass down hard  -  'To tell, to tell, I'm tired of all this

shit now. I just want to get along. I'm too fucking old and

nasty to care. Hell, if I could make thunder now instead, 

I would.' I had to stay strong, trying to tell this backwards

nicely  -  a tale as rugged as rock but spacey as stars. I can't

really define the moments, but in these ways this is pretty

much how they occurred. He was wearing a hat he called

'Pomona Ray'. He was throwing things down, where they stayed.

3332. SALVATION HAS REACHED SERBIA ONCE MORE (Demon Devil)

SALVATION HAS REACHED 

SERBIA ONCE MORE

(Demon Devil)

Traumatic times make for an ace in the hole:

bring out the flagellants, the fires, and all those

guns. Look at the flames along the roadway, and

think who made them. (We've never managed

motivation well). And was that you, out there

singing at the drain? (I was at the hospital just

yesterday morn. Yes, they were all dying in droves).

-

The youngest of the five, the small artist, he wants

to come home but there is no place left. We haven't

yet told him, and no one really wants to : his sister

was raped and mangled, and his father is dead.

Salvation has reached Serbia once more.

-

I remember (I think it was) Mostar or Srebenica Bridge,

one of those  -  all the killings, and the bricks came down.

Now the water runs placid, along the shore and the grime.

The old men are sitting in chairs and having their time.

Salvation has reached Serbia once more.

3331. WHILE THE GILDED PROFESSORS RULE

WHILE THE GILDED 

PROFESSORS RULE

Actually, I'd prefer the million broad provisions of

another grounded life to the wan material I'm now

presented  -  I read the Contingent Gospels, I read

the Fall of Rome, I've read Tristram Shandy, Moll

Flanders, Harvest Home. I'd much prefer instead,

these days, to come around the winding road, to espy

old Beacon Mountain, or think of Wind Gap; passages

through Nature in the gloam. These are, to me, newer

things  -  small places I've been, things I've seen. The

wind upon the buttercup, the hummingbird stuck flapping

in the air; all honey, all nectar, all blood and all good.

-

(Why do you go on so, parrying your words with this

soulful lament)? I do not have to answer! Gilded professors

and General Pomp, each have made me (just as well)

somehow sick with a certain, pointed hatred. Your

soldiers, like your ideas, have died already. Your

horrid, arms-bearing ideologues merely make me laugh.

I hope you die, in fact, each and every soldier you produce,

each motor-tronic moron you enact. Live by the sword,

die by the sword  -  yet for all of you, I hope it happens

twice; I hope you die anew, and you never come

home to enter my land again.

-

I've made the adjustments, corrected my ways  -

now all I need do is live out my days.

3330. REVIEW

REVIEW

Mail the picnic card on time, and

slurp your broth with shuttered lips.

Never do two things at once and  -  

just as well  -  don't talk while you're

doing the one. Most things will simply

recur, and the girls will each come home.

3329. I HAVE A BRIGHT BLUE DRAGON, RIDING HERE IN MY LIBELOUS EYES

I HAVE A BRIGHT BLUE 
DRAGON, RIDING HERE

 IN MY LIBELOUS EYES

From Newark they took the medallion.

The ruinous locals would steal everything

here, where Dutch Schultz and Lewie Lesko's

final soliloquies were written on blood on

the chophouse walls. Miranda died, and the

ghost tavern still has the drunks on the side;

they wait every morning for nothing, at a

tavern that is no more. The lastly God-damned

hookers stand outside and hawk with pride.

The tiny Italian, I heard him say - 'I'm ok now.

I've had my fix for the day.' Plucking olives

from the rosebush bed, reading secrets at

the gorge  -  Newark to Clifton to Paterson

and back. Such makes a day, and that is that.

(And oh, this all works beautifully. I have a

bright blue dragon riding here in my libelous eyes).

3228. CEMETERY

CEMETERY

We found ourselves somehow walking

beneath the monstrous oaks and elms

still standing. At my feet was the grave

of a grandmother I never knew. The

crazy one, the one put away, the one

who died in the the asylum far off. What

little I remembered right then beckoned:

The expansive hillside lawn, the bright, 

white sun, and all those ghost people

just walking about. (Leave the

mystery, don't take it out).

3327. BOTHERED BEN BARRY

BOTHERED BEN BARRY

I may have bothered Ben Barry, but I

wouldn't know. The morning, the day, was

close as a vest, and I was thinking of Ukraine -

some crazy Russian war a year or so ago.

Nothing added up. Nothing mattered. And

then Ben Barry came waltzing by. All his smiles

wanted to sing the same way a child's eyes want

to mesmerize. He sat on a bench on some guy's

boat, and just began singing  -  'won't you

let me take you on  a sea cruise...'

-

Mist was thick like fog, and it hung on

everything. Crickets too tried singing,

but they got stuck; stuck in a trill, stuck

in a drone, stuck in a lull. Visibility, as if

they said it, was cut to five feet. Bothered

Ben Barry was still on that seat.

-

 Never mind all that : I speak to you direct

instead; no things, no objects in the way.

Open up your heart and spirit, and take

it all in. It is the only way. And such

Love is the only growth. Even if

bothered Ben Barry be.

3326. SPADE TO SHOVEL

SPADE TO SHOVEL

'Dear child, you are awake and given each

possible thing to savor : the shovel on the

land, the spade on that small patch of ground.

Now understand nothing more than this  - 

you must go on.'

