6156. STATESIDE

STATESIDE

We've got New Jersey singing,

wrapped within its network of

roads and lugs, coffee-shops and

mugs. Tuned displays of splayed

exhaust dip wide across the oiled

arc; past Linden's little lips. Fevered

sanctuary, this goathouse to the

modern day. Some kind of farming

here : oils, slicks, and gasolines.

-

There are motions within the movement,

secret things that keep even the most 

veteran trucker glued to his seat  -  

for anything can happen here.

-

Unloosen that, your cargo.

Bow down, low, before the

tunnel. Magna carta eyes and

Kenworth pulses. This is our

Democratia. Dementia.

-

Blow away, Arcadia, dissolve

in acid smoke. Miles and more

are catalogued here. The dead

 are crowding the curb.

6155. DEAR JOHN:

DEAR JOHN:

Well, Winter's here again, and the streets

aren't getting any brighter. See, someone 

in this town rings a Chinese bell, I mean

every night, at 10:30. Weird. They've painted

the trains black, as they say, 'for the duration'.

I'm not locked up anymore  -  since the mad

magistrate got himself on Sunday TV. 'Meet

the Mess', it was called. He got very happy.

-

I wonder about you too. Is your unlucky sister

still alive? I've found women here who sing in

scarlet tones. They never tire out  -  tell her.

I can't believe what's been done to Broadway :

I'd forgotten to tell you about that. There was

a fire, and all the glass in six buildings melted.

Everything is hallucinatory now, and very rippled.

-

I don't belong to the club anymore.

Three lions got loose in Major's Mausoleum.

It can't go on like this. But, here, I've sent

this little book along. It's about our town.

Gotta' go. Here's the street car coming.

Keep reading your Bruno Schultz.

Call me.

6154. IN AN INSTANT

IN AN INSTANT

Meander with me while the red light stands.

It seems it will never change and there are

no words to fill up the space : two channels

are flowing (Had I not known death had undone

so many?) Yet another pigeon atop the pole?

-

The false promise runs past the street  -  flowing

the gutter where the bluesman sits. He tries playing 

for the money they give, but nothing seems to work.

6153. ALL THOSE ENDLESS CITIES

ALL THOSE 

ENDLESS CITIES

My life is in a box, here at my side  -  and all those

cities that have no edges, now they seem endless;

broader than the width of this box anyway. There

are filed hundreds of envelopes and notes and

letters  -  postcards and invites too  -  from 1981.

-

I used to go everywhere, anywhere. I was almost

in demand  -  as I read these people now, all their

notes and thanks and such seem crazy. Like thanking

a monster for death. But, I was what I was, and I 

went at it quite swimmingly, it seems.

-

Now, the salad days have jumped the ledger.

No on has a clue. No one knows a thing.

Just like some Woody Guthrie, all

they do is sing.

6152. TAGGART

TAGGART

(the jesus of the nightclubs)

When the lumpen proletariat begins making

its own cars, I'll worry. Until then, there's

no change in the meter-box and no color to the

paint. They could ride like the Bronze Horseman

along Nevsky Prospect for all I care. Nothing.

-

Butter-churn, cream-charge, milk-bucket peasant.

Onion-dome, brightly-colored, remains of the remains.

I am so off-center now my equilibrium's gone. It

is a day to be dark  -  remnants of everything.

The darker this December gets, the more hallowed

my soul becomes. Watch the candle-flame flicker.

-

If you swing to the stars or pray to your saints,

either of those acts will draw you down. Medieval 

ways have no place in today's gentle genuflection.

Lights. Camera. Action. Hanukkah begins at your

sundown, on a day with no sun. Christ died for our

sins. I think he died for fun.

6151. MALACHY MCMARTIN

MALACHY MCMARTIN

The train was off the tracks, the big

engine was running  -  the man looked 

lethal, shooting skeletons with a camera.

-

The fire was kept to the breadbox.

We all had toast after dinner.

