518. LARIMOOR

LARIMOOR
The shrouded oasis on those
sudden shoulders rose - up to
heights not seen before. The
thin air of a mountain ascent,
the struggling forced breath
of an expiring man.
-
As bad as it all was, the startling
light of the next morning's glare
brought all such feelings crashing
to a halt. Life and love, never
better than in this rarefied place,
seemed just to go on and on.

517. MY MR. SAWTOOTH

MY MR. SAWTOOTH
One seemingly forthright Sawtooth Titus, a grand
old man I knew from 17th Street, wore a heritage
like a halo for me. He was from the 'Revolutionary
Titus's - of Grand Falls, Maine' and claimed his
family had settled there in the 1600's. He never
ate meat and yet took the cake, as far as I
was ever concerned, at never batting an eyelash
if something was free. 'Meat, fish or fowl, I'll
go by the price, thank ye.' That's all he'd say.
like you were supposed to understand.
-
He'd walk the street and - seeming to know everyone -
never come home empty handed. Pastry, pudding,
soup or gruel, he'd manage to get something.
Introducing me often as his 'Nephew Aurelius',
he'd never flinch at adding me in for his take.
'I figg'er, the more they'd see us together, they
more they'd think our needs.' I gleefully
acted as 'Aurelius' for near one year.
-
The Baxters of Merian, and the Sawtooths
of Grand Falls. Some durable duo betting
on a lifelong feud or an anxiety over something.
They never met, that I knew of, but he
sure talked of them a lot. I'd say 'but this
is New York, now who cares and why?'
He'd laugh and rear back his head, and
just say 'someday you'll see, my boy,
someday you'll see for sure.'
-
Mr. Sawtooth Titus sure could endure.

516. MY FULL-TILT BOOGIE

MY FULL-TILT BOOGIE
(Philadelphia, 8/29)
'I may have mis-represented something unlikely and
that shouldn't concern you anyway because shit such
as that doesn't always fly and anyway you said the
guy was drunk and as it was I was more interested in
the girl he was with. I'd known her from Pendelton and
was hoping she wouldn't blab.'
-
Well, wouldn't that have to do?
The waterfront had been turned into
a carnival anyway, and now all these
freshened people were boozing about -
I faced nothing but crap-talk like that I'd
just heard. What I wanted to say was, precisely,
impolite: 'The hands on this clock have turned ugly.'
-
I wasn't sure anyone would get the message, and what
it meant wasn't really positive anyway. I was drowning in
negativity, and this real estate was ranch enough for my bile.
-
'I remember one day, she took off her robe and there
was nothing underneath! And there we were, on the front porch
where she lived. What was I supposed to do? Scatter off and
run home? After that, we hardly talked - and that afternoon was
never brought up again. Hand me another beer, will you.'
-
McKracken gauge-face butterball ice.
Torrid myopic meander portion.
Nascent pneumatic fist-pummel tunic.
Anything like that would be better
than firing a gun...
-
The hands on this clock have turned ugly.
This real estate was ranch enough for my bile.

515. DAGLESH AND HENDORAN

DAGLESH AND HENDORAN
'Down by the water, there you can lump
things together' - Daglesh said that, talking
like a stringbean, river-shavers for teeth and
the oily carp were biting. 'I'd rather bring back
nothing than something' - Hendoran tried a response,
failing miserably. Together (thought I) these two
couldn't tie string. It was always a struggle to stay put.
-
Serene like disease, wild like a badger, overdone and
to a fault : they'd each together arrived, playing games,
filtering silt, and trying to get by. Stealing boxcars
in the night. Waxing apples with a carbide cloth.
These two got everything twice, but never what
they sought. Vaudeville paid their wages, and the
silly crowd yelled out their lame support.
-
By four the next afternoon it was all over.
The entryway was down, the tent was closed.
'I had to take care of my mother's cat and bring
her some tea' - Daglesh said that, making me ill.
'See that guy in the corner? Before he was the
coroner he was a crooner' - Hendoran said that,
and I was suddenly sorry I hadn't left sooner.

514. ECTOPLASM

ECTOPLASM
Sweltering heat made my blood run cold.
The contradiction and error of the format I
inhabited took its toll : forehead sweat, heavy,
ponderous weight, trouble breathing Earth air.
I'd never been this bogged down.
-
It was only my other place
which kept me going.

