5993. FAIRY TALES

FAIRY TALES

The line lends the semblance of all belief :

'Can I take your arm as we walk?' Something

like 12th street, where the old days had it all

different - a butcher, a sawdust-floored corner bar,

a tailor and a presser in one place, the simple store

that sold fine paper, and the very old man who ran

a small restaurant that prided itself on 'Polish'.

-

Now it's not much the same. I walk along and see people

as if from another world  -  the girl there, in a summer 

dress so sheer I can see; the other, with tattoos like

filigree up her arms and her leg. The inside calf and

all where else. Those two guys, hugging as they walk,

gay as a world of gaiety may be. 'I love the way you walk.'

-

Once there was a cop here I knew, 'O'Boyle' his little 

name-badge said. I'd see him most near everyday, and 

we were nodding friends. He had that little stick or club

they used to carry, with the greatest leather loop I'd ever

seen. Yes, yes, and he'd whistle and twirl it as he slowly

walked; the rounds. It was stunning, and all way like a

Dick Tracy cartoon or something, less of course the

'wrist-radio' communication. O'Boyle was alone.

-

OK, this bar here, Swenson's; I kissed you once for

a quarter, as I recall  -  back when those crazy kids I

knew, Frank and Paul and Philip and the rest were willing

to put up a dollar and swear me a drink. Gosh, you were

easy, and willing and warm. I loved Bedford Street too.

-

Thanks, you. Me.

5992. MORE HAND-OUT STUFF

MORE HAND-OUT STUFF

I love the way you look at me; I mean the

way you look at the world, around me, while

looking at me. Yes, those are spaces between

the spaces, where the light gets in, and you seem

to see it. The street is a difficult place, and the

readiness of others to pass you by is probably

better than the alternate version of all this : you

flat-out, assaulted and dead on that same hard

sidewalk. So, you see, the world is really a

rather kind place for this sort of thing : people

in turn giving out and taking in : the black guy

ranting; the crazy Buddhist, in his robe, giving

out medals and coins; Madame Sosostris, again,

telling her fortunes and visions. Teresias, by

contrast, was at least a blind, old man.

5991. AS A YOUNG BOY

AS A YOUNG BOY

(Boris Paster's knack)
As a young boy, Leo Tolstoy

had a doll doctor, a quaint amd

well-crafted one. He named it 

Dr. Zhiva. When he wanted to go

out to play, Leo told his toy:

 'Dr. Zhiva, go! From that, one
Boris fellow  -  who had the 
talent  - took the idea and put
it out to pasture. This Boris Paster
had the knack of writer faster.

5990. CHANCE-MELON

CHANCE-MELON

That makes it seem as nothing at all : angel-fire

down for a lark, stories of Old Testament ladies. 

Now, my my, what words were these? I held the 

gold-leafed Bible in my hands. Esau? Jeremiah?

-

One can never run off with nothing. The whole idea

of all this God-stuff is creation  -  how the smoke and

mirrors angle got started, I'll never know. If what we

see is what we see, and all that is is all that is, what's

the use of even trying. I need a world of clouds and angels.

-

More the magic than the use : more the dream than the

stubbing of a toe. Wake me, wake me, now. The grand

chance of this new dawn is rising within me.

5989. MY ONE FLOWER

MY ONE FLOWER

My one flower was a ten pound girl, a sweet little thing

born swiftly. She arrived on a Tuesday morn  -  how

well I can remember. I missed work that day, and the

next five also. No pay; they wanted me back in but

I said 'no way.' I meant 'don't count this in a hurry.'

-

A fine young thing, she grew well. We named her

Mary Lee, hoping people would pronounce it

'Merrily'. Just a whim  by her Mom and me.

-

A few years Linda died  -  Merrily's mother I mean

to say. I was left alone, to raise a nine-year-old girl.

Figure what would I know about that, and think for

yourself. Now I'm much older, and still alone.

Merrily left me long ago and, and she's still

out there, somewhere humming, somewhere

walking, somewhere standing around.

-

A fine young thing, she grew well. We named her

Mary Lee, hoping people would pronounce it

'Merrily.' Just a whim by her Mom and me.

