450. DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION:
(Strictly Mendicant)
He was riding his horse across
the plain and thinking perhaps of
the wind. In a stately cadence of pomp,
something akin to pride itself, a majesty
performed in his place : one thing past
another, it wasn't so much as motion.
And just at that moment I saw, stretched
across the sky, the swiftly steady winging
of a hawk, making its way across that selfsame
sky the horse and rider shared. Of this to make
then, what was I? Two distinct forms in a
somehow steady race : horse and rider as one,
with the hawk its own arc to trace.

449. SAVONAROLA WAS EASY

SAVONAROLA WAS EASY
'Burn this courthouse down' - a very decidedly
simple-minded puritan of haste and want (I heard)
say that, stalling for time. It was a way back ago
in the terrible old west : 1868, I think. They'd
just buried some lunkhead in his boots
(by mistake) and the newly-cut pine box
was not fitting him too well. As I
remember, he simply sat bolt up
and suddenly said
'What the Hell?'

448. GARGANTUA

GARGANTUA
Somehow the female name
just has to do - a feminine
ending for a curious monster.
The sort of thing (most likely)
we would blame the Orient for.
Gargantua : a form of blazing
softness tearing cities down...
or is that the wrong monster?
Leaving trailings in its wake?
Yes; this is life, but none the
worse for wear. None the
worse for wear.

447. WHAT THE NEWSGIRL DROVE

WHAT THE NEWSGIRL DROVE
(leather and coffee and gold)
'True judicial mourning now covers
the waxwood flooring, as even the
Magistrate's robe does shine.'
I was picking up identities
like dollar bills...
The manual said 'Rejection' but I
could never just accept that and
walk away. Instead, like some
dated Elvis-inspired belt buckle
of gold, I remained in place and
thought about staying.
'It's easy, you know, if the future
is forever - that which leads, that
which stretches out ahead of us.'
'But what changes?' I asked in reply,
'those things we never know until they
happen?' The newsgirl drove by in
a white cabriolet. Her name was Johanna
Frederici, and she came from another
land; clearly a place of leather and
coffee and gold. Leather and
coffee and gold.

446. MAN BURNED AT THE HEELS

MAN BURNED AT THE HEELS
(a biography of the Soul)
Into this rolling town raved the
circle of want. The Carnival
called itself Barker's. A
really lame name for
17 men and some
rides on wheels.
-
One night, late, after
hours, they took down
the flags and banners. No
attractions were left, 'cept
for one : 'Man Burned
At the Heels.'

445. A MASKED DUO

A MASKED DUO
(at Liege, 1542)
The indeterminate meanderings of Time and all
his fellows have brought this moment to be :
a solicitude of need and presence, the
topsy-turvied source of envy and want.
It is only for the breath of black-heeled
gardeners that Nature's force keeps going.
That strange duo - Time and Nature -
break many bones and bring many
prideful movers down. Backwards
breaks the neck which stretches.
-
Alchemy it is - weeding this world's
garden with both wild hands - to change
matter and essence into another form
entire : dilated glimpses into dark powers.
All things deep and all things bold fall beneath
the powers of these powerful souls.
Changing Darkness into Light
is only the most simple
of magical tricks.

444. BESTED

BESTED
I've been bested in combat by swords
dripped in blood. I've been shattered by
blocks made of steel. Between two poles,
tethered, I've been stretched and tortured
until I caved. No hands on broken arms
could undo that. But - at the most extreme -
I've fought back tears and, screaming,
tried to break those bonds. At times,
freed like a bird set loose, I soared
with moments of grandeur and
fame. Until sunset, until morning,
until the very next turn of
events caught me looking.
No matter, the texture
of my experiences
always stayed
the same.

443. ESCOBAR PAVLOVA

ESCOBAR PAVLOVA
'I never intended such an immersion into
things to overtake myself as it did.' Nearby,
two fellows were trimming a tree. Miraculous
turnover : fascination into rumination into
glee. The sunlight was righting itself
through the leaves of that tree.
-
Had I a diamond, I'd have
placed it around your neck.
On a fine golden chain,
no less.

442. MARVELOUS FRAGMENT

MARVELOUS FRAGMENT
All at once.
Over the top : relieved to be.
Spotlight or something.
Backlit endeavors, looked at
in another language : a means now
entirely appropriate for the end intended.
Horse. Whinny. Cakewalk. Talk.

441. ATMOSPHERE AND DREAD

ATMOSPHERE AND DREAD
That thing dangling - up there -
that's a knife; pointed straight down
above my head, it hangs from a really
frayed string. Sometimes I worry about
every little thing. Not that I'm fearing the
worst or the next, it's just that I realize
I might be carrying the hex. Maybe it'll
get me by the end of the day.

440. BOUNCING LIKE A PAUPER

BOUNCING LIKE A PAUPER
There is no room for commitment,
and no hazard to the risk. Simply
put, I have nothing. No arabesque of
clear-thought or folly, no frivolous
fuss of distraction - neither of them
attract me. Subdued, average and - yes-
lonesome still, I stand around waiting
to oblige some debt coming due.
-
So kow-tow Hop Sing.
Stoop and bow, giving
reverence to your onerous
Master. He shreds the
nickel you dine upon.

439. CHIAROSCURO

CHIAROSCURO
White black, black white;
shades of meaning between
things everywhere. The
intended moment of shading -
dark and light together - makes
manifest a most startling propensity
for co-existence. Living together.
Separate but equal. On hand,
but in ignorance of each other.
What matters then if the
blenders never blend? How
many see the difference
between the black and
the white, the dark
and the light?

438. TERRI BENEDETTO

TERRI BENEDETTO
(She told me I should live forever)
Some man I have not seen in weeks
is plowing his steady field, trailing his
luggage of sound. It is but a heartfelt
tumble from slopfest to ground, threading
those things in the pigsty through their
needle of animal wants. Were I to
gaily amble, a crowd would rise to
the surface - one hundred faces on a
dewy, smoked glass - yet no one I'd
want to see nor any with a purpose.
This slipcase of manner and want of art
and all its circumference is now somehow
too scant to hold in the broad field
my mind would encompass.

437. PLEIN-AIR AT PRINCETON

PLEIN-AIR AT PRINCETON
Those fellows were watching the sloop Regatta,
scullery-maidens or ladies in waiting. Girls hovered
like wispy angels - sheer blouses and faces to match.
Long-eyed maidens, blue, like the eggs of a robin.
An outside festive air reflexive of open sky:
someone from the far north, another from the Orient.
We placed our marbles on the concrete slab - all
of them and everything. A long-truck-trailer was
loading up the boats. Small talk was
the order of the day.

436. RACECAR ITALICS PENDULUM

RACECAR ITALICS PENDULUM
Swoosh! So fast it seems like a Devil - this
bat out of Hell driving along the bevel,
the place where the roadway bends, the
end-cap of illustrious living. Decode
me, madman! Make me angry all
over again. I can't get over
your sweater.
-
There's a frolicsome living to be
made, a tendency for something
to happen. Nothing matters when
it occurs - you, the fearsome keys,
the rattling throttle of some new
fuel-injected invective. A
well-placed 'Fuck You!',
waved to the crowd.