513. MISTRAL

MISTRAL
Yes, yes I have often touched the sky:
when the cool winds were blowing,
when the geese were in flight. When
the dark sky was falling and the distant
breezes rolled. Something there is
of the night in the day, and each lunar
phase, like a heart wanes and waxes.
We grow as bright, in the same way,
as that light which we reflect.

512. THE DAY MY FATHER

THE DAY MY FATHER...
The day my father came back from the
Navy, he was white as a ghost. I'd already
known him before I was born : he was out
at sea, in the South Pacific, and fighting WWII.
Sewing body bags, with his big, curved needles,
for burial at sea. Over the side, with a little
ceremony. Dead guys. Dead buddies. Dead
sailors on that selfsame ship.
-
He never got over the places he'd been.
Rocking slowly for days on a sickening
ocean - rising and falling with a salt-berth
and a fan; some crazy white hat for his head.
-
He was smoking endless cigarettes too.
It was nothing then, those Camels, inhaled
like the very stark freedom of home.
Old Bayonne. He was exhausted,
and seeing me, froze. I said,
in my way, 'Dad, relax; it's
just the way it goes.'
-
I knew my father before he knew me.
Sewing dead bodies for their
burial at sea.

511. WILFERIZE THAT PUSILEER

WILFERIZE THAT PUSILEER
I chant. They sing. The snug nettles
bring back memories of other things.
The day I met James Baldwin, at
Fordham. We were carrying on, like
kids, about Sartre and degrees of
alienation - nothing ever so insipid
has ever occurred again. He had big, fat
eyes. You can go look at his picture.

510. GRESHAM'S LAW II

GRESHAM'S LAW II
(Music Again)
It's a certain sadness that breaks the heart -
all that motion and nothing more.
We too are broken - like the modal
tenant when the metronome's click
breaks the silence of his urban night.
All that feeling and sadness and sorrow.
All the world's poor and all the world's
hungry, huddled together in a great
big room. 'To shatter the silence,' it's
been said, 'music can't come too soon.'

509. GRESHAM'S LAW (the 'Music' Industry)

GRESHAM'S LAW
(the 'Music' industry)
"Gresham's Law set to music makes me wince.
Just what we need - another whiny Jewish singer
with no real life experience strumming away on a
lame guitar about all his wants and feelings. Isn't it about
time we upturned those tables and did away with
the noise? The undertone of need and the squirming
array of guilt and desire? Jeez (I can say that)
I'm so tired of all that. If Bad drives out Good,
as it most certainly does, (and forget the money)
then we're all in line for a doozy.
-
It's those with the blinders on who claim to
see the most : 'my heart, my love, my
aching feelings and needs.' Oh, stuff it
and alter the simple chords. Or at
least learn to play music first that you
can read - a mathematical premise,
a march towards a solvable pattern,
a progression of notes on a
colorful scale. We all can't be
let's say, Scriabin."

508. THESE FLAGRANT WORDS

THESE FLAGRANT WORDS
For some sort of ragtag protest they
brought you home - tattered, and in chains,
and in rags. They stapled your face to the
posters all along the town - each way in and
out. Majestic as you were you were still 'depicted'
as a common scold, the criminal of the month, and
the 'one who wouldn't get away.' Chief Carmine
DesPais himself had said it.
-
In retrospect, out riot made little sense.
Or none. Three dead - one a child,
killed obviously by accident.
For that now we all
must burn.
-
'I'd rather raise Cain than be Abel.'
I heard someone from the other
end of the jail shouting that just
yesterday. Of course, from
where I was, I didn't really know
what he said - phonetics being
what they are. Being locked up,
perhaps all he said was 'I'd rather
raise cane than be able'. Meaning,
I think, he'd rather be proud of
being in jail for rioting than to
be out 'there', free.
-
For myself, I'm still really not sure.

507. HOMO HABILIS

HOMO HABILIS
(‘man the maker’)
There’s something changed in the manner of the wheel,
things once turned which now remain. A fixed maneuver
of ever-broken time, like the lime-box or the bucket,
running over. We thwart our manner by refusing to
budge: Man the Maker, with his carnival hat and
swagger-stick, imagery of the fantastic, and the
awesome light-brigade of what was gone before.
No cantilevered rainbow, this midtown slut
stares back, as certain of her giving as
of the taking she’s already done.
We’ve had it with all that.