5988. 'I THINK WE'LL HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS HOUSE'

'I THINK WE'LL 

HAVE TO TALK ABOUT 

THIS HOUSE'

'Crinoline curtains and organdy mire, all those telltale

traces of fine desire : a corduroy bedsheet and an

old, velvet throw. I really think we'll have to talk.

Outside of this cherished room, the soft wind is

pushing the evergreen fronds, the needled bonds.

-

I've turned this three-speed light down to low. The

yellow it throws has a heavenly glow  -  we've got to

talk about this house. There are so many wild things  -  

like steeds and stallions running  -  outside the window

where I sit. May I have another one of Father's cigarettes?

-

How long has it been? Three years at least, since I was

here; and he's been dead twice that time. This old tobacco

box stinks, and this fag is hard as a nail. Too old to smoke,

for sure. No one's ever thrown these out? Has Aunt Jesta

ever been here since? That portrait on the wall is scary.

-

I bet that piano hasn't played a note in ten years, and couldn't

hold a tune now if it tried. I remember when we brought it in.

I was twenty-five, and we got it from Arnie's Tavern  -   

'a fifty-dollar bar-room upright', he called it. Oh, 

time sure was sweet back then. We've got to

talk about this house.'

5987. THE EMILY POST OF THE WHOREHOUSE

THE EMILY POST OF 

THE WHOREHOUSE

I knew her;  good manners, nice breeding, always

said and did the right thing, properly. I guess that's

why I liked her so much and kept going back for 

more. I called her 'Gusher Gail.' She never minded.

She kept a nice room on the third floor south  -  some

curtains, a large bed, a small sitting room too, with

a couch from the distance of France  -  so she said.

We'd sit and we'd talk, just trying to make sense

of why I kept coming back, trying to understand this

attraction. Then I'd say 'let it go', and we'd begin.

It was never the same, always different, but always

alike  -  thirty-five minutes, two hours, who ever knew?

Afterwards,  half-light again, we'd again just talk  -  to

go on about a million ways of doing, a hundred thousand 

ways of dealing with this life. We two, cats in a cradle, 

dogs in a house, rich people in the parlor of a pauper.

5986. I HAVE NOTHING

I HAVE NOTHING

I have nothing now, semolina wheatface you,

and I'm going to start something quite new.

I have a table of my own at Markson's Jetting

Cafe. Red wine on the table, a few cigarettes, 

rolled and ready in my pocket. People around,

not many, but those who are are quality types. I'm

tired of the salacious bus-riders who yearn to talk.

Please remain silent; to reply I balk.

-

In 1964 I was still forming something. There was

a man on the TV, going on about bombs, reading

a dull paper  -  filled with lies as well  -  about the

Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Most all of those senators

and congressmen around him are dead now, and

they should have been dead then; and I should have

killed them. And him as well.

-

I ask you: how many lives are ruined by bastards?

Can you even count them, or remember? I held a

long rifle in my hands, right below the Huey and the

nearby Medivac copters  -  blades spinning, all

set to go. I was supposed to protect the 'periphery' 

from any intruders  -  shoot to kill, not just main.

-

Alas, I really couldn't hear a thing  -  just people in

fatigues endlessly talking  -  barking more like it,

commands and directives, understandings and plans.

Back then, it was nothing to see crumpled bodies

half-dead in the delta mud. We were killing a nation

while fighting a war  -  two nations, in fact, and

declared nonetheless. Killing the Cong and killing

ourselves as well. Fuck them all, then, fuck them.

5985 VARIEGATED TRIBESMEN

VARIEGATED TRIBESMEN

I see the Samuel Beckett crowd come

sloshing in   -   worried about their seating,

or of not being too thin. It's like this in the

half-light : a few smokers, darting about,

unsure of themselves, inside or out?

-

The Hudson Highlands rise above; the sloop

at Garrison and those brawny, poor people

schmoozing on about nothing; overweight,

sloppy, unkempt and dull. I feel more

like Thomas Hobbes, with his 'nasty, 

brutish and short', exclamation. No

Leviathan here, just me.

-

A few booted hikers, and a couple

carrying their canoe : they are walking

alongside the road where the cars speed by.

