12,435. RUDIMENTS, pt. 922

RUDIMENTS, pt. 922

(I was drinking something, and calling it...)

In 1955, the Polish writer

Adam Wizyk, in his 'A Poem

For Adults,' wrote of a 

Poland where students were

'shut off in textbooks without

windows,' and where language

had been 'reduced to thirty

magic formulas.' In his most

famous verse, he wrote : 

"They drink sea water,

crying: 'lemonade!' - returning

home secretly to vomit."

When that was published, I

was six  -  obviously, not

in any way knowledgeable

about it. However, in later

years, and in light of all else

that had been brought my way,

those few words stood out as

reliable beacons to a heart

bent on resolving my own

conflict about what I was

being handed. To believe in

any of it  -  that which 'Society'

was offering, necessitated

the believing of none of it,

for it was all so outlandish

as to be patently ridiculous.

And wrong. No one else, it

seemed, knew this except 

me. In its way, that seems 

right, if only because within 

the course of a life we are 

all involved in our own 

moments of life, as if in a

very personal film working 

towards its own conclusion  

-  of which, really not too 

many others could share. 

When you come right down

to it, that's the way things are.

Singularity and oneness are 

the mean. When you hear 

communards now bleating

their pathetic 'We're all in 

this together! It takes a village!

Be as one now!' you must

know it's all bullshit. We're not

that in any way  -  if we were,

then I would be able to say:

Stop! Stop producing cars

and houses; stop cutting the

local woods and forests and

stop applauding each month

the number of 'New Housing

Starts,' as part of positive goal

instead of a negative, which 

it actually is. I would be able

to say, and be heard, 'Close down

restaurants, and corporate food

havens, and water plants. Stop

producing wanton sheaves, by

the billions, of paper products,

wipes, perfumes and sprays.

Stop paving the land. Cease the

ruination of all things by the

impoverished thinking-edicts

of those in power, enforcing

their lame goals and ends, using

their non-functional brains to

illicit local ends. Stop population

growth; stop harboring fugitives.

End captive, police-car schooling

in locked-down caves of nothing.

If you are in MY village, I will

exile you, right now. Be gone!

-

I never really know where to source

all this stuff from  -  my own earliest

days? The train accident times? The

seminary? NYC? Art Stuff, Studio

School, jazz loft guys? It's all

too much for me to sort, so I just

let it flood its way along, I guess,

my drain. I can break my own life

into a hundred and more tiny

segments  -  like that microscope

reference in the previous chapter,

it's much more viewable that way.

There's never any escaping the

thematics of a life, and they

remain fairy obvious, for good

or bad, along the way. I asked

my friend Andy Bonamo once

why he was doing all this (he was

running a really small-scale drug

supply operation out of my place

at 11th street) and he just shrugged,

saying something like 'Well we've

all got to be doing something. If I'd

ever known I'd be doing this, here,

I'd probably have stayed back in

Alhambra. This is really small

scale shit for a guy like me.' He

had those stars in his eyes, the

kind that movie-makers make

films about. Crime. Overreach.

Death. But, his 'thematic' was

always there, in everything he 

did. He was smooth, and slick, 

and into any situation he was

able to slide and fit. I went

with him once to one of his

big-deal supplier guys. It was

up somewhere in the e60's. It

was about money, the meeting

was  -  no 'merchandise' was

changing hands. Andy and this

guy were swift and tight; right

in place with each other. It

was amazing to watch. The 

place was fearsome, a really

amazing, wealthy high-rise 

and set-up, and this guy was

more like business than crime,

about all of it. He and Andy

were talking terms, splits,

and how-to's. I just sat there

dumb, watching. Never even

knowing why I'd gone. First

off  - and just as well  -  they 

never really payed me any

mind after the most cursory

of introduction. Andy never

talked much of any of these

undertakings, and I didn't much

like any of it, but there I was. It

paid my rent (through Andy).

Silent partner to nothing. That

was me. I saw, from the very

first, that 'something' about him;

whatever he possessed, some

elan, or business acumen, way

beyond me. He was sly, and 

always on the alert. Even the 

way he pounced once he learned

I was looking for a place to stay.

It was all over before it started.
Sometimes maybe there really
is something to the ways that
people get 'enticed' into other
ideologies and practices which
weren't natural to them, and
it's still a lonely feeling to be
out somewhere, all by yourself
and not knowing exactly how
you'd arrived there.

