3784. FARRAGO

FARRAGO

Yes then it was - in the park, I had my fingers on

your touchpad; we were discussing Darwin's

hallucinations and it came to be that you said

'he was stoned.' I looked around, trying to

decipher the who or what you meant, and I

realized there was no one there.  At that

moment, the funny man selling Italian ice

began singing to himself. A tourist with a

Leica around his sweaty neck same over

to ask if I've lived here all my life. 'Uh, not

yet', I replied, 'at least I hope, not yet.' He

walked away with a funny, checkered gait.

3783. CIRCLE

CIRCLE

There is a great, magnanimous circle in the

heart to be filled by the love of Mankind.

As all circles are, this one is endless, and 

rolls about, back over and upon itself, to

infinity's endless end; to the place where no

man has been, to the seamless circle, within.

3782. MOMENT

MOMENT

I haven't a moment to best my own circumstance:

the bread, the filler, the leavings, all gone. Birds

have eaten these seeds from the ground. Nowhere

but where I have strewn them, of course. And

now  -  before the chilly wind of Winter arrives  -

I throw back, in the same manner, all my caution

to these changing winds and give up care. There

is nothing more but monsters in the moment. Now

we will see what things win out. Alas, my friend,

the world is over - if it ever was at all, if it

really ever was at all.

3781. POST-MODERN DELIVERY

POST-MODERN DELIVERY

Skip two beats, one falsetto after

pauses, enter staccato and drone, all

syncopation gone. Variable timing

notwithstanding, hold meter and tone.

Jump phrasing, end rhyme.

-

Two cups of flavored tea, cinnamon

oasis onion bun, padicule the mannerists

humming. 'I've never been so embarrassed

in my life! My God, imagine the nerve of

that man!'

-

Outside by the picnic table, but still within the

ring of fire, some poor men were barbecuing 

pork. Soon there was nothing left. The chickens

had come home to roost; the barn door, someone

had left open. Three fine horses were loping away.

-

Skip two beats. Use falsetto after the pause.

Enter staccato, end rhyme.

3780. UNDER A SEMBLANCE OF THE FORGE

UNDER A SEMBLANCE

OF THE FORGE

There are no stars, no stars in the sky

tonight; if any, there are five. What have

we done to ourselves to live this way?

An how are we complete? Divorced as we

are now and separated from everything that

ever was, we claim our Now to be ideal, a

pinnacle reached on the heights. I cannot say,

but know I will. Distracted and dazed, a forced 

face of Mankind just keeps running on.

-

The sky is black with a blackness here of

its own, by our lights. We have made it so, here,

anyway  -  dollars and finance and the stipple-toned

men with ledgers and counters and dodges and

tricks. They make their designations, they plot

their ways. By contrast, I stand by silently

watching as they all miss their mark.

Aloof is my only manner.

-

I cannot tell you a different story, for

there is no different story to relate. The

far sands  - of Eden, Mesopotamia, Babylon

and the rest  -  we've left them all now, and

they are gone. There are no stars in the sky 

tonight. If any, there are five.

3779. FAR MAN

FAR MAN

There are no rudiments; nothing

basic to be seen. William Blake

on the catamounts of desire wailing.

Someplace odd, the Ferris wheel

and the carousel can only be seen

spinning backwards alike.

3778. MY FRANK MEMORIES

MY FRANK MEMORIES

Oh fuck! I am so faraway and wasted by

everything gone. I just don't live here anymore.

This world has no more parasol  -  just fast

endings, loose pieces, and disjointed

enclaves of loss : madmen sunning

themselves in duplicitous words; all

those cloying wives as one atop a

sunstreaked porch. I can't even

marvel at things any longer. My

jail-term is a biography text.

-

A Summer breeze at the window

is a daughter I never had. The wildlife

in the gritty park is the mark of all

my drowned intentions ; slight

piggishness, lust and labor in a

bushe-basket of need and want.

Rumor has it we all get a claim.

-

This chiseled sunlight is a subterfuge.