6150. THE PESTILENTAIL FOG

THE PESTILENTIAL FOG

The blue iron of the bridge is a scaffold towards

another world  -  reaching out of this one, surely.

Lines of people crossing : we call it transport; the

human medley blending. 75 years ago, this was

all briefcases and tophats and dark faces looking

downward  -  or at least just straight ahead.

Now, it's the babble of the rabble, and a million

faces yapping the yelp of the maw of the being.

So many messages, and how many misconstrued?

6149. TWO MAN BOAT

TWO MAN BOAT

In the gliding over the ocean, the settling of

the sea, some fast-harvested manhood taking

a legion of chances will best the reluctant other,

yet stuck on land, peering out to the distant deeps.

All that we do not know can be summarized by

movement  -  the arms of the Alps which will

hold the explorer have no truck with the man

in the suit. I wish to leave here now.

-

I am bested and simple, obscure and perverse.

My two man boat, yes, even that is only manned

by me. Do I drift? Then let me, and touch thee

not that other oar  -  as useless anyway as it is 
in these swells. I will bail my own buckets. 

I will puke my own swill.

6148. SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION

SOMETIMES A 

GREAT NOTION

I've got fog and I've got issues; I've got

clarity and I've got force. The dead milkman

is in his distant castle and sometimes a nation

fails. Sometimes a great nation. Universal were

the rights of man until the morons won. We now

scurry like the Molochs that we are. Listen. Bow.

-

Sometimes a great notion forces change, and other

times the foul guns just bellow while the mouths

exclaim. The shoreline is coated with nothing : the 

grease and slime of the flesh and blood.  You want

celebration? I can give you this.

-

I've got pretzels and I've got milk, fodder for 

the channels and the rows of babies yet to come. 

Soothe your gums on teething this, oh little ones : 

Sometimes Satan comes in the name of the Lord.

-

Yes, sometimes Satan comes in the name of the Lord.

6147. AND THEN SOMEONE WASN'T USING THEIR HEAD

AND THEN SOME

:AT THE STATUE OF GARIBALDI:

I stood at Broad, and Wall, and Cherry,

and Pine, and Barrow and Bedford and

Bleecker and Waverly too. I looked around

the enclosure : lynch mobs of their own

idiocy massing. The sacred fist of false

righteousness, never worse than when

it's clenched.

6146. HAVERSTRAW

HAVERSTRAW

So, yes, I was there. Just today, in fact.

The little leaning church was here, hiding

in its place  -  while I grabbed a drink at

Horatio's on the corner. A kid on a bicycle

slid by; another fellow was walking his dog.

Everything was a silent scene, working its

way in a nice quietude. I watched the artist -

that girl upstairs from the loft  -  as she made 

her slow way down an outside stairway  -  had

to be 40 steps and one turn. She made it okay.

Coming down must be easier anyway than going 

up. Well, I'm guessing. And anyway, how is it said,

be nice to those on the way up, because you'll meet

them again on the way down. Whatever. Mind plays

tricks. I sit in a silence wrapped with dread. There's

someone in California hating me and someone here,

right down by the Hudson' shore, seeking my love.

I can't turn either way without something weird

happening to me. The choir has a songboook,

yes, but it's been put aside. I can hear them

even out here, just jamming inside.

6145. YOU CAN MAKE ME BOXING

YOU CAN MAKE ME BOXING

Wearing this Winter coat again has strangled my

neck-nerves. I hate it so. I'd rather freeze in the end-zone

alive. The wind tries tickling my inner savage; but I'd

much rather just live in this box. The policeman comes

walking over  -  I already know his deal  -  'you can't stay

here tonight, the shelter bus is over on the corner. Get on

it.' Man, how I hate all that. Bad coffee twice, and a donut.