506. CRUSADER

CRUSADER
We manned the barricades with fortunate guile,
having spent four months at least in preparing
the grounds for this stupid defense. Everyone
was already in pain : an old, grueling pain
of the sort that stops all other action.
The crippled monk, with his withered
leg, came around with the parchment
he’d scrawled for our oaths.
We had – yet again – to swear
allegiance to some crazed Man-God,
somehow stuck between two worlds.
None of it made any sense to us;
we wanted our pay, and some food.
Forced to dig still more holes for our
shit, we basked in the horrid stink
of ourselves no matter what we did.
It was a horrible situation – one so
delicately ‘human’ as to be inhumane.
(I wondered of this Man-God
again and again).

505. AND SO THEY TOLD ME

AND SO THEY TOLD ME
(At the Bowery Beer Garden, 1968)
Richly attired, like gentlemen in rags would be,
regency and chivalry and royalty all mixed together
(in a mad-man's idle dream), they stepped forward
and - as one - together all fell down the steps.
Yes, yes, a laughing roar ensued. The crowd was
wild with itself - engorging sacred beers and
clapping in a trance : something horrid and as
horse-whipped as a dance by some leprous
dope. Candles flickered from the so-active
air. All the idiot voices and hands a'fire.
-
Someone stepped forward to calm down
the crowd: 'And now ladies and germs,
the moment you've not been waiting
for! Matilda Malloy and her Far-East
Snakedance' (His words, exact). She
stepped out - some not-so-glamorous
specimen of lust. A few rags, a sheer
garment, and the rest taken on trust.
-
Oh how the selfsame hammer blew!
Oh how the skinny dance happened!
Un-clothed in as an instant and as
un-apprehensive as could be.
'She is naked, my friends!!
For you and for me!'
-
And the stupid crowd
roared, all over again.

504. THE TREMOR DOCTOR

THE TREMOR DOCTOR
They will take you, learned hand,
into their legal soup. Boiled with
the rest, you will indistinguishable
be. If that's okay for you, it's
not okay for me.

503. AT THE PLANT:IN THE PLANT

AT THE PLANT:IN THE PLANT
It was nothing said it was nothing
ventured and the same game remained.
We stood like dead lions propped up,
leaning just a bit, to merely pretend at
a continued existence. I never knew you,
you never knew me. Reading Uncle Wiggly
down by the sea. Ten Father Guidos and a
gilded church : Most Holy Mother of the
Reckoning Sea. Bells tolled for sailors.
Bells tolled for Thee.

502. AUDIOTONE

AUDIOTONE
Here it was the rueful ending :
We sourced the sound and found the rumor.
What it was, a glistening morning, meant more
to the squirrels than me. At every turn something
like light burst out from behind the trees, limbs,
branches, leaves. As one, and everything once,
together sang. I flew to that far oasis. A gentler
mind, on top of thinking, soaring upward in
fabulous forms of love and honor.

501. KOSTELANZ AT 4

KOSTELANZ AT 4
(Road Crew, 1972)
'I have been leaning on this life for so long even my
cane is bent. All the fructation of time has seasoned
me well. I am, to be sure, bested no longer by anything.'
-
Of course, no one know the meaning of his words
and we merely stared back without engaging.
Off to the side, tree limbs bore apples and peaches,
as they should. It was bestride this orchard his
house climbed - a wide, old white board farm;
left here from 1872, it was exactly stated.
-
Here together, five of us there were.
We'd come to mark the lanes for paving.
Working for the state, road-men, adept at tar and
pavement were we, and his story seemed like all the
others. We'd done this a hundred times or more.
-
The old Pennsylvania countryside, now just
dying to die, was still to be paved. And everywhere
we went, the markings for that we brought and left.
No more mud and ooze, no more cars and trucks
bogged down in mire. We said the same things
everywhere: 'State improvements' or 'Government
mandate.' Didn't matter. No one knew what we
were talking about. And we certainly didn't care.

500. THE SEMINOLE CAMPFIRE

THE SEMINOLE CAMPFIRE
A thousand pieces of matter, flitting away -
all sparks and ash and soot today.
That ladle with the spoonfit ending, it
too is made of wood and it will burn,
(if they feel it should). 'All creation
trembles at the thought of burning.'
Only the vile race, of seditious mind,
would think up flames like this and determine
its Hell to be within the nature of the Man.
It simply cannot be, oh lucky one, of
Stallion Dawn Speeding Spitfire Brother clan.
We will all howl beneath this fat and rising moon.
(Another life will come, but not too soon).

