9497. HOW TO STAY DRUNK

HOW TO STAY DRUNK

Time is an inexorable creep, always

running on. The way this one guy

did, Charley Price, I think his name

was, came from daily trips in early

morning light, to church  -  as the

sexton. The communion wine, stored

like anything else, by the crate in the

storage room, was always there to open

another day. It worked. Some days,

there was a six o'clock mass, but 

everyday there was a seven AM. The

same few elderly ladies from around the

decrepit town, or what passed for it.

Prayers and promises, the whole pissy 

load. They squirm up to the communion 

rail and smile. I was most often the altar

boy kid they'd see. Yeah, me. This Father

Egan guy, he'd speed-read the Mass and

rip through the whole thing in twenty

minutes. That'd leave some more time

for the sampling. All things happen

fast under the most holy sun; and

daybreak always came soon enough.

9496. GASTON SEE

GASTON SEE

I lived in Gaston See; my first

wive was a millionairess whose

family had made a fortune in

bubble gum futures. Why play 

it dry, when you can wait for

it to get wet?

-

For my first five generations, 

that was my motto. Glissando

amorato. When I finally left

the town (she'd taken off with

a local padre), the entire village

said goodbye.

-

It all used to make me sad, but 

no longer does it now. I sit around

and read  -  I have a monthly playlist,

go places where my manager sends

me, do my stuff for a roomful of

people. I'm still a rich man in so

many ways; I just have little

to show for it all. 

9495. MEGATRONIC

MEGATRONIC

Calculus is just a storybook;

a sad source I never got the

meaning of. Don't judge me

by the cover, OK? I was here

before you were born. And after

the lights go out, I'll be here still.

-

There's a fen oasis I live in : nothing

you can see or learn about. If you

hear the rustle of the wind, that's

me. And I'll be here when 

the wind goes out.

9494. YOU CAN LIFT THE STYLUS

YOU CAN LIFT THE STYLUS

If you wish I mean. Nothing out 

of the ordinary on this day. Limbs 

are lost though the trees still stand. 

There's an iron beach under 

this iron hand.

9493. BUT IF I WERE

BUT IF I WERE

I have certain beliefs I profess to live by;

the lantern is set on the table  -  that white,

Coleman hiss giving a certain form of

comfort. I take solace, maybe. There are

fronds of a plant drooping over the edge,

how long that will be I do not know.

Something else is humming, somewhere.

-

The light today is a bare gray, outside of

the season, seeming to take nothing of its

own definition. Throwing palates of pale

on the corners and flats, I can live like

this, I suppose. I must. I suppose.

-

You can't unearth spaghetti, nor can

one hide a waffle under a lamp : yet,

the scientists of syrup and dining will

be working on these things  -  tracing my

eye movements, watching readers as they

scan ads and scams , so to see what the

fools will fall for. I fall for light. Yes.

-

If what made you buy that is what made

you but that, then all is well beneath the

sun. (But Mama, that's where the fun is?)

9492. PUT THE CHANGE IN THE APPLESAUCE

PUT THE CHANGE 

IN THE APPLESAUCE

(memorial day)

And  -  oh please  -  add the bills to the

collection tray. This is tricky treat day,

remember. There are four soldiers at

the window, just back from some war 

or another. They were snipers, last, in

Sudetenand, and now, back home, they

need a job. So, so, they come here? I

have questions for them : why are there

so many wars, why do their type keep

volunteering, how many wounded equal

one dead, what's the ratio for that?

-

Down in New Egypt, Chesterfield, NJ,

whatever it is, there's a military cemetery

that runs for miles. Major Doyle something

or other. The place is filled with bones of

the returning dead : war after war after war.

No stone left unturned, as it were, but nothing

here but flat plaques, flush with the ground,

bragging. Every bit of service has its pride.

-

No 'gravestones' are allowed; just this flat 

stuff; where all these preening types can 

still proclaim they are equal, like the false 

Liberty they claim to have fought for. Equal 

this, equalizer bunny. The guns are in the 

cabinet, the tanks are on the lawn.

9491. THE LAST FANDANGO IN ALSACE-LORRAINE

THE LAST FANDANGO IN 

ALSACE-LORRAINE

That was going to be the story of my fictional

autobiography, along with some commentary by

one of the Wright Brothers, but it never got off

the ground. Ideas come, and ideas will go.