And I am so living on borrowed time.

3777. SANSKRIT

SANSKRIT

Don't bet the last dollar, unless

you're feeling extreme. Don't dodge

the taxman, nor - I suppose - don't

tax the dodger either, for that matter.

A simple cake has complicated icing,

(or is that the other way around?).

The swami was eating free-range

toast he'd made himself. I wonder,

how did Kali like that one?

-

There's a new white fence around

Cemetery Grove. And along the

perimeter now they've gone and

built new homes. You know they're 

not going to call it that, 'Cemetery

Grove' of course. No. More probably

something like : Lone Pine Estates,

Weeping Willow Gardens, or maybe

Wailing Oak Hollow. Yes, yes -

Wailing Oak Hollow, how apt.

3776. ANTS ON THE APPLE

ANTS ON THE APPLE

I was surprised to see ants on the

apple core  -  someone had thrown

it down, once done, and now it was

swarming with ants. Somehow just

as well dependents of an Adam and Eve

once more. I make no connections, mind

you  -  merely a comment so as to reflect.

How jagged these reflections are; straight

lines broken, hitting from mirror to mirror

along the wall. Eventually, yes, even

letting us to see around corners.

-

Oh dog, I am so silent. 

The ants are swarming the core.

A thin, malic acid nectar, sweet

and rich. People eat apples for

hundreds of reasons. I once read,

in an article on same, that they were

very good because of their 'vigorous

cleansing action on the teeth' (always

liked that phrase thereafter). What's

that tell the ants, I wonder?

3775. HALLOWEEN AND DEMONS

HALLOWEEN 

AND DEMONS

In the resourceful fell of a late October moon,

those crazy, loopy kids in costumes are now

genuflecting before their idols : character

dolls I never know, wizards, whores, bakers,

chiefs. The low smoke of someone's new fire,

billowing out of a rooftop chimney, curling around

the neighborhood's now funky sky. Little demons

parading with bags. Everybody wants to be, something.

We have the Druids lolling on Nature's hay bales. The

archfiends, with their knives and sabres. The mad

witches of Halton Grove, riding their proverbial

broomsticks. Why not, these nut-kids say, why

not; every hole is fit for something. I can only

nod and agree. I can only nod and agree.

 

3774. MADRIGAL

MADRIGAL

Leaving the entrance at bright of day, the

telling dawn, the beginning of something :

catcalls and the sunlight, the noise of

many birds. All those sticks of granite  - 

the cemetery markers before me  -  all

those I can do nothing about. Every

tag a storyline with an ending. And I,

of little care, pretending.

-

I am so lonely. I want something to

latch onto. I hear a door slap, the only

manmade sound I get. Someone else

scrapes by in a car  -  same Malibu

crap in a beat-up paint job. Just the

way the poor-folk do it, so do I. Let

me learn a language  -  something,

anything  -  by which to converse.

 

 

3773. I NEVER SAID THAT AT ALL

I NEVER SAID THAT AT ALL
Only right now is it time best to
consider, so many things having
already turned : that Carnival time
in Rio, that Opera House in the
harbor at Melbourne, countless
little things in the gulleys and
shores of time. I sit about, reading
History in little bits and pieces.
-
Someone tells me the Civil War
ran at a blistering pace. You'd have
to prove that to me - I see instead
a more pure and languorous idea,
of slow battle in so many pleasant
places - a Battle of Wond'rous Hill,
a thousand men dying of wounds
amid a beautiful picnic grounds.
People eating cole slaw, sipping
drinks and telling stories. Children
on the field across the ditch, all
spinning hoops and chasing balls.
-
You then wonder, may I be confused?
No, rather so a hopeless romantic that
I demand a sense of right in even the
worst of times. If it is my own blood
flowing, then at least it shall be pure.
-
There is a nomenclature inside of
Nature that makes all things right :
the good comports (somehow) with
the bad as the lovers, in fact, embrace
the haters and all things come together.
-
As one? No, no, I didn't say that.
I never said that at all.