-

When people tell their tales and stories,

I must listen. Need not genuflect, of course,

but listen. Yet now, yet now it seems this

heart will burst. I will miss you evermore.

The needle-jet circumference upon open

waters circles out; spreading its waves,

its open form, upon the sea. Coffee

from Wales? No such thing.

-

Do you understand this waking mystery

I present you? The gum wrapper on the

pavement, the little cracks in the pane of

glass  -  each of these in their ways too

bring me forth to tell to you. Pain. Fusion.

Want. Longing. Pain. Fusion. Want. Longing.

-

(The Sun has really no value now. It

oozes a useless light on varied things).

3325. THE PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS

THE PERIODIC TABLE

OF THE ELEMENTS

('we drove 9 hours up to Planet Vermont')

Somehow ideas that work seem never

problematical. Mendelev himself arrayed a

certain world with a standing, scheming logic

we live with yet today. How smug are the

assumptions still in use to make this world's

array. Words scatter like gas from the conclusions.

There  -  in a stream where never maple water

stops flowing, this deep in old Vermont. Sitting there,

a man as well who talks with a voice like honey (I

can only call it that). And such a one is talking still.

His small wife listens, as the people pause. Blood

brothers, to the bone grafted, exchanging spittle

and harm and grime. In the hotel room, I heard

Helen on the radio and  -  with a Gideon's Bible

in his ancient hands, the man from the Bennington

Hotel  -  a huge, cranial skull depression where his

forehead should have been  -  stood standing,

quietly, on the third floor landing.

3324. REFLECTIONS ON

REFLECTIONS ON

Time was Man could see : light of

the Moon shining down through

the trees, strange shadows along a

wolfpath at night. The forest was

folded and ribbed, saddled to ride

with dimension and flourish. By the

light of the silvery Moon. Today's

standards, so much dimmer, we

lick two stamps, not even, and send

things on their way. Oh marvelous

Earth, I have married you for your

change and dimension. Or then

again have I not?

3323. 'NOT LONG ENOUGH', THE MINER SAID

'NOT LONG ENOUGH', 

THE MINER SAID

'Air grows short in a pocket; we do not know,

by the new flow, if the water will reach you, nor

if you'll stay dry. Twelve feet of solid rock

we've got to drill  -  harsh  -  and that's once

we get down there. We can't wire you for light.

We can't wire you for air. Whatever you do,

be careful down there and - I guess - just

wait. No sacrificial landing this is, and there

are a hundred faces up here crying.'

-

Then the loud dogs barked the tripwire

while those men with lanterns held their

lights. Insipid, invalued humans; there

was nothing left to do.

3322. DO YOU WISH? (the Gardener's Lament)

DO YOU WISH?

(the Gardener's Lament)

Do you wish to force the clover past the brick?

Place the newly painted planter by the portmanteau

or portecochere  -  whatever those sounds like

fussy words declare? Do you wish your hat, even

your gown, your very clothes, now to be withheld

within my gardener's hands (for I would strip you

like a stem)? And, oh yes, I can grow things, I can

press you 'til your heart upends. I can love you

easy or love you hard; your choice to sing, my 

oh-so-lovely thing. Let us mark these notes,

instead, to muse on  -  how the singular light

of daytime marks your lonesome face; how the

small bird, singing, watches wary, and - lastly - 

how this regal breeze the fir tree brushes. Now,

do you wish to force the clover past the brick?

3321. I DREAM OF THINGS

I DREAM OF THINGS

I am not that very good at running - 

hacking breath with blood, keeping

snide evasions to the side of me, watching

others pass me on the fly. And yes, yes,

correct, I dream of things  -  the day my

wings shall fly, the morn' my ship comes

in, the night my eyes shall cry and the

race that I shall win!

3320. THE PHILIP GUSTON BRIDGE

THE PHILIP GUSTON BRIDGE

nyc, (1967)

I called back once, and he was gone.

All that color and content, patiently 

waiting for him, or myself, to come.

The ceaselessly stupid old phone rang

crankily off its hook  -  no one ever

answered; just as no one ever sang or

warbled, or hummed. A hangman in a 

hood, that fat cigar, and the cracked 

and mottled shoe : loathsome intimations

of how rank this single humanity can be.

-

I shook his hand and tapped his back,

numerous times and long ago, on Eighth

Street and on Tenth. We hung together

like compadres  -  the crazy Rover 2000,

the car he drove to and fro, and his wry

smile  -  over and over  -  about something

quaint or another. Back and forth to talk.

-

Morty Feldman. The Woodstock studio,

Milton Resnick and David Hare. Jesus

Christ, I'd give an arm to have it all again.

3319. AS THOUGH THE WAITING

AS THOUGH 

THE WAITING

We take the weave, the warp, the very

natural injury of time and thread it over

substance : 'little lamb, who made thee?',

'shall I wear my trousers rolled?', 'I wander

through these charter'd streets', and all the rest

of that. Idleness bemoans itself, as a claptrap

of little minds. And, nonetheless, as though

the waiting meant something  -  as though the

very waiting in and of itself held value  -  we,

stutteringly, travel on. Unlocking morning doors,

writing that note, brewing coffee on a lacquered

ledge. Sitting back. Swerving a yellow car through

some black and muddy traffic of valueless virtue.

-

Every time to go means getting where one's going.

-

Instead, I wallow. I watch the frozen Autumn

flower droop and crack its timely Death. Yes, 

yes, the season has held its court and you are

guilty! Found to be culpable, now even you,

oh Beauty, oh Life, oh all this thrust of Goodness,

must  -  by this decree  -  go! Take leave! Die off!

