6582. A SET-TO OF PURE AND CHILDISH DRIVEL

A SET-TO OF PURE 

AND CHILDISH DRIVEL

Here, with the toy box open, are my suicide friends

again. Joe and 'Spunky' both, they've come back but

I don't know why. 'Spunky's' name was really Ed, which

I'd rather much prefer, and Joe was always Joe. In this

set, he's called in, after ten years, with Margaret, to say

he's really alive and this was all a hoax, a cover-story by

him to disappear or to achieve something I didn't quite

get. I told him 'fuck-you, and don't expect me around.'

Ed, on the other hand, had reappeared with bags and

bags, canvas, filled with his tools, which he was giving

away to a kid. They were both perched on the floor and 

the child gleefully looked up and told me 'he's giving me

all his tools!' I smiled and said, 'Ed, no more for you?'

Later on, in that kind of time/no time that we deal with

here, the street outside was filled with huge plastic

toys  -  the kid had been there for hours, arranging these

large planes and cars, each item either orange or blue,

along the street, for some hundred feet along. What a

sight it made, and Ed was in the rear bedroom, still 

pulling out tools, to no one now. I walked in and said

'have you seen what that kid's done out in the street, the 

way kids used to play, outdoors  -  all his toys and cars  -

you never see that anymore, kids outside, minding

themselves and playing set-ups with things in the

street. I remember, we did it all the time.' He didn't

even look up. The other Joe guy, he never did show up.

6581. POSTCARDS

POSTCARDS

You are one sight better than reserved and, kept for 

time, you have read the brittle newspapers and stopped;

supplying tripping words which ended as quickly as

they'd begun, and just as swift on every tongue. You

have watched the news and, stopped short by the vice

and the horror of men, continued gaping to seek a hole

in some paper-craft  -  a kindled origami of imagination

and worth of sorts. There are no needs unmet by savage

weddings  -  marriages of place and time, reason and rhyme,

unfettered dice hanging from some tree : cat's eyes,

double three's, something to go home with.

-

We measure such value in buckets

-

And, while no one seeks to return alone to the narrow

walk-up on twenty-third, its glazed windows made gray

and sad by smoke and the pallor of every city in a knot,

return alone you do. Your new coat is memory.

Your torn gloves are regret.

-

Up sixteen stairs, to the left, and two over, Number 371

is yours alone  -  another pile of glossy magazines, string

ripped broadly around the New York Post, two soup cans,

and something the cat forgot to eat. Somehow, the dripping

faucet still drips  -  but not delight, rather sensation seeks to

escape.  Undaunted, every valve in the building is doing the

same thing. It keeps you up at night  -  all this torment and

noise, the wheeze of circumstance, the awesome clang and

the puddle of death growing. Something leaks everywhere,

you shrug. We measure such value in buckets.

-

In this desert, the rain sends postcards home.

6580. CAN YOU SALVAGE THE SHIP TITANIC?

CAN YOU SALVAGE 

THE SHIP TITANIC?

This has already gone down already over and done

with too : what do you wish to do? Bring back

the dead alive? To this febrile new world?

Would anyone even know what to do?

-

I bring up old wood, Bakelite, heavy steel

and foundering ceramic and porcelain. You'll

note the lack of plastics  - thus, they would not

know these things. How would we clue them, 

tell them, fill them in? I'm too lazy for that.

-

Only a pliant crusade, one where the raiders get

weary and just turn around and go home; that's

the kind for me  -  books and magazines and the

sitting room couch for cigars and strong coffee

and no one to speak a word, not anyone at all.

6579. MORE MYSTERY OF NO MAGIC

MORE MYSTERY 

OF NO MAGIC

Tendentious repetition and these eyes keep

blinking : I am watching that girl changing labels;

sure to tell, I'm hoping she works here. If not anyway,

no more than anything else  -  not but my passing concern.

I sure don't work here. Powder-puff palace, fancy-ass

store, place where they keep the fine jewels and fabric

and wine. Who's bragging? Just the creeps on 57th.

-

The small green enviro-car has just landed on the corner;

out front, two girls now trundle in. I guess they've gotten 

away with whatever they did, but there's a funny buzzer

sounding. Anyway, everything is on camera these days.

-

Who can live without want or need?  Supposing that

there's something everyone wants, at some point, there's

also got to be ways to get it  -  hook or by crook. In this

case the crook. Like one time I was doing a job for some

lady, printing a flyer or something, and she asked 'how

long' would it take. I answered oh, four or five days.'

