4269. MAGNIFICENCE

MAGNIFICENCE

The underwater cable ran from Sleepy Hollow

to somewhere : Washington Irving would know.

All those luckless horseman and that cove in

the slowly-winding river. A peaceful oasis, deemed

surely. Coming down from the grassy ridge, 'midst

boulders and rocks of the palisades, I spied a landsman

fishing as he talked to himself. Approaching him, I asked what 

was the source of his chatter : he laughed, and said 'aren't 

you the Mad Hatter,  the guy with the loom, the headless 

definer, the Merchant of Doom?' I had to say 'No.' Yes,

sometimes the truth is too painful to speak, 

sometimes the truth is too painful.

4268. WHY DID I LEAVE CALAIS?

WHY DID I LEAVE CALAIS?

1. Is it any wonder. The bars were gone from the windows

and the filthy, Gauloise-smoking cop who always sat there

had left. I was unattended and didn't care. In the other room,

the stinking matron who patrolled the girls' corridor was still

at work sniffing her fingers, the whore-bait bitch she was.

2. I struck out for places on my own. I knew no one at all

no Richard or Peter or Marcellus or Brenn. All by myself,

I was walking those streets like some American tourister

looking for sweet-meats and water, something somehow

tied in with his travel-guide book's itinerary.

3. And then, once I learned the language, I began to

hear the stories  -  the kids all lived together, fornicating

at will, piling up debt and throwing old clothes out the

varnished window. I didn't know what to do and had

never faced this sort of thing before.

4. I finally decided I had had too much; striking out for

the landing pier off the edge of the nearby river, I was

able to steal a watercraft and  -  starting it quickly enough

and nearly silent in the middle of the night  -  sneak out

wearing nothing past what I had on my back. If this

wasn't to be a port-city, after all, I'd have to reassess

both where I was and what I was leaving. Lesser men

than me have done such marvelous things like this.

4267. LIKE JAZZ IN THE MEMORY, BROKEN ON CHRIST'S OWN JUICY BACK

LIKE JAZZ IN THE MEMORY, BROKEN ON CHRIST'S

OWN JUICY BACK

'I am passing oil tanks. They ring the highway

like airfoils or dream-bubbles, squat and square.

I do not understand them, nor how they've

gotten there. I am obsequious to a fault, yet

these take all my time. To think, I try. This is

yet all very new to me. It was, way back, when

Arthur Bremer shot George Wallace on that

very hot day in a Maryland shopping mall

parking lot, that I think most of my energy

fell away  -  this modern day, I realized, was

nothing but shit and offal; old ideas again,

washed up like blood and scum on a really

bad beachhead of foul garbage and crud.

And yet now no one admits to remembering

a thing. I go on. When I first came down from

the mountain, it was on Hidden Valley Road,

a single turn off Emmanuel Way. I stretched

my limbs to feel what 'human' was like, but felt

nothing. This world blazed like a headache.

-

My first mother's name was Mary, as was my

second. Signifying nothing, just a name, I took

it all to heart anyway  -  as if I'd had the winning

hand in some luckless bastard's game of cards.

And then it suddenly turned into a million things;

other names and meanings: Tito, Titus, Orpheus,

Raimundo, Attila, Zavrotnick, Mandelstaum,

Cohen, Zapruder, Lauder, and the rest. I called

a cab and this Arab guy managed to drive me home.

He said little, all the way his radio blaring some

reverential Allah bullshit hum. He parked and I

pierced his heart with my glance. It gave him an

immediate other Life. And, yes, he apparently

was very grateful  -  emptying his pockets and

giving me all the money in his till. Fortunate me.

-

The jar the genie came out of is now on

double-lock and key. No nomads can have

it and police guard it night and day. I am in

speechless mode, just thinking of what will

happen anew when I am dead and gone. The

stories, my God, all those stories again.'

4266. MURDER

MURDER

I'd imagine it's over already  -

the pinpoint alacrity of manner

and move  -  with each thing

planned and underway. Now

there's nothing I can do. Like

blood with a poison running

through it, going where it's

coursing. Bound to arrive,

and nothing to be done

either way.

-

All those people are around me

now  -  ghostly but there  -  some

parade, some procession voices,

a singsong sound, lilting. But why

am I, presently, so listening to the

past, where all things have

already gone by me?

-

I was gone then, and am so now:

born poor without resources in

some landlocked shadow country

of me. I simply stood, buffeted,

not brave, just buffeted.