3318. WHAT THEY TOO HAVE LIT

  WHAT THEY TOO HAVE LIT

To there; to fabricated men, to fractured women,

to lost moments, to meanings without thought.

I light the light and it illumines, while all my

thoughts, well-lit as well, reflect

what they too have lit.

3317. GOING TO TEXAS WITH SAM SHEPHERD

GOING TO TEXAS 

WITH SAM SHEPHERD

'Oh damn, we're already fucked up!' The little sun

was shining flat out, baking the ground and killing

all lesions. The noise behind us wasn't noise, just

sound. The cooking of beetles. The grilling of hides.

Along the horizon, only the ridiculous look of 

Mexico sheds, Alamo sides, Amarillo antics.

In a little, squat, suburban town, we pulled into

a grease-stained driveway, broken and slanted.

Somehow (and why?) a '68 Super Sport, some

ghost of an old Chevrolet, sank and rotted. We 

turned once to look, and you muttered - 'Jesus

and shit both; there she is'. Her name was Nanta

Maris Escovara, and for two hundred miles I'd

heard nothing but her story  -  a life-blood of

sex and devilment (hell, wanting even me to

jump in!), the brother who died on Yucatan 

Road, the three kids left behind. Did I

mention the sex? I really forget. We 

got out of our own limping car, and

she came over, just like that, like 

we'd just seen her yesterday and

had more to say.

3316. DICE (1099)

DICE (1099)

Shadow into seeming; dark night into Death.

The staggering leap of fire and heat, the jump

across the divide, the lime beneath the feet.

All, all, all for nothing at all. I watch the crusaders,

boot-blacks and lancers, wriggle their way past truth

and consequences. The pole that pierces someone's

heart holds not mine but another. I waltz across

the history zone, in silent, secret reverie, too tired,

as it is, to scream or flinch. Shadow into seeming;

dark night into this. The blackbird yelling, the jackdaw

dense, the Jesus of the image on the banner, now

afire, burns to dust and ashes on a brittle field of want.

(All, all, all for nothing at all).

3315. A SINGLENESS OF TIME

A SINGLENESS 

OF TIME

We are growing our bodies outside of ourselves,

relegating the present to a circumstance, and

moving on. And then - I hear a door slap shut

and realize nothing yet remember :  once too

when I was somehow a child, open and 

unshuttered, insisting on making loud noises.

Now, all things have changed. There are

voices parting ways, dissembling in a haste

of 'harvest fairs' and 'Thanksgiving plans'.

All things I never wish to see.  The chrome 

sun shines off the Buick's blue face, and

somewhere, near above, the terminal clock

chimes off another railroad hour.

3314. COMES TO THINKING

COMES TO THINKING

I have not blinked. I am still here.

Drinking wine from an ashtray, something

akin to reading Anne Sexton by the

double-dose - such it is that makes me

bleary. Dead-eyed Jack, all is black,

with two marvelous bandits on the corner.

No, I have not blinked and I am still here.

3313. OUR MEEK ADJUSTMENTS

OUR MEEK ADJUSTMENTS

By all my mutilated edges I have wholesome come to this :

my most magnificent crenelations, rudders in the brain,

ripples on the head, slow folds on the cranium of all my

time. All the wind, in turn, undulates these things like

willows blowing slow rhythms of the riverside's edging.

Squirrels and chipmunks, in the hills above, stop short

and take their notice, while filthy geese and placid ducks

don their usual pacings for whatever it is may come below.

(We make our meek adjustments to what the world may bring).

3312. HEAVEN AND HELL, JUMBLED

HEAVEN AND 

HELL, JUMBLED

I read the light coming through buildings and

doorways, coating streets and people. All the

light told me was gracious and gold. In each

entry, something huddled : once, a dun-gray

man, shivered from cold, and - in another -

a tired woman holding a cat in her arms.

Farther off, three fellows, close together,

seemed never to stop talking, in a near-rout,

jostling as they went. This was the open book,

 the street, the light-van, pooling and vibrant.

Twenty years ago, I'd never have looked

and never understood. Now, I knew the

reach of Heaven's presence, here, where

I stood. There is no greater place than

all this is; this Heaven and Hell jumbled.

3311. TREES

TREES

There wasn't a blanket for the forest,

nor a forest for the trees. Everything

was white, like a solid wall, bright. We

jangled the commingled action, screaming

all the while about things unseen. You

partied with your face off. I was the jester

to your mourning cloth. New Orleans and

then Mount Arlens  -  two such different

places and neither made a difference to

each. I called, but they all were calling back.

-

When the reivers hit the river, everything

went down. We were caught in the flood,

down in the flood, lost in the flood. We

were lost in the flood, down in the flood,

caught in the flood. My Arlington master

said I'd 'finally made the grade, in spite

of all else.' I really thanked him, and left.

-

With all of that, I was alone with...the trees.

A spangled whitewash, a jeddermaster fope

of mis-matched words, a harlequin of night's 

own fusion. I spoke to my dark shadow, and

it spoke right back, by the light of a now

gorgeous moon. I'd 'finally made the 

grade, in spite of all else.'

3310. MICHELMAS (Candy Factory)

MICHELMAS

(Candy Factory)

This Michelmas has a factor in my being.