No attention is paid, either way  -  all those

comings and goings of ordinary men.

-

Like with prisoners, watching and laughing at

a cartoon show presented by wardens, the

church-like happiness is sad. Watching and

more, I just wish, rather, to disappear.

5984. UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS

UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS

Walk the way you want, even if your back is bent 

and broken  -  there's probably a cure for that. Just 

have to find the logo. Everywhere we turn, mirrors 

splash back water and people run away. Illusion, 

like its double, Reality, plays games 

with our lives and manners.

5983. I LOST MY PASTIMES

I LOST MY PASTIMES

Not this thundering herd, and not Woody Herman, I

stand almost nauseous at what I see. The particular 

notion of mass-man learning together, the semblance

of blandness everywhere. I want to be a warrior, I

want to outrage others, I want to see red instead.

-

Make this piano malarkey plain and simple :

watch what I do and not what I say. 

Bake me a cake from envy.

-

I went exploring today  -  the caves of  Montalardi.

Upside-down, bats hung asleep, a possum flipped,

and this guide with a flashlight told me what I saw.

Why? How does he know?

5982. MAJOR ROBERT

MAJOR ROBERT

There are robots now, tending the flock. The people

from Walmart are over for dinner  -  they wear their

cheesy shirts, with the pockets where a breast should be.

'Keeping things level', they say. These are the same clowns

who happily fill the grocery shelves in those crazy food-line

aisles  -  a hundred sloppy, happy families buying their

Twinkies together. Ho-ho's. Kix and Cap'n Crunch too.

'We don't want no one excited' they say  -  and then they

say, as well, that such was the headline in their employee's

bulletin just the other day. 'We don't want no one excited.'

The store psychologist was brought in, interviewing those

the most upset  -  seemingly, the big, black lady in housewares

was crying, the hardware guy with the Hitler moustache took

it hard, and that new little girl, in Makeup and Watches, she

too nearly had broken down. 'It's just 'cuz I don't know what

they mean', she babbled. 'Happy days are here again', the 

custodian in Section 14 was singing to himself; 

happy days are here again.

5981. MIRACULOUS WAYS

MIRACULOUS WAYS

In so hundred many matter and different ways

the words are frequently overwritten  -  he walks

in night, a cigarette's red point athwart his darkened

face. And I know nothing of that intention. He waits, 

for what? To rob the midnight bank? To steal the

split-level fern and one of the most-high daughters

of the house? I am writing, here, a descriptive realism 

that carries no luggage. Mr. Ashcan School, that's me.

The Armory Show inside of my mind  -  crowds lined

up just to see. I put down the instructions  -  Picasso

follows and Cezanne tries to talk : show me 'depth'

in a few jagged lines. Outdo even yourself, oh Piero

Della Francesca. Come to me all you who labor,

whining. Here, here it is dawn at the lake  -  rowers

skid by in silence, only the oars slapping the water

and I hear a girl's voice. There's a wild coyote or

a nearby red fox, running hard, in determined motion

across the grass. Cars are passing, and a countryside

bus makes its NYC run. Everything like this happens,

over again, and it's nearly the same  -  I want to paint

with the words what I paint with the paints : the most

fruitful instructions with which to continue this life.

Every moment, in its time, is miraculous.

5980. MANAGING

MANAGING

People have the shay, they walk the very same way,

pealing away like stacks of five dollar bills. Everyone

in one place, just looking for the lie. Fifteen acres of

cut-down trees, now just wilting on the ground. And

here again, everyone manages. The guy with the

yellow bulldozer, the big pick-up truck guy pulling

logs, the fellow and his crew, running the chipper.

Loud and boisterous, machine and man, managing.

-

So sweet it seems when all that fine black dirt is seen

at first  -  after years of shade and leaves, a rich soil

is suddenly in sunlight harsh. And, in a year anyway,

it will all be gone  -  paved over and cluttered, or

flat and made into a lawn. The power of people

is the power of : Managing all these terms.

5979. HAROLD IN ITALY

HAROLD IN ITALY

(bromides)

Berlioz and does eat oats and little lambs eat

ivy, a kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

-

Yes, sums it all up. The Italian experience in music,

through the chortled yawp of a megaphone Maserati

and a flamed-over Ferrari. That's Italy for me.