6144. MOMENTARY CONFLAGRATIOo

MOMENTARY 

CONFLAGRATION

My momentary conflagration has taken you down :

forthright and stalwart, no matter. The flag in your face is

turning to flame, another Haussmann is walking the dwindling

streets. Things will be ruined, will be wrecked. The cretins step

forth  -  so quickly afterwards  -  wanting to rebuild for gain.

What has my momentary conflagration gained?

-

Bring this tea to the new hardware counter   -  add it up 

with the rest of the total. See the numbers as they fade.

All things, everywhere, are a lie. All these people seek

is profit : the black face, the minstrel, even the prophet.

-

I will have no recourse left; here, where they carry the

bags for the bodies, I will place my wand. Standing 

nearby will be the man at the podium, slowly reading

aloud all those bad words from Scripture about

what was done. The fires will burn for days.

6143. WHO IS LIVING?

WHO IS LIVING?

Who is living beneath the bridge, who is

that man? It is far too cold for a human, I

wonder who can he be. 'Verweile doch', he

spoke to me the day I wandered over.

-

'Stay a while'. That's all it meant  -  part of

something longer, but I lost the rest in his

mumble. He had a small campfire going.

-

In the far distant sky, where some minions

of the sky were standing, there were hundreds

looking down. He mentioned the passing moment,

and simply disappeared. I was reading the bible,

things about Ezekial. It was all familiar again.

6142. I AM DISLOCATED

I AM DISLOCATED

My reach is out of reach; the sedate manners

of the sun and moon have calmed me now. It

is six in the morning, and everything around me

remains dark  -  cold and wet, and dark. This

chunk of coffee tries as it can to placate my

anxious mind. What if it never gets light again?

-

December is so good for that  -  those weeks before

official Winter which command anyway that they are

Winter  -  you be damned. The new cold air and

wind again, bringing forth everything almost as

noxious and frozen as a bad dream would bring.

-

So, I'll sit, and to Hell with the rest  -  with a 

lightbulb on, at my side, I can read and write, I

can think through this effort, can weather
this fight, to try and somehow make 
something of myself anew.

6141. THE FULFILLMENT OF MODERNITY

THE FULFILLMENT 

OF MODERNITY

Well OK, yes, you can be that : high-wire act, failed friend, 

future mentor, distinctive bud. I'll watch the act develop.

The monkey you pulled out of that hat, I thought was

supposed to be a rabbit; but that's OK. However, it was

underneath that kerchief, was it, that lamb you unveiled?

I didn't get that at all  -  looking for a dove instead. I'm

not good with all these symbols, but what are you

trying to do? The bull on the altar it disappears?

The way the fire lights the bush, the enflamed tar,

the connection with incense, all that, I'm still

learning. my mind is as tarnished as that ancient

chalice you pretend to drink from.

-

Now there's a rocket to Mars testing soil on a rock  - 

catching asteroids as they fly through space. Some

cowboy song, I bet, is already written about that

chase  -  'get along little doggie, get along'?

-

Every Golden Book has a tear at the ending  -  that

magnificent princess on page 11, but page 26 is

both crippled and numb. This is just how it as.

All things are now so very sad. The fulfillment

of modernity is all we've ever had.

6140. FEET TO THE FIRE

FEET TO THE FIRE

You will, please, put them in, draw nothing

back, go right for it. It's the same fire as Hell.

Damnation is the brother you've not yet met.

Hellfire and Damnation make quite a lively

team. They've burned down the kitchen stairs

already and  -  in short order  -  are soon to

be headed your way. The whole, entire

town is doomed.

-

Your endless prattle is like tinder for the

box : twigs and words, all alike. Me? I'm

watching that farther black lady out on

her porch  -  she's setting out burned cookies,

or so it seems, and I swear I saw flames

just before. It's too late for that, my dear.

6139. APPROXIMATE POINT OF IMPACT

APPROXIMATE 

POINT OF IMPACT

The park has its trees, the ocean has its

waves. Every little thing amounts to something

somewhere. I have a hearty lamp which no 

tattler will ever turn out : Stringfellow bulb

pull, ever-present illuminations too.