3772. WHAT ARE WE MARKING?

WHAT ARE WE MARKING?

Right now the sky is lowering, the darkness

encroaches; the old brick wall seems to shudder

on its own. Wallabout Bay, it's really called that,

takes it seam and closes old Brooklyn down.

The ghosts of 500 ships sit fallow. The old

Navy Yard, or its site, withers in evening's glow.

-

Far about, some peasant sailors with red ribbons

on their caps play games with sticks, whittling

their minds with those ironical caps and feints.

They jumble ship, rocking in the sway, sits

lordly atop and within the oiled waters.

-

This is a time of the ages of Man : we often

see so little of it that we have it pass us by

without even knowing what we've lost. A

hundred thousand men, traumatized and

bullet-holed, have died so this could live?

And now, b'gosh, they say, it too is lost.

I no longer know where to turn.

I watch, instead, the setting sun.

3771. HERE'S A PIECE FOR THE MAN WHO HANDLES OILS

HERE'S A PIECE FOR THE

MAN WHO HANDLES OILS

Then as now they begged the loggers for

the logs : time and place and energy,

anything to keep it going. Five black cars,

racing down the street, straight for the shed

at the end of the warehouse harbor. That's

where most of the goods were kept. I slept

there a few nights, in a row in fact, in the

rear of an old container truck kept there for

just that purpose. Me and Judy Tenenbaum,

she of the temple'd bicycle and the stolen

vegetables  -  all things she'd eat under

cover of the night. All the times we stayed

there, there beneath the covers, there was

gasoline dripping on the pavement, old leaky

trucks and all their soggy oils and smells.

It was a wharfside mess, for sure, but no

one ever bothered about a god-damned thing.

We would talk for hours  -  I thought she was

so smart. Wealthy too, but smarter  -  old family

money somewhere in Long Island. She was hiding

out, and so was I. Back then  -  this was 1967  -

the West Side Highway was elevated and it still

ran trucks and cars. Underneath the trestles, that's

where all this was  -  dead cars, broken trucks, and

more than a few very active piers where the workmen

worked all night. I've never seen anything like it again,

and only wish I could. Oh, only wish that I could.

3770. HESITATING

HESITATING

There is a man here hesitating; hesitating for

nothing at all. He strides over the fur-lined bridge,

and the lone eagle watches him pace. A few of

the local natives, leftover from age-old battles,

still wince as they think of him passing. On

the floor, there's an old caloric bottle filled

with something no one knows. No one goes.

-

That needle in the haystack everyone mentions  - 

it too has been found wanting, long gone, empty

of any meaning, hollow, useless, of no report at all.

We all turn to leave at once, realizing, finally,

that's there's never been anything here; no,

there's never been anything here at all.

3769. TELLTALE WAYS

TELLTALE WAYS

You've got those telltale ways of looking  -

at the scarf around the wanderer's neck,

at the night, coming in along the horizon.

There is nothing to compare.

-

View but once the sacred vessel, the

charge, the willow. (There is a quiet

voice, trying to talk. It is cast aside,

and alone  -  one within the many).

-

I listen to sounds.

They pass me as if I were blind.

Each one, with a shape and a

circumference, seems to come

from someplace else.

-

I understand why the

 blind person squints.

3768. HABANERA TO THE COLUMNAR INCH

HABENERA TO THE 

COLUMNAR INCH

Sandpaper headings and the stucco'd old

cathedral, now standing a sentinel watch

for nothing on the borrowed edge of an ancient

humid avenue. The people are standing near

the light which won't work  -  sooty cars from

1966 are making the turn, taxi's headers on

their roofs. Cuban musicians are staggering

their delineations down Rampopa Boulevard,

while two soldiers are toying with a white-laced

girl. I listen in as she comments, in a very fast

tongue, that their 'rifles aren't large enough' to

do their 'paltry manhoods justice.' Be it all

as it may, that's what I think I understood.