4265. CASSANDRA

CASSANDRA

A simple daily drive to the thwarted comforts of all

those weeds and bushes; licking the inside of her

ears so that she can understand the animals' talk.

Well, maybe not, but perhaps. This jangled vein,

this thing that runs in my neck, these fingers with

nails like knives, all these may make me a temple

snake myself. I abscond and I lust. I pillage and

then I rape -  all in the name of Prophecy, or this

odd God's trust, something I never had nor ever

really earned. Now, it's all gone and, yes, that

was me you saw standing there. I believe nothing.

What's the use of knowing the future if you're

living in the past? Excuse the drivel, but need I ask?

How came it to be that this red-haired whore became

my consort? Living at night with animals and walking

the day with men and varied beings : the half-men,

the griffins, the multi-headed strange figures that

never died. This, my fashionable ladies, is the

Turnpike of my open mind  -  a consciousness

you'd never understand. But let me try: here it

is dark out, the heat pipes are sending a sound,

the dim purple light from a few weak lamps

makes everything look better, desirable, sexy,

fetching. Me and all my millions couldn't buy

a hair of that head. I bite the nipple that feeds

me. I suck the dribble that drops. Slum-lord

now reckoning the foils of all this damage:

I'd lift her up, strip her bare, and take

her with me everywhere.

4264. MORAVIAN

MORAVIAN

I enter the room at point zero, a new doorway never

there before. Even the illusionary paint is still wet;

by such illusions do I live...and then everything is

gone. Flash like a pan. Mermaid like a dream.

Scattered pearls like a digger's eye.

-

What I like the most : water snake and water

moccasin, two forms of life staggeringly low

and venal  -  they stop at nothing to slide over

rocks and grime and moss and slime. OK

then, that's all very fine. I owe no allegiance

to anything solemn at all. Forthright. Vague.

-

In the Moravian Cemetery where I am standing,

it is Bethlehem Pennsylvania and arrayed out

before me are all the flat graves from people

in the 1600's, and their faithful Indian guides.

Yes, that's what it says, and they are here

memorialized. And given graves. Places

where even their bones have been laid

to rest. To rot. Away. To nothing.

-

(I used to love the world as well.

Now I love only myself).

4263. APPROXIMATE IN GLORY

APPROXIMATE IN GLORY

I've got arms the place of God where

the sockets used to be; restricted movement

such is this is so lovely. I've got eyes the size

of Suns, the size of every exploding star where

once nothing used to be. I am all that spectral

dark matter you could never see. Yet, now

there is no lid-light on the coffin, no side-table

where the lamp and phone used to be. All

decided times have moved away from me.

-

I do see you, standing below, in the shadows,

looking up. You are as beautiful and lovely

as ever once could be. Thunder's back in a

lightning storm - all things rage with fury.

I am stars and fiery orbs where heart and

soul should be. All decided times have

moved away from me.

4262. BOSWELL'S MINE

BOSWELL'S MINE

Merriment and some frolic emitting

force from the back room : Charlie Chan

and Charley Chaplin all backed up against

the Statue of Liberty. How silly these things

ever were. The blue sky was raining down.

-

The tall man said 'I've lost my language and

now it's all gone; I can't keep my tongue tied

down, there's nothing for the donkey to pin, and

this tale has no end.' The Odyssey was underway

on some Greek troupe's silent stage. 'What

was this idea about?' I heard another say.

-

He died later of an enlarged heart, or a heart

with a hole in the middle, or a heart with an

unfinished ventricle. OK, go ahead, you decide.

these other things can be all the stuff the

coroner does so as to earn his pay. We'll

have no more of this or that.

-

I never play Contagion - a board game

made of Doubt and Regret and Loss

all merged and piled together.

4261. TETRAS

TETRAS

Say something about it, about anything,

about the wharves and the bullets at play.

Two lone gunman together cannot be lone.

The playground was a ribbon-edged doily

just playing for time. All those cars were

parked in the car-yard-at-large for cars.

4260. AT THE VALUE GUIDE/OASIS

AT THE VALUE GUIDE/OASIS
I do not want your peanut butter, I do not want
your ham. I seek nothing from your eggs and bread,
I want nothing from your land. Here, in a vast and
wasteful feint, your tons of apples ain't : to my liking,
cold and stored, from some Oregon or Nature'd floor.
I look around and see but waste; only matrons bent
in their drudgery clearing soil and paste from the
windows and hearts of the mind. There is nothing
'Cheery' here - neither all your soap or oats. Nor
I do not care for the matter either - wanting little
of your corn-fed steer or even of your steer-brewed
beer. Now get me out of here. Get me out of here.