435. LEFT AT THE GATE

LEFT AT THE GATE
You can always hold me later;
some marvelous penitentiary like
your jewelled mind should bedazzle.
All at once, it is August again - you
know how that goes - and we are already
making plans for next year. The walrus runs
to the right, the small change jangles in my
overstuffed pockets. 'You always have
something to say', you say.
-
Hands at the gate distort the memory of
those lilies which grew by the post. Old
wood, from eighty years back, still managing
to hang on - and each time you slammed the
gate its hinges rattled and shook the post.
I remember that well.
-
My grandmother came by, once, with
a bowlful of flower petals. 'Eat them slowly',
she said, 'just as we did when we were little
children. They're quite good.' I remember
remarking, 'but grandma, they
taste just like ivory.'

434. I TAKE PAUSE

I TAKE PAUSE
No leather locket.
Something else around your neck.
Hangman spells NOOSE like
it was up for grabs.
-
Put the glass fragments back -
perfect pieces only AFTER
they're broken.

433. AT THE SALMAGUNDI CLUB

AT THE SALMAGUNDI CLUB
Thursday comes as nothing,
running forth its fever like some froth
from off a beer. We sit, piled one atop
the other, as if the simple fact of
having no room meant we were
crowded for good purpose.
Words, lingering like some
lazy spider watching its web from
the center, bounce around from wall
to wall: a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
of eventful proportions. If there had
ever been reason to dally, this most
certainly was it. Geography. Travel.
History. Tales of the rivers and graves.
Tales of the rivers and graves.

432. SOMEONE TOTALLY AGREEABLE

SOMEONE TOTALLY

AGREEABLE
A human's sense of balance:
keep straight you fool upon
this spinning planet and
hazard not a guess
from point to point.
-
'If it's not the way you like it,
just a wait a moment or two
until it gets worse. That'll
solve your trumpet woes.'
-
No solvent border, and
nothing along the way :
a human's sense of touch
can break a heart. In it's
grip all men are already
gone. A human's sense
of balance - on the other
hand - keeps one, yes,
alive upon a spinning planet.

431. AT THIS TIME

AT THIS TIME
The windfall of evening douses the air;
scuttled like sky with a star, the owl overhead
stares simply back; down towards the dirtied
earth. Both above it yet upon it, this
comforting creature is teaching restraint:
A somehow restraint, a motive of things,
a thump where it is usually soundless.
-
I catch the evening star blinking.
From far, far above me it appears
to be shining down - from a place
where there is neither up nor down.
How owl-like I think that star must be.

430. I MAYBE LOST THE CAROM I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE

I MAYBE LOST THE CAROM
I NEVER WANTED TO HAVE
Your arms were extended to me.
I grasped them back. I felt the pulse
of your steady heart beating. Outside -
somewhere in the misty midnight air -
they'd gathered for a candlelit vigil.
-
People by the ton stood their ground
(let's put it that way for effect). In rows
of two or three they chanted or sang,
something I couldn't understand. A
police whistle wailed, the distant train
whistled, and the last thing to be heard
was some man shouting odd commands.
-
Nothing went well, but nothing went down.
The newspapers - though they tried - even
they were unable to come up with a story.
We egged them on by making up lies.
They hung on our every word.

429. THE ROOF IS COMING DOWN

THE ROOF IS
COMING DOWN
(Soundproof)
Hanging too high, the midstream winces,
calling out home for what is behind.
Someone pacing, like a chivalric hero
below, lifts the crest of one King or
another. Battlements met are battlements
set; on this field it hardly matters.
The blood is just now leaving
your eyes.

428. I SEE BONES

I SEE BONES
I see bones of long ago -
all unchanging yet serving
the means all the same. A
rigid primogeniture of use and
and purpose : as if the 'arms'
really did 'make the man.'
Anyway, I see nothing of the
senseless new. I see bones.
-
She is standing sweetly;
composed of those bones
underneath - though you'd
never know it from looking or
seeing her. The otherwise soft
fabric of all of her life covers
all that - the loves and the lines,
the soft coating of flesh and hair.
Things of no account, really.
-
That passing moment of the
human chime covers all
that skeletal grime.

427. IRRATIONAL SPIRITS

IRRATIONAL SPIRITS
Out of mark, out of time, out
of place. The locus of the stage
is planted and steady - and my
feet-marks are measured by tape.
Places measured; where I should stand.
This scene, that scene. Where to be,
and where to move.
-
The black man, I am noticing,
Willy - my friend - is talking and
laughing loudly, in this great old
morning sun, in the most animated
fashion I have ever seen. All Amos
and Andy and Scatman Crothers combined.
Stepin' Fetchit got nothing on him!
-
Reading Hart Crane can sometimes seem
like nothing more than a gay dream. A
mistaken nomenclature of some bad science.
Every blade of grass within him, it seems,
wants to go back to Whitman - 'Crossing
Brooklyn Ferry' and all that. That's not a mark
I'd care to make - really - for myself.
After all, the gate to High Parnassus
was closed long, long ago.

426. WHAT WILL WE SAY TODAY?

WHAT WILL WE
SAY TODAY?
"What? Where is it moving?
What is moving? The current?
Nothing is actually moving, though
the current is moving through
the wires." Erotic music, at the
Leeds Conference; sponsored, oddly
enough by the F.B.I. "Old trees,
and housekeeping. Did you know
the girl who named Pluto is dead?"

425. ADAGE 24

ADAGE 24
He thinks women nurture
because they have a womb -
men nurture too,
and straight to the tomb.
It is a world of gadgets,
of gearwheels and tools,
and we are left with a crowd
made mostly of fools.

424. THE GATEKEEPERS OF CONTENT

THE GATEKEEPERS

OF CONTENT
'Brothers and Attached'
Sometimes I get tired of the aggressive spirit -
the flagpole flying a banner stretched to desperation
with the wind, the little mill town too proud of itself
and its one horse and carriage endlessly circling its
touristy streets. I think, in fact, mostly of nothing but
polar opposites : the places I'd like to NEVER be, the
tired scenes I've missed, the trivial art-show on those
paper-thin streets. Just today, cashing a check in
this paltry small town, the teller asked me 'How would
you like your cash?' I usually answer 'tens will be fine',
but today I said 'in an endless stream, thank you.'
She smiled at me, at first quizzically, then with
a broad and very contagious grin.

423. THE FORESTER PAYMENT

THE FORESTER PAYMENT
I was made by seeds in the land amidst
patches of mud tended by rain. There was
nothing I could do to stop growth once
it had started.
-
I wandered the land forty years :
biblical-time, in its way, is reflected
in units of space. For instance, the
Terebinth of Mamre, where Abram
pitched his tent so as to meet his
metaphorical God, is now a gun shop
and a shopping mall 40 stores strong.
And all the oaks are gone.
-
And all the oaks are gone.

422. REMEMBER IT ALL

REMEMBER IT ALL
'...Like it was yesterday : the gibsome swan,
the stand at Ebb's Lane, the dominoes at the
Cathedral Fever Diner. She came strolling in,
Ellen, and said it was 'her turn to sit.'
And so she did. I came unglued by beauty -
or something approaching it. A small hand
on a lit cigarette, two large glasses of wine.'
-
That was what he said, anyway. The truth of
the matter was he on the the phone when
the cops came in. They hustled him away for
dealing in drugs, not people. He only wished
as much in his skyscraper notebook. A
filthy Philadelphia King, a dead-ringer for
some Rocky Balboa from a dead-man's Hell.

421. SENT FROM MOURNING

SENT FROM MOURNING
I watched that guy die on his bed -
twisted and taut, sweaty like water. He
simply expired with a twist. It was the
worst thing I ever saw - I couldn't
sleep, I couldn't shake the scene, I
couldn't talk about it.
-
I don't ever want to re-live another scene
like that. Somebody else can do it for me.
Somebody else's father, somebody's mother.
Anything you'd like - uncle, aunt, neighbor, friend.
It wouldn't matter which since the same's coming
to all. Sincerely yours, Armand Mourning.

