4040. AT THE SILBERSTEIN COLLECTION

AT THE SILBERSTEIN

COLLECTION

We wash the pastry down with wine.

As people speak of spaces and volume, my

scant eyes are alerted by the wall's sheer

movement. Photographs from another place:

caftans, beggars, tea and elephants. These

pictures seem merely to say 'I have been

somewhere you haven't.' A camera makes

all the difference, no?

-

I wouldn't know what to do with money.

The thought of so many choices would soon

become painful. A hard poverty is more my way -

less to travel, more to see at home. Camera or

not, I move about seeking only a solace

from the wind or the sky.

-

Outside, staring up at evening, I watch the

change from sun to moon take place in the

deep December sky. The delicate arc of lunar

light attempts to meander but cannot. As the

sinking sun submits, I see vast shadows

take over the building walls.

-

This is a city light.

Amidst glass-walled buildings it

moves and changes with the seasons.

Inside, now, a collection of photographs is

pale by comparison. Silver-oxide chemistry

has very little heart. Although each image

is sharp and precise, the soul of a deeper

place is missing.

-

All the world has streets where people

are wanting. Even here, beggars line up

to wash. I need not travel for that to be mine.

I wouldn't know what to do.

4039. WAVELAND ESTEEMABLE

WAVELAND ESTEEMABLE

I've never taken a dog to school, never studied well.

All that I've learned, I've learned myself  -  the endings

were never worth the beginnings. We spin in place - all

zones as one : past, present, and future contained.

Everything as one, together, esteemed. 'If you can

catch my drift...', like the boy on the ballfield said.

-

It was 1959, and I think I was once already finished.

beginnings, and the new sun; endings, and the high,

black sky of night above. We practised our repetitious

plays : first base, over to third, and back. Throwing balls,

fast and straight like bullets, and then arguing who

would pitch tomorrow's morning game.

-

Small girls were all watching  -  though they weren't then

small to us at all. Same age as us, or our sisters  -  things

worth having, retrenchments of their mothers themselves,

we'd strive to suffer and play through for them. Maybe

they'd watch and maybe they'd see. Dad's car rolls by,

the empty road seems his alone. Those whitewalls,

and that chrome, by God, in the sunlight.

-

Whistling back at snake bit kids, the ones who

didn't play : that other group. Quieter ones, mama's boys,

the retards and the readers. I well knew them all.

4038. APACHE BROTHER

APACHE BROTHER

Man in the weave : a soft, red,

head and strange dark eyes. How

to die after living in such a tapestry

so bold. The chicken in the corner,

was that too not his  -  or did

they not eat flesh then too?

-

I rather think so : fancy all

that. Bison or buffalo, rugged

or soft. Truly, I cannot tell,

Apache brother.

4037. OVERLAPPING STORIES

OVERLAPPING 

STORIES

Chiselhurst and Benson, Hartfield

and Troy, any of these names would

do : and just as well. We are harnassed

to our own delights.

-

I've seen such old magics in the mud -

all those early, early cars bogged down

and caught. My tiller-driven Olds will

make a nothing of you. If it's Dayton

you want, this will have to do.

-

Here we are, again, all the same

but in another world. Like those

tarnishers and marksmen we read

about, we make our meek adjustments

to what this feeble world will throw our

way. Old women die. Old women stay.

-

The light is shining darkly onto that

varnished table  -  where people linger,

where people talk. In this air today, there

is too much kindness to go around : it seeps

from gashes in the flesh, from all those tender

parts we walk around with. I am not your

messenger, just your Joe, and if you confuse

me with any more than that I will have to go.

-

And, oh, have I told you? This is now a new

and different world I am about to enter.

The old one just will no longer do.

4036. NERVOUSNESS

NERVOUSNESS

The best you can do is keep it

going where they're headed  -

momentum or decisive movement.

Science has its goals, but fool men

just keep moving randomly. The

difference is negligible anyway.

As John Maynard Keynes put it:

'In the long run we're all dead.'

-

I've headed my time for flowers

slowly away : fractured time and

sterling moments are all now

just a memory.

