9909. IF I HAVE TO THINK

IF I HAVE TO THINK

I figure for nothing. I can spike

lemonade with narcotics and have

it go down easy, or slip some acid

in my shoestring and see how it

ties me up. The thing I most have

trouble with is how long to make 

a written moment. Where to go and

what to do. If I have to stop to think,

the whole idea gets lost or mussed.

So, the length of my words is the

stretch of my dog-eared typing.

How long can this go on?

I can never tell.

9908. BEAUTY'S BIG SLEEP

BEAUTY'S BIG SLEEP

Something battered like this, it goes away

in a short while. The valise has new handles,

and beauty's got a short sleep now. We'd better

start listening for those voices and echoes.
John Ashbery is dead.

9907. RUDIMENTS, pt. 63

RUDIMENTS, pt. 63
Making Cars
Sometimes I felt as if I was a sentry,

looking way out ahead to see what was

to come; other times I just felt ambushed,

sacked from the rear. It was both a time

of intimidation, and a time of opportunity

too. The funny thing was, I was so far

on the fringe of things that I really knew

little of what was going on and remained

mostly unaffected by the outside world.

That's a sort of enviable position  -  and I

guess I still think that. But what's not

enviable, and this I know, is to simply go

along as a complete lunkhead without any

ideas, ideals, or education, even if by self.

If the ideal remains an image, that doesn't

automatically make it imaginary.

-

I knew what it was I was after, what I

wanted, but I had no idea, nor guidance,

of how to get there. I was born with nothing,

and was just slopping along with little to

go by. There are people born with all the

connections needed to fire up the mill  -

it's all already there: The father with the

right connections, who happens to know

so and so who knows so and so, and whose

influence just happens to be in the same

endeavor-field you're after. Next thing

they know, they're in like flint (that's a

typical misnomer some guy I used to

work with always said, one of many  -

landscraper for landscaper  -  same idea

but wrong; pacifically for specifically.

It goes on). He used to mean 'in like Flynn,'

I'd think, which was probably a movie or

something; but he always said Flint. I

guess that would work in Michigan. With

that set of chances (of which I had none),

comes education too. Learning and schools.

People get awfully proud of that stuff, where

they've gone and what they've paid for.

It's OK to learn stuff as you go along,

on your own, scribing and scraping, but

there's a bit lost in only self-educating.

I always tried to keep a good solid mix

of that, but did always dislike schooling.

I disliked even just sitting in a lecture hall

having to listen to someone propound. At

a certain level, I was born with enough

innate knowledge about things  -  I think

I really did come fully equipped. The rest,

well, frankly, it was easy enough to make

up. That's what education is anyway.

-

Looking back if I had to stack up my 1967

me against the 1987 me of two decades later,

I'd probably have been drawn in and duped

by those Afghani guys from the previous

chapter, and without  much of the discernment

needed. I'd have probably fallen for their

scope of things, and one way or the other

gotten implicated or killed  -   if not over

ideology, then over the simple politics of

dumb revolution, or maybe by missing

around with the female who was always

too-present. As Fats Waller used to put it,

'One never knows, do one?' As it turned

out, I was glad for how it turned out. It seems

a person can never be too careful about things;

there's always something lurking, an inter-

connection that you might not know about.

Once, my friend, trying to be heroic, blew

the whistle about some corruption he knew

about, in old Newark City Hall; purloined

some papers from a desk and all and turned

it all in on this guy. Problem was, as it turned

out the guy he was squealing on was the

cousin or something of the guy to whom

he was giving the information. Family came

first, and all that happened was the corruption

got buried, and my friend wound up doing

some time for pilfering through the desk.

Goes to show.

-

I walked straight ahead, like the writer

I was sure I wanted to be; using my head

like a steno-pad for a brain and recording

or noting every little detail I'd see, for later

re-telling, on paper, in some form. What I

missed, in my way, I made up, using the

enhanced embellishment to shade the tune

to a nicer sound. I always felt I was born

with all the information, and education too,

I'd ever need, as if it all had come with me,

fully-equipped, into whatever LaLa land this

was. There's only so much you really need;

the rest is vocational fluff, like learning to

sole shoes or fly a plane. If that's what a

person wished to do, then I let them. I never

stopped anyone from doing whatever they

felt up to. A few times that caused trouble,

but so what. And once or twice (I ain't lyin')

I had to stop a girl or two from doing what

they'd thought they'd be doing with me

because I knew it came with strings attached

and I really didn't want them along for my ride.