4259. I'VE BEEN MEANING

I'VE BEEN MEANING

Here where the soiled dogs stay,

shoulder mansions and outlines

of green. This is the place I've been

meaning to be. I've been meaning to be.

I wanted to talk to that girl for five hundred

years. She keeps slipping her body away,

shape-shifting through a million changes.

Lunar Godess, Lady of the Lake, even

Darling Lily of the West. Yes, even

that name now would do.

4258. EXCRUCIATING, THIS

EXCRUCIATING, THIS

And this is the love of a handle, the gist of

Power, the love of exclusion, the power of

scandal. I cannot go where I have been

before  -  all these things, they disappear

and I walk through blind woods blindly.

Feeling my way : even that's become

an inconsequential thing.

-

It was Saturday in a fever. I thought

I was dying. I felt like my head was

on fire. The slim divan, the thin light

of the afternoon  -  yellow fissures

through a crack in the wall.

4257. SHANDYTOWN

SHANDYTOWN

Oh boy, that unsettled grin where the

settler's been  -  shanty town o'er by

the sea. You know  -  like the difference

between poetry and prose : this place :

prose is a house; and poetry is a man

in flames, running through it...you've heard

that one I'm sure. You've seen the hours

stacked ahead of you, bales of time just

shining in the sun. And my how this place

juts the sea, standing guard over you-to-me,

that never-sated water-monster royal. The

crazy one. Shandydown they called it  -  those

stupid irish guinea wop duets all over the place;

like fornicating thrush just making a slum with

all its poverty gliding upward, with all its fair

poetic poverty gliding up like some prose and

a man's house afire. Though I have nothing

new now to countenance, nothing new at

all  -  in this shanty town shack where

they bring it all back.

4256. CORNERS

CORNERS
Here where things meet, the lines converge
and pass; like engines of memory, they leave
noises behind them. Vivaldi violins, a morning
suite in E, a moment that draws us in and speaks.
I'm not the one in the middle for this endeavor.
-
Look homeward angel, Thomas Wolfe wrote.
The land beneath the sky was waving with
green grass and the wild grains of a thousand
seasons. This land is your land, this land is
mine; all that Americana crap, now gone.
-
I huddle in a collar turned up to my chin;
reading the rain and the wind, trying to amass
a 12th Street sense of some quarters and a dime.
'Hey buddy, can you spare a line?' was all I could
think to say. The strange businessman peered.
-
My name was Emil Baron. My name was Robert
Lane. My name was Ernest Cauldwell. These names
are all the same - those interchangeable lost men
of a hundred Bowery streets. Every last one of them
now is dead - their streets have all converged and
formed a long, grand, Memory Lane; while, now,
everything else is brutal and drained with a
a new architecture of waiting and pain.

4255. SCREECH

1. SCREECH
   Funny how so much a respite affords : take
   time back, think about forward, shrug
   and walk. I carry the framework
   forward. This is how we
   build a world.

4254. HANNIBAL CROSSED THE ALPS

HANNIBAL CROSSED 

THE ALPS

Just as Hannibal crossed the Alps (time),

the end of his world was near : the Pharaohs

were gone, and all their wives and women, 

the fires of Rome were nearly over, and no 

one knew the sense of anything at all  -  this

was, of course, before the maidenhead

broke : no electricity, no contact, no smokes.

-

Just as Hannibal crossed the Alps (manner), 

I will climb the nearest high hill, I will smote

my foes, I will tax my minions with labor

and strife. These are simply all things

of this world  - we need to live with

them, for we cannot live without.

4253. ALL THIS AND STREAMLINE TOO

ALL THIS AND THE

STREAMLINE TOO

I was flying over the inland sea, a marsh of some

Jupiter Lake, a denizen of deep nothing, a traveler

of this deep space. I saw everything two times.

-

Then I asked to be relieved of duty, details,

determinants and doctrines. I was let loose.

I soared. Do you need to ask questions now?

-

Yes, that's right; in fact I was the one who

had determined how far off I was to travel.

Sixteen land-lines deep, a spray of great

density between the two Halvorsan stars.

In Earth-time fourteen years sideways.

-

Yes, I admit that's difficult for you to understand.