She replied, 'I'll take the four.' I had to answer back:

'I wasn't giving you a choice.'

-

See how things work? You've either got them right

from the very start, or they're screwed up and 

incorrect for the duration. Tendentious repetition, 

and these eyes just keep blinking.

6578. UP TOO LATE

UP TOO LATE

Up too late again, reading Hamlet again, and again

staging that game in my head. 'The change of words

would do me good,' I think to myself and work : 

'Oh that too solid flesh would melt away, or thaw,

and resolve itself to mist, or that the equally solid

God had not fixed his canon against self-slaughter!

Instead then, how weary, stale and flat and unprofitable

seem all the uses of this dreary world to me. To Hell

with it all! It's an unweeded garden that grows to seed;

the things which possess it are gross, and that is all

they hold onto no matter.' Then the late night bird

of darkness, as I notice, begins its shadowed twirl  -

late, late, and far too late for now. I must encircle

myself, yes, and guide away into another rounding

form of sleep and journey. Up too late again.

6577. IF ONLY THE WHIMSICAL NATURE OF THINGS

IF ONLY THE WHIMSICAL 

NATURE OF THINGS

In the apparent forms of lifelessness we are living,

there are images which flicker and fade, and others that

somehow remain : the hungry child with flies on its eyes

versus the puffball sluicepipe of presidents and senators

barking at microphones. The church-mouse steeple of

deep despair on those runway models' faces. I learn

to look away. I learn to look away.

-

And now, in a distant hilltop town, where the streams are

running Springtime thick and the deer and geese are coming

down, I sense the light of Being in each thing. If only the

whimsical nature of presence was more in apparent in

all that's done  -  I think then Mankind could be happy.

-

The sour-ball gum-drop of bitter and tart is what tightens

and makes a grimace of all our faces : the holiday kind,

the funeral kind, the policeman, the priest and the doctor

kind; the school-marm and the principal, alike, wear 

their own coats of blasphemy so as to get where 

they are going. To arise from their graves and 

aspire, to where their sunflower wishes to go.

6576. STAINED MIRACLE HEART

STAINED MIRACLE HEART

In the Bible it says to course one's spirit over

the stones of the field, to toughen the heart for

the Lord to come : vengeance and fury enough

to make burning bushes and parting seas seem like

campfire girls' musics. I reserve the potential to

see again this 'gentle' God break into fiery torrents.

Proclaiming the end of Time and Being while riding

a steed that is not there, just imagined. Fear does that,

and when we finally will see the skies go out, our own

leather-chained faces will be frozen so as not even able

to grimace or shout our own anguish out. That is the sense

of 'ending' which we have somehow still misinterpreted.

Time will solve all problems as Time itself dissolves away,

and problems in turn take on the sense of Time, never having

an ending, and never having arrived, in its essence, anyway.

6575. ALL THOSE DUMB HORSES

ALL THOSE DUMB HORSES

They seem always to be pulling, all those

dumb horses of Love. Do not they ever stop?

Will not they ever cease the tug? I myself grow

tired even; the need to resist, the strain to ignore.

I know and I realize the feel of what they're doing:

attempting to drag me over the rocky field, tear at

my skin, rip at my heart. All those dumb horses

of Love, never ceasing in their tug.

6574. BACKWOODS BLACKSMITH BLOGGING

BACKWOODS 

BLACKSMITH BLOGGING

That's what he called me, saying I was a crazy man, wild

and unkempt, hairy and poorly maintained, but brilliant

enough nonetheless -  not that it mattered, he said. We

have enough people out already writing about their

delusions and fantasy and all their extra-terrestrial

stuff. Why then should we need you? Yes, just

like that it was said. I sort of wanted to clock

him one with this tire iron I had in my hand,

but I just couldn't bring myself to 

expend the necessary energy. I

mean, who's worth what

around here?

6573. PERAMBULATE THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION MY ASS

PERAMBULATE THE 

TRILATERAL COMMISSION

 MY ASS

There are things you just don't hear of anymore.