So, instead, I was left with Lindbergh's

checkbook, in my empty hands.

-

She used to be a coal-miner's daughter, but

I changed all that. The stories some started

telling, well, some of them were true, and

I'd acknowledge a portion, but then, no, I

never did that stuff. The Lusitania sunk on

its own, nothing to do with me, bombs and

firepower and all that. Same with the

Titanic : I mean, I've made ice in a tray

for drinks, but, come on, please.

-

The rest of all this is fable anyway, although

I did really know Br'er Rabbit. It was a nice

time, those months we spent together. Until

Jiminy Cricket came along. He made fools

of all that slavery and black stuff : leave it

to 'Americans' and their home-grown snuff

to cover over truth and beauty in the real.

-

Disney-Schmisney, you can' find that in

Home Depot. Or Barnes and Noble either.

The only place that's good for truth is that

padlocked thing they used to call home. 

Now it's all torn down and paved over, and

the real estate is hawking lots to build on

where your front lawn used to be.

-

Ghosts and boll-weevils. Bullets and 

mandarins. Bonnie and Clyde on the 

Pepsi-Cola can, and wines from vineyards 

named for murderers and thieves. It's all

so crazy now, and it seems unjust. Oh, yeah,

that Jiminy Cricket I mentioned, he made

fools of all of us.

9490. THE LOTTERY

THE LOTTERY

I was Tuesday's winner but I didn't play.

You might as well give up for life now,

because it's not going to happen again. 

You true fool  -  and you always have

been  -  if you didn't play then why 'd

you check. These regular numbers are

a killer. If you don't play them, Jeez,

don't look. It's enough to slit your

throat over, I'd say. Good-bye

to all that.

-

I was an unjust teen, a

'troublemaker' they called me. 

But it wasn't true at all, it just found

me. And I never knew what to do

with to once it got me. It's tough

being speechless and young. 

-

So, now I'm old. I seldom play

the lottery; or 'the numbers' as I call

them, and my Grandma did too. We used

to play, out on the streets of Bayonne.

She'd give me a paper with some maybe

ten numbers on it, and say go to Mary

Abate's neighbor Jenny, and give her

this. Two or three bucks and the slip.

-

Somehow the paper went from Jenny to

Louie at the corner store and some guy in

a Buick would soon come by and take

what he took  -  fancy suit, white shirt,

black car. And a gun too. I'd see it

sometimes hanging. No one cared.

-

The little Polish city was run-down 

and dreary. Nobody really knew

a thing.

9489. ROWBOAT, ROWBOAT, TAKE ME AWAY

ROWBOAT, ROWBOAT, 
TAKE ME AWAY
I'd heard it said, in some sort of a

darkness, echo-chambered, 'without

a doubt we sometimes eclipse our

own dreams with reality.' We do

not, and it is not. Somehow it feels

like Christmas around me once again.

The weather outside the window is

not cold at all, as this thought would

need it to be. Yes. It is temperate now.

Something better to live with. Not

'intemperate,' and what a simple

difference is that between words.

The rest of this ordeal should be

so easy. I am about to put a boat

into the water. I want to do it silently,

but water bends only so much, and 

eventually, the surface tension 

breaking, you get the noise that

others can hear. Blackbeard, once

sneaking away in stealth from a

confinement, told me that as he fled.

Rowboat, rowboat, take me away!

For 17 days  -  up until now  -  I have

been held in this stinking jail : though

now I can say 'that' stinking jail for

I am no longer there. Like Blackbeard,

I have escaped in secret, into some

sundry night. Where dead men tell 

no tales. Where the raft of the lethal

is already sinking. And where I snuck,

so in silence and with stealth, that

even my success would have made 

now Blackbeard smile at my

deliverance; self-made, and

done to a fine perfection.

9488. SALOME

SALOME

On this platter is the head of John.

I will dance for you, for he is gone.

I will dance for you for he is gone.

On this platter is the head of John.

9487. CASTING FOR IMAGES

CASTING FOR IMAGES

I've heard Shadow-Dancer and Necromancer,

never knowing what either one was. Bands?

Or ogres and evils? The dark renegades of

some northern woods may have followed

me home. My mind is an elastic band; made

to stretch and grow, and then recede  -  the

common attributes of madmen capable of

anything at all. I cannot speak for others 

if I do not first speak for myself. I am

Trylon, and I am Perisphere, both.