-

One thousand years ago today a part of me

was born : the language part, the gauge of

gifts and words, the long, trailing moment

of message. Two thousand years ago my eyes

were opened; three thousand, I was granted

my hands and limbs. Incessant, all this.

-

For the nonce, there's a message; like

Shakespeare in an envelope, like Oscar

in a box. I'll never know; things just are.

6138. PORTICO

PORTICO

December, it is, carries the gruesome

light within  -  a dark eddy, with 

convulsions pushing outward. We

swing our masks aside to to be sure

of what we're seeing. Nature itself

is a grand visage. (We make of it

what we will).

6137. FUGITIVE

FUGITIVE

I am a fugitive from reason, from

depth. I am a fugitive from sound and

matter; from terms of revolving credit,

from 30-day returns. I am a fugitive from

noble thoughts and singular deportment;

from looking back and having excuses at

the ready. I am a fugitive from religion, and

from concepts of ruling Gods themselves. I

am a fugitive from politics and a fugitive from

lies. I am a fugitive from municipal bonds and

library dates; a fugitive from travel and a fugitive

from rates. I am a fugitive from blindness, from

holidays and battle. I am a fugitive from coupons

and consumer-frenzy prattle; a fugitive from larceny,

a fugitive from death. I am a fugitive from banks and

motives, explanations and votives, doers and thinkers,

protesters and voters. Bullets and vests. False-face emoters.

I am a fugitive from fitness, a fugitive from glory; a fugitive

from fake Buddhism, and highways and tolls. I am a 

fugitive still on the run, and a fugitive from goals.

I am a fugitive from darkness, a fugitive from light,

a fugitive from sleeping...all through the night.

6136. OF A DISPLACED MAGNITUDE

OF A DISPLACED 

MAGNITUDE

Lincoln's body came to New York on a ferry

which crossed from Pavonia  -  we now know

that as Jersey City. It had gotten to there by

rail  -  then, in NYC, the huge procession followed,

down Broadway, to somewhere lay in state. there's

a famous window shot of a young Theodore Roosevelt's

view of the funeral cortege, making its way down the street,

'round the corner from his grandfather's house. From a

window they watched, maybe three or four floors up.

-

Just some touching moment, the sort that cracks crackers

or breaks breakers, or beams beamers  -  or however you'd

want that put. Young Theodore remembered, doggerel like

that all the same. He too once took a bullet, yet kept on

delivering some doggedly stern speech.

-

How these things all coalesce, I'm never sure. The grand

mathematics of fate  -  which has missed by a million

miles ago  -  just goes on. Sums and equations we know

nothing about. All of a displaced magnitude themselves.

6135. FRIGHTFULLY INTIMATE

FRIGHTFULLY INTIMATE

I try to make these things mine, the places

on which I can rest things, so as to continue.

The dark light from cubbyholes, and the fair

onus of being alone : sever me with some old

fortitude, leave it go. And, anyway, what

will I do should it rain?

-

The rain will fall, mind you; no doubt about

that. And I shall hear it  -  no doubt there either.

Falling. Dripping. Dropping. Blowing. Oh how

I hate. There is no reasoning more intimate

than that  -  not at home in a world that

leaves no choice.

-

It's been said that marble is but a limestone

pressurized and segmented, sometimes ingrained

and striated with other things  -  a slash of blue

magnite, or reddish pink tint. I'm weary now;

too much for me to figure.

-

And anyway, what will I do should it rain

some frightfully intimate day?

6134. RUN WITH THE DAY

RUN WITH THE DAY

Run with the day and your movie-camera eyes;

let me see you flash : stiletto heels and a nasty

cigar; like some old MTV splash on endless

replay. The microphone is tasty, but the 

camera never blinks (that's what

editing is for).