-

Sotto Domenici a'verntura. Yeah that too.

5978. JIMMY THE RAT

JIMMY THE RAT

Jimmy the rat was scurrying around  -  I called him that

and he really was a rat. About 12 inches long, I guess, and

colored like a rat should be  -  there must be a word for that

tint or tone. He was a friend of mine. East 11th, 509. A really

nice place, if you have the time. This was 1967, 1968, and

really, really, really, things were different then.  I go there

now  -  ambling back and just to see  -  and my mind is set

to another level. Things, I understand, come and go; yet as

much as that happens, everything else always comes back.

They even put up markers now for things that were.

-

If you ever see the movie 'Ragtime', with James Cagney 

and other, maybe 1982, who knows, well, that's my spot 

and block 'Novy Mir Working Man's Cafe'. The film

people came in, and did over the entire block to look

like old Moscow, or Petersberg, or somewhere I forget.

Not big on movies myself  -  can't extend the disbelief

needed to fall for what I see. Now, years later, I

fully understand as well  -  that's how Life is and

that how Reality should be.

5977. HELIPORT STORIES

HELIPORT STORIES

The bomb was in the luggage, over where 

they put the bags and parcels. Someone one 

was transporting a dog, in a small, white 

carry-kennel. The space looked like a carnival, 

with things thrown all about. Fortunately for 

all, those police-inspector guys found everything 

in time. No they had to figure who did it. 

-

You know how crazy New Yorkers get, all pushy 

and demanding? Sarcastic and sly as all get-out.

Imagine that here, times ten  -  these fancy, bitchy

ladies doing slaloms about the time they've lost;

instead of thanking their stinking asses for being

left still yes alive. Their wanky carcasses could 

have been blown all over the harbor by now.

-

Have you ever seen an airport security person in

one of those crummy uniforms? I'd have to say,

here, on a female they're really not that bad. In

fact, this lady inspector's getting me going. I'm

thinking she could inspect my package at will.

Is that too stupid and too foul? I wouldn't know.

-

Anyway, I digress. Here the deal was fifteen people. 

I guess set up for a commuter helicopter ride to

the Hamptons, or maybe to another airport, for a

plane  -  they were pulled back at the last moment

because of a report of a bomb in the luggage and

cargo space. Hmmm, isn't that odd, and I wonder

how it all came to be.

5976. I CEDED THIS TERRITORY TO KANSAS

I CEDED THIS 

TERRITORY TO KANSAS

And I am a slaver by trade. Doesn't that make 

me awesome? I took my fourteen steps across 

the border just to claim the land, and then they 

gave me a mule and some more. My formal training 

was in cracking safes  -  along along the wagon trail 

my name was known. Even those team-drivers, with 

their riding guards and six-gun meanings were no 

match for me. When I reach the wagon, boys, there's 

no security left, and it's already too late. Hide your 

money where you may, but leave it at the gate.

You say you rode along with Chisholm and the

railroad's gonna' be the death of me? Well,

maybe so but I ain't worried. There's still

a lot of me you'll see. Open season in

the mine.

5975. HEROD

HEROD

(new history at larchmont)

Crucify this bothersome bastard? It's sure OK

with me, but pass it on to someone else, if you

don't mind. Isn't there a parking lot in Elam-Jemesh

that will do? Post a stake and hang him. Leave me be.

-

Now the flowers themselves have grown weeds along

the macadam's edge, and no one any longer knows the

difference between the deed and the doing. Was there ever

one anyway? I don't know. One bullet to the brain  -  and

before the second is over the life has ebbed. So much cleaner.

-

I'm so sick of weasels. Oh, Mr. Pilate, what have you to

say, or would you rather do this deed yourself? It's all 

so mythological now, and you'll became famous for the

ages. Send forth the water bucket, let me wash my 

hands of this damned and inflamed Jew.

5974. ARE WE ANY GOOD? (ARE WE THAT GOOD?)

ARE WE ANY GOOD? 

(ARE WE THAT GOOD?)

I'll grant you pin-point, laser precision 

on surgical procedures, perhaps, and

charting distances to what we say are

stars, but  -  past that  -  I don't know.