420. FROM CARIOU TO HERKIMER

FROM CARIOU TO HERKIMER
I have wandered white, with both eyes closed.
I have sat for hours fast asleep while pretending
to be awake - it is all so simple really and there
is no difference to be seen. Jongleur and troubadour,
both, have already entered the scene and gone.
Music plays faintly somewhere softly.
-
The ridges in the land are patterns for the scape -
high hills, ragged promontories, jagged bluffs of
rock and stone. Glacial graffiti, as it were, of times
long gone. High above the land, I manage looking down
without too much trouble : without so much as a blink,
without ever realizing that my eyes are still shut.
-
Angels may come and angels may go -
winged messengers scarfed and bundled with
raiment and glow. Singing celestial songs, they
hover close. I hear the music, but still see nothing.
I wonder, occasionally - am I an angel, or just a man?

419. RAIN

RAIN

(Not With Logic Disposed To Remedy)

We cut out the wet pajamas

in only the most obscure manner -

(when the men were making cars,

when the women were making ovens).

The morning sky had darkened, in what

was a most fitting manner, over the course

of a minute or two - from dark to light to

dark again; and then the torrential

downpour came. Everything reveled

while everything suffered too. Water,

water everywhere, and not a drop would

do. 'Well this is a fine kettle of fish

you've gotten me into' - sainted men

salubriously talk like this - 'I take my

hat off to you.' Someone ran by in a

hurry, to try and escape the rain.

(Which is something you can never do).

418. ASSERTIVENESS WITH ITS ALARM BELL

ASSERTIVENESS WITH
ITS ALARM BELL
Three moments past the shoulder arms shot :
a cryptic general wearing his ribbons and crests.
Nothing so outlandish as a knight in shining armor
dying like a slob : things dribbling from his mouth,
famous rancorous last words recorded, and posterity
wiping up every bit. Nothing left, nothing researched.
If we are what we eat - then gluttony has its rooster
in the cage. All that, and I am shamed by nothing.
-
The kingpin butcher with the hobbled hands,
twenty fattened geese, sick to death, being
force-fed by Mexican hands. The kinds of
work only a moron should do - something
forced, something useless, something bad.
-
I never loved a military man. I never loved
an order. I never loved a rule.

417. MAD TRAIN MAD TRAIN

MAD TRAIN MAD TRAIN
I have to live with bells and whistles.
I have to ride the train with huddles of
others going to and fro. It is like
dawn and daylight together, always.
We talk - instead of just silence.
To some, the noise is better.
I hear a million things, and
learn a million other.
-
It is always near; the corner of
where I stand - rounding something,
watching for the light, hearing the bells
and the whistles. The same few conductors,
always, lurking about; some fat, others just
stout. They nod and they talk - clipping the
tickets, checking the stubs. I'm never sure
of what routine to follow. Is it me who's
here, or have I already gone?

416. ORIENTALE

ORIENTALE
Two hands on the burning log; a sudden pang
of pain, fearsome sizzle, and a sudden scream.
Like that in a dream; but with the endless sky
above and the open heart of a peaceful dove
dropping down to bless the scene - this was
some Japanese theater, brought forth by kids,
fifteen year-olds anyway. The Shibanu Theater
Academy, with red velvet seats just like long ago.
On Avenue B. Something like that, dear and royal
to memory. Emperor. Great Lord of Sky.
-
I entered after paying three dollars, and sat down.
Watching what transpired, what was presented,

I confused more than myself in merely interpreting
what I saw. It was all spectacle. A great mime of
eastern theater entitled 'The Horror Imagination'.

I was in awe of what I saw. I was enamored

of the cast. I hoped it would never end.
I wanted it to last.

415. LIVING AN EARTHLY LIFE

LIVING AN EARTHLY LIFE
I'd found the source of this market
was lies - quite considerably so. They
came forth like water from rock.
I was standing at 18th and Pine,
in Philadelphia, when the man
from the courthouse approached me.
He put out his hand. He was
walking a dog. We nodded and
shook, as if making friends.
'My friend, my friend, the Civil
War Museum is closed. But actually,
on these very corners, across from
each other, lived Ulysses S. Grant
and General Meade. Boyhood friends too.
General Grant was later used by James Joyce
as the title character in his book titled the
same. 'Ulysses', that is. Meade's family
took its name from a drink favored
by early civilized man.
You can look it all up', he said,
laughing.

414. THE UNMARVELED CIRCUMSTANCE OF WANT

THE UNMARVELED
CIRCUMSTANCE
OF WANT
(I really loved Mary,
I really loved Jane.
Underneath the covers,
they were all the same.)
'You can take your freight car and shove it. Albert Camus,

remember, died on the road, and even Frank O'Hara, I think

it was, was sliced in two by an errant dune buggy. The last time

I painted this house I painted it green; how it's turned back

to white is beyond me.' The radio played 'Days of Wine

and Roses', but it played it over and over again as if

there was nothing else to do. I soon grew bored,
and walked away holding pieces of twig and some
twine from the garden where I'd just been
hanging out. It was just great fun

watching Nellie Bly bend over.
-
Everything all day was like this. Toil and sweat, repeat,
and toil and sweat again. Why? I do not know.
And then the guests began coming, two by two,
into the restaurant next door. Guys with their
dates, girls with their guys, guys with guys
and girls with girls. Everybody looking
good - well, girls anyway; all I cared
about. I wondered who'd be sleeping
with whom before the night was thru.

413. AND HOW I HIT SO HARD

AND HOW I HIT SO HARD
Fragments such as these, left and
found in the bottom of a pocket.
Specks of paper and the lint of a lie.
Wednesday the 24th was nothing compared
to this. You know, since I've already told it,
how they hid in the alcove and jumped out,
fists flying, as they wrestled me to the ground.
-
Somehow, a knife came out, and then another.
With a changing complexion, my how that fight
went on. Blood came, things spilled. A loosened
tooth was a lucky break. It was over in ten minutes.
-
Which is a lot for a brawl, a long time to
fight getting winded, an era to keep from
muscle fatigue. You think it's easy?
Shows how little you know.

412. BEING BORN INTESTATE

BEING BORN

INTESTATE
Never for a second.
The barking dog.
Something like a barnyard
pig, rooting through slop,
fending off advances, trying
desperately to find the machine
within the dream. Pile-driver
Heaven and a manager with
a heart of gold.
-
In the glimmer of early morning,
while the sun slides slowly
along its way, I watch the
daylight colors, brightening,
rising, everything opening up.
I think of that woman I'd just
seen, in her white robe,
stepping outside, bending
down, picking up the day's
paper, thrown onto her lawn.
-
It's nothing ever like this.
When it hits you.
This is life, completely
apparent, and then
(slowly) it's over
in a flash.

411. YOU AND A DYNAMITE CURTSY

YOU AND A
DYNAMITE CURTSY
I am caught between a hair-lever past
and a future too dull to read. I am
stretched between two places in time
of which neither is offered as
solace or condolence, nor happiness
or mirth. Opposites attract, it is
said. And if that is so, then there
I am at once - already engaged in
disobeying the rules. My hat goes
off to no man, and nothing in time can
stop me - neither from running in
place nor winning the race.
And then you come along :
disruptive bumpkin, outlandish
rake, oafish daughter of the guy
from Mars, keeper of birds in a
barnyard of filth.