-

The oasis behind glass, the flower-seller

with glass vases, soiled daisies sticking out

from an oil-based elixir : I realize where I am

but not how I ever arrived. Everything happens

so fast in an air-born world. From goons to

toy soldiers, a teddy-bear with a child attached

is flying through the air. Smoke at the end of

the block, the distant harbor everywhere.

3767. GARLIC PEPPER SALT

GARLIC PEPPER SALT

So I've got a leg up, running ahead of the crowd,

shooting the shit at the bagel store, watching the

guy work the power lines with a saw and a flashlight.

What's up with all this? I am no one but the most

intrigued lawless person in the whole entire world.

I took your sister to the movies, and left her there

at the credits. I wrote that note to your father which

proclaimed how useless he was. And then, leave it

to your imagination how it went with your Mom.

The girls were playing the Sugarcubes way too

loud. I hate that music, I really do. Men who sound

like girls, and girls who rant like men. Gracious,

what has this world now come to, tell me please.

-

There used to be a large white house atop that hill

over there. From where I lived, I could see it always

and from most any angle, whenever I looked out.

It was an old mansion, of some big brewery family

from Newark. They had two servants and even a

hermit who they let live on the property, at the edge.

He was a small man, in loose gray clothes, with a

big white beard grown yellow around the mouth; I

guess where stained by coffee and food. We called

it all the Krug Mansion  -  whether any of that was

true or not, I never knew. But, as kids, we did harass

that poor, lonesome hermit, who eventually began

shooting at us with a pellet gun. We used to say

he was shooting at us with salt  -  rock salt, I

 guess, or salt pellets.  Who knew? We just kept

bombarding his shack with pebbles and stones.

-

About twelve houses now cover that area, with

big yards. The shack and the mansion, the hermit

and his people, all are long gone. What once were

their woods, as well, is now a horrific mess of paving

and parking and shit-ass little stores. Oh bad, how

this life betrays us all, of really, really bad.

3766. THESE RECYCLED PANTALOONS

THESE RECYCLED 

PANTALOONS

'I am chewing off my Melville jacket one twisted

story at a time. I am all yours; tinker, tailor, soldier

spy and all the rest of the twisted-over medallion

crap we live by. The turtles are twisted on the

newly surfaced ground. And, yes, I too ask once

more : 'Is there Life on Mars?' No answer forthcoming.

The ugly-bastard-woman in her shawl at the painted

fortune-teller's booth in the 110 degree attic in the

sky, she's wailing and peeling off her sickening

clothes. I see nothing but her putrid body covered,

I mean man fucking covered, in eyeball tattoos, everywhere

and everywhere and on every part too. But, I want to

ask her, but  - who is watching the watchers?'

3765. AND TO HELL WITH ALL THIS

AND TO HELL 

WITH ALL THIS

Not again  - the landscape in the drawer

and all that imagined geography on the wood

I saw  -  some snappy old desktop, a place

under glass. I swear I could make it out,

in the patterns and swirls of the wood, a 

place I could live forever. Valleys, lakes,

hills and mountains; a veritable woodland

mountain for me to take.

-

But, I dissemble. Now it is many years

later  -  there are cigarette burns in the

countertop, and grandad's old pipe-stand 

too is gone. No pens, and  -  egads again  -

no typewriter either. Aren't we the essence

of all that change? And, fuck anyway, it's

now too late for the living. I want to put a

gun in my mouth and pull.

-

I want to look at women until I'm dead.

Not that back-of-the-playing-card-Grandpa's-

top-desk-drawer kind, but rather those tender

riling buds I see all around me. I want to be

there, all amidst it all, before I die, before

I fall. It's not that it's a sin to lust, it's more

that I have lost all trust: in everything left,

-

in anything real, in moments that matter, in

noise that stops, in all that patter : I want you,

oh God, I do. I want to go on, at the very

same time I want to stop. And to Hell with

all this again, and over and over again

I want to - stop.

3764 . A PAEAN TO MANANJA

A PAEAN TO MANANJA

They found her in the park -

it was said search dogs sniffed 

her out. Why anyone would put

a body beneath piles of dead leaves

and sticks still badgers my mind.