I think that means they've done their job well, and 

it's now already over : world domination, subliminal

control, secret societies placing people in power while

kidnapping and killing the rest opposed. How in the

hell do you figure that out? Someone out there is closing

up libraries and bookstores  -  slowly but surely, as they

creep along. Another one out there is dedicating more

and more social monies to the production of arms and

armaments and the supposed defense. Hocus pocus

to all that  -  the lie has now taken root. All we can

do is flip beer cans until the end, mock people

like Donald Rumsfeld and his ilk, and feed

storylines to Oprah and Obama together.

Nice day. Nice world. Always beware.

6572. REGAL REALTY

REGAL REALTY

I'm living off the fat of the land now, hoof to mouth,

like a disease too I suppose : the prairie dog window,

always open, those mouths, always talking. Five new 

cars are parked at the side of the house across the way  -

new things always look so sleazy.

-

No matter how many times I count the totals, they

always come out wrong. Like myself approaching

Norman Mailer, I want to wonder : where does old 

fame go if no one knows the name? So, the question

is  -  how short is the time needed to fade away. Never

die, just fade away. General MacArthur said that.

-

Never fully knowing what that meant and why he said

it upon a firing demotion, I often wondered  -  growing

up  -  about how must the military mind work : take

it all in stride, profess no beliefs of your own, kill as 

you must, and as you've been trained. I suppose, again,

if it makes you feel OK, then it is OK. The regal

realty is the housing project in which

the King's mind dwells.

6571. WHAT THOM SAID

WHAT THOM SAID

Thom McGuane said they called the brothel out 

on the edge of town 'The Butt Hut.' I'll take his 

word for that, mainly because it sounds so right.

When they finally closed it down, those real-estate

people. as always goes, got their way. Listed it as:

'Home on the river; eight bedrooms, eight baths,

no kitchen. Changing times force sale.' Ain't that

to be a bitch? They buried the old owner, the madam,

Miriam Lawler, an overweight elder, in the wash dress

of a ranch wife beloved by many friends. All but one

of the girls dispersed, and left the town away.

-

That's where, to my hearing, the story ended. I never

heard no more  -   like who came back, or what they

did, or how one satisfies that 'itch', you know, once 

you've had it constantly, and then no longer. Not 

satisfied? Or do you not even notice? Them girls

I bet could'a told me. Now, even I'm all washed up

and just hanging around here thinking about some

fruity old Texas town of long, long ago.

6570. THE HAPPINESS FIX

THE HAPPINESS FIX

(Just another true story)

Here in the Alps, I've got the happiness fix.

Here, in Virginia, I've got the happiness fix.

Here, in Lomax County, Alabama, I've got 

the happiness fix. She's green and she's blue,

he's black and he's yellow, and what care I

for any difference between the two. If there

may be a moment like this again, I will go 

to Maine and Georgia. You will mix me 

up a cocktail or two?

-

The most modern and the newest of space-saving

devices I shall design. Close the cosmos up, wrap

it over an envelope of changing dimensions. That

is precisely my mission now, in this vagrant's life.

My thoughts for supper you can have on a platter.

-

The world I inhabit is a senseless, brutal thing, and

I witness no meanings in all the caverns I explore :

that man's dog just jumped up onto that girl's body

with its standing feet  -  this is true  -  throwing her 

off her stride, and pushing her back from the pelvis

out. There seemed now to be something in her eye.

The guy comes over, I swear, and says to her :

'did that dog just penetrate your vagina?'

6569. WHAT I WANT

WHAT I WANT

Really, listen for a moment, hear me out:

what I want is an illustrated history of your

heart and mind. All of you. Humans on parade.

What I want is to be able to find the way in  - 

hearts and minds, flutters and fires, what makes

you all tick and why do I love it so? I was once

a total stranger, born to sole-living and walking

in woods alone. Practicing for the Oratorical Contest

in the South Jersey Pines, I'd walk the sandy woods 

with a pebble in my mouth, following the lead of

that Greek orator Demosthenes  -  it aids diction, 

clarifies the speaking. It did, I guess, I won. He did

it walking along beaches. I did it in the pines.

-

Then I awoke from a slumbered sleep of a reverie

I knew I'd never understand without an outreach to

every girl and man. Here's my paddle, that's my oar; I

I am out, a'sea, on your lake of Being. Can you 

help me propel this flimsy craft?

6568. EASTER MAKES ME SICK

EASTER MAKES ME SICK

Easter makes me sick, like slogging through a dungheap

fully expecting to get up again, and  -  knowing that  -  

taking whatever cheap abuse is given. Here, out here

in lemonland, the sky is always lit  -  yellow marbles, 

like stars, and a lemon pie like some fat, full moon.