499. LOVE LOVE LOVE WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?

LOVE LOVE LOVE
WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?
It's all travail and effort, some sturdy
work where the tall beams stand. It wasn't
easy to construct this edifice, and now I
dare you to say it's not real. Authentic are the
accolades in my attic - high and high-strung
together. It was never easy becoming what I am
- the two-fisted hammock master, the painter of
ridiculed edges, the counter-snark with this
twisted, soiled dictionary. On that ledge nearby,
see that man about to jump? His name is Henry Coates,
and you've really led him on. Like Billy Pepper (my
rural mailman once) you drive the same sad route
each day...entice, pull back, entice again. And Laugh.
My God, it's the laugh that kills them. It's the
laugh that gets them every time.

498. DORIMAR THE DOMINION

DORIMAR THE DOMINIAN
I covered your housepaint in pimples,
wrote notes all over your jars, and then
left that night (Tuesday last) to have
dinner with that fellow, as you said,
'from Mars'. Not really an abject gent,
he showered the table with favors - some
fifty-dollar tip and money for a bet, took an
extra drink for his 'steadfast constitution' and
then left me there while he ran out to 'rob a bank'.
These are all the things he said : he spoke funny,
in awkward ways, and blurted things out you'd
never expect. 'That peacock has a belly like an
antelope', for instance. Now what is anyone, I ask
you, supposed to make of that? I don't think he's
ever read a book. Another curious quirk of character.
Now look, I don't begrudge a man anything: the creep
with the loud awful music ruining my space, the girl
with the skirt too tight for her waist, the tall, lanky
lady wearing nothing beneath her blouse. It's
all the same to me, if that's what someone
wishes to do. I can catch what I catch
and, sometimes, enjoy the view.
Life has, after all, its very
simple pleasures,
does it not?

497. DOUBLE THEME SONG

DOUBLE THEME SONG
(Someone Downstairs Was Calling)
He'd put his feet up on your 116th Street
footstool like it was a mushroom and he was
a fly. Outside the window, some mad gymnast
was contorting with a sign - 'Amin's Flint Elixir -
Gone For Good! What Ails You!' - such a sign
I'd never seen before. You had tried the classical
music channel, but all the radio was doing was barfing
ads and news; everything of a captive nation soiled
and stinking foul. On the chipped wooden shelf,
anyway, nothing could look good, let alone work;
not even your bare, naked ass, powdered and petal'd.
I'd seen your breasts in a book before, so I knew
the game you played. Patsy's Pizza, let me say,
never had such toppings. Just then, the buzzer
rang - someone downstairs was calling.

496. DEAD OTIS

DEAD OTIS
They spilled blood in the wagoner's cabin;
just as he was entering the shed. Two errant
bullets ricocheted from somewhere and entered
his chest. No Civil War malfeasance this - since
the borders had been cleared and hostilities
(we'd thought) were over. Never put it past
some drunken Arkansan shithead to spoil
the pot with bad vengeance. Hillbillies from the
distant mountain still reckoning with a grudge.
A dying man's blood can drown him in his
own lungs. We never figured for that,
and there was nothing we could do.

495. CARRINA MONTEFIORE

CARRINA MONTEFIORE
I shed olympic pounds after I first
met you. You were the darling of
my spring, the rigor in my mortis,
and - in a never-ending fashion -
the erotic dough of my bread-loaf
frolics. In all, it was as magical as
a monsoon in the desert, or of a
Heaven found deep within some
Hell. We wore our military cloaks
like Nazi footsoldiers : hemming
and hawing, bowing to salute,
sniping with a rapier, kissing the
concrete ledges. Ships, unfurled
at sea, never teemed with more
wild turbulence as you - and me.
I remember all this, and so much
much more, oh my darling,
Carrina Montefiore.