4035. ESTERBROOK

ESTERBROOK

My 1953 Dodge has stopped running - 

and that tiny, little ram's head on the

hood bears resting now. Oh let it all

sink in the weeds now forever. Cranebrook

and Festerbrook and Esterbrook too -

all those now crazy names. Three-speed

column shift and the fabric seats as well.

Bench seats, they were called. Even

bank robbers could sit alongside

each other, shooting back.

4034. ALLEGIANCE

ALLEGIANCE

Spit out your fighting words standing.

I own a sixteen-room house - with a

man-sized baker's oven in the great

room where I could cook you alive.

Nothing else is like it in the world.

It was built in 1852  -  right before, 

in its day, the Civil War, when all

things had a different meaning, and

everything, even the small, was large.

It was, then, just the way we lived.

-

I have slipped my shingles now behind

the meager pilings of whatever is left

from the civic fencing. OK then, no

not really. Those are the posts where

the Virginia men died. We never gave

anything back, and left it there as a

memorial graveyard for the men who

perished. The fighting was right here,

along this field. The dead we buried

afterwards; those left alive, well, those

that crazy poet came and prayed over -

until they too, eventually, perished.

4033. I DO NOT MIND YOUR HORSES

I DO NOT MIND 

YOUR HORSES

And, obviously, they do not mind me. I've whitewashed

the corral fencing - just as you'd asked. Every bit of

my marking time was joyous  -  those horses pranced

or stood and watched. I loved the every moment.

-

Nothing like work at all  -  had I been Tom Sawyer,

some other way could have been found to get the

painting done; but as it was I reveled every minute.

-

Here's the note I'm leaving  -  you do not need to pay.

4032. INCIDENTAL AMONG THE CARLISLE PAPERS

INCIDENTAL AMONG 

THE CARLISLE PAPERS

Incidental among the Carlisle Papers were the

items left on the list : how often he'd made offers

to adopt, how many visits to his doctors were

kept, what he ate to 'ward off' yellow fever. None

of it worked, of course, and he died in his 45th

year. History little noted, though these papers

are here. I'm reading them; in an old colonial

library in some tiny New England town. Near

to my lodgings, the old Proctor Marble Works

and a gravestone store as well. How touching

and funny all this could seem. Yet, right now,

in this cold, steel rain and all its biting wind,

I care for nothing at all except staying within.

Cradling my arms in hot coffee, reading with

a pen and a notebook, selecting a passage

for this or for that. Carlisle had said: 'to my

mind this modern age is but a passage to

death, a newer way to be found for doing

the same old things, just doing the

same old things.'

4031. REVISIT

REVISIT

I won't go back there again though I must

and though I have. Oh, tempestuous one,

H., you have driven me to this : Ginny Flowers,

the erstwhile whore in the Woodbridge Towers,

sitting astride her couch with her little, black

child playing by the window and Die Hard again

on the screen  -  for at least the twentieth time.

All this now seems so dreary. I could not talk,

though we tried to speak, and that fat biker fellow

kept coming around  -  saying he was hungry,

saying he was dry, wanting another beer, scratching

his disgusting stomach, asking for a blowjob then and

there. He knew all about Bruce Willis : who'd just

bought a town in the South Jersey wilds, was not

yet quite bald, seemed humorous and ready for action.

I stood up to say I didn't care and was so very tired of

all this crap. No one agreed, they just shrugged. I was

so sad and angry that I left by the backdoor stairs.

4030. LOVE

 LOVE 

Throw your bare, naked leg up here, 

closer to my face, like you do so well.

Let me shift here in a moment so grand.

It's a shame, if it happens, that this is

all over so very quickly  -  and then

we're only left with each other.

 

4029. SHADOWS AND LIGHT

SHADOWS AND DARK

And me, I want so much to make a time :

a gray, dark time; a tan, faint time of brushless

shadows and washes. I want to live in the harbor

of the shadow of Death, and see all its wandering

souls, illicit loves, and general peace and quiet.

Take me from this sodden morass  -  where things

clump and stick, where piles of the same are massed

against each wall : bare lights boldly blinding the borders

and edges of every singly realized object. Everything -

screaming now together - sounds but a useless road.