However, you must get this : unlike to your eyes

the depth and fabric of the cosmos does not

run straight, is not a line. Disguised as your

'Time', the fabric dips and weaves, runs

sideways in truth. That is what I meant.

4252. SOME THINGS ARE JUST TOO BORING

SOME THINGS ARE

JUST TOO BORING

Like John Singleton Copley's portrait of

Paul Revere; the fat fingers and their odd

reflection on silver with a glint; a blank

background of no real consequence at all.

Two hundred years later, all that dead

space would surely be used. No more

of that putting errant heads on other's

torsos. And then, there are other things:

My God, all those boring people.

Helen, again, with her small and

numbered tales and dates and stories

and observations. Egad! shut up! All

such, with that oh so critical eye.

The cackling of the rowers and

the fire-chiefs, their wandering

mouths and the sheep they rear

on their little farm. Those people,

insisting on holding candles

while singing 'Born Free'.

4251. THE MIND REMEMBERS WHAT THE MEMORY FORGETS

THE MIND REMEMBERS WHAT

THE MEMORY FORGETS

Lest this go past us, I list a few

things  -  the counter-tops at the

morning windows, and my mother's

way of moving; the wayward white

duck I named Peter. He was a duck I

raised as my own, and I settled in with

him for a long, dull life  -  I hoped  - 

and then it all got too famous. Peter

following kids to school, getting thrown

out of the schoolhouse, barred and

scolded, as it were  -  a backward

sequence of  time in my mother's

own crazy rhyme.

4250. OK THEN

OK THEN
This is the willow in the wallow - and make mine work.
I stand next to the embankment - sixty feet down,
there is nothing but more of nothing. Many things are like
this; many are not. Between the two, there's me and you.

-

I may have nothing to say about that. Just think of

me, speechless and transmogrified : mutant angel,

take me down. The valley below is calling.

-

I had a cabin in the trees. I left it standing.

Now, even the demarcations of the things

we know best  -  painted leaves, day and night,

noise and seasons, life and death, even all of

those, mean so very little at all. They mean

so very little now at all.

 

4249. SHARKFIN SOUP

SHARKFIN SOUP

(totalitarian soapstone wherever)
There is a light in China that comes up with the

Sun; same place as us, always undone, never

finished cavorting, twisting and turning as the day

day runs its course. There's an Ai Wei Wei moment

in every blasted corpse. The prisoners cannot

move as their skin is peeled back.

-

I'm all sick of that  -  I'm tired of power and damage

and rulings and strictures and soldiers and guards. I 

wish to run to the edge of some Forbidden City and

piss on the lancer in charge, spit on the face of the

almighty soldier standing his post in his place. All

this silence befits no one at all. Mute idiots are still

mute, and idiots too. China sinks with the rest of us.

-

The whole globe is fetid matter now  -  power maneuvers

the sheets which cover the lines of corpses. The dicks in 

the White House drone on. We have to listen to drivel and

patois  -  the smoking shit of some Chicago fool, and like

shit out the back or piss out the front, there's really no

difference at all. I want to just walk away. Fuck you,

America, and China too, and for the rest, good riddance.

4248. YOU WILL WANT TO KNOW

YOU WILL WANT TO KNOW

The fact that you will 'need for nothing at all'

means riches untold and every open door open

your way. Think of possibility, think of change

and glory. Think of the best that ever was.

-

Make a passage to the open door and stop for

nothing  -  the glass from a broad storefront

window reflects another place. Just being

brings one to it, or could. Without

possibilities, we are nothing at all. 

-

I am paved over and settled with the self

of you  -  open areas like thruways run

through me : no gate, no edifice, and

no longer. The three combine to make

me unequalled and free and easy.

-

There was a mitred box by which I once

cut my boards and lumber. Now there

is not. I have thrown it all away, and

have only kept the sword by which

I cut. The shavings are the smoke

of my mind and heart. Think

of the best that ever was.

4247. I MAKE A HABIT

I MAKE A HABIT

I make a habit of ridiculous things : the sherry on

the lamppost, the water in the eye. I notice the

morning before it even comes  -  that grey dog

barking, that light over the very old doorway, the

thistled fog hanging over the graveyard and church.