-

The scene then was that there was

no scene. I was drifting. I ended

up in the same place where he and

a few other loser types worked, and

from then A followed B followed C.

It was a dangerous life, for the brief

time it lasted  -  good too, but

dangerous. I was drinking

something, and calling it

lemonade.

12,434. RUDIMENTS, pt. 921

RUDIMENTS, pt. 921

(looking at ted kaczynski)

Life always presented me with

a certain catalogue of problems,

things I willingly accepted.

None of it really bothered me,

just rather made me think; as

I went along  -  sometimes I

found that I was able to

breezily go on alone, doing my

task or work or business at

hand, on one level, but have

my mind and all that occupied

on a complete other level. One

time some guy asked me if I'd

ever been driving somewhere,

preoccupied in my head, and

some minutes later realized that,

wherever I was at that point,

I didn't remember getting there

or what landmarks or recognizable

things I'd passed along the route

to getting where I was. I said,

'Yeah, sure; I know that feeling

well.' I did, and it never bothered

me. So did that guy too, I guess.

It was as if there were a few different

levels of anything happening at any

one time and the work of the mind

and the work of the body are in

some way working together but

quite separately. That's a good

thing, how the body can work

diligently for its own good. It's a

complicated vehicle for carrying

the other half of our duality  -  the

scurrying mind, conceptual and

forming as we roll along. Maybe

those old people who wrote 'Merrily

we roll along.....etc' had a good

feel for earthy reality. (I think that

was a song or a nursery rhyme or

something, and it (in my own

mind anyway), it ended with, 

'All the live-long day,' though

I think that was a railroad song).

I always liked it all, no matter.

There is a place in consciousness 

where all borders fall away and 

everything jams together and 

makes their new alliances. That's

how reality gets constructed.

That raw pile of 'it all' is what

artists and writers construct from.

It just takes willingness, and

some practice to get over

oneself and put that all aside.

The human mind sometimes

struggles like a frightened bird

to escape chaos. I accept chaos.

Figure it thusly: Dreams and

sleep, as a chaos, are what we

spend forty percent of our lives

in. We are then victims, when 

awake, of our own ill-judgment;

to disease, to age, to external

suggestion, to nature's compulsion.

Doubting even its sensations, we

fall through it all, both wondering

and wandering, as we clutch at

straws of our own imagining. 

After seventy years of that, the

mind awakes to find itself then

looking at the dark void of

death. 'That it should profess

itself pleased by this performance

was all of the highest rules of

'good breeding' could ask? But

that it should actually be satisfied

would prove that it ended only

as idiocy.

-

I always wondered how it went:

Had things started out simple, and,

then gotten complicated; or was

everything made complicated,

right from Day 1? It was just an

idea to mull around. I forget the

name right now, but some

philosopher or person once

posed the idea that in all aspects

of things  -  problems, questions,

etc.,  -  the 'simplest' answer was

always the best. If that was so,

I figured that things had started

out complicated and over millions

of years had simplified themselves

down, into a sort-of simplicity,

like now, that we can live with;

even though we think it's complicated

and going always in the other direction,

with all that 'How difficult is life

today!' stuff, etc. The places I'd been,

over time, had taught me that no

matter what else, if you yourself

slowed things down (simplified them,

in essence), and approached any

task in a one-thing-at-a-time

manner, and went about the task,

after breaking it down, one thing,

one step, at a time, it all becomes

manageable. It's a bit like a scientist,

looking at a sample, a bug, spit,

or bacteria, in intense and isolated

magnification. That's when you

see all the squiggles and lively,

tiny, things always underway  -

all the smallest parts of our weird

dance of life, invisible for the

most part. I never knew if that

too could be considered part of

out initial'design,' but all that

stuff made me wonder.

-

So, even up on farmland, when

I lived way out in the booniees,

I could bide my time, driving a

tractor for hours, throwing hay,

spreading manure, or milking

some ace-cow's teats, and be

thinking about a hundred other

things as they come through.

I always liked the solitary

confines  -  and the solitude  -

all that stuff gave me. The same

went for NYC too  -  no one ever

threw me a second glance. I was

just an invisible nobody with the

liberty of all those streets and

places and situations. It was

pure gold, and the anonymity,

except for the draft battles and

the resisting and the fighting

back, was golden. But  -  and

this is where it gets odd  -  try

any of that stuff in 'school' and

you're in trouble right off. They

all try to mass-man you, fill

your head with the prescribed

notions and wicked-strange

ideas of society at large  -  so

you end up just like them and

you don't gripe about it either.