I have my doubts, as we undermine our 

spaciousness by counting spites and hatreds.

- 

No? My hands hold this guitar and my arms

hug this grand tuba. That's one thing of itself,

but  -  lest you hear the music that comes forth  -

there must needs first be training and practice

and rote. All those miserable scales and chords.

-

I'd wish instead for a more natural talent, one

that sweetly oozes as I breath; that brings forth

Summer's meadow sounds and the babblings of

running brooks. Those are truly the talented 

things. For us, instead, who call ourselves the 

living, is merely given the attempt to understand, 

the value of the balance, the tipping of the stand. 

Looking at the Heavens' light, in much the same 

way, we can read but we cannot write.

5973. YOU HAVE JUST MET ELEANOR MAXWELL

YOU HAVE JUST MET

ELEANOR MAXWELL

Big eyes to foretell the future, fingernails that have

scratched, a handy way with a knife and heart. You

have just met Eleanor Maxwell. Take five, as the

jazz guys say  -  sit back, cool your heels.

-

I can't hear anything anymore : there's music, or 

what they call, and loud noises everywhere - 

lawnmowers, cars, power saws, trimmers. 

What gives? I've not been given a place to hide. 

-

I've seen a building out in the weeds, basically a

shack in the woods. It has six doors, for no apparent

reason. Six doors. I asked my friend Sal Marcano

why, and he said it had been a practice shed for his

Dad's construction crew. I guess they installed doors.

-

Now, it's simpler : they make buildings of of glass

and windows. The real mystery is  -  no way in,

and no way out, how now do they manage at all?

5972. NO UNCOMFORTABLE HABITS

NO UNCOMFORTABLE HABITS

No longer knowing what I even remember, I am sitting

back here listening to a classical piece played by a

million strings and some other notes which seem,

by contrast, too contrived. Charles Ives? Today

I watched a guy fall off a fence he thought he could 

climb  -  it was funny in its way, the why's and how's

of it all. The three others with him laughed. He'd gotten

a grass stain in his dress beige pants, and they were due

for dinner somewhere soon. 'You'll be OK, just don't ask 

for salad greens'  -  I really wanted to say that but didn't.

Why anyone like that would try to vault a fence is now

beyond me. I hope they had a nice meal.

-

Here, instead, I am sitting alone thinking about things : echoes,

and ideas, and reverberations. The first girlfriend of the young

Robert Zimmerman was a girl named Echo Helstrom. I always

liked that name. I wonder if she ever felt she'd missed out?

-

Life is all like that sometimes : scaling fences, falling off, or

deciding not too. Standing pat, staying in place, holding steady.

5971. SUNRISE ON KIP'S BAY

SUNRISE ON KIP'S BAY

( extreme e34th street)

Sunrise comes as no surprise, why should it?

The light-engine brings itself back into us daily,

we seek respite and a moment alone. Warmth floods

with glory directly to us. There are no dead around me

rising  -  I see no transfigurations here, no Lazaruses

to be celebrated. Everything is as before  -  for the most

part the same. The jangle of nerves and steel, and yet

another day, has a million feet off towards pathways running.

I know this and  -  all of it  -  I understand. Here again, a day.

5970. MARIPOSA VEIN

MARIPOSA VEIN

They've found water in the coal seam, and gold in

the silver too. Now what am I to do? I can no

longer hold my soul for ransom, or my heart for

hostage  -  all this oh so self-referential stuff.

5969. TO BARRICADE THE BOLSTERAMA

TO BARRICADE 

THE BOLSTERAMA

The incipient demise of every living thing would really

have no effect on most people :  like lottery thugs, they'd

still pile up in the parking lot for smoothies and food.

There 'high-fives' would still reach the mainline, the

talk of the town, the jabber of the wockies. Comparing

notes, all they'd do is look at labels while the floodwaters

came high. Using the Bible as a doorstop, that works too.

-

The tent is somehow made of 2X4's. The Madame of the

sporting house down by the river is still collecting her

girls. What the Hell, I figure, they'd all like to be there

at the end anyway  -  no better way of going out.

A dream, and a dollar, what hey!