6567. WHY CAN'T I BE YOU, AND FREE?

WHY CAN'T I BE 

YOU, AND FREE?

I froze my pants off in Philadelphia, walking.

Just my pants, not my ass  -  I still had that.

If there'a a semblance of difference or doubt

therein, you'd better let me know because I'll

most certainly do it again. My inner compass

has no true anything. That needle flies dangerously

'round. I know it's not 1927, but why are you drinking

like it is? One foot up on the other table, and a cut

on your tongue from biting yourself trying to talk.

Yep; and you thought no one was watching.

-

When I get up in the morning, the first thing I usually

do is make coffee  -  just crawling around, mostly

before I pee, though not always. Those first ten minutes

are the most difficult, because I'm still lodged somewhere

else thinking things, from tempermental dreams and 

tempermental other times : like 'why can't I be you?'

and 'why can't I be free?' Meaningless drivel, I'll

grant you that, yet, ten minutes ago, in some other

place of mind and sleep, both statements made a 

ton of sense. Can you, do you, understand me?

-

Now, it's one full day later and I'm trying to convince

you here, in some Philadelphia tiny cavern bar  -  nothing

like a Rotten Ralph's or anything like that  -  that you'd

better stay right here, and that leaving again for California

would make absolutely no sense at all and you'd only come 

back again.Whining about what you did. Ranting about that

guy with the big dick who promised you everything and then

disappeared two days later. Yeah, it's tough when you know 

no one and fall for it all  -  fake premise, false promise, and 

a guy with no background to search in any way. 

Just gone tomorrow, though here today.

6566. THEY ONLY WANT TO SING 'CARA MIA'

THEY ONLY WANT 

TO SING 'CARA MIA'

The Carmichals are out again  -  five drinks too late,

they're ranting like fools on vacation. Not one of their

eyes are focused, and they only want to sing 'Cara Mia'.

The one girl is already half half hanging out of her shirt; 

not that I'm complaining, but doesn't anything fit around here?

The bartender  -  whom I've been watching  - keeps taking 

money off the bar; but that's what you get for being drunk

and leaving your dough around. They only want to sing

'Cara Mia'. There's actually a map of Ireland on one wall

here, with names and names and names  -  almost every

Irish surname you ever heard of, and the place from

which they originate  -  like a name map of Irish Kilkennys.

Of course, why any of this leads them to 'Cara Mia' again

is well beyond me. They only want to sing 'Cara Mia'.

The backs of both my hands are spattered with a new

dose of poison ivy, and I really want to itch but won't.

I thought that cutting hedges back on April first would

save me the poison ivy; still dormant, thought I. Not so,

now pay the price. (They only want to sing 'Cara Mia').

6565. THE BELLOW BRIEF

THE BELLOW BRIEF

Tonight, this winter scarf is again wrapped

around me head. Tonight, I am walking slowly

through a wind and a storm, not wanting to go

anywhere, yet on the move no matter. Chicago

is never New York, but New York can sometimes

be like Chicago, with this incessant, blinding wind.

Careening around corners, high-flying things, updrafts

and wind-whirl, all manner of things being tossed about.

The mind itself is like a utensil at times like these  -  

tossed about too, swirled with bloody opinions of a

hundred different shades. The corner? I should know

where to turn, but don't. Face it, gents and ladies,

sui generis, I am authentically lost and just won't

look up, just won't look up at all.

6564. WHY THE JEWISH FELLOW FLIES ON PASSOVER NIGHT

WHY THE JEWISH FELLOW 

FLIES ON PASSOVER NIGHT

'Bring to me a semblance of that something known

already to the world as real and true : seeded rye, a seat

at a long Pastrami table, all your ruggelah and gefilte

in the world, I don't care. I'm a worldly gent, I'm a

secular Jew. All the rest of this, it's all my grandmother's

crap  -  gentle memories, perhaps, but just something for

the film and the movie. Everything in the world  -  all

your passion and lust and flavor and fire, all your ideology

and beliefs together  -  they are only good inasmuch as

they can be turned into money. Cold cash, but money

no matter. The rest is a feint  -  a story for the goys to

buy and pay for. Chosen people? Bring me a frog. The

favorites of Yahweh? What the fuck. I'm headed back

to L.A., for this, my nineteenth film. Soft core, never

over that invisible line  -  sex pranks and double entendres.