I go to speak, and I am speechless with a rage  - 

something untouched that I still cannot fathom after

all these years. For those who declaim the world to

be what they see, I shout 'You are wrong!' It is more

 than everything you'd ever imagine; it runs backward

with frolic, has lilt like a song. Don't turn away, I am

 not yet done. I make a habit of ridiculous things,

and you are becoming just one. The man who

 polishes his spit-shine teeth, the one with the green

umbrella  -  I am watching them each, to see what

transpires. I make a habit of ridiculous things.

4246. ALL FUMBLED UP WITH LOVE AND DEATH

ALL FUMBLED UP

WITH LOVE AND DEATH

Man makes his wealth like man makes a hammer -

something hard and strange with which to beat

others down. The skyscraper knows the lingo,

as does the boat and the ship. That cargo which

carries itself so fraught, the big rigs trek it

all across the land. Man is an idiot, man.

-

I've never really been to places of the dark :

that boiling cauldron of Hell has yet to see my

ticket. I don't believe in any of it anyway; it

has to be here already. If this is the universe

(man, man, flickering flame on the palm of

a hand) then we are here, of it  -  it's not

'outside' of us and there isn't no 'other place'.

Don't you see or is it just me?

-

Now, listen: hear the bumble-bee disaster

happen, the dragonfly and the frog, the cicada

and the darning needle. All those weirdo creatures

dying off. Mankind's killing the world; he watches

it die while he heads to the bank, hoping to profit

from all the killing and death. Man is an idiot, man.

4245. IT"S OH MY GOD IT'S

IT'S OH MY GOD IT'S

The label said 'refurbished' and like most

things done anew it was probably good

as new and worth a few - I kept walking.

Past the stirrup holder held on purple display

posts; every cowboy Chelsea guy sweet

fantasy of cowboy revenge, that dancing

part to the mechanical bull and the

automated jerk-off machine together.

What else is there to say? 45 years ago,

it was, we'd walk past WestWorld, the old

gay palace pickup den of filth and sleaze

along Christopher and 12th Ave. A derelict

snot of a place along Weehawkin Avenue

where guys littered the stumps like

ass-condoms littered the street.

Long time ago, back then, and

not so very sweet. I was 17.

-

Some would say : there was meat to eat,

they were all very sweet, all those young

boys wanting flesh to be their take and

pay. Everyone sold their bodies for cash.

Money and coffee and food together.

-

When I was livid, I hid in the trucks. The

trucks once littered the old westside docks -

you could hide in one, sleep or fuck, live and

die, all together and no one would care. And

everyone used the docks back then to love

and meet and mingle. Different worlds? I'd

say. Two farther apart places - a cosmos

of this and a cosmos of that - I'd say.

-

We used to ride the word yet now they

say why write of this, why say? Everything

else is dark and purple too, and nowadays

anyways sex rules the roost - and bad

boys like this they toast to the news,

they toast to the new world today.

4244. VERTEBRAE

VERTEBRAE

I've got some to spare walking mountains

and climbing hills amidst all that insipid

lowland rancor these tourists bring : the

guidepacks and metal sticks of walking as

a new-found hobby. Maybe, yes, they'll all fall

or jump. Just last night I saw them munching

saltines and cheese crackers - as if they

were on the tarmac in some stupid rented

lot, looking at antique autos, or paintings

by Maillot and Rubens on a curtained stage.

-

I can't say I like any of this one bit : forty

bucks a day, I've got to guide them each

through the pickles of infested path and

swamp and ridge and gully. Nothing like

this they've ever seen before, and each

of them pays me their forty bucks with a

massive Minnesota grin - to thank the man

for guiding us, to say that 'we appreciate so

much all you've done for us.' Yeah, I guess.

Let it go at that. Strange creature

got your hat?

4243. I WAS AT THE JOLLY ROGER

I WAS AT THE

JOLLY ROGER

Sitting. Once around, and then sitting.

The chair was of cane, the rounded

back a solid. I moved little; leaning

back became quickly uncomfortable

and the reason anyway for relaxing as

such never was clear  -  alkaline in

my manner, and acid in my ear.

-

Through the windows, a curious reddish

light came in  -  something deep and serious,

as of church or funeral rites, the Autumnal

tint of a setting sun, or the parade-ground

stagger of mourning and taps. I didn't know.

My hands held a cup, warm to my touch.

-

A woman came in  -  one I've known for

some time  -  and sat nearby. A scarf had

settled around her ear, the wide bangle of

a hoop, dangling and catching. This small

scene, though curious and only perhaps

funny, defined the moment for us both.

What can you say in the presence

of an error or mistake?