Nothing is worthwhile said when there is nothing

worthwhile saying. All things have been devalued.

4028. DISTURBANCE

DISTURBANCE

Yes, I live with the animals that are within my

walls. I can hear them scuffling - dragging things

and eating twigs, making noise and disturbance.

I can live with that among my space, and they are

welcome to it. More like spirits and things ethereal,

they remind me of other realms and things to share.

I really don't care and wish them here. Come, go,

stay and settle in. My own thoughts are trees and

bowers where things can land - nest and roost.

Go ahead, enter and stay. I live with the animals

that are in my walls. Really, it's OK.

4027. PLEIKU AND THE HORIZONTAL MAN

PLEIKU AND

THE HORIZONTAL MAN

I am determined to help the delirious in their

riot of frenzy and chaos. Jump that cab, leave

that omni, travel where no man has gone before.

There are twenty doorways fronting twenty-seventh

street, and I am watching every one : lame

people come and lame people go. Everyone,

with something in their hands, seems ready

for their own, personal dare. There can be

no carapace like the carapace of here.

-

'Swig, man, from that bottle! Didn't I know

you in '74? Wasn't that Pleiku we'd been

fighting for? Then they took the hammer, in

'69, from us, that frosty Nixon bitch, crying

like a lame wolf about everything before.'

-

That was from the lowly man, now settled on the

ground. Around him, there were swirls and lightning,

angelic shit from another place. I figured he was

dying, yet no one seemed to worry about a thing.

The papers in his hand were stained with brown.

His flying spirit, I'd have bet, was already gone.

4026. MIRACLE

MIRACLE

Enormous are the hearts and minds,

and these are places we inhabit gently: the

old barn door on the abandoned farm where

the owl still hoots for the darkness. It takes

a hundred years for germination, but every

Spirit resides within - living multiple lives.

-

The farmer, long dead, shines light on the

land he used to love and cherish - casting

seed as much as illumination. We can still

see him in our more modern day. Little

comes to be, but little falls away. For

every thing that dies, another

thing is born.

4025. BROAD METAL PIPES

BROAD METAL PIPES

These stupid kids in Newark Station, they

ran through the waiting room door  -  brandishing

pipes and cutting knives, they took down anyone

in their way. I watched from the second level all 

the carnage  -  I got sick to my scheduled stomach.

It was over in thirty seconds, and no one did a thing.

Bloodied people on the floor, coats and packages

strewn about. One or two cast-off wallets, emptied,

heaved. Noise and screaming fluttered on.

And then a few cops came : dumb sorts, actually had

to ask 'what's happened?' Led Zepplin, as I recall, years

back had an album entitled 'In Through the Out Door.'

I thought of that as I watched these thugs, and then

I watched these policemen leaving.

4024. MADAGASCAR

MADAGASCAR

Where I'm going you can't come and where you

are I'm not going. Pretty simple equation, all that

sound logic : barflies and innkeepers, farmers' daughters

and middle-aged wives, everything all wrapped together.

I'm taking an African lunge. I'm peopling my tales

with exotics. I'm re-cementing the floorboards where

that lock will work again. Doors close, doors open.

I just don't know.

-

What's that matter with Kevin now? Has he hurt

his superstar hand again? More burned dreams 

of unbound glory  -  but everything's always so

far in the future. I'm turning one more time to

look at this American meadow  -  then I'm gone

forever on a deluge of doubt and remonstrance.

-

When they begin looking  -  if you see  -

tell them I've gone a'courting, and hoping

to find, one for them and one for me.

Where I'm going they can't come,

and where they are I won't be.

4023. WINDING

WINDING

I am winding  - all that is  

beside myself  -  with rage;

an inner token of the 

pear blossom tree, secretly,

angrily, throwing  petal-tantrums

to (scarcely) litter the land in the

oh-so gentle and would-be wind.

4022. SHAKE THIS TOWN

SHAKE THIS TOWN

The wiry man with the wiry hand, the

tall, lanky fellow with glasses, I see him

out on a limb, clutching his handle and cup.