5968. LEITMOTIF

LEITMOTIF

Just to show I learned my German  -  all that

crazy literary sense and aufenbergen too.

Here, with me, dog at me left side, one canoe

flipped over on my right, the people are

standing around while the East River sings

to them. A helicopter nearby is landing. I

am witnessing some Brooklyn Broadway

commute, or Queens, or Long Island City.

All that rank, embattled stuff. I've used my

own feet getting here, and at sunlight it's

about 6:25. A ferry plies in, the helicopter

lands. To me left,a little walk off, is the

United nations. I feel like already prone to

a squabble. Some girl walks on my  -  there's

a little tunnel they all have to go through.

I think they're adorable, every last one. 

And I'm happy  -  and for me, that's

saying a lot.

5967. PENCHANTS

PENCHANTS

I have a penchant for varied, odd things : I wear my

overcoat upside down, but onlt when I must; when

I pass a downed timber, I walk under it, never over.

The very tall man at the microphone, calling my

number, made the claim that I had won  -  a flower

petal a day, for life. I told him I must decline it.

I have a penchant for not collecting things.

5966. NOT BEING THE CHOSEN ONE

NOT BEING THE 

CHOSEN ONE

I walked 7 miles and more today : that's

what the counter said, on my belt. I always

knew it was like that. It's usually more like

9, but today I cut it short for you. Loretta Young

or Bethany Storey. I don't even recall your name.

-

Brewsters from Brewster were standing around

The Seagram Building. I was watching the girls

have their lunch : a few women in saris held cameras,

construction guys kept adding cigarette butts to their

little pile, and some taxi guy pulled over to pray.

-

By then it was after 1. I got up with my fishing line

and went into the fountain. The black guy who was

Security came over asked if 'they were biting.' I got

up and walked out of the water. 'No', I replied.

-

I tried to decide. If I was : would my basket already

been filled with fish, or would I just have walked

on the water and gone away?

5965. THIS AIN'T A RIFF

THIS AIN'T A RIFF
(1966)

Here's where Andy entered : silver-haired

mop-head, wig-held Numen. The added word

to the other word. Andy art Andy. I don't know.

-

Some girl in his bunch came by, came over after

hours  -  way late, that's the kind of after-hours.

Dali could bend time, but Andy could stop it.

She stayed until the very next day, and then after.

-

The back-tag numbers, the way the clouds amassed,

the shapes and the forms. We talked about things.

I found myself just in love with the loving itself.

5964. NOT NICKEL SPIT

NOT NICKEL SPIT

It wasn't nickel spit my guy had on him, it was the

horse manure shadow of death itself. Pale Rider,

in the Ryder vein. Death on a Pale Horse. The

Race Track  -  all that dark, delirious New York

City stuff from the turn of the last century : Novembers

of the soul, as Melville might have put it. Albert Pinkham

Ryder, the guy I mean. Waldo Crane. Hart Franks. 

The whole mess.

-

I have nothing myself to carry as a corpse  -  I walk the

faint demise and talk to that character in the old Newark 

church; some young, talky guy from Chelsea, who'd moved

instead to take care of the bell tower there at the church. The

very oldest spot in Newark too, though nobody knows the

difference or gives a flying shit anymore. Everything's over.

This life's a whore.

-

The whole entire world would say all things are falling away.

Nothing but nickel spit will save the day. The whole mess.

This life's a whore.

5963. I LIKE TO WRITE

I LIKE TO WRITE

I like to write in an abstract mean, doing things

that weren't meant to be : have YOU make the leap,

for me, between the corner and the edge, between the

color and the ledge, between the hammer and the sledge.

See now? Do, do you, do you? Oh Madison, oh Bryant,

any featured park you'd like  -  the drug guys still stalk

and the police are yet impolite. But I like to write.

-

In an abstract mean, one meaning nothing at all, painting a

canvas of words like O'Hara, mixing a palette of hell

like Seidel, going places faster than, oh, whatever.

My definitions are folded over, and I have found the

wormhole  -  they call it  -  where Time comes back 

upon itself and brings us the shortcut between ages.