494. ALONZO, THIS AIN'T NO MAGNA CARTA

ALONZO, THIS AIN'T
NO MAGNA CARTA
'You can take your papers and put them
where you want - I'm not signing nothing.
This magnificent shoreline most certainly
doesn't need you around.'
-
A dulcimer baffle arose with the sun.
Big grey clouds, loud and fluffy and
broad, sequestered themselves all
along the horizon. No orange morning
was ever anything like this before.
-
Two hundred peasants let out a roar.
They wanted food and lodging.
They wanted no more war.
-
That's when I saw you and
our eye-sights met. From
that day forward, all I
wanted I could never get.
'Alonzo, this ain't no
Magna Carta.'

493. IT IS ALL BEYOND ME

IT IS ALL BEYOND ME
As each night I fall by the wayside and
only you are there, so too I awake distant
and starry-eyed from places I'd only dare
imagine : the farthest rim of stars and planets,
the place where the Heavens touch; a grand and
circular profusion of wonderment and possibility.
Sometimes, I swear, I awake only to say 'it is all
too much.' Earth has its moments and places
and things - the hard boiled-ridges of both
dirt and doubt, with rock and water and
fire and heat. Everything mixed, some
crazed elixir to stir, some ribald
concoction to eat.
-
I look at the distant skies and
notice the motion and curve :
a planet of possibilities at
each starry turn. Beneath all
of that, assured of only
myself, I know I have
so much to learn.
-
But still it is all beyond me.
It is all yet so far away.

492. ON GUNNISON BEACH

ON GUNNISON BEACH
I can't begrudge the frog its lily pad.
Sandy Hook to Sea Bright walking -
everything I saw was bad : token
remnants of old-years ago, sentinel
ships along the coast, dead Revolutionary
War soldiers marked and buried in the
sands. All this behind us, and now
the future - out of hand. 19-year olds
naked as they came, and ashen old
women looking the same.

491. OLD MEN

OLD MEN
'Dirigibles were flying low and cutting
the aproned sky - some light blue oasis
of nothing bantering within space to
fly - all words of their own, these new
things were, without a recourse to
meanings of old. We watched,
squinting our eyes, trying to discern
the lightning, the fire, the reasons for
these new things in the skies.
What was that above us, anyway,
some vague new future flying?'

490. YOU YOURSELF HAVE SAID IT (I AM?)

YOU YOURSELF

HAVE SAID IT

(I AM?)
The worst question ever asked, I figure,
was : 'I adjure you by the living God,
are You the Messiah?' Either way, whatever
answer, the responder is bound for trouble.
Pilate never had the nerve to question,
yet the High Priest directly asked!
(Just think, if that story is true,
how much he set to task).

489. THE TECHNIQUE OF ZEN

THE TECHNIQUE OF ZEN
'He's got some habits I frown upon.
The warrior class comes home early
and stays late - or leaves home early
and stays out late - something I now
forget. It's a winsome world truly, all
this toil and strife (and nothing I'd want
to repeat). With everyone so sold on the
good, I too wonder how evil gets done.
-
Graffiti with white paint covers the delinquent
fence - 'bury my heart on the lone prairie' -
and then the names, perversely, make
the handles : 'Solinquen' and 'Olyminiade';
whatever God-awful meanings they have.
Two wild horsemen, drunk on success?
Two frothy madmen, riding towards death?
-
We needn't agree on everything.
The pencil has lost its edge, and
we've mostly got nothing to say.
All things are won. All things
are one.'

488. THE GIRL WHO NAMED PLUTO IS DEAD

THE GIRL WHO
NAMED PLUTO IS DEAD
(Venetia Burney, 1919)
Eleven years old, nineteen, thirty-one,
forty-seven, fifty-six, seventy, seventy-seven,
eighty-four, eighty-eight, eighty-nine,
ninety - like the sun in the sky, the
black -globe-darkness distant-flash
planet passing; named after the
Roman God of the Underworld:
Pluto. The old woman who named
Pluto is dead.

487. ABSTRACT #7

ABSTRACT #7
Smutter the cling of that sour oasis
for there is nothing there but dire want.
The shoes are brown, seemingly forever.
Having walked an entire globe, they
hunger for more, with their tongues
hanging out. Surcease of violent
commitment, the awkward man
nearby is shadow boxing with
his own Hell - another epitome
outfoxed by marvel, a new
set of boxing gloves, all
glossy and laced, set to
pounce once more on
enigma and doubt. A
twenty-second century
hearse rolls by.Yellow,
like a taxi, it is now
filled with passengers,
yet driven by a
rat.