As he looks forward, behind him approaches

someone from Leatherstocking Tales. I don't

know how this has happened, but I am now

somewhere else again. I will shake this town

from my boot-heels and coat-flaps forever.

-

There's not a car to be seen and I am standing

alone on a bank overlooking a massive lake.

On the opposite shore someone or something 

is looking back at me. I will stand in place and

not flee  -  for all I know it is me. Whatever

the folding of Time has done, it has certainly

caught me looking - unawares and all alone.

-

I can't find a thing : no calendars, no hints

nor clues of what time this is, what year

and place. For all I know I've wrangled

my fate from another space  -  the town I

thought I'd just left has a different face.

I decide to stay. I will shake that town

from my heart and mind. I will stay

here, while not leaving a trace.

4021. I WALKED TO PEPPERDINE

I WALKED TO PEPPERDINE

Wanting to see the real deal : 'Last chance!

This is Now! Here it is, for Ten Days Only!'

All those real estate moguls were chomping

their cigars for pieces of the action. Carports

and garages like no one cared about any longer.

'Stay Now! No Money Down!' They forgot

to mention 'Mortgage Your Soul!' I want to

know who invented the billboard. Show me

that man : a ghost of a soul embroiled in oil and

seething with the passage of both anger and

time. He made his money, I'd imagine. He 

died and moved on, and aren't we stuck 

with his mess, oh aren't we stuck

with his mess.

4020. RED LINE

RED LINE

There's a moving Earth where they place the

borders - the red line that moves where it will.

Amassed, lightning bug style, minions stand by.

If we have arms, then we arm ourselves : some

straitlaced logic of a God and all his Michaels,

winged archangels with fiery swords, whatever.

I watch the Gaza traffic as it sings. There are

hardly any manners here; everything is stealth.

Over the high-aimed sky two new angels

are falling : it is that time of year again when

those in the know claim they are part of the

real Creation, and those on the make claim 

to be making their break - a God-given right

of the favorite son. I never see the difference.

To me, all the Universe is one.

4019. AN ABERRATION CAN BE SEEN

AN ABERRATION CAN BE SEEN

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn, 

the sheep's in the meadow, the cow's 

in the corn : if this were a telegram, right

now, I'd stay STOP! - Sheep as plural?

Or sheep as one? Lamb of God? I told

you once : an aberration can be seen. 

-

She walks in beauty...milkpail in hand.

Behind her, the rolling of the hills rolls on.

I am being facetious. The clamor of the

westside markets take over, and these

trucks, I am sure, will run me down.

-

There is no peace or serenity here;

thus it cannot be Eden? I think I

understand this world  -  but can

such an aberration be seen then?

4018. ABOVE ITHACA

ABOVE ITHACA

Walking above a confluence of rivers, I hear

of time as my enemy again - how roaring are

the sounds, how fierce what seems the rapids

here. To such an extent they have put up nets

and barricades now for those who fall - or jump.

Either way, some mescaline-paradise is present :

the sophomoric idea of Death as escape or removal.

-

There is nothing to any of this : those children of Delhi,

the girl from Ohio, or any one of the minions now gone.

They've all died in vain, or in the space - at least - of

their own vanity's false pride. I want to see them jump,

and exclaim 'enjoy the ride!' Too cruel of me, you say?

-

I remember the Friday morning quite well. It was the day

past Thanksgiving, and those around were just mingling,

walking or strolling through the art-infested campus looking

for time to burn. Everyone was taken up with activities of

themselves - myself, the same as others, whittled away

the stick of time I'd chosen. The sky was low, and lowering;

rain clouds and a darkness stood on the horizon. Far above

Cayuga's waters I stood erect and stern - wishing things to

understand, wishing things to learn. If I had another hundred

years to live, what then would I do? Just give thanks for living,

and stand by what I do. And stand by what I do. The jump

to this Death cannot be worth the jumping, but can

the living match the Life that's lived?

4017. AMIDST LOSS

AMIDST LOSS

Even when you come to low spots, the lowest,

you must slog through them as if nothing at all.