9486. IN THE MANNER OF ALL THINGS

IN THE MANNER 

OF ALL THINGS

Candlelight and tablecloth, we never get

options. Four legs or two, how would you

please to live? Put this down and have it

remain, or fly around slow-floating into

space? What a lovely world, in ways, that

could be. There's a Starbucks on the corner,

where people sit. They stare at the square

in the center of Morristown. One of the

places I hate the most, by the way. There

was a Starbucks here 30 years ago too, in

this very same place, of old storefronts then.

They've since torn everything down and rebuilt

it all, and put another Starbucks back, in this 

very same place where people still sit.

9485. HERE'S THE PRECIPICE (KRUEZSPIEL)

HERE'S THE PRECIPICE (KRUEZSPIEL)

Sometimes I can't go any farther than this : I stop at

the edge of the distance and wonder which way I

should turn. On the one side, in that direction, are

the flagellants, yelling their squamish wails. On the

other, the ruse of the silent monks, just staring.

Instead of it all, I have Stockhausen here, playing.

-

There's a littoral that I walk : wet sand, the tripping

of rocks along the beach, the sort of polished-to-dull

glass that gets washed up on shore. Curious, I seek

more, bending over to witness what is. The key, in

all of this life, is to accept the Now. Stop making

the categorical designations wherein reside the

failures and the avoidances of moment.

-

Men are walking by water, and a few paces behind them,

I figure, are their equaling-number female mates; like

apes on a beach, washed up to a newer land, they look

for boundaries here. There is a silence, even in their

noise. Why my head is boundless, I do not know.

-

Essential moments, my own anyway, are so few and far

between : things to be noted and checked off and marked

for cataloguing as treasures  -  a certain traditional learning

in an enterprise of museum-like trance, in an 'institution'

of my making. It's high, high crimes, and misdemeanors

too, in the terms of this modern world : I am a betrayer.

-

I watch the women; they walk together in a bunched-up

sisterhood. I hear the men, as they pass, the one saying,

'Well, mostly, now all I do is watch the porn.' Whatever

that tends to mean, I want to pull him aside and just say:

'This is your life. See what you are doing. Stop for a

moment, once each day perhaps, and listen at least for

the chatter, the marks, the sounds. To Kreuszspiel,

then, if not to anything else. It's equally

demanding a task. Too little to ask?'

9484. SOMEBODY LIKE ME

SOMEBODY LIKE ME

Somebody like me

erases images, and then 

spends days trying to 

read the erasures. 

9483. NOW COME HERE, WILLY-NILLY

NOW COME HERE, 

WILLY-NILLY

Your Chesterfield-Homburg hat wears a smile.

It does nothing for me, but I understand the

premise : there are premature emotions in

all sorts of places. Fortunately, I am good

at playing dumb.

-

This is how my sister Emily flew home :

on the wings of desire. The rest of the

small town greeted her with delight,

while I just looked the other way. Like

a veteran, I limped, and pretended

at having awful wounds.

-

Oh, but, that was so long ago. KheSan,

Pleiku, An Loc, Phuon Long, and

even Dienbeinphu. Out of time,

but still a song. In the Highlands,

the Montengards, they hitched

beads and made trinkets all day.

Once fires and flame learned to

fall from the sky, it was all over,

and so was I.

9482. JUST LIKE ALL THAT

JUST LIKE ALL THAT

Those penny loafers.

I saw them on TV. They

were talking in tongues,

though they had none.

9481. HOW'S THE HOUSING STOCK IN YOUR TOWN?

HOW'S THE HOUSING 

STOCK IN YOUR TOWN?

What they don't have, they build,

and what isn't there, they bury. 

These are the kings of these shoals,

the masterminds of this devolution.

The Sewaren old-timers who scrunch

around the dock all day with little

else to do. Looking straight out,

except it's a backwards look.

Here comes that gamey guy, 

with the school bus he drives.

Another twenty-five minutes,

he's got to leave again to

pick up another load.

9480. MY HABITS

MY HABITS

I guess they run the gamut? The

entire rash of nothing. Fur-lined

slippers? No, no, not me. Calfskin

gloves? No, no, not me. Rather

a pig-in-a-poke than a cat-in-the-hat?