We want the little bitchy Christians to welcome this into

their homes, remember, to buy and flag and pay for

this  -  our hard and carefully selected production crap.

Religion and politics, not mixing? I'll tell you

about that, next year, in Jerusalem.'

6563. LESSONS

LESSONS

I learned all I ever knew from Frank O'Hara : the

unsettled and the dumbstruck walking a Fourth Avenue

turn, a University Place seat at some funky bar. The

men who hack meat hunks over on Gansevoort Street

were not the same ones who slice finely on Lexington

or Park. Those are all different things. As Lincoln

once said to a waiter in a bad DC restaurant, refusing

his beverage and turning it back : 'If this is tea, bring 

me coffee. If this is coffee, I'll have tea.'

-

A few things do come to mind -  I never expected to

live this long; I never asked for a charmed life; and the

extent extents of my injuries have never been known.

At least with Lincoln  -  bad coffee notwithstanding  - 

they knew why he died. But Frank O'Hara, that

dithyramb triumphalist always chasing men and

boys, he wrote from another position, and was

killed by a beach buggy on a Fire Island midnight

beachfront, run down accidentally like a dog

and the whole writing world did cry about.

6562. THE SWIFT AND SETTLED PUNCH-OUT ROUTINE

THE SWIFT AND SETTLED

PUNCH-OUT ROUTINE 

Do you still want to fight? It's like seventh grade all over again,

idiot kids fighting at the bus-stop while waiting at the curb for

the stupid yellow bus : school days and a bloOdy lip. We really

weren't very cool. I always had to come to the aid of some

jerkoff friend who was always getting in trouble  -  one or

another local thug getting angered over something he'd do

or say. Mickey Mantle. Cassius Clay  -  those were big 

names back in that day. Ingemar Johansson, Floyd

Patterson, Roger Maris, Anita O'Day. Bam, bam,

you're down and out and nestled and gone away.

6561. COMMINGLED COMPATRIOTS

COMMINGLED COMPATRIOTS

I know they're standing out there at the curb with

cigarettes in their mouths talking sports : the new

guy playing one position or another for a team in

a season that hasn't even started yet. Whenever we 

reach the opener, it's always Spring, like taxes.

-

How do you want to mark your time? Over at the

park, that little spring with the free water is always

running  -  always, no matter what, running. People

come with their containers and fill their supply up.

-

I know I do it. Just in the last few years, and the

South Asians here now, there are always coins in 

the drain basin  -  mostly dimes and nickels. Those

who hope for coin-wishes are probably the same who

pray to Gods and Goddesses of fire and love. Good

fortune. It's pretty overwhelming  -  that one would

throw money down to somehow placate a God to

granting a wish  -  or something like that. I can never

figure these things out. Don't they ever realize it's all

self-generated  -  the wish, the hope, the God and the

solutions? Try it with anything else, see what you get.

-

So, this line of demarcation is marked by words  -  make

the difference yours, one spring or another  -  how many 

of them overlap before we're dead and gone? I have eyes

like a warrior, just watching things, looking for the 

offender, watching to see what must be defended.

One way or the other, I'll get it eventually. Coins,

great God, or no coins accepted. I don't know.

6560. INTERCONTINENTAL DASHBOARD BRIEF

INTERCONTINENTAL 

DASHBOARD BRIEF

You may have achieved superstar status but that's

not cutting it with me. '90% off beautiful lace

dresses'  -  that's what the Spring sale sign said

at Altamont Dress Shop, but the confusion reigned

nonetheless. What exactly were they giving? My main

man Hanso, the gay guy who sells to women, was

just as confused. 'Why then do they want me to say?'

Constricted larynx and all the rest, flapping his hands

like a devilish one. He's a riot too. Smokes a cigarette

exactly like Dean Martin. I know, I know, who's that?

-

There I was 50 years ago, sitting in Franklin Hite's

apartment at 199 New Street in New Brunswick, up

on the roof watching the New York trains roll by  -  on

the turntable we were all supposed to be listening to the

newest Beatles thing : Abbey Road, or one of them, the

one with 'you never give me your money' and 'Maxwell's

Silver Hammer.' I can't remember what or why I cared.

He was a real hummer  -  bumming out on his wife 

and coming home to hear new music.