-

I hopped my frugal ass into a Starbucks today:

thirteen kids around the counter, a few elders

reading lies, some punk with a nose-ring in

his eye. Sitting on the edge of all this palaver

was a big dude with some girl  -  all done up

in his military garb  -  natty, pressed jacket,

striped pants, military cap and service stars

and ribbon. His haircut looked like Brillo.

-

Way too proud of himself, I thought. But, he

never shut up, so I just couldn't reach him. Like

so many others, lost in his stars. If astrology was

alchemy, we'd all be gold bars.

-

So, Sallie Jane Amanda Kerchief, run with the

stars that you see. You don't need a medal to

get the gist  -  the enemy's coming over the

hill. Fire away, fire at will.

6133. NOT EVERYONE

NOT EVERYONE

It's not everyone who can do everything, I

opine loudly. I scream back, in fact, at all

the monsters on the wharf shouting out 

commands. Diplomacy is long ago dead,

and dictatorial autocrats have now taken

over the ledge. Darn them anyway.

-

The minister wields his cudgel  -  it's soft,

like a tacky bible. The masonry guy is

wielding his mallet  -  pushing back at

bricks and errant solid objects in his

way. And, in his way, he's like a

Portuguese Columbus discovering

things he doesn't like.

-

I've been here for days, deserted, and 

desecrated. Someone's statue of Mary has

been lit with a votive candle, but I don't

know if it's for me. Ever since the day

I was born, everything's been

a great mystery.

6132. PALEO

PALEO

There are lots of ways to resist progress :

take up knitting, say, or sew your own clothes

with thread you have made  -  out of wet wool 

and dish soap, I'm told. Make only your own

cookies, using ground-up almonds. They look

like little patties and taste like sawdust as well.

Old ways of eating? Fish. Eggs. Vegetables.

Fruits and nuts. Meat, I guess, if you must.

Maybe human flesh, I don't know. Seeds,

though they are suspect. Enough. Far too

late in the game for such. Coat yourself

with bacteria, and say goodbye to soap?

-

Agriculture was 'invented' several times, in

different parts of the world : people using

plants they found growing wildly around.

I myself don't necessarily believe this, thinking

instead that the occasional drop-downs by alien

visitors  -  our ancestor masters  -  imparted the

needed knowledge to us when and where as needed.

But so much for that; that's me. You stick to your

stories and churches and God and just go to church.

I'll stick with mine and me divine.

6131. IL BACCIO

IL BACCIO

I am not garrulous enough for love,

and would only seek to shut you up -

though I did dream I was kissing you

intently. Actually, rather it was you who

were kissing me, and I was willing, yes, oh,

I was very willing. You pressed the point,

and kept it going, one fine kiss after another,

and I  -   like William Tell  -  kept shooting,

kept on playing, kept flinging arrows until

I'd hit my mark. You know how that ended

up. The arrow in the forehead. Right?

Or did no one ever tell  -  you?

6130. A PAST TENSE OF WATER

A PAST TENSE OF WATER

(once here, now gone)

Everything for a reason : the college town

rankles, filled with deceit and dissension; 

the resort town bides its time with pleasure.

Such declensions and such dimensions.

Everything at once.

-

Traveling through this town on the back of

an ass won't get you too far  -  bridges are not

high enough here for vanity to pass beneath.

Card-players wince  -  sitting like a million brightly

colored Cezanne imitations; or the one with dogs.

Collateral damage? They're all dead. Like the 

napalm geeks used to say : 'Kill 'em all,

let God sort 'em out.'

-

Now, by contrast, I'm in this padded room alone

-  where no one tends me and I in turn tend no

one else. It's like a past tense of water, only

now drying out  -  I could swear someone

else was here. There are only faint traces,

if I had to prove a case : a dampness, mud,

and a ring of stain from something in the

past. Once here, now gone.

6129. EARNING YOUR HISTORY

EARNING YOUR HISTORY

Between all of them, not a one could read a

ruler or tack a nail. The gigantic columns of

every temple eventually fell  -  and now I

too fade into disrepute. I hide in the shadows;

those cinders and that ash. Hear me out, lazy

man : the blue carnations, things from youth,

the stories of mothers and dads, all gone. Only

this thin, lazy snake, sulking in the sun.