Sounds crass, but that's the way I played it.

Emotions get funny, real quick.

-

One time, I was up in Carl Shurz Park  -  that's

way up in the east 90's, right there at Gracie

Mansion. It's real nice there, elevated, over

Hell's Gate, as it's called, right where the East

River merges treacherously with the Harlem River.

The currents are really harsh there, conflicting

with each other, eddies and swirls, and in the

old days (it doesn't matter much these days

because ships and boats under engine power

can just slough through it) the sail ships and

other craft were often lost there, or floundered

or wrecked because of the roughness, so the

Dutch or someone like them, the maritime

folks, they named it Hell's Gate  -  and I

crossed paths with Robert Morganthau. He

was already pretty old, like in his mid-80's or

something, and he was and had been the

District Attorney or whatever for Manhattan

for a long number of years  - all sorts of

convictions and cases to his name (his son

has the same post now, but he's a Jr., I think)

[I just looked him up, he's at present 93 years

old, the original guy, not the Jr.]. Anyway,

this old guy is an original NY name, he was

elderly, and had two assistants helping him 

along as he slowly walked. The Morganthau 

name is solid, old-line New York and has with

it a lot of tradition and lineage. Most of which

I'd don't know really, but seeing him like that

was a knock-out stunner, like seeing Aaron 

Burr himself or someone like that  -  still

traipsing along the surface of old New York

City, filtering and re-telling whatever he could

of the old information that was running and 

settling all though his system and brain. I

probably don't really know what I'm talking

about on this  -  it's more an intuitive feel

that hit me good, and doesn't much work in 

the re-telling because at base there's not really

anything there. But that's the way it's always

been with me; I snoop and sniff and always

end up coming back with something that I 

can later work with. He passed right by me, 

we smiled, he nodded, and alongside us, the 

crazy, roiling river ran.

9906. ALL TELESCOPE, NO STARS

ALL TELESCOPE, NO STARS

I can prance with the best of them sounding

out my charms and dislikes. Entitled to an

attitude, and privileged to have it go past

whichever thing it is I want  -  whistling

past the graveyard with a shovel in the

ground. There's a definite lunatic in

mausoleum #510. I come here in the

hopes that  -  at this deep night  -  it's

maybe the darkest place around. But

it turns out it's not that at all : The same 

streetlights and airport lights and factory 

illuminations as everywhere else, except 

now they're not factories just parking lot 

lamps. And even the dead here are gone.

-

My own veins and arteries are broken. I

should just live in one of these boxes, like

that guy I mentioned in #510. I see him

sometimes  -  he's been here since 1907,

prancing about for hours at a time in the

dark of light, escaped or crawled out from

whatever he lives in. If he does. When the

dead re-awake, it's past frenzy, past any

excitement at all. Like terror in some

grocer's aisle, tomatoes talking, heads of

lettuce rolling dice. You should see this guy :

A really rapt form of self-absorption.

'I used to smell,' he says, 'but now I'm

dried out, my bones are brittle but no

matter to that for I've got no body for 

them to hold up. And that odor's gone.

Oh Death, be never so proud as me.'

9905. TRIBULATION

TRIBULATION

Fuck it all.

I just found out.

I haven't got a nickel

to shout about. I feel

blue. What'll I do?

Now that I'm really

down and out.

9904. RUDIMENTS, pt. 62

RUDIMENTS, pt. 62

Making Cars

An interesting sidelight to my swank

political education  -  one of imprecision,

indentation and, mostly, misinformation  -

was when, about 1982, I befriended these

two Afghanistan brothers, and a wife or

something too, along with them, maybe

a sister, I didn't know and it was never

discussed. There was some sort of brash,

chain-smoking Afghani-female always

around. This was at the corner of w11th

and Bleecker Street. Across the way

was an old Italian apartment building,

and than a playground, very compact

(Bleecker Playground) and at the

opposite corner the Afghani store. It

all happened by accident. My wife would

often step inside of the nearby parrot store,

filled with birds, loose parrots, bird-feed,

cages and supplies, oddball bird-people, etc.

(I called them that, they weren't literally

'bird-people' at all, but it would have

been if interesting to me had they been).