486. UNFREEZING THE MALLEABLE MAN

UNFREEZING THE
MALLEABLE MAN
He walks with a chisel in his
head, that old man bearing down on
death. Nothing can stop him now - those
ruins, those ruins you see were all his factories.
Piles of beautiful red brick, ringed by walls
with entrances for both trucks and employees.
The guardhouse, furrowed and lovely like
a brow, where each man checked in and
did his obsequious bows. Bossman. Owner.
Ruler. King. It's all a riddled rhyme, something
twisted around the circular tongue. Now at
his hole in the ground - we grasp together a
wrinkled bible, something with thin pages
and a gold-edged binding. Muttering prayers
that no one hears, muttering prayers
that no one hears.

485. THE HESITANT BURDEN

THE HESITANT BURDEN
Burned like fire which fused the glass,
we carry that fragile heart to breaking.
Pieces of things and fragments and shards,
broken items littering yards - such as they
are, these patterns have cluttered our
lives. That old green car is still running,
but it's been left like that for years.
Soft tires and a wide, thin wheel.
A thousand looks but too few cares.
Simply shrugging seems the way to go :
carry the force that carries the garden.
Let it take its own, sweet time.

484. PARADISE

PARADISE
Pottery and silverware; claimants to
a poor man's throne. Steps running
slightly a'tilt, yet leading to something
someone called Heaven once : an
enraptured fever, a hut where the
stevedore lives, a footstool
for your forgotten oasis.
We deem 'rest' as no
movement at all.
Somehow, it's
Paradise
we call.

483. FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF
Falstaff wanted things and got
very little back for his efforts.
If you want speed, hook up
to the swiftest horse you
can find and hang on:
for dear life, but forget
the dear. 'Ain't nothing but
jangling nerves,' in fact, is
what the horseman said,
lighting a fire beneath the
panting beast's belly.

482. DIMANCHE

DIMANCHE
I held the teller in my arms;
kissing briefly, I asked about
the interest rate. 'Very high,' she
said - but I knew she was lying.
It was posted on the wall for
all to see; not worth a damn
and less than three: percent
that is. I wanted to ask
her opinion of 'premature
withdrawal' but found
I hadn't the
nerve.

481. THOSE GIRLS FROM NORWAY

THOSE GIRLS FROM NORWAY
Midnight forever sky makes daylight
in Summer last as the Sun doesn't set
nor rise, just moseys around with
time on its hands while the people
everywhere eat fish. I told her
'I like Grieg', but she didn't
hear me, just kept right on
talking.

480. THE OATHS OF MAGELLAN

THE OATHS OF MAGELLAN
'I swear the following are true :
To circumnavigate the globe, wear gloves.
White is not good in white outs or storms
at sea; wear black seal or gray canvas.
Boots are as good as their last salty shrink.
Scan the Heavens only with caution - astrolabe,
compass, and chore-boy will have to do.
Bring dogs on board only at your own peril.
They slip off deck eventually, and simply
cannot be retrieved. Thus, plan to grieve.
Everything you think is flat, is round.
Everything you think is round, is, in its
way, just as flat as that which is round.
God flies through the Heavens in a
chariot, knowing nothing of
water all the while.'

479. BLOATED RHETORIC LIKE INKY DOO

BLOATED RHETORIC
LIKE INKY DOO
This is a very vibrating life,
here where they stay, like
fiddler crabs in their
silly orchestra. Death Valley
to all who come here.
An aerie of figments
jesting as eagles.
-
The Vast Intensity Chemical
Club dips their fingers in
bloodied ink - a coagulated
goo from the Crimea, a mash
made of Russian saints.
-
That fourteenth kid on the
overhanging left: his name is
Fred and his mother's dead.
He said he was watching
baseball yet again the other
day and had to turn it off.
He suddenly realized, what he
said, was the following :
Every game, any, had all
been played before.
-
'No more, no more.'

478. KATE CAPESHAW : THE HANDLE ON MY PITCHER

KATE CAPESHAW:
THE HANDLE ON MY PITCHER
No one ever said you had to know
(dear reader see) what the Hell I
was talking about. The wind
blows the willows, the willows
blow what? This is (after all)
the shoreline where (it's said)
where some Jesus walked upon
the water. Peg-legged I guess he
wasn't. But, for a true believer,
(no?) that would just add to the
MIRACLE - mystery momentous
event. Oh, by the way, that
description just then ain't me.
-
Handstands in the air.
Cartwheels in a fire.
Sitting still at the very
end of the world - while
it crumbles, while it burns.
That's more my style.