Concentrate upon the hammer, the nail will take

care of itself. I am far and away the farthest away

from anything reasonable at all. On the mountain

along the high-terrain trail, where the builders of

tarpaper shacks never leave the confines of home,

they've put up signal towers now to signal the end :

'Grief melts away, like snow in May, as if there were

no such cold thing.' It is only proper that we go on.

4016. TIMEBENDS

TIMEBENDS

I would be hard-pressed to report back -

strange land, strange place. I am living

an Earth-nowhere at all. I travel, in place

with the light and the volume, pretty much

undetected, standing as I might on any old

corner selected. I can twirl the world just by

thinking, and no one seems in on the trick.

These little creatures, so curious, so odd,

they fluctuate and bray around me, first in

focus and then far out - in the middle of

each, this small heart-felt flame flickers.

I call them unconscious, though they

Think they're aware. In my father's house

are many mansions - it's been said.

Has anyone ever thought what that

means? Oh these small rooms, so

confining, it seems : One tiny locus

in a much larger place.

4015. TAGGED AND TITLED

TAGGED AND TITLED

I've gone flooey thinking about you.

I've scaled the most comfortable oases I

could find, and only now have left the sphere

of thinking : obsessed and broken, like that

cow-shaped milk-pourer with a broken spout.

Everywhere I turn, the buildings have pride and

attitude, the sky looms, and even the taxi-drivers

scurry about wanting recompense and attention.

There's no extra card in my deck, the hand I've been

dealt is an unlucky one, and the dealer - that big guy

standing before me - wants everything back.

Oh Lord now! Where can I turn?

-

Outside the window, on a day it should be cold and

frosty, the air smells like sixty degrees above zero.

How fortunate is that? Do I wish to smell flowers and

cupcakes again? All those women's perfumes that

waft through the gracious and florid air? God, God,

how I hate the artificial gardens, these Edens with no

context, these paradise-warrens with no place to sit.

-

'Open the book, my fellow, turn to page 79. Read again

that psalm that has no meaning, those words that go

nowhere, jumbled on the page. And then - instead

of all that - listen to this : The fire consuming the

bush will narrow the point of distinction and, then

advancing towards you, bring a torching wisdom

to all that you do, and you will want for nothing

at all. But first, you must tell all the people...'

4014. MEANDRETHAL MAN

MEANDERTHAL MAN

They are playing seventy-year-old

songs on the playful radio above  -

and I don't recognize that world at

all, except for the ease and comfort.

Those are things that everyone wants?

Let us then sit back and choose - the

streamlined edifice of some toaster in

silver and black; that chrome ashtray

in the antique-store window; that old

coat with the magnificent buttons.

-

Thinking it over, I recognize my fate  -

that I will wander, a Meanderthal Man

on a wavering quest. Not like desert

sandman tribes of old but more like

a nuance of present-day physics -

a particle, untamed, unable to quite

be pinned own long enough to either

see or to be seen, and - if seen - define.

A raiment of light and color, with all the

morning-people asking, 'are you

the one, are you the one?'

-

What then can I myself define?

Vindicated at last, I look up to

see  -  yes, the half-moon in a

blue-sky velvet, and a dozen 

stars at most, about. Ah! How

I have traveled these lands; all

these distances in my great-coat

traversed. Those songs, on the radio,

they really cover nothing at all  -  yet

as it is, people still listen.

4013. MY ALICE STORY

MY ALICE STORY

I've found this old parcel of time

now coming back at me  -  a time

then transformed, and oh how we

turn! See that tiny glimmer of eyes?

They sparkle, but they mean much 

less. The speed-skater struggles on:

a Commandant, now dressed like

a tiger, and dancing on blades

to a crazy music.

-

Alice was a girl; not a girlfriend,

just a girl  -  with words and warmth

and food and style. No whiskey

oddball whistling down a drunken

street could say he didn't notice. She

would claim whatever place she was at.

-

I took her arm once  -  just to make a 

moment work  -  and I realized at that

moment all of the defensiveness which

keeps us apart : listen for a moment,

Alice, to the words that we exchange,

and see  -  they really are just wishes.