Heralding change, the mad doctor brings

his curtain down. The sledgehammer eyes

of the weaver are doing their little job to

assess and size up the totality of limits:

those lights set twinkling in the harbor,

the two men obscurely, and yet somehow

mysteriously too, lighting each other's

cigarettes in a darkened wharfside alley.

A heartfelt Hart Crane manuever

if ever one there was.

3309. SENATOR TOWN

SENATOR TOWN

The best thing he ever did was die;

like dining on poison fish, he swallowed

and gagged and fell over. Taking all

that filthy money with him? Well, no,

not really  -  the stinking cod left it

all behind. All those corrupt lines

of payoffs and deals. All those

hands out, to Senator Ellis Town,

and not a dollar clean left to spare.

He's dead, and gone from here.

3308. OLD CHALK

OLD CHALK

The wind left bloodlines on the beachfront sand,

places where people had been dragged and

pummeled. The Inn at Old Chalk  -  or the

ruins of what once was there seventy years ago  -

were still up on the cliff. About a mile off,

to the left of there, the once-village graveyard

slumbered. The dead had played their dice

and plied their strife, long before, and, now,

it was all over and finished. The wind had

left bloodlines on the beachfront sand.

-

The people in the village, the tired ones,

the near-dead-but-not, still exclaimed

to one another about the ways things

were : 'The Bowdy boy, I watched; 

he died, there, on the beach.' Extending

a wiry, crooked finger, they flail at

pointing to something afar. 'The

lugger-boat, as I recall, had

quite nearly cut him in two.'

-

The wind grew fiery and messy;

the yellowing storm lashed and

tore. Like fire-rockets coming

from dirge and destruction,

broken pieces of another

world  -  now mangled and

torn  -  left only shreds of

a place that once was

Old Chalk Inn.

3307. TWIN-SPECIES

 TWIN-SPECIES

As if separated at birth, we are twins from a land

where no borders exist, where air is the essence

of everything and where  -  solids be damned  -

there is nothing to grasp or to handle. The

blue sky, we later realize, goes on within us.

-

If comedy could be termed a factor in what this

world is, I'd be laughing still. As it is, the only

blanket that keeps me warm is the sad blanket 

of sorrow; and we are twins, from a land

where no borders exist.

3306. EXPERIMENT

EXPERIMENT

I did all that your experiment asked of me :

I learned your art, I drank your wine, I textured

each of your long durations  -  night, day, and

whatever was in between. Each smile you sent

my way, I decorated just as you showed.

Like some eerie pumpkin's juicy mash, this

time-soaked derivative of living came my way.

I realize only now, we really should

have talked it over first.

-

That ghost from your gazebo, yes, it still

comes around seeking handouts and love;

throws its caution to the wind, prances

so like an idiot, shows itself off to

most anyone at all. My view now?

Hardly worth a bastard's effort.

-

In the last flood, all that mud washed

the evidences away  -  but I had

been there, hiding out, just to

see what a ghost does when

it's bored. Not much differently

than you and I do, it claims to

fall in love, seeks life, runs

crazy-rampant from edge

too edge. Then it tires,

and disappears.

3305. GRIEF HAS A FUTURE

GRIEF HAS A FUTURE

It is said (I've heard it said) that

grief has a future  -  with eyes you

can recognize, with a face that bears

resemblance (bears resemblance nightly

to a million things). I will write these notes,

and keep them (keep them here, by this

candlelit nook). She is crying again, and 

all those raging teardrops roll down her face.

-

In the alcove and hallway, there is a little,

dim shining, a reflection of something old,

or something new in passing. Something

passes (something passes that way, away).

It seems to be a living thing, yet flickers,

fades, and then  -  it too  -  passes.

(It too passes away).

3304. I DROVE THE SEDAN

I DROVE THE SEDAN
I drove the sedan that went right past
your mountain house, the gulch in the
gully, the wandering curve in the road.
I saw the swans on McAfee Road, and
the pond alongside Albion Hall. It was
all I could do not to stop. Simply stalled,
like that, I would have had nothing to
show for all that went before.
-
The red on the barn, I noted, had faded;
a less-intense and fiery red, a dimmer
version of the hue, the same sort of
flame a dying ember throws, a marker
cast down on a charcoal-filled earth.
I shuddered in thinking, here again,
of all the things I might have passed.

-

And then I read your words, making

me happy and sad together - how my

words made pictures in your mind,

and how emotions were awakened

that you could recognize. I loved

those words, and tried to thank

you for them though I failed.

-

I drove the sedan that went past

your mountain house - two doors,

four wheels, and all my mounting

and trying with it. Just as I passed,

in your window was a well-lit love.

3303. VINDICATOR I MUSED

VINDICATOR I MUSED

Do not allow the wise one to relish your

goods and ways - keep such thoughts at bay.

Enamored of everything else, he passes you by.

Fir trees along the Glimmerglass, James Fenimore

Cooper and his warrantless braves. Escaping

settlers, running through woods with muskets

and knives. Beneath a long-tarred and starry

sky, murderous yells and murder itself. I once

gazed down, from a gentle height, past trees

and shrubbery below, to the lakefront itself.

A fire beckoned, and three or four men huddled.

Whatever tongue they were speaking, I did not

understand. Yet, I knew they were ruthless

men and would kill me if they could. I was born

here, 'neath the reedy place, by the brook, beneath

the Spirit's canopy of light. Now, all things were

in jeopardy, myself included. I lived, only if they

died. I thought of a future, realizing there could

be none at all. Sweeping down, silently at first,

then with a scream, I cleanly killed

and gutted the them all.