Yeah, I guess, maybe, sure.

-

I like my milk sour. My pasta al dente.

I like my toothpaste fresh-squeezed,

and my orange-juice in a tube? I don't

know if any of that's true, or even

possible. Once I went to the Hill 

Climbs, in Freemansburg, PA.

Motorcycles everywhere, club 

guys in attendance, hatchets and

wolf calls too. Alcohol was ample,

enough anyway to get some crazy

girls disrobing in 95-degree heat.

-

What a crazy game that is  -  how

Bikers do that. Grizzled and bare,

gnawing on meat, campfires maybe,

and crazy, dancing girls to a live

music beat. Some say it's crazy.

others say it's neat. For me, it's

more comfort. I'll take a seat.

Yeah, man, back then, it was

a tough life, for sure.

9479. TO BE

TO BE

To be the last carnival in the desert,

the last camel in the caravan, and to

hold new sunlight in the palm of my

open hand. Let it land, and then close.

I would feel like a desert nomad again.

9478. 1-NEITHER

1-NEITHER

For this moment I will stay,

posing in the Springtime light,

amidst the early sky and distant

moon, each thing with a meaning.

There are sounds to be heard, and

the spreading force of that green

fuse, growing things sprightly from

the dead, brown earth. Where so 

before there was nothing, now 

there is all this. Bissful, how

these hi-hats all sing.

-

Their new day song is enamored of

Life; here, and there, and there.

Two by two, it seems, everything

new happens twice : at twice

the speed of Life. One day we

live in doubt, the next the very

world is open, upon us.

9477. OH THE SECURE MAN

OH THE SECURE MAN

He's running again. That's him,

the blur. He holds forth with

yesterday's news, but it suits

him fine. Part of the crowd,

sublime.

9476. NEW DRAFT

NEW DRAFT

Your new draft of old beer is pretty

nice. You look like High-Ho Silver

in disguise. I knew about all that

before, but never mentioned. I know

there are spirits in your eyes, things which

tell tales of captivity and all those ancient

tribes. I think we may have wandered

together. 'Na'ar bocheh'-  that means

'a crying youth'  -  that's what they call

Moses in my Midrash readings. But the

expression 'jarringly evokes a much older

child than the infant of three months that

the Bible story mentions.' The hidden,

infant Moses, hidden in a caulked and

sealed box or basket in the reeds, is

found in a scene of womanly compassion,

but these weird Bible Midrash guys insist

he was a much older male when discovered.

'His voice was like a young man's, and he

could already speak.' By saying so, they've

conveniently already given Moses his 

'blemish'. But I don't know why they

feel that need, these crazy scholars;

I feel they just make things up. 'Such

precociousness would be a physical

peculiarity, a form of disability, which

is what we are trying to prove.' Then

they go on (yeah, it's not over) - 'For

Israel is a youth, and I love him.'

Yeah, God said that.
Right.

9475. PUNK ASS

PUNK ASS

I've got a great many theories that don't

hold water  -  but that's OK I seldom get

thirsty. One pet idea of  mine is that dogs

can talk, but only if you listen from inside.

Another is that a bad tooth will eventually

cure itself. These are pretty good ideas. If 

I put a tophat on, I can look like a really

poor Abe Lincoln. The last five words I've 

spoken have never been uttered before.

Well there you have it. I'm done and

there's no more.

9474. EMPATHY (darling girl)

EMPATHY

(darling girl)

This is not empty space that I

inhabit, it is real, and within

it, I live. Small rooms, single

floor, flat world. I don't need

Columbus, or anyone, to tell

me any different. My globe

is only in my mind. All the

rest of this world is flat,

-

A single plane of linear

understanding : so sad about

all that. Stuck in La Brea

when I want to fly higher.

-

This mission is accomplished,

I suppose, only if I somehow live

to tell about it  -  otherwise you

would not know me, as I'd not know

of you. What I want now are

candy kisses in the dark.

-

Moses said things; like 'Lord,

here I am, who am I? I am not

a man of words. I am heavy of

mouth and heavy of tongue.'

-

Forgive me this, forgive what I am

saying. Whisper it, less than a

whisper, like of someone praying.

9473. NEW BRIDGES

NEW BRIDGES

I took this bridge, to the other world.