About this time there was a raging, hot

war between the Soviets and the

nation-kingdom of Afghanistan. It was

a real fight to the finish, a true local war.

The USA was, at this time, aiding the

Afghani 'natives' in their struggle, and

by that countereacting the global politics

of the Soviet Union, as adversary. These

guys, in their fairly large but cramped and

extremely well-stocked store, were selling

everything you think of when you think of

Afghanistan clothing and cold-weather

gear. Lots of heavy, woolen knit things,

mufflers, hats, deep-gloves, thick scarves,

and also the thinner kind of desert wear

they also wore  -  I guessed when not in

the other, mountainous and cold, locations.

Desert, kaffirs and all the rest; I only

remember a few of the words and things.

These two fellows were deep, dark, and

intense. Furious too, over the situation.

I really knew little, but got into it all. There

was, as I did later find out, and see, after

some confidences were exchanged, a lot

more going on  -  things ranging from

firearms and machine-gun pedestals and

handguns and long-knives, to money changing

hands only for the purposes of being laundered,

exchanged for a trinket and receipt, to be kept

'legal' enough, and later picked up by courier,

etc. I wasn't one, but it didn't take a genius

to understand what was happening. Also, a

lot of this 'Inventory' was being crated and

being sent there. It never really was store-stock,

per se. It kind of astounded me, and I'd hang

around  -  they never minded me, off-hours,

open or closed, whatever. In fact, I was often 

enough surprised by their confidences and 

willingness to have me around. It was cool.

Incense, tea, all sorts of things. What I gleaned,

and this is, remember, the mid-80's at most,

was that this revolutionary fighting force

was the incipient basis of something to

be called 'Taliban.' Which it all later did

become. At this stage it was, really, no more

than a very localized to Afghanistan, 'homeland'

fighting force to defeat the Soviets and stop

their taking of territory, 'national' pride, and

raw materials and the rest. Eventually, and

amazingly, the Soviets were actually beaten,

and in the ensuing years this contributed a

lot to the demise of the entire Soviet Union.

This early version of Taliban (we wound up, 

here, calling it 'The Taliban'  -  in the same

way the music group was specifically named

'Eagles,' but every reference was always 'The

Eagles.' It's an American thing). The situation

at this time did not come across to me as

the extremist Taliban, Islamic, head-chopping

anti-west ideological thing. Thank goodness,

because they'd probably have had to kill me

and stuff me in a closet or a trunk bound for

the distant desert kingdom. There was none of

that 'fervor' yet prevalent, it was always more

about the defense of home, the killing of Soviets.

What a strange, weird world  -  presented to me

as an always-changeable figment of imagination,

with shifting sides and personnel, and a certain

factor of real danger always present. 

-

That entire scene was quite interesting to me, and

as I sit back here now and think it through, 40 years

later or whatever it is, I am riddled with the true

astonishment of all that's transpired, all those

dead people, on all sides, the Twin Towers, the 

endless running wars and the 'back and forths', 

let alone the enormous sums of money, regular,

good, money  -  money which could have

rebuilt broken cities, fed people, helped others

right here in our own land, built bridges and 

tunnels, trains and tracks. One little stupid,

brute war after the other, each with its own

tacky list of lies (Oops! I mean 'Reasons') for 

being, and no excuses ever given for all that's

been lost, the dead, or the maimed as well.

-

So, anyway, scruffy, interested, and bored too,

there I was, circa 1983, scouting the West Village,

still, for vital signs and information. And you know

what? I do it yet today; same thing, from the old

Northern Dispensary right over to the old White

Horse Tavern  -  just snooping around always,

with my eyes and my ears always open too.

9903. ALL OF THE FIELD

ALL OF THE FIELD

All of the field is open now, and the

tall grasses grow. Like the grasslands

we read about in old books of kindred

geography : all those wheat fields and 

breadbaskets of old. Thank God we've

not yet paved the world. The world where

lions can graze and the zebras roam; where

cattle and camels can clamor, for whatever

is they clamor for. More space? Maybe.

-

I'm even now hoping the ivory trade is done:

elephants and all the tusks they bring, inhabiting

another world of size and taste and habit.

We really must leave it be. What does the

elephant think of when he thinks of Evil?

God lord, I hope not me.