410. DARKNESS

DARKNESS
In the most obscure way possible,
I set to ringing bells - sneaking into
towers under cover of the night,
and awakening whole villages with
the pillage and plunder of noise.
There were some who rose willingly,
lighting their tapers and rummaging
about - sticking first heads and then
bodies and arms out their doorways
and windows. 'What is all this, and
what is it about?' they'd query
whomever they could - with, of
course, no answers to be forthcoming.
Others cowered, and stayed indoors.
The darkness covered me well.
I was hidden, and no one knew.

409. THE PASTICHE OF THE INDETERMINATE

THE PASTICHE OF

THE INDETERMINATE

Berkeley, having said, 'to be perceived is to exist' did

seem to disappear. It really was no matter, I suppose,

after that. Some of us hardly now know his name, let

alone what he may have said. After all, everything's

perception, is it not? I see you, you see me, no?

-

It wasn't always thus: a time ago, when cavemen

waltzed their soily pavement, the things unseen

were more feared than things apparent. In front

of one was easy! It should have been so simple.

Unseen lurking dangers. Tigers, tigers, burning

bright. Chimeras, ogres, spirits, devils and

curses and the like - shapeless things of

awesome form. 'What'cha don't see can kill'ya!'

some caveman must have grunted I'm sure.

-

So now we settle for hardness and grit.

This material world abounds. We shake

hands with the solid effect of everything

present. What we can't figure out (apparently

yet) are the fingers and figments of love,

the pastiche of the indeterminate, the

glowing quilt of our own fears and doubts.

408. ALL THE DOGS ARE RESTED

ALL THE DOGS

ARE RESTED
'The dead certainty with which they
have made this land has gotten us
nowhere really.' I looked up.
'It would perhaps be easier
just for him to tell us where
he hasn't been.'
'Tell me about your travels,
oh my!' Laughter.
'Who cares though?',
The other girl said.
'Never did get a chance
to finish. Thank you,
thank you. Is that
Monday?'

407. WE ARE PLACED HERE

WE ARE PLACED HERE
to reinforce one another...
that we are both in the light.
Some mongrel's voice is coming
through the curtains from another
room - in which I do not have to
dwell. By stepping foot inside,
I'd know I was already lost.
It's been said that poets have
certain ways to which they always
revert in their writing. I deem that
this may be so; maybe it is not,
but I would never know. For I
was born to fly backwards.

406. TRAFALGAR SQUARE

TRAFALGAR SQUARE
Or somewhere. The clairvoyant magistrate had
already phoned ahead, bringing forth a few gardeners,
an expert in wainscoting, and a tired old man who was
good with tires, ran the quarter mile swiftly,
held no grudges and handed out alms.
Over on the left, Sally Quigley herself had
let down her guard and was growing roses
from her knees. Her boyfriend smoked a pipe,
and it started to rain. Nobody looked up.
The odds were ten-to-one some form
of royalty would show up,
arrive swiftly, and just
as swiftly, depart.

405. INCUNABULA (This Very Life We Lead)

INCUNABULA

(This Very Life We Lead)
In putting little babies to the test, is it wise
to dunk them in their bath? To see how
long they stay beneath the settled water,
unable to breath, yet screaming? A
wide-opened mouth with nothing coming
out. Like a book, freshly printed and still
letter-press wet, not yet bound or stitched -
hundreds of pages in quartos and octos,
stay in place, awaiting some final act
by which they are finished-up, or the better
word, 'completed'. In the end, we really
find ourselves little-caring for anything
either way - living, dying or staying put.
Maybe even something in between.
This very life we lead.

404. TIRED FEST (Like Quasimodo in Outer Space)

TIRED FEST
(Like Quasimodo in Outer Space)
Lanterns in the trees; things adorned with
Japanese lights and ghost-heads and spirits.
The kimono-clad lady was drinking her tea:
pinkie up, small eyes, creased, and a smile.
I couldn't figure out a thing. Why she smiled,
in fact, was the first question I had. Off behind
her, Sumo wrestlers belched and barked, like
seals and warriors determined to be rude or stupid.
In their over-sized diapers, these fat guys looked
ridiculous, but I couldn't laugh. I felt strange,
in a distant foreign land, out-of-place.
Like Quasimodo, say, in outer space.

403. TICKETS FOR THE METHOD ACTOR (1956)

TICKETS FOR THE
METHOD ACTOR

(1956)
The carriage blew in on a burst of speed.
Streamlined emoting, nodding on nothing,
bringing forth the image from reliving the act.
One line after another - on some old ragged script -
kept me noodling in silence for coffee and eggs
(like some old drama diner where tired old
actors hung out with their food). 'I couldn't
claim for nothing', the ancient film star muttered,
'I couldn't claim for nothing. I'd done it all
before, and it had all been taken from me.'

402. THE MAIDENHEAD AT HER OASIS

THE MAIDENHEAD

AT HER OASIS
She wore her slivered presence like an ancient,
beautiful cloak - under the sunlight, around the trees,
and through every sort of alcove and alley there was.
Nowhere could any other be found to outdo her in
grace and intention. Starry light under golden sky.
I once took a moment more than was due, to peer
back at her, passing, and watch what she left.
That golden light and starry sky, however it was
just said and mentioned, tries its best to describe
what I mean. I cannot speak or say what it is -
glory and fire, echo, and the roar of sound.
All these things were trailing her, all things
such as these seemed to abound, and her
wake was filled with sizzling presence.

401. THE WAY I TALK TODAY

THE WAY I TALK TODAY
This is the part of my life I love,
the Mercantile Exchange of my mind and
heart - those with whom I hold hands. The
forest dumbbell, I say to myself:
'If truth is beauty, and beauty is truth,
then why have I grown so long in the tooth?'
Some ageless old horse, if ever were found,
could never answer that, never make a sound.
-
Without recourse to the legend or the key,
I nod an assent gratuitously - for I am
not reserved enough for truth nor wild
enough for beauty - and either way, for me,
they'd be both nothing but trouble and duty.
-
I hear the century-old radiator slapping;
and the heat isn't even on.

400. SCALING

SCALING
On the bottom of this wind is the top of
the light - a separate place, fragrant and live.
The firemaster, atop the sky, still expects
his edicts heeded. 'This will never do!', some
new Nero cries. We genuflect in admiration
when fleckled gold, like stars, drifts from
the heavens above. Reading words with no
lips moving. It is a truly remarkable thing.

399. TABLEAU VIVANT

TABLEAU VIVANT
I am not dead memory, your
once-for-wishful-thinking
heart and mind. And that
distant light - the one you
claim to see - is but a lamplight
far down a boring hallway.
-
Something is ticking - there - on
the mantle. They say that it is
Time - a fickle essence, moving
away. I say, I say 'NO!' - a sound
and a fury, perhaps, signifying
something grand, something
awesome, something.
-
I have not placed these items
on the table. No, it was not me,
for I am not here. The tableau
vivant is all you see.

398. RAIN DRENCHED METROPOLIS

RAIN DRENCHED METROPOLIS
(outside the cathedral)
The entire idea was his : jackhammer, awning,
temporary fencing and steel plates over the
sidewalk. 'That's just the way construction is done
here', he said. And no one disagreed or objected.
Obstructions notwithstanding, even the Pope's
own legation could get through if they really
wished. Under the tutelage of a new
rainbow, they all could soldier on.
-
Swiss Guard, like a nightingale, could hover.
The rain in torrents could make its presence
known. The upside down umbrellas in
someone's dream could be seen as
small ponds each, lakes of
collected water that no one
would touch.
-
I watched the beads of water on the
windshield of someone's car as it waited
at the light. By somehow waxing the window,

he'd inadvertently made me this sight:

Diamonds on glass,

glistening in the night.