She'd been dead, it was also said,

at least seventeen weeks.

-

I've never like any tertiary city -

some idle Baltimore of a small-thinking

mind. Poe died here, OK, I grant you

that, but - anyway - even he mostly

lived elsewhere. The citadel which passes

for a cathedral here, I swear it's so

calm its incense lingers for weeks.

-

Incredible to be here, and just

listen how well everyone knows their

lines : 'I've been doing this for nine

years now, the dogs always do their

job, and each one of these homeless

murders and abandoned body-drops

still hurt.' He might have added, 'And I

hate newspeople like you, lurking around.'

-

There will be more, and they are coming  -

that old body festers, alike and kin to anything

else that ever once was. And what, anyway,

will they find? Some panting, crazed madman

jerking off to pictures? Some crafty parolee,

back out to kill, on the streets again? Some

fat, jolly priest you'd expect the least, or a

brother or a father out on the town? Who 

is it all, and what can it matter now?

-

I beg to differ with most things.

I take a moment before I speak.

And now, I reach down to grab some

dirt, a paean to Mananja's stink.

3763. BLATZBURG

BLATZBURG

Are killer bees worse than killer sons of bees? The gun

with machine guns and rifles and grenades? Defending

someone else's town can be so much fun.

3762. SOOTHSAYER

SOOTHSAYER

'Truth is hard and always decided. People don't have to like it,

but there it is. It's a straight line and a solid walk : stray too

far and you're lost. The world wilts under its own assault -

we are both agents and those acted upon. The Devil exists,

easily - trepidations,exclamations, strange occasions and

all persuasions. Please get in line or get off my wild ride.'

So sayeth the Soothsayer.

-

I entered the rolling carousel  -  at about the same moment

that the changing sky signaled intentions : rolling rafts of

thunder and glee, lightning strikes over valley and trees.

Wondering to myself if this world can signal change, the

thought occurred that all I am, and all I ever was, and

anything I may yet ever be, was bundled together right

there, all in front of me. I looked around for help,

the soothsayer was nowhere to see.

3761. PARADISE

PARADISE

(for Walt Whitman)

Housed in the great house I have placed wild animals of

every sort : the prancers with the vaulters, the vicious with

the tame. At every turn, something new. Come with your

parasols, all you winsome ladies, for you will be singing of

this for ages. My parkland beckons and brings you in.

-

I hugged the valley along the old canal, sweeping like

wind all my shards of happy love. The waning light

of day brought the texture of place to its mirrored

darkness over placid water-surface. Everything in

reverse, I saw the bright moon glimmering at the

bottom of the land. How strange.

-

Half-trees fallen and shaken, remained as

they fell; no matter to the growth, which in

itself found enough recovery to sprout

once more. Nature cannot be kept

down. It is hearty, and jumps from the

growth of our hearts. Oh human face,

in you I see all Mankind reflected.

3760. SUZETTE

SUZETTE

Cramp the carp-faced carapace

downward and only then try lighting

the candle. Outside this old seaside cabin 

the brown dog howls and the busy terns

run freely. Any way, what's the equivalent

of flying here? I watch you making tea with

those glorious lips and whatever that is that

you're wearing. Thank God for women, 

it seems my heart says.

-

The jagged screen is slapping anew. From

it, I still can catch the surf - all that rise and

fall and fury - seaweed and kelp, rocks and

mussels. There does seem always a wind

or a surface breeze, like to something

churned up and constant through

turbulence and slow movement.

So like my aging heart again.

-

Why do some men live on into a great

old age, and prosper - I have to wonder

on this long and salty Summer afternoon -

while others, like here, die lolling and

gagging on the sand, still with their 

metal detectors in their hands?

-

The sun seems like it will never stop,

and I am waiting, and waiting I shall be.

The old beachfront wood, of houses and

sheds, has weathered all this forever. I too

will go on, bearing the cost of time like some

flagrant beachcomber's ragged shawl, intent

on survival and sure of all. Outside, the sea,

and all that is : I'll sit here and watch you

make that tea (a very simple man I'll be).