6128. TRAVELODGE

TRAVELODGE

A jerry-built Mohican Sun was tumbling

town as I watched. Forty fat-lipped people

dancing. I can't sit in front of the falls any

longer, too many people are yelling.

-

New Canaan and Yorkshire Heights, they're

both the same to me. A rental car rolls up.

-

They've built a few homes in the valley now :

archival stuff, glimmering, already in the

news magazine. New Canaan and Yorkshire

Heights, they're both the same to me.

-

The rental car rolls off.

6127. ICILY MERRIMENT

ICILY MERRIMENT

Here is the catch for the change. If that

turns out to be an opera by Charles Darwin,

I'll eat my hat. Leopard skin femur koala hat.

-

It's cheeri-o to you and yours! This season reeks  - 

it's an umbrella of smudge, a decolletage of 

big-bosom'd gifts for the taking. 

Squeeze. Blow. Twist. 
-
Oh fucking, fucking joy!

6126. MARY BELLE

MARY BELLE

Bring me eggs and bring me cotton  -  just

about the time, Mary Belle. Out back, the

troops are coming up the hill and I know

they know my name. Find me something

to hide me. Don't tell them of my name.

-

I see the smoke upon the ridge  -  it's thick

and it's lethal. Smokestack. Campfire.

-

Everything is around here : the ghosts are in

the trees and the cabins have persistence. We've

been settled here since 1763, and we don't 

deserve to be forced to leave. 

6125. ENTER THE MINIATURE

ENTER THE MINIATURE

Oh my, everything has grown so small : a congeries

of eels, like ground worms now. Swarming. I have

walked my way to inconsideration. I'm resting here

in Beacon, NY. Where should I look for you?

-

The man from Garrison, he wrote me a note. The state

trooper, right here, some time ago, wrote me a ticket

as well. Happiness was never more engaged. I sat in

front of the local court judge, and watched him steal.

-

It was cold in Haverstraw. I entered the Straw Hat Cafe

and ordered coffee. Eight in the morning already  -  all

those well-dressed people running off to work. City-work.

Everywhere I look, it's like Jerry Lewis. Comedy.

6124. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

17th Street, 19th Street, I don't know and I can't

tell. Every finicky Asian with a job is standing

outside his fabric store or flower shop wasting

some moments away. The ones who smoke are

smoking  -  mid-30's American women grown

down in the heel, outlasting their connections to

Brooklyn or Queens or Long Island. It's all the

cheery same. On the corner, the coffee shop

palpitates with those on their screens.

-

I can't tell 'nothing anymore' : the difference is nil

as a taxi goes by just pretending. I get to W21st, way

out, and the art galleries just start piling up their

expensive quills  -  paintings and prices, each

in the 'mills. What know I of any of that?

-

Oh Teri Hatcher get my coat, Eddie Arnold, get

my hat, sir. All these famous people now old and

thin  -  too thin like Mike McGlynn and dying, dying

fast. Then here comes Stella McCartney stretching

by and some other famous guy behind her.

-

'Yes, I came to see but now I see it's not just you

 it's also me....' Their voices trail off to oblivion.

6123. DUALITY IS ONE THING

DUALITY IS ONE THING

Marginal changes or enormous changes,

one thing leads to another, and safety is a

joke. My hard-hat's on your soft matter.

-

Here's the drawing for the way you should

go  -  follow these instructions and you'll

get there easily. My previous job was true.

-

In the stockroom shelter, I found John Ford

alive; or at least he was still breathing. He

pointed towards Monument Valley and said :

 'It's always more than just a picture to me.'