3302. THE BEARDING OF NIPPLES

THE BEARDING 

OF NIPPLES

The bearding of nipples on the great

divine chest has been replaced by

obligation and noblesse. I do not

know  -  but think I can recognize

the genuflect of fear and awe by

which Man is harnessed : a 

something amiss that will always

show. To that I can testify and

witness, and will do so.

-

Such error is an invisible charge

which draws out the joy from life -

small, insignificant segment, iota

of semblance, sanctified sadness

of sentence, whatever.

-

In spite of solace and shame, the

even-yellow sun goes on, and

we are as lost in its circle and orb

as ever before  -   not knowing

where to turn but turning, not

knowing what for. 

-

Doubts and triumphs together:

I walk out with them, and

somehow leave alone.

3301. MERCHANDISE MART

MERCHANDISE MART
I hated your mother and never fathomed your
father. The Ides of March, like some delectable
yet stinking disease, kept my crapmouth from
hedging every bet. As I recall, she wore gold
on every other finger, while he wore chains
around his neck. It was never right, and,
as I thought it over just today, I still could
not understand why we even lived to try :
some linen on the back of a chair, a table,
topped by glass, holding some ceramic
figurines and a cup of steaming coffee.
An old piece of mail, with a very
foreign stamp. Two pictures of
a man from Africa.
-
Safari suit and dead-letter office, Nairobi
Kenya and a fountain pen blotch; stroked
feathers while whistlers waited, and the
fan-light in the old bushman's depot.
He'd taken us there, to show off and
buy lunch. I remember that photo.
Nothing ever worked out.
-
He too was dead, a single poison dart
entering his heart; along the beach.
Jim Rattigan, killed from some
jungle-tree ambush far, far
from home.

3300. AMENDED AND VARIANT

AMENDED AND VARIANT

You've made me disappear - stiletto and sabre,

all those things passed from lethargy to slavery

and back. Reflected globes are shimmering in the

water, on surfaces where they should not be.

So many things, rejected, seem still to be around.

Solace, like a pancake, flattens and distorts the

angles. We wash the air with a teary dirge.

-

It was ice cream. It was the night. Kinglets sang;

narrow drawers held hundreds of the little birds.

Festering, from tree to tree, bad vibrations rang,

motions without merit, dangling items left for

play. A thin flashlight line, and a bead of some

illumined moment, again made me think of you.

I reached for nothing, and it was there.

-

All along the spider's web, the masses in the

street kept marching; screaming they were,

all together, like morons, as one about something:

Hustled and hassled, huddled and huge.

I never understood a thing except my own

needs - for silence, detachment,

disconnection and dreaming.

3299. FAST SETTING AND MIRACULOUS

FAST SETTING 

AND MIRACULOUS

Skyfall. I was the one running. The new

crescent moon hung angled in the sky.

Twilight. Midnight. Morning. Like nothing

ever moved at all. I truncated the rebels

at the old border's edge. Rousted them

with ricochet and raiment, ran their

footsores loosely through the gamut.

Trumpets blared and a parrot sang.

Valley Forge and Maple Gorge, the lasses

in the violet sky were singing. No one bent

the dirges or bowed to dawn's early light.

Every blessed thing was every blessed thing.

-

The scourpath beguiled; all the marshalls

and a major stopped and gaped while

horses whinnied, slept and yawned.

That's just the way it went back then,

in that - older - revolution. Years later,

lifetime achievements and medals of honor

never meant as much; never. And now,

all the old ones, they're gathered on the

hilltop singing songs, dirges to what occurred

and hopeful scats to the newest of volcanoes.

3298. WHO RUES MELCHISIDEK? (I was walking with this God)

WHO RUES

MELCHISEDEK?

(I was walking with this God)

The white pants and the rain God,

all those magnificent things parading

down. 'I am King of Gods, mistaken

notion, keeper of ideal flames.' Spoken

like a boast, I could only think of

Patty Miles. 'But you are not, sir,

and all, all of this, is mistaken. So

let me take this peasant pomp you

proffer and run away with it, right

through your nose, in fact.'

-

And just then, right along Girard Ave.,

the Philadelphia streetcar clanged and

rattled. Some ten black fats got off

as one - 'You are, myself, I see, one

of these. Are you not, then?' He tried

taking my hand; he said 'Let us be off

now, and to the kennels. Let us buy

ourselves a dog!' Approbation.

Infatuation. Circulation.

-

Just below the street-level fence, cut

out from where I was, I saw the rails of

the old cemetery graveyard fence jutting

out - all those dead and quiet people,

oh all those dead and quiet people.

3297. EPITAPH

EPITAPH

His odd life agreed with him.

He developed piles and scurvy;

lost patches of hair, and  -  finally  -

a few teeth, before he somehow

sweated to death while freezing.

3296. LAYOUT

LAYOUT

This garb is what we wear, the blue frothy
coat, the red buttons, the lame glimmer-scarf
and the hat. On stage, it comes out very colorful
after they first tint the lights. The way they
want them. The way I never see. The way
it's been. It's hard looking out when
you're outside looking in.
-
Some then call me distant, others call me
gay, while others simply say 'weird wide
and on the way.' I take it all; as if on a Hallmark
Hallmark card from Hell, I can read the funny
lines and cry no matter. Shake my hand,
God-damn, and it comes off in yours.
Your joke will be my loss.
-
And now, for the ten-millionth-hundredth time,
the same old raging bastards are calling it
Halloween. Pagan-festive-fire-fest, soldiers
of the dim and dark dance naked 'round
oil-barrel fires at Washington and 12th.
Yes, yes, I was there for many. And the
Wolfman turning back and forth again:
wolf, man, man, wolf, wolf, man, man, wolf.
-
We never got drunk beneath the broad, full moon.