-

So now that's all gone away  -  so is the New Brunswick

I speak of : all replaced, every store front and pizza joint

and bar, by the white buildings of Johnson and Johnson

downtown on one side, and a brickfront line of fancied-up

restaurant storefronts on the other. just no comparison,

might as well be a different place entirely. And is.

-

What do you call it when they give away a town  - sell

it outright to some highest corporate bidder who then

rips it all down and drives out the downtown people?

I call graft. I call it corruption. You want to call it

progress, go right ahead. I ain't to be stopping you.

The only thing running steady for now is the train.

6559. LUCKY FOR OTHERS

LUCKY FOR OTHERS

'You know what this sounds like just now  -  nothing 

more than another loser-point for me. I'm depressed 

anew over everything. No best friends stuff for me, I 

think I'll call up Lufthansa to see if they're hiring.

I know they're at least one short. Kiddo, kiddo,

put the Mercurochrome back in the pouch

and quite your crying now. I would like 

to be the diarist who never writes 

a word. Alone. Unstructured.

Vacant. Unsound.'

6558. WHAT THE WEIRD EASTER LADY SAID

WHAT THE WEIRD 

EASTER LADY SAID

'Well, which of my gentleman friends shall rise again

first?' Just like that. Almost sadly funny in a racingly 

immodest way; but that's what you get for paying for

sex in a bordello commune filled with knick-knacks.

Paddy-whack. Give the dog a bone.

6557. SILENCE MAKING EMOTIONS MORE EXTREME

SILENCE MAKING 

EMOTIONS MORE 

EXTREME

The man with an extra finger (he's already shown me)

is cutting a tree  -  some pretty major chain-saw stuff I'd

imagine he feels pretty safe doing; extra-finger and all.

He can always stand to lose one, better than you or me.

Oh sure, we can withstand blows, but, c'mon, I mean.

He looks funny anyway, all those jagged saw-motions,

like something strange, or from another world. Anyway.

You know how, in one of those old silent films, the action

is jerky, things are speeded up; well, that comes from

film speed and the hand-held crank of the first cameras :

varying speeds, a language of gestures, stares and flapping

mouths, with halting or skittering walks. Early on, shot at

sixteen or eighteen frames per second, they were projected

a little faster. By the late 1920's they were they were often

shot at higher frame rates, maybe twenty-two. Then, later,

when music was added, they suddenly HAD to move through

the projector at twenty-four frames per second so the optical

sound reader could handle the music track. Those are the

ones we see : Expressions of intimacy and beauty? Emotions

recollected in tranquility? The paraphrase of love and heart

in the flickering light of a vast, dark room? What a world it

must have been, what a new world in all ways to see.

6556. I AWAKE IN NEW NOISE

I AWAKE IN NEW NOISE

(for the Avenel crowd I know)

Those tearing down buildings don't stop at destruction;

they have to rub it in with noise. From the nineteen twenties

here an old industrial plant is being taken down, one noisy

step at a time  -  for light, it's said, for happiness and mirth,

for new, classy condo-housing for some smarter set due

to come in. The New York trains sit right there. Whoppee!

Can't wait! Thin-legged, purple-pants, top-hatted gents of

fey swagger will so soon be stepping off that platform. The

Arts District crowd all over again : just like Princeton,

though without McCarter. And the women! Wha-hoo!

-

On the other hand, right here, right now, there is the 

seamless drudgery of the everyday crowd  -  they traipse 

off to eight o'clock work, trudging their kids and bundles

along  -  off to the school just over there : weird, old

crossing guards in their safety-electric-yellow garb;

people almost out of work and reach. The cars slowly

wait while schoolbuses unfold and jello-laced teachers

drive in. There's an art to that to. Here I live.

-

Avenel Street champ, one left-turn in. General Dynamcis,

originally Security Steel way, way back  -  maker of steel

safety cabinets and then submarine electronic parts, falls

away like a dream now bludgeoned by incest. We partake

of foul cruelty, watching it fall and be ripped apart.

Take a moment to stop. Let us watch : it is, after

all, Easter, when things rise again.

6555. HATE TO CALL THIS THING THE WORLD

HATE THE CALL THIS 

THING THE WORLD

Early morning, after sunrise, the thing they call 'dawn',

perhaps from then on I was set  -  walking the old

Ukrainian cemetery somewhere with my dog at

my side. At my side. Some of these graves are old.