397. MICHAEL MICHAEL

MICHAEL MICHAEL
The neighbor wore a scarf; and no one
ever knew what sex he was. Called Michael by
some, I'd heard him also called Michelle.
He wove sweaters at the mill.
A mother once, let's assume it
was his, was heard to say : 'My God,
Michael, whatever will you grow up
to be? A fine an old man with a shortage
of age, or a wond'rous old woman
to whom nobody will pay heed?'
As if there was an answer to any
of that, others kept asking the same
sort of thing. He finally said 'If I listen
to you all, I'd do nothing else, all my days,
but try to figure things out. Just let me
be, and what I am you will see.
It will make wonderful sense to me.'

396. RIVERS OF MOUNTAINS AND MOONS OF THE NIGHT

RIVERS OF MOUNTAINS AND
MOONS OF THE NIGHT
They stood fifteen hands high these
mighty men. They arched their silver
torsos over any land they chose.
Fiery filament engaging the night -
light's fearsome torch in some old
harbor-born exercise of toil and pain.
-
We stepped forward, high on that one.
It was 1957 all over again - before things
had changed for the worse. Elvis sheets
and convertible nights, chewing gum cards
and baubles hanging from mirrors and lamps.
Nothing meant much, and everything meant
nothing. What do I get for that now?
-
Criticism and slander and an itch and a scratch.

395. LIKE MY FRIEND ALECK AT THE PROVING GROUND

LIKE MY FRIEND ALECK

AT THE PROVING GROUND

Somehow there was never any mystery

to the mystery of time. I'd walked the

same streets, in the same manner, and

done the same things. We'd shared, thereby,

space and time - though never actually

'dined' together. It's funny like that - how one

barometer of where you are with someone

is whether or not you've ever eaten together.

I suppose it's tribal - that old community

fire thing, the shaman around the hearth,

the stories shared thereby and the ease that

comes, expectedly, with knowing that - while

eating - you're off your guard but nothing bad

will come of it.

394. AT GYRY BRIDGE

AT GYRY BRIDGE
Catamaran and altitude together nearing Byrnehym Gaol.
Small and angled, the rocky cliffs descend harshly
into the gently weaving grasses running loose along
the nearby shore. An errant barrel, someone's old bicycle,
the most-usual crap of a most-usual age. The old men
of the Burnham family - as we know it today - once
ran their sickly jail right here - a cinderblock hut large
enough for maybe four. Men who'd lost their way;
crazy guys with no home or history.
-
Single events of no time and place, the sort of
story-lines from which come ghost tales and
horror legends. The axe-man who killed fourteen
people at the Jameson wedding. Millie Floray who
butchered her children and torched her cabin
before burning her husband alive. It's this
level of memory keeps tourism alive.
-
Now we're in the level graveyard, where
only happenstance has put people away.
Granite and sandstone and slate,
varied sorts of markers each with
a tale to tell. 'Beware ye who cometh
here - to not lose this life for it is
too dear' this thin marker reads...
It's like that everywhere, one
fabled thing after another.

393. RUNNING FOR DEATH

RUNNING FOR DEATH
I run this final marathon backwards if I can,
holding my head in my hand and watching out
for neighbors on the lam. I haven't seen them before,
and I'm not sure where they're at. It's an awesome sight to
see, these thousands of people shaking the bridge ever
so slightly ajar. Death, having undone so many, now just
lets them pass. We state it sincerely - this vapid cycle -
running for the inner circle where the over-25 crowd hangs.
A new beer in each hand, the young girls with their fellows
hang demurely from the sidelines, letting glimpses of
breast and buttock pass us by. Enchanted to say the least,
those forty-thousand year old ruins called Man and Beast
are last seen rummaging through darkened corners of
memory by the old Ben Franklin church - squealing kids
and silent adults alike in a reverie never seen before or since.

392. HAVE YOU HEARD?

HAVE YOU HEARD?
Have you heard how heads will roll,
oil will boil, water will wash? The sandman,
alert to his things, will reminisce at late night
soirees about the days of yore - when he passed
over the nomads in the sand, dropped Manna from
heaven in some foreign land, and scorched the heated
deserts for a 'chosen' few. At the loudspeakers just
outside the window, the hollow-voiced fellows will
stop just short of microphoned shouting, pushing bad
images into the faces of those who stroll by. They shout:
'We are singing the long song of those chosen by God!
You may listen or you may pass - it makes no never-mind
to us. We are no longer of this earth!' Nobody minds that and,
upon hearing it, they glide away, knowingly avoiding that
they just witnessed the Truth being spoken aloud. No God like
that has ever spoken to them before. They are, then, delighted
just for the memory of being present at the start of something big.

391. WEARING A CAPSIZED FISSURE

WEARING A

CAPSIZED FISSURE
Falstaff and Mata Hari
Tenth of May twelfth of June together.
One man's army, another man's good weather.
As equal as partners distressed in good sin, the
weather wore the clothing and threw it all in - while,
on the floor, two naked bodies beating bleating - begin
setting off into the essential essence and interdenominational
frenzied worship of lust. One kid grasped the heartbeat, the
other felt for a breast. It was all so easy as to be ill-fitting.
-
They marched together that November outside London Center.
Ban the Bomb, or Bomb the Bans, or whatever the banners
said - no one seemed really to care or even notice. The entire
Greek Navy stopped by one night, into the Armoured Hire
Pub/Queen Anne's Lane. They too sat amongst the
naked ladies and not a one complained. (One kid
grasped the heartbeat, the other felt for a breast.
You heard it right, yes, yes.) - It's always the
same under the tweaking umbrella.
Freaking umbrella. Twining's
English Tea. Fella?

390. APPARENT MISCHIEF

APPARENT MISCHIEF
At one time - say in the cold frost
of a Winter's morning - I had no
inclination to do a thing. I stood back,
under a shield of ice, and watched the
fir trees shudder, the bare limbs of the
oaks take their coatings of ice, and the
branching elms, creaking, strain against
the cold. I stayed in one place until
I was too cold myself to move. I wished,
just then, to feel what a tree feels :
bare and barren, cold and glazed.
It wouldn't have been that difficult -
after all, my heart itself was already
wishing for a Spring and a Sun.
Something spectacular to brush off
this wearisome world. The old man's
shovel was propped against the ice-glazed
barn. Frozen drips, in turn, had covered the
shovel solid. Everything was under something :
cold, pain, ice, longing. The entire natural world,
I figured, was never complete without its own
incompleteness being present as well.

389. AT DR. BERNARDO'S

AT DR. BERNARDO'S
By a wayward stream, by a break in my life
by a chance encounter, by any of those means
could I have been saved. I was as lonely as
could be, and as broken as a twig; trampled,
crushed. It all came to no meaning.
-
I'd been abandoned by everyone and left alone:
everyday, a total quiet. The brocade of ill intention
and the silk of misapprehension - couch fabrics
in my less-than-comfortable mind. With a
twitch of my very own, I set the land to scowling.
-
'Well Doctor, you've asked me to tell you everything,
to tell you how I feel. I'd rather be walking these streets
than stuck in here with you. One crazed soul on the
sidewalk is worth ten in a place like this.'
-
No one either agreed or disagreed with me.
It'd been that way for so long I'd lost memory
of any other way. Why bother for anything more?
I'd grown used to living on little. My secular
vow of poverty was as real as anything else.