3295. DAY OF THE LOCUST

DAY OF THE LOCUST
On the day of the locust I was in
Brooklyn, waiting my turn at
Grimaldi's; watching the bridge
throw its harbor-fleet shadows
now over nothing at all. Tonnage
and cargo, long gone, had absconded
to regions that only the netherworld
knew. A maritime flag on the outpost
wharf? It simply signified yet
another place to wine and dine.
-
A hundred faces paced the walk -
those strange tattooed artists and
their bedfellow girls, those pierced
and dainty females all done up for
voyeuristic sex and the ribald
entertainments of Lebanese
sharks. Why am I waiting,
here at Grimaldi's, for
really nothing at all?
-
Everything is accidental,
and sharpshooters run
rampant all along the
shoddy rooflines.

3294. SURETY AND A NOTION

SURETY AND A NOTION
All these terrible days, and then you're

going to tell me I have to die? I don't
believe this. Like the windward willow
bending to the lake, dreary to droop
but staying in place, I withstand every
urge to flee. And I will do so too. I will
not die. You can mark my words, even
after I'm dead and gone.

3293. DRIVING HOME THE POINT

DRIVING HOME THE POINT

(my Mexican Chef)
They bat for average, and I'm dizzy as hell.
Can't stand straight. Whole world spins.
No way is that to pin the tail on the donkey.
Right, amigo. Go for broke, both you and
your little senorita there. Drive that Taurus
until it dies, runs out of gas or burns. Tar
the roof all day, spin, weave, flip - food,
pizza or gas. Whatever it is you do for dough.
Money I mean; the American stuff. All the
points along the border are pointing to here.
Are they not, Carlos Mendicimo Armagandos
Perez Aguirre? I think that was the name on
you tag. Brewmaster. Soup-chef.

3292. JUST OUT OF PETERSBURG

JUST OUT OF PETERSBURG
My mind recalls a hundred things.
My mind is filled with a million thoughts,
and I remember a few as well - each vivid
but 'just passing through', as the 'so-to-say'
crowd would utter. Why am I facing the
Gulf of Finland, just looking out from some
Petersburg scat - a paranormal fog, a
slithery eel of creeping light that now,
alone itself, barely illumines this
cavernous station for trains, which,
in themselves, seem as reluctant
to move as I do? The language
I am hearing is itself struggle
enough to listen to.
-
In my own country, we have small
music halls, auditoriums, as it were,
where people sit to listen. People,
filled with salt and sugar, nod and
bob to what the sounds direct
them. Not here - enormous
patchulated music halls
infringe on space and time,
forcing vast musics on all
those open and unaltering
musical ears.
-
Well, it is said, there is little
difference anyway. Perhaps.
But I have come by train to
this far and barely electric
place to take my spot behind
a bass. And here I am, now
silent - or just as silent as
History is - without a real
story to tell, yet filled with
thoughts and lore and tales,
looking out towards the
Gulf of Finland.

3291. NEUKIRK TO OSTERGAARD

NEWKIRK TO OSTERGAARD
While not knowing anything, all the known
world - nonetheless - drops at your
feet. Can you recognize such feasance,
understand the noise? The streamlining
of a bird, ancient as it is, is but idle banter
in the hands of a greater Maker. All time
ticks to this imagined tune, and every
ancient mariner knows these tales :
the bright star, set on high, the
the lethal barriers found at the
very edge of the world, the end
of all things, just around
that seaward curve.

3290. LEARNING YOUR TONGUE

LEARNING YOUR TONGUE
I dug your language at Vladivostok.
Getting too close to Korea, I started
to fear. All that Trans-Siberian
Railroad stuff kept me in stitches:
that stern Russian tongue, those
beautiful girls stiffing their lips
to curl at their nose just to say
'If you are from another land,
if you would love me, I could
make you very happy if you
would take me away.' Anyway
that's how I translated it - the train
guide said I was close, but also 'they
are really eastern whores dressing
right here for your silent masquerade.'

3289. RECITAL AT GROVES

RECITAL AT GROVE
We take these things for granted:
the blood-red heart, the feelings
it throws. High above, some jewel-blue
sky tries echoing back all that we feel.
The jet-plane zones off, its race to
altitude now hardly worth the humming.
Tired days, these are, when the roar
and cacophony of our own intentions
spills. We stop at nothing. We go to France.
-
Your milk-money, I'd noticed, was still
pinned to your dress. No way to travel,
honey. In each of those dangerous lands
you speak of you'd be a sitting duck. Why
I myself, were I there, might lunge to
get you, take you, steal your goods
and money. It's just like that, doesn't
really mean a thing. We are traveling
people, our generations switch roles.
-
I'd much rather stay behind, now that
I think it over, and sing of happy fields
and wandered pastures, coves and
hamlets where I'd been to before.
This recital at Grove, this reverie,
would be my own personal moment
of true joy and happiness.

3288. OMAHA THEATER

OMAHA THEATER
They were still holding the
branding irons in their
tumultuous hands; iron men,
fellows with sizzling arms.
The stench was awful - a
foul reek of burned flesh
punctuated by the calls
and groans of the anguished
animals. A cruel fest, a fight
by fire to name the herd
and brand the beast.
Callow-hearted fellows,
to say the least, just
stood around, laughing.