-

Now, when (yes, I found) when

I approached this entire thing

as if it were music, it brought up

an entire other field of thought, and

with it, one of my favorite words:

arpeggio. Musically, and life-ly,

I had stumbled upon a working

concept  -  and a word I figured

probably not everyone knew about.

But, reducing things to their smallest

components, within the breakdown

of larger time patterns and the

breaking up of the chordal structure,

much like life itself, gives us the

momentary magnification that

allows for the creation of that

moment, theme, mood, and

volley of information. People

do it all day long in music  -

to set their musical mood, to

simplify, to get to where they're

going, sound-wise  -  which is

just an inversion of silence, when

you think of it  :  As is slowness

and steadiness to a task, a

solitary confinement into the

space of getting things, meticulously

too, done to satisfaction. These

are all moments of simplification,

from the complex. Are they not?

-

I guess anything like that begs the

very question it poses? For me,

mo matter where I was, it all

became pretty simple, and I

really tried to keep it that way.

Now, for the most part, one

cannot do that, unless you're

that cabin guy whom his brother

turned in, in Utah or wherever.

Nice manifesto, though no one

reads it; it was squelched by the

authorities the instant it saw the

light of day. We're all now just

servants of the powerhouse.

I guess, about it all, I just

stopped caring.

12,433 LOST MIDIAN AT THE HYDRANGEA BUSH

LOST MIDIAN AT THE

HYDRANGEA BUSH

And ain't nothing coming back, no,

no, never again. The sort of phrase

a wounded loser says, after a really

large hurt. I can corral the glimmer

of all your hopes in my heartfelt

hands. I am not needy, just the source

of your needs in particular. Begrudge

me not that : Brooklyn has abandoned

places, once worth 12-hundred now

worth 12-million. A real Mediterranean

jungle, for sure, with a lackadaisical

malaise to go along with it. Watch us

hang at corners  -  lattes and ice cream

and beer. It's never Winter here.

12,432. RUDIMENTS, pt. 920

RUDIMENTS, pt. 920

(sometimes I was just bored)

Philadelphia has always held me

in a better stead than NYC; the

fog of war seems slightly less

onerous there. Gentility has a

factor going for it. This is not

to say that it too is not fearsome.

Along Walnut Street, near the

downtown, 'Center City', or

whatever they call it there, one

always ran across amplified

clusters of black people  -  still

do  -  at tables and sidewalks

fearlessly screaming out their

preachments, bible stuff, and

their ideology and anti-white

messages. It always struck me

as military, war-like, and was

sometimes unsettling. The

hand-held megaphone of the

vocal 'leaders,' handing off to

each other, taking turns; the

street music, drums and things,

to go along with the preachments,

and the apparent Biblical basis

for their stance on original tribes,

Black Gods, white interlopers,

etc. It was a bit threatening, and

just by the tone of skin one was

sometimes afraid to pass through

the throng. (Now I knew how they

felt!)  -  all very interesting, with

turnabout being fair play. This

too was all pre-Internet stuff, so

I'm not sure how those messages

get transmitted these days, (I

understand, on the other hand,

that Trump guys use 'Magaphones'

instead of megaphones. Ha?).

-

If a person needs to date American

time from something, or somewhere,

Philadelphia would be a good enough

place as any from which to do so.

Boston, New York, and such could

lay their own claims to things, but

the torturous and sequential manner

of it is owned by Philadelphia. Well,

that's probably not true, but it's my

stance here, and the Devil take the

hindmost. 'In the air of' Philadelphia

is a smaller-scale less grimy churn

of some old sort of commerce that

involved minds, science, money,

and ideas. And strange, odd, men.

I can't really say 'ladies' for they

are, in this context, just made as

cliches, in the Betsey Ross mode.

Adjuncts with little mention, sadly.

There an old part of the city, called

'Old Town' that still houses the

entire gamut of Constitutional

Convention and early American

Republic stiff  -  Carpenter's Hall,

where the Articles of Confederation

were hammered out, some old Quaker

Meeting places, halls where debates

and public meetings and things rang

with contentions of the day. Franklin's

grave, old Christ Church, the Liberty

Bell and all that crud now taken over

ingloriously by the Government and

turned into hawking showplaces of

stupid geed and twisted tales of the

early days of America. Principles?