388. AN OBESE VARIETY OF INTENTION

AN OBESE VARIETY

OF INTENTION

Numbers never lie.

You've lived too long to believe that.

But: they were made to lie, misrepresent,

be twisted and jiggered with. Anything else

you may be told is pure and wishful thinking.

Consider this: one is never one, and two is never two.

The heart is a single tomb for one, forced to hold two.

The more you stuff into it, the less more space will do.

387. SECRETS FOR ALGERNON

SECRETS FOR ALGERNON

They flew in under the radar - these tiny,

nascent humanoid creatures - and as soon

as they grew eyes and lungs, they manipulated

a certain form of consciousness to see reality

their way alone. We became their clouds and

their shadows, as they became our dream-comforts

and ideas. It's been said that more than one reality

inhabits the human mind - divided attentions, levels

of energy, palatial moments squeezed into small

spaces. I can believe all that - well, let me re-phrase -

I'd 'like' to believe all that, if only I had some proof...

of things which might have been, of monsters walking

on land, of the great gyrating forms of Gods at work

perfecting things. That's never to be, so I'll then never see.

Nonetheless, I'll be your friend, some guide-companion,

pal or buddy. We can meet as often as can be - exchange

words, have a drink, understand each other in ways only

insiders can. It can all be unsaid. Remain in darkness,

while seeking the light.

386. STACCATO

STACCATO

Ezra Pound in 1910. Older medicine,

different men. The curious threshold

of believing the things one says, and

then: of living vicariously through one's

own stories. I thought it was going to

be some sort of crypto-pen. But, alas,

it was not to be; well short of that again.

385. A SCIENCE OF WISHFUL THINKING

A SCIENCE OF

WISHFUL THINKING
You have made a science of wishful thinking - the
task you've never yet interrupted. The woeful things,
all disappeared, shall never come again: the Sun
will always shine and the rain will be warm and gentle.
The bluest of skies will prevail. The jailmaster shall
have no keys, and doors will never lock.
-
And I shall never forget your face, nor you mine.
Any misdeed will leave no trace. The joyful minions,
a hundred deep, shall passively wait in line - for only
'goodness and mercy shall follow me for the rest of
my days.' You'd made that up one day, saying it was
your very own. I watched your hair and your hands
as you talked. Yes, truly, you'd made a science of
wishful thinking; an aspiration I could never meet
(and a trail I could never walk).

384. THE GLITTERATI OF A LOVER'S EYES

THE GLITTERATI OF
A LOVER'S EYES
All over the great lawn the sparrows were singing.
Like the terms of some Russian novel, very
complicated handshakes and banners now
covered the field. Outside of the circle,
just then, I saw her approaching : bold blue eyes
and a shawl of mirth and humor. Cantilevered
shoes with the strap that wrapped the calf.
It should have all been photographed discreetly.
She was carrying coffee, the little red
container held gently in her hands.
Nothing else stirred as I watched.
-
Her situation was most intense :
three guys wanting her attentions,
plus a lover and a boyfriend both in tow.
I could only imagine how she managed all this.
Her magic hands? Her hugs? Her kiss?
Not that it mattered a whit to me. I was
still lost on that Sunday field from long
ago, watching this as it all transpired,
once before; another time, another
place, and me.

383. ONE DAY HE JUST DROPPED

ONE DAY HE JUST DROPPED
...It may be that he fell from the face of the Earth,
dropped off, disappeared, forever. Or it may have
been just the appearance of same - some ephemeral
magic is like that, after all. The only thing we know is
that what once was there is gone. 'If there's nothing in it,
it's empty', the burly fellow said that. I answered back,
'Are we so sure of that? Is it always so?' - questioning
his mark, and myself as well. He then turned his words
around, and said 'It's empty if there's nothing in it.' Ready
neither to agree or disagree, I left him standing there.
-
There always a declension among men - Mankind, I mean -
that limits the sapient from the sane. And there are those,
on either side of that line, who often act the same. How
can that be? Shouldn't we say 'if it's 'this', then it's not 'that.''
-
Illusion is a dapper trick. The light lines lie, posing as they
do on either side of some cosmic camera lens. 'I want what
is not there', that fellow's tattoo had read - shamelessly,
and right across his forehead. He disappeared from the
world. One moment he just was no longer there.

382. I'D LOVE A RICHTER NUDE

I'D LOVE A RICHTER NUDE
(Painting of a Dead Squirrel, 1962)
Gerhard Richter never trembled so.
Stone cold hard, emaciated relish, with
an awkward reliance on a subdued heart.
No, wait! That cannot be!
It never happens that way.
-
The woman told me the one-eyed
squirrel had disappeared. She saw
a massive hawk just lift it up
and go. Talon transportation,
beak-bound transformation.
Life running into Death.

381. EVOLUTIOIN

EVOLUTION
I have been frozen in ice for what seems
like thousands of years - yet I have no
way of telling. This is a very seamless
dream. I sway and weave, though I
should not. In this condition all things are
supposed to be solid and hard. No one
has yet invented books, though here I
am, seemingly, reading something hard
and stone-cold. And, yes, somehow my
eyes have remained viscous - a liquid
magic containing other worlds. If this
eternity, I'll have none of it. If this is
Evolution, I am waiting for it to begin.

380. MY WATERLOO OVERLOAD

MY WATERLOO OVERLOAD
I threw the cards down and they broke
all over me : aces and ivory, kings and queens,
jokers and jacks alike. I was {fucking} nowhere
man. Nowhere, man. Nowhere.

379. INTESTINAL FORTITUDE

INTESTINAL FORTITUDE
They did it twice : cutting the cat's eyes
wide open over blazing coals. And then
stripping the flesh from the bones, tearing
slowly, pulling it back. Like witches or
shamans seeking omens and portents, they
approached the task in the utmost manner.
Secret words and things only muttered.
By morning, the flames had all died down -
there was nothing left but embers and dust, ash
and bones, the gruesome pain and all those moans.

378. AT SWEETWATER

AT SWEETWATER
There are sixteen huge homes along the shoreline bluff,
right where they ever were - when this was a resort, a
jaunt, a pleasure cruise away for the city's crowded masses.
Ah, but that was long ago. Now, there is nothing but the land
and the soiled sea and the soiled water and the great tanks
of oil and fuel. Storage, they call it. 'A tank farm', they say.
A plundering abyss of fire and flame and fuel so rabid
as to bite. The huge old houses still stand - in fact, now,
as I watch, there is one with thirty people in its porch;
having a party, singing aloud, talking ahead with
laughter and excitement. I am staring out to sea.
Someone else is strumming a guitar, singing
'Bye, Bye Love'. I hear: 'There goes my baby,
with someone new. She sure looks happy,
I sure am blue. She was my baby, that
much is true. There goes my baby,
with someone new.'
-
Cars are parked all along the fenceway.
Elderly people, mostly, are staring out
to the distance or walking along as if
they were tending a life-garden of their
very own - which of course they are.
-
Everything is growing around them, as
the fearsome grip of both anguish and
love holds them steady. The marshland
and reeds along here are their companions.
The slow and quiet lap of the water and
the boats soothes the tired mind. Soon
the sun will be setting around us all.
The music is playing on....'there goes
my baby, with someone new.'