3287. THE CIVIL WAR

THE CIVIL WAR
Wheeze forth great nation dead and
bloodied, power has now left your hands.
The willow trees escape, there is smoke
and fire o'er the land. And for how long have
you really wanted this? Let us count.
-
The dead are in their sepulchres. They
sound alike their meanings all - the
Civil War graveyard of Elmira's bare
middle, all stories and columns and
words. The smoking guns, crossed,
atop what passes for a Union flag.
-
I haven't yet left before I've yet
arrived, and these beating memories
resound like flame and sorcery
in small boys' eyes. It is over!
It is over! My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?

3286. MY AMNESTY

MY AMNESTY

To let you go? To fire up that silly
stove again? To singe the butter

on the rafters, make the rye bread
squirm? Whatever are you talking of?
I hadn't heard the headmaster before,
merging manners with the queen of
something else, the measure of the
mattered hand, the Matterhorn of
Marmaduke. It's all like unreality,
now itself so real. Make that twice
over, and once again. I drink to that.
-
The page-boy look, once wasted on the
young, has climbed its ladders to the distant
stars. Babel to Baba-Lou. Gravestone
side-steppers to the gabled mansions of
Erewhon and Potupoi - I have them
all, and they've stopped my minding.
-
Now, it's only you.

3285. LOOSELAND LOOSESTRIFE

LOOSELAND LOOSESTRIFE
These gardeners I see holding shovels
and sticks, they are talking amongst
one another. They stand on grass -
it would seem - more than principal.
-
And now it begins to drizzle again.
From where they are standing, more
annoyance than fact. The rain
puts their cigarettes out.

3284. WARFARE, PESTILENCE, AND GREETINGS

WARFARE, PESTILENCE,
AND GREETINGS

Standing towards the end of my life I'd swear to
see you - dunking lightbulbs, or swishing girders gladly
in the old and open Delaware Canal. Where we may have
passed as strangers, where we may have lived together.
I don't know. My dirigible sensations are gone, these
tired fingers rankle now with only dead pages, and -
all else together - I too await the ferryman to take me.
'You were born to live, my boy, as much as you were
born to die. Fear not the ferryman, he will always come by.
It's just a matter of time : warfare, pestilence, and greetings.'
-
I held you close, once, as a little girl. We shared time together.
Then, older and later, we moved along the same towpath,
it seemed, until even the donkeys and mules collapsed.
If they could talk, I knew they would have said 'this
pulling barges is just no fun.' But I was in another
world, and lived between the times. The meadows,
being once meadows, always fit me fine. Now, it
seems they're paved with discontent. Yours is
yours, and mine is mine. It's all just a matter
of time : warfare, pestilence, and greetings.

3283. MODELING FOR PRESS AGENTS

MODELING FOR
PRESS AGENTS
Just like Modigliani, or one of his
things, we drive for respect in
oh so languid poses. Half-draped,
half-not; watching the clock to
see what transpires. Everything
we do is done for effect, after,
of course, cause. Twilight dims
the rim of time, as we sit,
so lazily about.

3282. AND SUCH A GLIMMERING WILD ONE

AND SUCH A GLIMMERING WILD ONE
We used to hang at street-corners, leaning on stone,
skipping a beat, watching glass and water : no, no,
we never stopped. The hard-angled zoo we inhabited
with cigarettes and wine, poppers and spikes, all of
that we knew like no others. Leather-girls in their
toney skirts, and not. Hookers at Stage 9, playing
dead-dice with the boys. Wonton chefs, singing
weird Chinese songs. I never knew collaboration
to taste so good. It was a long, long time ago.
-
And just now you used a name I had not heard
since 1974 and before. I do remember him,
precisely, and even where his body stays.
Some nasty crypt near Bedloe's Island,
some Potter's Field, or one of those.
Those were East River days: they
took his lifeless body over on a skiff,
and soon came back without him.
-
We once pumped the monkey full
of juice, ate the girl before she came,
wired down the torchlights for the
approaching storm. Now, Jesus lord
almighty, it's all so over and gone.
Distant memory, afar, like an
iron taste on a bitter tongue.

3281. POST-APOCALYPTIC VENISON

POST-APOCALYPTIC
VENISON

Everyone who could
had already died.

3280. WHAT WAS SCHEDULED ONCE IS NOT WRITTEN TWICE

WHAT WAS SCHEDULED ONCE
IS NOT WRITTEN TWICE

Bleistein with a Baedeker, remember that one? Or anyway, I
think I've gotten it right - he held two fingers aloft, and judged
accordingly, laughed at the moon once, and walked on. Just
today, returning from some stupid romance, I watched the
calendar sky disappear: it passed right through my ages,
and left me thinking of nothing at all. Not the way of all
Mankind, exactly, but it would have to do.
-
Standing alongside the moon-faced pie girl, I watched
the building come down. Piece by piece now, they were
ripping at its facade. Two-hundred year old brick, simply
turning - under pressure - to an orange powder.
The noise glass makes, over and over, and then
the steel of the window-frames hitting ground.
Park-dirt this was not, nor did it seem exactly
even proper to do demolition in this way.
-
Who knew what I don't know? This cloth-fed
engineer, the Greek with the clipboard veneer,
walking around looking at things as they
happened? Was he the one with all the plans?
Sacred or not, as it happened, one old church,
lane-split, and a housing unit or two, all
chunked together. 'To whom are you
reporting now?' I wanted to ask. But
my tumbled tongue was caked with
dust. The moon-faced girl near to
me, she smiled and just took my
hand to lead me away.
So I followed.