-

Not surly, not anything really at all, it

hardly mattered and -   once our eyes

caught  -  we both laughed it off. Fifteen

seconds later it all was over. She went to

her small menu and I stayed to my cup.

4242. DEFENESTRATE

DEFENESTRATE

Defenestrate, to make it straight, heave

the body out the window. Watch what

fades and see the gliding landscape pass.

-

There are many ways to show the shine

on the silver: polish with a cloth, or blow

your breath to a vapor and wipe it off.

Other than that, I just don't know.

-

I want to be gone  -  like some old leader

in a Magyar land, heaved and pulsing dead,

landing flat on the ground some stupid Soviet

apparatchik threw him to from the up-above

high window. I want to fall like ideas fall, down.

-

'In Winter, I get up at night, and dress by

yellow candlelight. In Summer, quite the

other way, I have to go to sleep by day.'

4241. MARVELOUS GATHERINGS MAKE SUCH LARGE CROWDS

MARVELOUS GATHERINGS

 MAKE SUCH LARGE CROWDS

All the come and go of the downside oasis, the

city's own malarkey, running at the edges and

over. This is the real midnight of the soul, dark

night bleakness and all the rest. The man with

the hammer and the workman's vest keeps coming

over to re-light the torch which flares over the

barrel where he is working. A welder's torch so

solid and sound, keeping heat and melting metal.

I don't know why these things are done, nor how  - 

nothing here inherently even interesting, to tell the

 truth. I lean back, watching instead bicycles passing.

-

Long time back, I wrote a message in a book, to the

man in charge of publishing such items  -  geography

as a guide to the soul, landscape that comes from the

heart. Like an artist, I approached the world as a new

canvas  -  freshly primed and set to accept any painted

image : thus, I made the place wherein I live. I said

'done', and it was finished and final. My new forever.

-

Now, so many million years later, I'm still here; sitting

back on leather, priming the pump with renewals of

food and drink when needed, and locating the spring

at the source  -  there, there, with the water bubbling

over. I am speechless, and sound, and sorry and secure:

so many things at once there really ought to be a law.

-

On the sidewalk nearby, a young guy is singing with

an acoustic guitar  -  both light and whiny those

insipid emotions - some lame song about doves and

love. He sounds too much like a girl for me to ask,

yet I know girls and women are much stronger than 

that, anyway and at all times : how am I to challenge

him, to tell him that they hold the power and the

reins? It would all seem so useless to his needs.

Out along the street now, a Mini-Cooper goes by -

a numb-skull blond, with the the top down and  

her fair hair blowing freely   -   passing by,

oblivious to everything here at all.

 

4240. BEING AND NOTHINGNESS

BEING AND NOTHINGESS

I read Being and Nothingness when I was

fourteen - a lot of help that was. I crapped

in my coffee and found a means to flee,

running off to Paris to find the girl who

wore a cape. The midnight launch of the

Sacre Strey, I witnessed it while drunk

on punch and lime, writing in my scribbled

notebook the very next morning: I look at it 

now, I can't read a bloody thing. Everything is

tiny, and like a scrawl. Those fourteen-year-olds,

they can't think at all. It was my Uncle

Hedgemon who brought me home.

I took a job in the penny arcade.

Being and Nothingness was

all I had saved.

4239. PLASTIC SICK LOVE SONGS

PLASTIC SICK

LOVE SONGS

Roll the dice, eat the mice,

don't get lice, do it twice. Hold

the matter, squeeze the spot,

kiss the open, come a lot.

Swarm the mettle, heat the

kettle, flip the flopper, take

the shot, pull out smiling,

thanks a lot.

4238. THE DAY AFTER EASTER

THE DAY AFTER EASTER

They took the arms off all the angels, they

ripped the singing bells from off the steeple's's side.

'This is now and that was then; these are things we

can't abide.' On the day after Easter already,

whitewashing Christ Chapel was well underway.

-

It is a narrow lane, fenced off now with red wagons

and gates that swing open : the old farmer's wife is

still baking her pies and cakes, while he is at work

and singing in the fields  -  turning the soil, roughing

the rows of last year's crop, now fallen and

dry in the winnows of what must be.

-

These are stories on liquid pages, storybook

tales on nearly transparent paper. The small

family from Honduras, already at work on

making a life, all wear new jackets, made from

burlap and stife, the things cast off by old

angels and saints. They have taken the

arms off the icons already, and the old,

old bells have grown silent along

the now quiet street.