-

Doing things that weren't meant to be? Annie Oakley,

you, and me  -  that makes three. My red shed hides the

yellow barn. The light is out in the canyon again. I

learned my lesson the last time through. Wasn't that

with you? I love your pink, folded skin.

5962. TAKE A DROP OF WATER

TAKE A DROP OF WATER

Change the go-ahead world : every extra

ingredient helps. Sanction the unexpected,

let the Pope dance, bring the prisoners home.

-

Your new dress reminds me of Alice; keeps me

up at night just thinking, ties my hands in a scarf

of wonder, cuts my neck with rope.

-

Here at the OK Corral, I just want to be surprising,

do unexpected things, sing songs I've never heard

before. Use a screwdriver to open the milk. Go

home way, way after dark. Take a drop of water.

Change the go-ahead world.

5961. IKKYU

IKKYU

1. Having no destination, I am never lost : 

turn that flop at the orange corner, peel

the stage by the overpass ramp. 

2. What good stories deal with is the

horror and incomprehensibility of time,

the dark encroachment of old catastrophes;

which may have been said by Wallace Stevens.

3. All excellent art has its its mystery, its

spiritual rhythm. 'Together they enter

the shining rooms.'

4. Real avant-garde writing today would frame

and reflect our misuse of our world, our destruction

of its beauties and wonders. We are all, instead,  

just messing with ourselves, cherishing ourselves.

We love and spawn, but always there is this ghastly

wanting. Always the need.

5. Yes, yes, I like all of that. Yes, I like all

of this very much.

5960. BIRTHDAY

BIRTHDAY

The brick through my window said

'Happy Birthday'  -  the note was attached

by a sling. It broke my leg in five pieces

when it hit. Of thee I sing. Here I was,

looking instead for material things :

girls, and cars, and a horse that sings.

5959. IF I EAT TODAY

IF I EAT TODAY

Now is the moment to carry Thom Paine in his

chair. Let him sit there; in another two weeks

he'll be dead. I am working on another angle:

here, here, I am due at Pfaff's. It is years later,

and now years later again. On the train platform

the conductor has on his hard-peaked trainman's

cap, and the engineer comes by looking like a

lumberjack. The train waits while they compare

information. A snort, then, of electric noise, and

an air-brake clatch, and we are slowly gone.

I feel as if riding through time.

-

If court were today, I'd need to produce you as

evidence. Have you be served yet my subpoena?

You seem you must attend, for that means 'under

penalty'. (I am distant now, and in a strange land).

When Poe lived at 85 Amity Street, so too did I.

-

There was a time, yes, when every desk 

proudly boasted a heavy, black telephone. 

Everyone needed wires  -  a consular world to 

be sure, and soon the stagecoach man was never 

out of touch. Telegraph and telephone, as such. 

Now the young have taken over  -  the stupid young  -  

and all I hear are their mouse-like voices. 

If I eat today, I shall surely dine alone.

-

Next door to Coleman House, and Pfaff's below

it, in the cellar, once stood the grand Stuyvesant

Institute  -  oh palace of culture that! Wickedly

guarding the faces of slime in its day defined. 

('Through me, forbidden voices'). I lean against an

old wooden building there : now to see only the

coach driver approach me. I calmly inquire of his

health and day. ('Carry me when you go forth over

land or sea  -  for this merely touching you is enough,

is best, and, thus touching you, I would silently sleep 

and be caressed eternally'). Oh Walt Whitman,

you are still my friend.

5958. "DANT A' CAGE" (W11TH AND BLEECKER)

"DANT A' CAGE"  

(w11th and Bleecker)

All this simmering nonsense has a force  -  a

happenstance of its own farce, everything churning

as it jumbles about. Marie Francis is walking down

the street. Gorgeous. I'm at 11th and Bleecker,

and it's right there that I die. I dropped dead.

-

She is walking towards me, but she's in a different

time now, and there is a fog of smoke between

us. This is her time and these are her people

she goes to meet. I am distant, and she doesn't

see. Oh Marie; the last end of pain follows me.

-

It wasn't that very long off when I was  -  like you  - 

amongst my own contemporaneity. Now gone. Lost

amidst so many faces and forms. 'Odds and ends, odds

and ends, lost time is not found again.' (Please put

the new oil in my lamp).