Right down the more modern drains.

Walkways where streams used to be,

the old pangs of rounded rocks, where

once the clip-clop of the horses and

their wagons was steady. No one

today knows anything about water:

and not just in Philadelphia; I mean

anywhere. The American Republic

-  when you come right down to it,

was written for and about water -  a

land of water, waterways, commerce

on water, canals, flat-bottomed boats

and barges, harbors, settlements

on the banks and docks of those

harbor areas. If it were to be drawn,

in  the 1799-1830, it would have 

been drawn with water-lines. 

Everything was then connectible

by water  -  the booming of commerce

and canal, inland and overland

travel, hauling, and movement,

mostly adhered to water. It was

only later that the fishnet lines

of roads and paths and trails turned

to pikes and toll rolls. Everything

did, eventually,  move towards all

of that  -  until we have what we have

now. A heave and a shove of traffic

and roads and vehicles, all a'chock

and a'flutter with noise, anxiety,

and no real movement.  But behind

all that still are the documents of

another day  -  done lip-service to,

only, now; all of its precepts and

possibilities long ago done away 

with. But we still live within the

same old, dumb, fiction. 

-

Well, anyway, sometimes I get tired

of all this and just want to chuck it.

Life is a tick, without the tock. Or,

should you prefer, the tock, with 

no tick. That's as useless as I 

sometimes feel  -  always going 

on about something with a form

of fruitlessness as its ending. Sterile

cuckoo, my ass! What's the use

of anything? It was, on the other

hand, very difficult to be harsh

in Philadelphia, the place was

just that nice  -  too nice, I'd

guess. And maybe that was one

of its historic drawbacks. You

somehow never heard a bad 

story about the founders there.

No one was ever a scoundrel or 

a sell-out or a rat. It was all

portrayed as the silent, communal

brooding of a group of men with

the highest of ordeals and a pure

commitment to the Enlightenment

and all those broad-browed Lockean

ideals. It was all bullshit, and

everyone knew it, even then.

Who brought these guy their food

and meals? Slaves. Who brought

these guys their teas and tobacco?

Slaves. Who took care of their 

rooms and hygienes and liveries

and stables? Slaves. Just looking

now at Franklin's grave, with

all those nickels, dimes and 

quarters thrown ll over it, you

know something was up back

then, something they weren't

telling you. In that town. In

that nicest, quaintest, most

narrow, Elfreth's Alley of

a place. 'Beware the forgone

conclusion!' I say.

-

Blaise Pascal had it sort of

thusly: "I have often said that

all the troubles of man come

from his not knowing how to

sit still. Mere restlessness

forces action. So passes the

whole of life. We combat

obstacles in order to get

repose, and when got, the

repose is insupportable; for

we think either of the troubles

we have, or of those that

threaten us; and even if we 

felt safe on every side, ennui

would of its own accord spring

up from the depths of the

heart where it is rooted by

nature, and would fill the

mind with its venom." Well,

yeah. OK.

12,431. PORTRAIT OF DANA

PORTRAIT OF DANA

I stole all I could steal by

stealing. I had to start giving

back. A portrait of Dana, taken

freely, helped me see to that.

12,430. I'D LOST MY WAY

I'D LOST MY WAY

All that it was : while living

on the plains and savannas

I'd lost my way, missed my

footing, Mankind, stumbled.

Nay, t'was not a pretty sight.

Oh, then, we went on; managing

through some fault of fright

to gauge our way out through 

the new and dark allegiances 

thrown up to us. Caves of

dark dreams, valleys of an

unending oasis. Edens anew?

12,429. RUDIMENTS, pt. 919

RUDIMENTS. pt. 919

(a real fan of yours)

Blackwood, NJ is 15 miles from

Philadelphia, and it's where I

spent a good portion of my teen

years, in 'seminary.' It' also about

10 miles from Camden. Both of

these places, for someone like

me, represented new and strange

foreign lands with their own

and different each orbital spheres

of influence. It was 80 miles or

so along the Turnpike the few

times my father drove me there.

Usually, if I was on the move, the

bus to and from New Brunswick

was fine enough, and I liked it better.