477. THAT TROGLODYTE VINCENT VAN GOGH

THAT TROGLODYTE
VINCENT VAN GOGH
Cameron I can't tell you
how I tire so, of looking
at pictures by that troglodyte
Vincent Van Gogh. I tell you
this in confidence, of course,
and just so you know - they
really do, they bore me so.
All those tired swirly greens and
blues; what was he seeking to
say, trying to do?
-
The 'so-pathetic' individual
stance, by anyone, sends me
off. A fiery sky, that
starry, starry night.
What to do?
Where to go?
-
Oh, that troglodyte,
Vincent Van Gogh.

476. SPOONING

SPOONING:
I wouldn’t be spooning you huddling me

as we stretched between fabrics of

lightness and glee; and we find the gauze and

the businessman wise - with his silver delivery

bringing forth the book with the answers and

all of the notes that he took but his presentation

WE FIND lacks something special so there’s

nothing unique - and ‘we can buy windows

anywhere’ we reply sounding sleek and so

with that he leaves and we’re left feeling meek.

475. MONUMENTAL URGENCY

MONUMENTAL URGENCY
At a certain point. We
all listen. The mice are
within the wall.
-
Transubstantiation
itself was never like
this. Innocent III,
1215. Proclaims
'Transubstantiation'.
The word itself is
the key : 'Across
Substance'. Things
pass over, are not
what they seem.
-
Those mice again,
within the wall, with
a monumental urgency.

474. STALWART

STALWART
At the cookstove is my avenging angel, concocting
a rubble of stew; something, anything to serve
to the wayfaring stranger bound to show soon.
Washing tense silverware in the old oaken
bucket, she stands sideways to the light
and straight out to the wall. It's a picture-
perfect cave painting from some
filthy Lascaux of my mind.
-
Never more than tiny additions of dirt,
the piled-up mounds in the corner
led me to believe in the succor
to come. As if I could wait
forever, I stood in place
and just watched.

473. SEDGEWICK THE CRANIUM

SEDGEWICK THE CRANIUM
I have a head filled with something,
but ideas make me sick. Tossing and turning
like this tends to weaken my resistance. I
was thinking of you just this morning,
what a legend you'd become.
The face I saw on the postage stamp -
or was I perhaps dreaming?
-
There wasn't any malfeasance involved -
like the tree with its toner of shade and
the ripple of its leaves. I noticed something
amiss. A certain sadness or loss. It
was just for a moment, but there were
people too - lying about on the thick grass.
-
I don't like leisure crowds either.
All that hemming and hawing about nothing.
Shades and shadows, people and their drinks.
Everywhere something. Nobody thinks.

472. AS IF ALL OF ANOTHER LIFETIME

AS IF ALL OF
ANOTHER LIFETIME
My bonafide incidentals could never compensate
for the places you've gone : hammerhead sharks
'midst the logorrhea of doubt and desire,
storm-front passages and pages of fire.
Barcelona, Madrid and Mauritania too.
('that girl from Mauritania, I love her with a
mania'). All those shoes, and so well-polished.
-
I took a vacation in my mind, and let it all
blow away : into pages of clouds and dust,
with the blue sky breaking. I watched all the
moons and planets of my soul's imagining
linger until they were spent. I made love
under untold seasons with women I'd
only heard of. I ticketed the skies
with my own brands of fire.
-
It went on this way for (what seemed like)
eons - time, at that level, turns to a
watery film and just slips between
the fingers. Yes, just slips between
the fingers...as if all of
another lifetime.

471. ARTIFICIAL FIGURES AND FINGERS OF CURVES

ARTIFICIAL FIGURES AND
FINGERS OF CURVES
Some Anabaptist monster singing
orange songs was holding off the
water by the quay. His tipsy hat
was crooked, rakish as a raft, and he
leaned sideways just to try and stay
straight. Walking on ahead, he found
himself a'tizzy, falling backward, and
landing on his head. Getting back
up, with a quizzical leap, he fingered
his coat and said 'I'm the most int'risting
character you'll ever will meet. 'If I
fukkin' say so m'self, that it be!'
Yes, yes, but that was a long time ago,
and that episode is long ago gone.