9902. RUDIMENTS, pt. 61

RUDIMENTS, pt. 61

Making Cars

When I first started slinking around, as

a tender lad of maybe 12, checking into

how others thought and what philosophies

and points of view there were, everything

seemed exotic, and the weirder or more

bizarre the person was who I was reading,

the better the stuff seemed to fit  - Sartre

and those ridiculous glasses of his; James

Joyce, and his strange eyesight too. The

vague elan and stuffy Missouri stiffness

of T. S. Eliot who, for all the rest of the

world, was just another English guy but 

wasn't. There were a million surprises, 

and a new premise at every turn. It ran

the entire gamut, and one of the burdens

of being twelve years old is that everything

is fresh and has to be processed. Those 3

war novel trilogy books, by Sartre, for

instance, I forced myself through and did

'enjoy' if that's the word (it's not); but they

certainly didn't turn out important, and

they've probably only been so read, in

that manner, maybe 12 other times in the

whole history of the world. Do you want

to know what kept me along with him?

Pride. Because he turned down the Nobel

Prize for Literature, and essentially told

the academy to shove it, I was proud, of

him, for him, and for my silly self too.

Now, isn't that kind of weird. Victor

Hugo and Charles Dickens, two very

different writer-types, but each of them

played a role as well.

-

There were things I couldn't shake, and

they kept rattling me. My two-pronged

strategy, for instance, of being in, of going

to, the seminary, that ended up as a mix-up

that I just had to deal with, which is how 

I bring myself now to the main central

conflict of my early life, and the premise 

of this chapter, and my illusionary impetus 

to be at seminary school, and harbor if 

even the slightest idea of being a priest. 

It quickly became apparent to me that 

the church is, at essence, anti-human. 

Because of that I soon realized I'd want 

nothing to do with it. It groomed rules 

and regulations, and its stepsons were 

eunuch-sized boy-men who been 

propagandized into believing a whole 

line of crud. Plain and simple and there 

were no other ways around that. 

Liberalizing an extreme changes 

nothing. Turning altars around, 

changing the gobbledy-gook into the 

local language instead of ancient 

church-Latin, and putting a few guitars 

in place to sing with and break communal 

bread among 'friends' with, didn't cut it. 

Like putting a nice party dress on an 

old, jagged whore. Underneath it 

all, you've still got what you got. You 

can't just go 'worker-priest' cool and 

think you've done it. The problem 

of 'Doctrine' is still there.

-

The most major crossing ground I 

ever came to, during those years and 

after too, was 'Portrait of the Artist as

 a Young Man,' by James Joyce. As 

good as it was so too was as detestable 

as it was. It held out the sickening 

aspects of the Catholic Church  -  Irish 

and Pope versions  -  for all to see. How

 anyone could slog through that and not 

get the tumult of an interdiction by the 

wee-Devil himself was beyond me. I 

knew every word of that book by the 

time I was done, probably my tenth read 

time. It was like a stage play to me and 

I loved watching my own in-head version 

of it being acted out in my mind as I read. 

The religion presented in that book 

revealed the paucity of any form of 

what it reflected, a sad, sorry, sick, ship

of state. Stephen Daedalus, I walked as.

I wanted to be an artist. I dropped the 

closure and the afforded, supposed, 

certainty of that church junk right off 

the bat. If you begin at page 124, and 

read into that episode of the Sermon, 

starting with the Emma section on 124, 

it will take you on the whirlwind that 

broke the Pope's back  -  pure and 

random foolishness.

-

The Sermon Episode is rank perverse, 

downright pathetic. My own little reader's

notes, scribbled in, as a kid-reader, are funny

now: "Sermon of Hell, different fires junk, bad

mis-shapen company forever, never-ending

flames, can't move, and can't burn, company

of the damned (itself), bizarre formulation..."

In one paperback version I have, a previous

college student, a female, has cluttered the

margins with her own notes, throughout.

At the Sermon episode, Eve as the eternal

fatal temptress, she has scrawled: "I sense a

negative anima projection coming (on the

priest's part, not Joyce's)." And the Confession

pages, and the episode of the priest and the

vocation, and all that, until finally Stephen's

decided upon NO! Art wins the scuffle.