Not historic old, but like 1907 old  -  enough for

me. When fires were still lit by heart and habit,

and people knew how to walk. The old cement

has fallen from the crosses, the old vaults are

torn open or sunk, and broken up with dirt.

I'm betting I'll get dizzy and die right here

and if I fell just right I could take up one of 

these holes. Nobody would know, 'cept my

dog would be crying, and I'm not Ukrainian,

though I did know a Ukrainian priest from

Elizabeth, New Jersey. Big, fancy parish but

he angered his flock, back then, by installing 

very expensive and exquisite welded gates between

the altar area and the congregants  -  they felt put

out and isolated  -  yet to him it was the most modern

and best approach to sprucing up the church. He once

instructed me on how to properly spell 'Ukrainian'  -

not as 'Ukranian', which often happens. 'Remember,'

he said, 'it always rains in the Ukraine.' So, hey, I

digress? This old end of the graveyard brings me in  -  

takes me right to a more real world of loves and lucks

I'd only wish to be part of. By contrast, today's world is

mud  -  presenting nothing but muck back to me. Why?

The highway rings this graveyard now  -  Route 9, so 

proud of itself but stupid too, and the toll road over

there. All I hear is its incessant turnpike roar of nothing.

I hate to call this thing the world.

6554. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Just how long do I have to wait for you,

honey, before I can say you're gone? Seven

years is worth a long-time itch. Why'd you

have to go and disappear : you've been seen

in 'Frisco Bay, in Saigon, in Jawalapur I'm even

told. These reports keep filtering in. Like the

idea of an old song  - Righteous Brothers kind

of crap  -  the surge of waiting long takes over

the instrumentation. Nothing seems to move.

6553. THIS ONE HAS TO BE DARK

THIS ONE HAS TO BE DARK

When the lights go out, Cleveland is helpless.

In such an utter darkness  -  without street lamps  -

no one knows what to expect. The case is to be 

made for anarchy breaking out? In rows, one

after the other, all the houses are shaking. 

-

The first blackout I experienced escaped me.

I was not at home; 80 miles away, 1964 or so,

the entire world in New York City was so dark

long enough that nine months later there was

a local surge in births. Go figure the odds.

-

They said the whole east coast went black.

I was more Philadelphia than New York City

at that time, and deep in the Jersey Pines whatever

light there was anyway seemed to just stay on. 

Radios, lights, TV's, and even bare bulbs. On.

6552. BE ADMIRED FOR YOUR BEAUTY

BE ADMIRED FOR 

YOUR BEAUTY

One time and over the top like a Jules Verne

balloon aloft flying :  the little gem that was

England is gone and nothing more will be

forthcoming. Emerald Isle right alongside;

who's saying they're not for keeps?

-

Now the wisdom teeth are drowning in the 

drain; listen to that drip, drip of the water

overhead. Living like this, in a bomb shelter

again, is nightmare nostalgia and nothing more.

Toughen up, little one, we'll make it through.

6551. A REAL MESS

A REAL MESS

(but, whatever)

I broke my arm pitching on opening day  -

nothing's been the same since. My old apartment

in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, back when I had it,

was pretty hip and just on the cusp of gentrification.

Jubilation. Genuflection. Introspection. All the

Brooklyn barroom shit, now gone to hell.

-

Listening to Scriabin on the CD player, all my

mind wants to do is remember : 'where'd I park?'

There's also a place near here called 'Weird Eye

Park'.  Figure that out  -  old guys always ogling

young girls. That's how it got its name. Like

'Needle Park', back in the 60's and 70's of 1900.

Anybody remember that? As in 'Panic In Needle

Park'. Al Pacino, I think. Not near as good, to

me, as 'Basketball Diaries', with Jim Carroll  -  

who wrote the book  -  in the movie as well. 

But, whatever.

6550. HAND-HELD OASIS

HAND-HELD OASIS

However I move this viewpoint, the view stays the same :

a small oasis perched on the bed-point of desert time. Things

shimmer and the scene gets wavy. When I arrive there, it is

not. It has been said that the mind breaks down slowly  - a

bit by a bit by a bit. Imprecise words begin replacing the

precision and detail of old. Just a clue that you're falling

away. I guess, much like this oasis, we start generalizing

before we wither, making things hazy, uncertain, and with

very poor outline. In the shimmer ahead, things move about.

-

There are so many things that I cannot define.

Already. What that says about me, I just do not know.