It felt more worldly. And meandering

too  -  all those little stops and spots

in between. I got to know a lot of

the weird little towns down there

from bus travel. With my father

driving, it was just slam-bang; a

fast and direct trip from highway

to exit, and I had to think of things

to say too, so it wasn't just all

quiet. My father hated my idea

of seminary and priesthood. He

thought it was worthy of a real

fruitcake and not a son of his.

We never argued over it, but he

expressed his displeasure more

than once.  I think if I had said

I'd changed my mind and wished

instead to take up ballet he'd have

rolled me out at Exit 4 while

doing 70 mph.

-

Anyway, there were so many

different worlds mixed up in all

this - think of it from my oddball

perspective as a 12-year old kid:

cloistered living, among all boys,

a private-school, rigorous setting

of study, learning and meditation

and religion too. I never cared much

about that  -  it was a cover. The way

gay guys get a girl, often gay as

well  -  to act as their mate or

companion. A beard, it was called.

That's how religion there was for

me  -  I had an interest, studied

and all, but I never really fell for that

intense, multi-church appearances

and daily mass stuff. The whole

religion part of it, for me, was a

cover, a false reason for being there.

I learned a lot from that 'other' side

of the altars and it was tedious

and bland and, yes, choppy and not

very manly. Agreed, Dad. Those

are all modern definitions and

considerations. None of that

applied back then  -  whatever

was going on, it all went unsaid.

Suffice it to say, 'maturing' with

some 300 other boys, four different

age groups, in a group setting

was not my idea of pleasure. Not

depravity exactly, but more than I

ever cared to know about. It was,

in its way, strangely destructive

to a normal boy's maturation and

upbringing. It was just all too

much  -  different age groups,

a million guys showering at once,

a line-up of kids brushing their

teeth at once, pajamas, different

ages  - we had mature hairy-balls

guys mixed in still with lamb-skin

baby kids. On the whole, I guess

not good. It sure made me wince.

-

There's a characteristic core within

each person that has to be come to

terms with. I came to terms with

mine early on. Train wreck, seminary,

misplaces hopes and expectations.

Quizzical outlooks, inquisitive mind.

I was a walking timebomb and really

didn't wish for anyone to be talking

to me or trying to figure me out. But,

to hell, those seminary types were

always the ones  -  with their 'spiritual

advisor' crap and all the rest, who'd

want to be getting into my head.

The place was so borderline

perverted in its own ways that I

could never figure from where

these lurkers came from. Behind

every rock and bush, it seemed,

there was an enforcer of some sort.

Tedium. (We used to sing the Te Deum,

which was its own tedium). Blind

faith, tortuous logic, miracles, chant,

prayer and humming. All together.

And never a word about Thomas

Merton.

-

He, by the way, was electrocuted

by a cooling fan. Cosmic freaking

justice! Merton was about the only

religious figure, I'll admit, who ever

really appealed to me. I got caught

up. He was the entire flipside of

all that Padre Pio and Mother Theresa

malarkey that set in later. This guy

was tough, gumption was amassed

within him. It was the sort of power

from within that organized religion

had long ago abandoned, forgetting

itself in the process; but it was where

I wanted to be. To have someone 

like that be killed by his electric

room-cooling fan, in Thailand no

less, really hurt.

-

One time, at Barnes & Noble, when

I used to run a sort of poetry session,

of sorts, on Friday nights, I was reading

aloud one night to the 16 or 20 people

who'd came, and this guy, from the 

sidelines is standing there, watching.

It was a bit weird. When I was done,

he came over, and speaking to both

myself and the group, stated that he'd

been listening from the side and just

wanted to say that he'd heard was some

good, 'muscular' poetry. I'd never had

my work described as 'muscular'

before, but I sensed immediately

that that was the same attitude I'd

had about Thomas Merton, and his

'muscular' religion. It was pretty cool

as far as moments go. Turned out, the

guy was like a half-famous poet in

that crowd, Joe Weil, once from 

Woodbridge but now Binghamton,

NY, where he taught at the university.

He said he'd heard my name from 

folks at the Barron Arts Center and

they always spoke very highly of me.

It wasn't Thailand, thought I but I

had my own fan! Just hoped it

wouldn't kill me. I had no idea why
he needed to be lurking on the
sidelines just so as to later say
the work was 'muscular.' And
I wasn't sure really what the meant
in the poetry scheme of things. But
it sounded right.  Joe was cool, a
little fireplug of a red-headed
type; seemed ready to square off
at any time. Muscular!