It got me there OK. Ondelay and what

you say, I see things are never as they

have been before. This mirror has two

fronts before me; one beckons,

the other retreats.

-

But it's OK; I stayed in this land for that

separate place, things spilling down on

me  -  sunlight and dappled color. Like

Spring in the heart of a Winter, and

no one wearing a coat.

9472. OPEN, THIS RAFT OF IMPONDERABLES

OPEN, THIS RAFT OF IMPONDERABLES

When the Katzenjammer kids were coming home,

the whole town turned out : the mysterious guys

with the dark, banker's suits, the young girls still

wishing for mates, the detectives, standing right

straight. No one knew why there were returning,

nor did anyone know where they'd been; those kids.

I stopped by, just at the right moment, for the free

refreshments  -  cupcakes and slices of pineapple

pie. Soda pop, chocolate milk. I guess there was

more, but I didn't pry. (Even though some of

the older gents looked looped). A part of

me wondered why. The other part 

didn't care at all.

9471. HEY BOYS!

HEY BOYS!

Hey boys, this is the country we've ruined,

let's have a look. This is the stream we've

pissed in and the river into which we've

dumped. These are the trees we've destroyed

and the acres we've sprayed with defoliants.

Bug-killers and pesticides. Anti-weeds and

retarded Mexican gardeners and landscapers 

with torches and hatchets while we mow and

trim. We must have needs  -  to resemble a

golf course, to be as poisoned as a park, and

as leveled as a nature preserve. For we are

undeserved doctors and idiots of delight.

We drink our beers and watch things die,

and brag about them outside fire-houses

and pool-halls and community plazas

with infernos from Hell. 'Ever see a

lady-bug? Man, what an ass on her.'

9470. I TEMPER MY FOLIAGE IN GREAT GREEN

I TEMPER MY FOLIAGE 

IN GREAT GREEN

Storm Trooper Highway, exit 41, a left

through the turnip fields and over the

near hill. Cows on the side, two horses

out left. The wiggle-waggle of an old

dairy-barn falling. That thing, my

friend, it was a silo once. 

-

And once long ago people knew how to talk.

Now they can only sell, and all things 

breakaway before them. 'We give away

the candle, but sell the light. That's 

where the real money is.' In business,

that's considered true genius.

-

Scabbard brokers and ducat mongering hellions;

all hands out for dollars and cents. Tales of

glory on academic oceans; fires in the

pits of anxious stomachs. All greed

to be needs first to be developed.

-

Here. Here, is the landing we must use.

9469. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ASSIST THE SERVANT

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE 

ASSIST THE SERVANT

Oh ye of little faith, please tend to the

hired hand. He comes with but a candle,

light flickering, and seeks a way through.

I've tasked him with my soul; should I

now leave it up to you? Outside on

Larimor Street they've parked the

yellow car : again, it holds five people.

Not being a large car at all, their comfort

level must be low, yet, like detectives on

a stake-out, they just sit and wait, and stare.

Perhaps they talk among themselves with

their crummy paper coffee-cups. I wouldn't  

wish to be in their employ.

-

Today could just have easily been, for me,

a travel day. Headed northwest, I was due in

Binghamton two months ago. But I never

made the turn and just kept going, like

Magellan, and it brought me all back 

home again. My sextant, my compass,

my first mate, and my steward. all

useless now to me. Like that tattooed

guy in  Moby Dick, I don't even 

want to look.

-

9468. NOW THE DESERT ISLAND

NOW THE DESERT ISLAND

Having been prefigured, I digress the

shape  -   the land to come and the land

behind each have their own separate form.

This, being not quite 'lightning alley,' still

bespeaks a type of fame I'm less familiar

with. I want spaghetti with that fake meatball

you offer. Holding nothing back now, I want

a fresh salad too. We've broken the bank

for this one boys. The heat is on, yet

it's May once more.

-

Hey, Mr. Doherty, my chest is hurting again;

what is it you said you can do? I don't take

pills and I don't drink juice, but help me

nonetheless. Those photo cards you keep

handing out? Wasn't that your daughter

I recognized?

-

I once read Arthur Miller when I wasn't

supposed to be reading. The Crucible, it

was called. Those seminary padres got

awfully mad at me. What was I to do about

them doing to me what they had to do?

You're kind of a pre-lapsed absurdist

anyhow. I always thought you knew.