377. READING THE NEWSPAPER IN SWAHILI

READING THE
NEWSPAPER
IN SWAHILI
There's nothing to it really - a few
extra words, a few extra pages.
Things I don't often know about -
names of odd cars, other cuts of meat
from animals I'm not sure of. They play
some sort of checkerboard-pencil game
too, instead of crosswords and kengo.
The ink still rubs off on one's hands.
While I read, these little girls bring me
tea. Like working girls, already; but they're
only 11 or 12. Very off-putting. The young
boys too, if they're not scratching for money
swatting at flies (for a dime), they're looking
wistfully at something others are eating.
I don't often know what to do.
-
So many things are strange to
them here : leather shoes, make-up,
mirrors, erasable pens, antacids.
Not the stuff you'd expect - a million
stupid IPODS and five hundred
thousand Blackberrys. They think the
world is strangely distant, yet they
treat it, I see, as if it was as close
as any other. Everyman and
everyplace, growing
so close together.

376. REVEREND DWILLY

REVEREND DWILLY
I can only say this once : Your charismatic
church is a self-help school and you are in
thrall to nothing but Ego. The gerrymandering
of your district has now constricted your mind -
channels and sections and Leviticus too.
In one sense of many, only this will do.

375. ATOP MT. DISMAL

ATOP MT. DISMAL
Upon reaching the summit, I realized
I was alone - that little shack I'd always
wanted had room but for one. Wind-breeze,
floggings of the elements, slant-rain and wicked
furies, everything conspired to keep me in place.
I couldn't even light the match I'd meant to light.
So many places I'd already been - all those crazy
Mounts : Pisgah, Ararat, McKinley, when it was
still called that. (My denial of Denali, which they call
it now, stems from nothing more than native envy).
You can call me a self-reliant Emersonian geek, a jerk
or a Thoreau-like geezer. Whatever you choose to say,
nothing's any easier. I harbor the grudge yet I forgive all too.
This shack has but room for one; no room for you.

374. DRUNKENNESS

DRUNKENNESS
The tankards that night were all
filled with beer - a heavy new beer
brought fresh and live from somewhere.
It had the dark, audacious ghost of both
a coffee and a wine - the sort of thing drunk -
one would think - only under duress.
-
It didn't stop us. Nothing stopped us.
We didn't let anything stop us.
We stayed and sat - hours prolonged
with waiting and wanting and, yes,
eventually weaving.
-
And oh that we dissembled :
slurred fragmented conversations
brought to doilies and stump deliberations.
Words, felled and trapped, spread over
ideas half-baked through mouths washed-out
with ales sold as soap to the barren barter.
Drunkenness : oh what the hell.

373. IDIOT I AM

IDIOT I AM
Nothing characterizes a sodden character like
the mud on the face of a chimp - one throwing
mud, in fact. Just like any of those crazy guys
on TV, mouthing their doctrinal opinions while
touching themselves. The camera never lies.
Dan Rather said 'the camera never blinks' - all
the same, together. One idiot admitting to the other
the same conclusion : idiot I am.

372. LEGLESS RAM

LEGLESS RAM
They made mine run off.
Five rivers later, I was still chasing
it. The horizon seemed never to
cease, just expand - farther and more.
I was legless but fleet; so was this ram.
In pursuit - like Bunyon's very Hound of Hell,
I sought something soft - forgiveness, passage,
understanding, peace. Whatever it was, it eluded
capture too. We both set off together after that.
In tandem, trading moves, we finally found that horizon.

371. MY LAND FOR YOUR SALLY

MY LAND FOR YOUR SALLY
The wind like a wild man whistled -
high and shrill - shaking trees twisted
and routing them round from their roots.
There was, truly, nothing anyone could do
but count the seconds, minutes, hours
until all of this fury passed. What would be
left - ruination and rubble - would perhaps
be one day rebuilt. We were entering a
land of no return.
-
I offered to harbor your family, take
your Sally even for my own. Anything
to help. Whatever I could do - expand my
largess, embrace your family members,
be wedded - if that's what it took - to your
very own daughter.
-
If only anything had survived.
When the sky cleared it was myself
alone, still single and rare, who was left.

370. NOTHING! VOILA! ICI! IMMOBILE! ANON!

NOTHING! VOILA! ICI!

IMMOBILE! ANON!

Light has painted light with the children of the hour.

We are all marked men marked by time and circumstance

and wishes and want. There is no forgetting that which

is gone - for the endless story lines all just go on.

There is no parking of the car between the lines - nor

within the lines. There is simply nowhere to go : everything

has been superseded by everything else. 'Reciprocal!

Use a Rembrandt as an ironing board! Let Art do for you what

you have done for Art! Nothing! Voila! Ici! Immobile! Anon!'

369. LIGHTS CAMERA ACTION

LIGHTS CAMERA ACTION

(Movie Prelude Trailer Tease)

I always get a kick out of how they refer to coffee as

a 'beverage' - as in 'careful, your beverage is hot', or

'beverage lids here'. I'd guess - if it isn't a solid - they

pretty safely call everything a beverage whenever they

wish. It's in the nature of their game : category and

signification, emplacement and name. Man gave names

to all the animals, and all the rest - Holocaust. Nuclear

weapons. Chemical warfare. Disease and Death.

Duty to country. Yeah, I really get a kick.
-

Have you seen the one where the father

kills the kid? It's a robot movie of some sort,

all fearsome gore and crazy movement.

That's what they like, these days. Rabid

fetish product placement half-naked

women playing their destitute roles.

Lights. Camera. Action.

(But have they lost their souls?).

367. ONE ROTTEN BIOGRAPHY

ONE ROTTEN BIOGRAPHY
I was always attracted to absurdity.
I was born in a manger, next to the
five and dime store - my mother worked
there for a while, in the Needles and Fabric
section. I was walking steadily by age 11 -
had left home by then, and even seen Kansas.
Went once to Notre Dame too - brought there
by accident and left in the zoo - local wildlife
and some house pets too. It's all different there.
You have to see it for what it is. No
secrets in the alley, no secrets in the pew.
(Not even Father Dominic would I let do
what he wanted to do). It all went OK.
I've survived. (Phew!)...

367. YOU'RE A WIT THE WAY I KNEW IT TO BE

YOU'RE A WIT THE WAY
I KNEW IT TO BE
The car was zooming by, almost as if on
wings. Wings of grade A dental floss,
marshmallow swaggers, indentured lungs.
The songbird perched above your head, I
was noticing, tried like Hell to keep up, but
mostly failed - leaving nothing but a feathered
trail instead of a tail. You seemed to be smoking a
cigarette from the wrong end, but it could merely
have been Relativity interacting with your spacious
speed that tricked me up. Windows went up,
windows went down. 'Don't the fuzzy bastards
know anything?' the last cop said - he was the
one wearing blue and standing tallest. I wasn't sure
what he meant but I nodded assent. 'Yes, yes,' I
replied, 'you can say that again.' Which he then did.
All in all, this racket bored me to tears; so I folded
my cot, parked it against the wall, and went away.

366. MAN HAS NEVER

'MAN HAS NEVER'
Man has never built a city like this - an
unsettled settlement, a grand place above
the ice. Towering, the heights only re-engage
what we can see with whatever we may have
imagined. Oh soaring eagle! Oh grand magnificent
one! What arms, to places as high as this, are long
enough to reach? To stretch? To fathom that
artful membrane of grace and imagine and flow!
Oh, I shall be there forever 'fore long. It is
only for now that I must wait a little more.
It is only some time before I will show!