-

No matter how I tried to wriggle out of it.

the rest of that book kept me straight and 

working. Two small segments in particular,

capturing for me the fine and worldy cap of

love and desire, outdid the rest of that malarkey

previous to it. The first, pg. 185 (he is walking

a rivulet along the strand): "A girl stood before

him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out

to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had

changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful

seabird. Her long, slender, bare legs were delicate

as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail

of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the

flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory,

were bared almost to the hips where the white 

fringes of her drawers were like featherings of

soft white down. Her slate blue skirts were kilted

boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind

her...touched with the wonder of mortal beauty,

her face. She was alone and still, gazing out

to sea..." And the second, the friend, Davin,

relates his tale of wonder to Stephen. Page 196:

Without a ride from the match, he had to walk:

"Well, I started to walk and and I went and it was

coming on night when I got into the Ballyhoura

Hills, that's better than ten miles from Kilmallock,

and there's a long, lonely road after that. You

wouldn't see a Christian house along the road or

hear a sound....at last I spied a little cottage with

a light in the window. I went up and knocked; 

a voice asked who was there...and I answered 

I'd be thankful for a glass of water. After a while 

a young woman opened the door and brought 

me out a big mug of milk. She was half undressed 

as if she was going to bed when I knocked and 

she had her hair hanging; and I thought by her 

figure and by something in the look of her eyes 

that she must be carrying a child. She kept me 

in talk a long while at the door and I thought 

it strange because her breast and her shoulders 

were bare. She asked me if I were tired and 

would I like to stop the night there. She said 

that she was all alone in the house and that 

her husband had gone that morning to 

Queenstown with his sister to see her off. 

And all the time she was talking, Stevie, 

she had her eyes fixed on my face and stood 

so close to me I could hear her breathing.  

When I handed her back the mug at last 

she took my hand to draw me in over the 

threshold and said 'Come and stay the night 

here. You've no call to be frightened. There's 

no one in it but ourselves.' I didn't go in, Stevie. 

I thanked her and went on my way again, all 

in a fever. At the first bend in the road I looked

back and she was standing at the door."

9901. CATCHING A TRAIN TO BALTIMORE

CATCHING A TRAIN 

TO BALTIMORE

I'm going down there sober, but getting

drunk first; drinking red wine from this

platform railing. That way I can look 

over the crowd I'll be traveling with  -  

pick out the killers and creeps. Oh

how I hate to be stuck in a railcar

with someone I loath.

-

The first year I did this it was some guy

named Poe. A jerk. Said he'd invented 

poetry, but no one would know. I scoffed, 

and said nothing back  -  just two rhyming

grunts, to which he replied, 'Nice work!'

9900. HOW YOU'VE GOT TO LIVE OUT OF TIME

HOW YOU'VE GOT TO 

LIVE OUT OF TIME

You've got to take the hi-hat and crunch

your derby, collapse your top-hat and run 

that mile. Being unsure of everything else,

just do the one thing right.  -  it makes all

the difference on the bottom line.

-

Wisteria doesn't grow in bunches, it grows 

alone. Large, enormous vines that  -  if left

untended and free to grow  -  jump gloriously

from tree-to-tree. You can see it in the wild

woods.

-

The things I love often make others wince;

they're always cutting and trimming to my

'grow grow grow!' It stopped bothering me

years and years ago. I've learned how to

live out of time.

9899. SHOALS

SHOALS

I realized today I've outgrown my life

and I've outgrown my wife and I've

outgrown all strife and there's nothing

left really to live for at all. Warning:

don't grow (too) old. Or old enough.

Everything's a parenthetical expression

at this point (Ahem!) and there's not

much I can do about it now. I should

have changed my life years ago. Or

maybe everyone feels like that and I

don't know. Way back when, as that

guy was selling me all these marbles

in a bag, instead of taking, I should

have slammed him in the head with 

them and just run off.

-

Now it's all too late and I just walk

around dazed. I amount to nothing 

and am probably crazy too. No old

psalms or chantings will help me 

now, my amplitude of plentitude

is broken. When I was really young,

the 'Horn of Plenty' I'd see pictured

at Thanksgiving each year, in grade

school mostly, used to amaze. Now

I know it's mostly filled with crap

and not a thing worthwhile. I've little

more to go, perhaps this one last mile.

-

(Parenthetical once more) : Now's the

time when you're thinking, 'he should

try to rhyme with 'smile'. I don't think

so, and there's nothing left to dial.