4012. I WANT SOMETHING DONE

I WANT SOMETHING DONE

To kill with brute force is a pure

energy. To cleanse the grounds of

the manor of all underbrush and

weed is another task entire. Here

on this spectacular outcrop of rock, 

I sit just to say 'I want something

done'  -  I want the false and the

militant killed. I want to drive a

stake through the heart of the liar

and the swindler and the cheat.

I want the token Meister murdered

where he sleeps. Oh death, be not

so proud : stoop to me who stays

with all these keys and legends.

If not for all of this, I would do

nothing else. I want something done.

4011. AND SO I BROUGHT IT TO PRINCETON

AND SO I BROUGHT 

IT TO PRINCETON

Yes, that's right. Soon after the lights came on

and the sky was yet dark and all those dull

streets were yet aching. I'd just left Manhattan

after climbing the bridge with that crazy camera

guy : he'd just done the tunnel and the homeless

as well  -  all that underground subway stuff.

Low lights were blazing, and they filmed while

that nervous person talked way too fast for

sense alone to listen. He lit a match, it seemed,

with his forefinger; he pissed in the corner by

the puddle. It all felt like 1910. Everything

was swirling and busy. And so I brought it

all to Princeton just to listen to the sound.

4010. AND THEN

AND THEN

I have taken nothing from the Gods, as it is they

have offered little anyway. The air I breath, they

already take claim. So be it. My arms are a 

cantankerous lot, and can do many things  -  

alas and evidently, not enough to best this.

-

The lily-flower which blossoms in May,

I think I have seen it. The sound of the

chortling frog, or the lizard which makes 

its way across land, I've witnessed as

well. So many things have taken me  -  

and Nature in all its forms remains to

be my sovereign guide. I know nothing

else. I seek no other place.

4009. WORKMEN

WORKMEN

We let the brown bags come by - the workmen all in

their coaches; the men of cinder and steel. I listen to

their banter and don't recognize a thing. I am left in

awe to wonder : what do I know of their world or they

of mine? I would deny all of their existences, all their

reality. I would avow it was all not there. They, in turn,

would scoff at mine, and say I need repair. What kind

of world is this, in truth : this presence by which we

are made, is it not a one-for-one existence? I need not

be told to share it all  -  I would stand alone and - in the

same way - fall. I do not seek another man's presence.

-

The man in the western movie seemed to be spitting

back blood; from a festering small wound all this

cinematic trouble had to come. Like the very world

itself around me, it's all tortured and maimed and

made up. These enigmatic man I am watching,

any one of them could be this man. A glimmering

illusion, a moving point, an image soon to fade.

4008. ALL THE OLD DEAD AND HAPPY

ALL THE OLD 

DEAD AND HAPPY

They are beneath me, laughing in the dirt;

their wonderful times living on  - that barnyard

party with all the pitchforks dancing, that haymow

revel where the banjos played on. I have known

them all, and lived through bliss and candy. The

ice cream socials of Wallace McKnight, the proud

horse-trot promenades of the girls of 4H. All

these were grand   -  Warren and Roger and

Betty and Duane, now buried and dead.

And, oh yes, that quite serviceable

graveyard at the top of our hill  - 

now it's been re-opened and quite

put to use. What once had been

a dark and fenced corner is now

alive with my friends and fellows.

4007. THE MOB-RULE OF A TRUE FAITH

  THE MOB-RULE  

OF A TRUE FAITH

I guess such things that happen matter, like the

blood-red rush from an apple, or the slow ooze

of berries into milk. The most simple things we

carry, like a childhood of memory filled with the

dance. Outside of my vision, just beyond the

point I see, I know the world is turning, the bold

roads running on, and millions of featureless

people are carting their yaks or driving their

Chevies. No distinction need be made. We are

all of one and most the same. Not to say that

that is good  -  distinctions are what make things

happen, the pinpoint focus of a genius voice, the

needle-eye aim of  a chosen one. When they do

arise, and come to the fore, we either heartily

fight them off or, roaring like the bestial mob we

are, enjoin ourselves to climb aboard and cheer.