3759. THINK, THINK OF THE BLASPHEMERS

THINK, THINK OF 

THE BLASPHEMERS

(Independence Day)
Such malediction! The white swans of Coollee,

even they squawk. On high, a lone mark of

Cygnus - a wary congregation - sweeps across

the sky, and the fat silver nickel of the full moon

so slowly drops into the sad horizon.

- 

A little girl is skipping rope now,

to a tune I've never heard before.

Out here, on the Memorial Square,

once again they are reading off the

names of the military dead. It is once

more the Fourth of July, and nothing

here makes any sense  -  they just did

this all at the end of May. But now

every day is Decoration Day.

-

 It is so quiet, somehow, you could hear

a cannon drop  -  the dumb dead, the stupid

dead, the wartime fodder, the cannon feed at

the artillery shed. We who are here among the

living are the ones in need  -  the lively, the quick.

We stay here somehow to memorialize all that

we can : these dismal fireworks of a thumping

flash, all the blasted raconteurs of hill and gorge.

-

 And so, whatever that all is, it is nothing  -

an Independence Day of joy and happiness

and freedom and range! Now that too has been

changed to the dead. Yes, yes, I have heard all

that before. Now, let the dead alone. The flags

are already wilting in their cut.

-

Thunderous, the lolling noise  -  that crackle pop

boom of gunpowder sludge and firework flame, they

each conspire to make the injudicious range of noise

and color splash on in the once-dark sky. Too much!

Let us move away and no longer espy what we do not need.

3758. LAND OF THE MANHATTOES

LAND OF THE MANNHATTOES

And then time seems stopped when you cry like that;

I see you bent and saddened over the outdoor stoop.

Beyond your head, the gulls are swooping and some

evening's river traffic plugs along its way : a vast white

pleasure craft, some finance rich-man trolling down the

East River past Corlears Hook, wining and dining his

dinner on board. The sound, though soft, reminds me

yet of nothing so much as trouble. Yellow taxis streetside

bleating, a few buses across the park. Men who play

tennis with women, it seems, have little care. I sit

down to watch and breath some darkness; an evening

air blowing in from other parts  -  across shorelines and

old Indian paths. These are all the things I love.

-

My hands are strong enough yet to break a branch

and form a fire. We sit on haunches now, deep immersed

in an island wood  -  no one else about, no citified mass

of lumber and folk quite yet. Our journey, damned as

it already is, is just about beginning. The clock within

me says : 1624. Dutchmen, just now, are landing.

3757. MY SERVICE REVOLVER

MY SERVICE REVOLVER

Is here to serve you. Runs on

lies and deceit. Takes by force

what you will not willingly give.

What is it? I am your

Government Man, I am the

cop you feed.

3756. TROUBLE FOR ME

TROUBLE FOR ME

Trouble for me is I can only think

why  -  to look at things and question.

I am stepped back at the set-back, and

there is no concentration worth having.

-

See : a line of people in the cornfield setback.

They are as live as they are dead, any diorama

notwithstanding. Life and logic seek their levels

in a great protuberance of overlapping time.

I need to ask myself - have I been there,

been here, already. Have I already had you?

-

They call this, now, by contrast, an 

orchard - where once five thousand 

bodies lined the field. I've read that an 

orchard's only good for 12-15 years. 

I'm here now. What good am I?

3755. MANIKIN

MANIKIN

Lifting the gate, a man sees nothing but

his own expectations. 'Let the foul bastard

in, and his horse,' the gruff gate-master says.

He's paid by the Kings Constabulary and wants

to know nothing about anything else. 'I'll be the

one making choices 'round here, my fellow.'

The rider dismounts, and is immediately told

to drop his arms before he steps forward.

'Drop yer arms, you bastard beggar then,

first a'fore you go,' was how it was actually

said. And they was ready to whip him

down if he'd said so much as 'no.'

-

I always liked those odd adventure tales, 

the ones that said nothing and meant less.