6122. HUNKY-DORY

HUNKY-DORY

The time mid-morning rolls around, I'm already

on my second day  -  I usually leave for somewhere

at dawn, take the dog for a hike, check out what

I'm not missing. I'm always polite, but when I

get back to things everyone's massing around,

all troubled with driving and their jaws and

bottoms. Girls in car mirrors. Men shaving

while they sit in traffic. Some big, old

jelly cop just watching the scene.

6121. SIXPENCE

SIXPENCE

I can't believe this : you're sitting around

listening to the Byrds and I'm just walking

in on another funny scene. Sweetheart of the 

Rodeo always reminds me of you  -  like 1970

or something backwards again, running in place

to flag the lagging iron. Those guys from upstate

were building the bridge, remember? They'd drive

down for every Monday morning, get drunk

enough to set to work, and stay. Union

labor never had it so good. 

6120. WHERE I SIT

WHERE I SIT
(to my sister maisy, 1862)

Where I am sitting is pain  -  a flaming

ulcer would have nothing on this, to show,

nor to proclaim. My wind-shaft atop this

regal barn has no movement left  -  neither

north nor south merits interest. Every civilian

has already left this war, or been killed. I feel

slain, myself; or dripping with dead blood.

Someone is pulling up the rear with a wagon

for field-dressing the wounded, the funeral

bier on wheels, as well, follows that. The few

horses left just whinney and gaze for something,

anything, to do. It's said that Lincoln himself

will be coming to view the scene. That Whitman

fellow  -  the strange man with those funny words  -

he's been here already, but there's little left behind.

I spoke to him but he just nodded, and said something

about a 'brotherly, comrade love', or similar. I'm

still sad. Or, yet, sad. No, I don't want to be still.
---
['This note was found, still clutched in the hand of
Henry Clagger, NY Battalion 4, Highlanders, at
Millrush Falls, May 9, 1862. His body was found,just
as he'd died, propped against a tree-stump, facing east,
along the open field.' - field orderly, Micah Jennings].

6119. MY DIATRIBE AGAINST LUCINDA SCOTH

MY DIATRIBE 

AGAINST LUCINDA SCOTH

'Your mind is like a fetid swamp where buffalo

drag their rumps across the muddy depths. You

give no solace and, cetainly, take none back. I've

seen you undress in full view of landlords and

boozers.  You stink like Hell and your body's

as bent : as bent as any newspaper storyline

ever was, as bent as a judge's search for the

truth, as bent as the path of that bullet going

for Kennedy's head. And, for now, sweetheart

that's really all I have to say.'

6118. I AM GROWING SLOW

I AM GROWING SLOW

I am learning manners. I am beginning to

drink tea  -  oh good lord, what's happening

to me. I tip the bellboy? I paid the toll?

What is happening to my criminal soul?

6117. RANKLE

RANKLE

The table is set with meaning; some

ice water sits in a globe, a few teacups

straggle about, a sugar spoon, spilled.

It's half-past ten already, and another

Bob Dylan is in town  -  not a fake

Bob Dylan but the real Bob Dylan  -

but what other sort is there since

he's fake himself? I cast such a

conjecture overboard, like a

thin magician his cape.

-

If I put some money down, how

far will you take me, blind? Can

I go? Have I been? I read all these

other writers today, so little of

nothing again.

-

Who put it best? Nabokov?

'How much is echoed there?

6116. THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE THING

THE MOST 

IMPOSSIBLE THING

All that I have lost has now disappeared  -

the mystery in the doorway now, like

a Victor Herbert ghost, is Charity and

Love and Caring  -  tripartite oneness,

again, can you help?

-

Symbols abound now that the gate is

broken, the latch won't work and the

hinges are rusted to lock. Even the

key is lost  -  and there is no

path away. 

-

There is a dark sky looming over me

here  -  help, oh help, oh help!

6115. SIMILE IS METAPHOR

SIMILE IS METAPHOR

Simile is metaphor forced;

the ice skaters are shaving

their skins and laces. The

taut lines on their faces, as

they glide by, show me

a different side. The

scrape of metal

on ice.