365. LIGHT LIKE AN IVORY GLIMMER

LIGHT LIKE AN
IVORY GLIMMER
These elephants were slim - slim as any
dapper ivory statue. Placed upon a million-
dollar mantle, they reposed each evening,
bright. As the sun, bright. Bright, as the
Heavens, bright. We lose for nothing
with our want of an equal glow. We
are but men, and these are - truly -
angels of Heaven marked in glass.

364. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLIGHT IN THE WORLD

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
FLIGHT IN THE WORLD
...is the one taken the first time you set
out to dream and make something real
from your mind : a holistic universe of
outward love and dimension, one teeming
as if with fish of the heart. The ample sunshine
above your head - the heavenly orb, the bright
yellow light - will illumine your soul as well as
your world. Fear not, for nothing brings it back
once it has been unfurled. Its presence is too intense.

363. FIREPOST

FIREPOST
Five men were waiting for coffee at the
counter by the corner. Some riposte of glee,
the same old punchlines, the stories, the
repartee. It all went down as the usual spree.
-
The girl walked by, looking ravishing, with the
scarf of silk curled once about her neck, and
Portuguese sandals laced at the ankle. Everyone
(it was excusable) at once stopped talking.
Even the bum on the curb, peddling his empty
cup for quarters and dimes, gave up his search
for heavenly bounty, exclaiming - 'the Hell
for money, I'll take that!' Somehow no one
laughed. The barking dog barked, the fire truck,
blaring, went along its way, seeking again and
again its holes through the tangled traffic.

362. IN THE COUNTRY

IN THE COUNTRY
Why am I sitting here as a guardian of Hell,
when all around me your light shines bright?
I should have climbed your Heaven long ago,
but now so much of it is too late. I lost
my nerve initially, when the first constabulary
note arrived - penned in automatic ink,
misspelling my name and getting the numbers
wrong. For which I did penance - well, the
best I knew how. I ran to your arms for that
armed embrace.We fell from the wagon as one.
-
Haystacks and raiment, strong-armed farmers
and the kinds of kitchen-cooks who make
pies all day long. You'd mentioned we'd
'find peace in the country, living like that,
with good water and milk.' I never believed a
word of it, but went along for the ride. The
dumplings were good and, frankly, you fucked
like a she-wolf in heat. I bought an old Buick,
and we gleefully drove off.

361. I SAW THE WITCH : UNDER ARREST

I SAW THE WITCH :

UNDER ARREST

The witch was ambidextrous - stirring fire

with either arm. Nothing harmed her, neither

the fire nor the heat. Above her head, in a swelling

drone, a feathery presence, the blackbird stayed,

staring in place. Their thoughts seems merged

together. Each of her fingertips, I then noticed,

bore a tiny flame - protruding out from it, some point

ignited by her mind. The fine settled fir trees behind

her, rippled by the warm wind, shimmied as they

shook - the same motion, the same gait. There

was an obvious oneness to her rhythm with the

world. A gargoyle like a goat, or a wart-faced hag;

either description would have fit the scene well.

360. ONE-WAY TRIP TO THE BLIND-MAN'S TUNNEL

ONE-WAY TRIP TO THE
BLIND-MAN'S TUNNEL
Where the blind man lived there was
always smoke - it came pouring out the
rooftop chimney at all times of year,
and once or twice too was to be
seen creeping sadly like fog from
underneath the doors. We figured
what he couldn't see couldn't hurt him.
Certainly - anyway - there wasn't really
anything we could do about it.
He lived with himself as well
as anyone else would have.
-
What made this all the more disconcerting
was that no one knew if he kept making
new fires or if this was always from the
same old smoldering mess in his old
stone fireplace. It was all so very
confusing - and those who went
over there to check seemed
somehow never to return.

359. IN SILENCE

IN SILENCE
I pretended Fear,
just as I pretended
Love and all the rest.
Justice. Understanding.
Sympathy. Interest.
To be perfectly frank,
I couldn't have cared less.
I was so far removed that
even entering the same space
as all that was foreign to me.
I haven't really spoken to anyone
in years. And I like it that way.

358. MORNING IN MAY

MORNING IN MAY
Incredibly shrunken heads in incredibly
shrunken places : no room to move, no
place to turn. Much like the vestibule
of a broken-down country church,
there's only room to stand while
waiting. The marchers will
soon go by.
-
It is early morning again, and
I am watching the slow sunlight
crawl up the side of a nearby
building. All Summer it will
do this, as I watch. Then, slowly
waning, the inching crawl will
turn its way again - back, closer to
darkness and death.
-
That room I once thought expanding -
so open and newly wide, will
have transformed again,
into something else :
another small and
dark, cramped
space called
Winter.

357. ALL THE HORSES GONE

ALL THE HORSES GONE
In the ancient days of Mankind -
when salvation was a horse, and
History was all written on ice -
there was no alternative to the
repeated cadences of effect and
after-effect, as one thing after
the other. All rational deliberations,
as of one's brother's shank or
a neighbor's breast, meant nothing
to nomadic tenting tribes and wild
shamans in the bush. Even before
there were borders, the borderlands
had become frenetic.
-
If water is to be walked upon,
Mankind walks a rippling lake.
The Renaissance ended with the
sack of Rome. All the horses, gone.

356. GOD OF THE RIVER

GOD OF THE RIVER
Just as a firm frost-hand would heave
the cold, so I throw my veins open
to you - oh God of the river.
Run through me with your fiery
gold elixir - wisdom, love, happiness
and joy, all together. Elevate me,
to some new and happy place.
I am in love with seeing.
And, to those seeking only good
sense and reason, I would have
to say : 'there is none!'

355. CALENDAR GIRL

CALENDAR GIRL
The calendar girl said
'once you were mine' -
a strangely indicative way
of pointing a finger and
staking a claim. I'd only
known her by then for twenty
days. Like chocolate licked
off one's fingers, the taste was
good, but who knew what
was underneath?

354. THE ROAD TO HOME

THE ROAD TO HOME
Wide and narrow strangely coexist, both
redefining themselves at will - like serious
and laughable together. It is said we are
smarter than the sum of our parts; let's
hope there's something to that.
-
Otherwise, what should I say about
your shouldered markings, your house
of shame, or your wounded dog?
That primrose path we traveled - as I
recall - did all it could to forget us
once we were gone. You closed the
gate on that little white fence, but
in spite of that the dog - once
healed and ready - escaped.
-
An escarpment of possibilities -
we saw it, we jumped. I got out
of that place and never looked back.

353. COUNTING

COUNTING
How I saw the single man in his little
single roadside shed - watching traffic
with a clicker in his hand...it was all
beyond me. What was he doing, and why?
And, for Heaven's sake, counting what?
A mere passage of people? Better to
count the wind and all its motion, or

the stars, so pleasant, above.

352. LINES THROUGH MY HEART

LINES THROUGH

MY HEART
Wires overhead and lines through
my heart, the railroad steel covers
this land. I've got nowhere to go
but where it leads.
-
A wild turkey, single and lone,
walks the field alongside me.
The slowly passing train, as voyeur,
fondles what it sees; a slight violation
of fact. The turkey, on the other
hand, knows nothing
of any of that.

351. FLUENCY

FLUENCY
The rabid dogs are fetching bones,
and all over us things are running out.
The liars have their bowls, and having
already sent away their souls, are living now
by biding time (and that alone) on the threadbare
edges along the fabric of everything else -
the poor man's chattel, the rich man's rolling lawn.