Not so much like a Grimm's or Aesop's,

which always seemed to be on their

way to something  -  a lesson to impart,

a moral, a story to learn. That was all for

the school-time stuff; learning and reciting.

I much rather had a share for the leatherman's

tales, told 'round the coal bucket at seaside

inns and bucket barracks. They always made

more sense and reason to me. Romance.

-

And that wasn't all. Those old stories, the ones

with the lady for whom everything was given and

then a life itself was sacrificed; they were the ones

that kept me strange. How could a man ditch

himself, I always would wonder, for a high-ideal

woman who'd never give him much anyway? I

always felt the lessons stank, that everything

was, instead, really about payoffs and position

and ranking  -  who could get where by doing

what they did. Anyway, nobody really cared much

about any 'royal' snatch, that stuff was free, for the

taking, and it was all over the street; every woman

already having come fully-equipped and ready to

deal. All that high-falutin' stuff was crap. There's

no ideal better than grabbin' what you can catch.

3754. REVOLUTION IS HERE

REVOLUTION 

IS HERE

I am contagious. Beleaguered. People of the

distant world, watch out please, for fire. Now

everything is without control. We shall burn

the Capitol, and we shall take no prisoners.

My code for all of you, these secret words, go

out. Torch the land, round up and murder all

the powers-that-be. Start there, at least, then

move on to kill the rest. The small bulb in the

catered washroom, it is on and it burns hot.

Watch for the man with the checkered cloak;

his name shall be Olak, and he will bring you

 forth any future messages needed.

3753. NEWARK

DOOMINATION

DON TRILECKY

I watered the garden hose so it could water

the garden, those hundreds of flowers all

twisted and nameless to someone like me.

I see colors, and way too much bother.

It's way too hot to care anyway. The

sky is blistered like some lava-beach

cauldron, and it always will be.

Sitting at the airport, here on the

periphery of something or other, all

those foreign-name jets come rolling

down. I watch as they hang there, a

little roll, a little foil, and somehow

luckily always make it down. The

landings come in, the departures

roll out. A thousand strange people,

holding candies and wrappers,

and awaiting a film. The buzz

of the buzz is the buzz.

-

I'm talking to some guy from Newark :

a big, black fellow who says he was

born there, right in Weequahic, near

where the old streets were burning in

1967, and now where the 'Niggers'

(his word) are still living. I say nothing

much back, as if it's not my place,

I'm not his race, and I don't much

care anyway. Looking at him, my

main concern is never to get as fat.

-

Music is blasting from some internal

system  -  a sound so bad they call it

that on a dare. No one hears; they talk

and pose  -  those girls with the ultra

light hides, those two travelers from

Europe like walking in fire and wondering

why. It's a non-conditional world, with

everyone on their places and at their mark.

As if something was soon to happen but

nothing ever does. Another two arrivals,

disgorging frantic passengers, who scurry

off - all noise, and a fury, signifying nothing.

-

I'd rather pace the old still walls of some

ancient Newark prison  -  that historic place

on the other end of town. The Civil War era

lock-up, now beat and crumbling, wasted

itself like some old industrial site where

nothing's been made for ten hundred years.

It's like that here. It's like that everywhere.

-

They frenzy their travel to get out and escape.

I sit around waiting, at some useless gate.

3752. SIGN OF THE DOVE

SIGN OF THE DOVE

This world awakens, it screams, it yells

and hollers. The tender light brightens walls

and windows, scraping up the sides of things as

if, expectantly, the entire planet was waiting.

-

The rising of white, the rising of yellow,

the swarm of colors and glow, revolve

themselves until some frenzied moment is

formed and we are, everywhere, satisfied.

-

The bird I see alights from its perch -

its quickly ultimate flurry carries it away.

Afar and aloft, the soar and swoop of

eye and wing and graceful arc bestir me.

-

I am, far and away, arisen with that bird -

arisen like the light - arisen like this day.

I too seek to flower and soar and grow;

one more moment to prosper and blossom.