3279. ANGELS

ANGELS
I'm surely not one to be wrestling
with Gods and the beatific window
dressings I see: five angels clutching
beads, a running man with a fiery
halo, an infant holding things down.
This fortuitous moment itself
knows nothing; runs aside,
tries to glide. Let's put our heads
together, let's sing and praise -
your multi-colored straw bag,
your orange-painted nails,
your sandals and your Snapple.
My God, my God, we have
come to this!
-
Not an occasion for malice, this
watching the sunlight grow,
opening up the nighttime skies
wherein I have been walking
for hours - endless hours that
were not from here. And, yes,
still I know what I see; and they
have dropped me here with
their extended, small wings.
-
Which wings are but concept,
anyway, idea. Like the thought
of how much blue is in that black.
Beatific angels, I ask you. The
light is now playing on the bricks,
and this faulty city is all I see.
Oh in such pain I cry out to you,
please, please, please
listen now to me.

3278. KNOXVILLE SHAKEOUT

KNOXVILLE SHAKEOUT
My Knoxville shakeout came like this:
plane wings down, hit the tarmac,
grab a bag and walk the ellipse. Tuba
player and sing-shift clarinetist both
along for the ride. Observe the stage,
survive the ride. At half past seven,
(yeah, they'd written it all out), the
music was to begin. Stride forth
like some piano man surely
breaking wind.
-
The crowd was along in pairs,
two by fours and tuxedo junctions.
Sitting to stare, small cocktails
in smaller glasses, half dead or
half awake it wouldn't have really
mattered. Why we played on,
to the stroke of one, I'll
never really understand.
-
Got paid in Rue Diablos, some
Devil-money shaped like squares.
I knew this was over before it
started; 'Joe! There's the
plane, get up those stairs!'

3277. A SIMPLE SETTLEMENT

A SIMPLE SETTLEMENT
I've always hated all that
retro stuff, and those who
side with matter gone -
I've had my Marilyn on
the halfshell while my
stomach groaned and
burned. 'Write quickly,'
the matador said, 'for
Venus de Milo is
arriving soon.'

3276. MY MEXICAN ELLIPSE

MY MEXICAN ELLIPSE
Luck brings this morning passing
strange, a break I'd not foreseen -
the girl with cornrow hair now
whistling some turgid tune.
Each synapse I own declares:
'Race this moment to its finish,
and you are nothing if
not what you seem.'

3275. THE DOGS OF WAR

THE DOGS OF WAR
When sometimes the dogs of war
are snarling, and rabid, tug their
leashes, then the foiling sun with
great reluctance deems it best
to set. All things darken by degree,
and shades and shadows redefine
the lines and shapes of all we see -
how fraught with trepidation,
new, all things are.
-
Might I, then, say this backwards?
Recite some ode of Horace in reverse,
faulting ends and enemies, turning
'round the battles and the fight?
No, I seek the straighter line,
where things, still in rows, hold
tight to all their marks and meanings.

3274. THIS LIFE JUST A TRAGIC ATTRACTION

'THIS LIFE JUST A
TRAGIC ATTRACTION'

'Receding water exposes bodies,
0r at least we expect,' the man said.
His cigarette dangled from pursed, fussy
lips and I fully expected him to gag.
Something there was about this fellow -
made strange by circumstance - brought
me to disbelief. Badge and gun notwithstanding,
if he was the Law, I wanted to be an outsider, now.
-
He'd said his loyalty was to the Law and that
upholding it had become his life's work. 'Yeah,
sure' I thought. I wished I had a five-hundred
dollar bill to dangle in his face - just to see
what he'd do for money. If he knew the Law,
then I knew all about Charley Chase.
-
I watched the back of his head as he
stood there, and I realized right then
that the piece of plastic I saw was actually
the back edge of his wig - toupee, hairpiece,
whatever. Yes, I wanted to laugh, but was
sure it wouldn't be wise. Other than that,
it looked pretty real, or at least I never
had noticed before. Good enough for me.
-
'I admonish you, if you're at all squeamish,
to look away. As we drag these bodies up
it's apt to get ugly.' I knew what he meant,
but I knew just as well it was bullshit - I'd
heard him and his cronies beforehand, talking
of women's bodies and things they had seen.
-
I guess it's like that everywhere - the lark runs the rush,
the beaver breaks the dam, things eventually do
just run out of control. No more stops, and no
one to stop it. This Life, just a tragic attraction.
This life, just a tragic attraction.

3273. WALKING ON THE MOONLIGHT NOT IN IT

WALKING ON THE
MOONLIGHT NOT IN IT

This is the circumstance : what one man wants
is what another avoids. Crystal bright and as
clear as glass, the fir trees seem to stand still
as light from the moon comes to them. I walk
between things, two worlds apart; neither in
nor of the place I am. Strange, how that
silent singularity marks a life.
-
I was raised in a place of wolves; red men
doing white things, white men falling back.
Beneath five hundred skies, I traveled
with wings of gauze 'midst azure skies.
The rocks and stones beneath me,
they each called out my name.
-
Epochs of time and eons of purpose.
I waltzed hills and valleys, danced
voluble dinosaur steps, ran fiery
sabre-toothed tigers in my racing.
My days were numbered and caught
by starlight and solar flares, brilliant
moments of flash and glory.