470. KINETESCOPE

KINETESCOPE
The old doll was shaking her hands violently,
peeling the coating off the floorboards. Her
eyes raged, wide-opened and glaring.
For one brief instant I was certain I glimpsed
a nativity of sureness, the arrival of some
new form of Grace. Just then, someone
brought a dog in, on a chain. Its snaggly
face both growled and barked at the
same time. Lifting the gauze of Heaven,
like a wastrel child in a very old film,
both man and dog and woman
plunged into the depths of the
river - over the bulkhead, into
the deep. Some ancient East
River tugboat slowly
sliced by.

469. CHRIST THE STONE THAT SMITES THE IMAGE

CHRIST THE STONE
THAT SMITES THE IMAGE
I wasn't sure of any of this :
I'd read that phrase in a little book,
handed out by Man, or a man I
mistook for one, as if the one
could equal the many (or aren't
we all one race?). It said I 'COULD
be saved' but 'only by God's Grace' -
acceptable enough, as it went.
I sat down some more, to see if
this meant something special or
particular for me. It said 'Christ was a
Man in a hurry; He always spoke fast
and was always on His way - never staying,
never to tarry' - (in fact, I figured, never
to marry). I took a moment to gaze at the
sky - any clouds in the shape of some God,
a cross, a special shaft of light (perhaps
spelling 'Gary'). I saw nothing, stood up and,
sort in a hurry of my own, went along on my way.

468. GRANULATED OCEAN SANDS

GRANULATED OCEAN SANDS
Wedging the marsh flowers into a
crevice, two children ran sideways
along the beach. Sun in their eyes
was sand in their hair - all the same,
and awful as ever. They reveled on
their Earth like new starlings from a
tree; reasonably sure this would all
go on forever while endless waves
kept hitting the shore.

467. THE NEW NOTE OF TERTULLIAN

THE NEW NOTE
OF TERTULLIAN
I wrote two songs before the door
even opened - one about angels and
one about bears. The man with the hair
went to the bridge to sing them.
-
'Aria cantalava' was all I heard.
It was all really loud, but it went
over well and the crowd, restless as
usual, summoned me up for more.
-
I waved them off, with robes and
a dagger held high. From this perch
probably thousands could see me.

466. STARLETTO MONGRETTO

STARLETTO MONGRETTO
I salivated at your thought; took
the wrong turn right, left after going.
It was a canine, not an incisor, the dentist
said, laughing. He suddenly remembered me
from once before, swarming him with
leftover dollar bills and asking for more.
'The whole thing never left my mind' - he
said that grinning in a winning way.
I shuddered to think of his age and
his manners - all this tools and implements,
and no reason not to. Outside, a dusky
starlight was entering my mind.
Inside, I was looking for
whatever I could
find.

465. SOME SORT OF NEW (How a Writer Lives)

SOME SORT OF NEW...
Pummel the waters with your wave,
stinking crew of the old leaky scow -
you've been known to leave like this
before. Once becomes twice, the same
way as nothing soon becomes something.
And the story lines always lie. At every stop,
an inkwell is pressured to burst - gangly words
all drippy and wet, debark from the planks of
the deck. We squeeze out whatever we can,
eking this or stomping that. Ribald fun at
every shore-leave stop. They leave the lights
on, just for us, and all the willowy things are
waiting. Isn't this a charming life? Some
sort of new endeavor? It's like
that, how a writer lives.

464. SCAVENGER HUNT

SCAVENGER HUNT
Beastly portability, extravagant claims.
Such are the dreams of the huntsman at night :
deep, dark woods wherein the ogres reside,
coaxing dreams from daylight and extremes
from twilight; anxious animals hover near the
grate. I am listening with one ear to something
Sibelius wrote - a great northern suite, a tune
of Karelia, marked much without rhythm yet
harnessing a beat. It reminds me of evil and Hell.
All together, like this, some nightmare gathers
within the folds of my cloak.

463. I TINKERED WITH THE FORMULA

I TINKERED WITH
THE FORMULA
'I'd really like to break your head in two.'
Things like that disconcert old people, you know.
It's difficult, under the cover of living,
to tolerate force and remonstrance - especially
when every living moment can seem as if
it's your last. Last days upon the lordly Earth.
Final moments in the anteroom of whatever.
Hearing things, words and conversations, thrown
about carelessly, sometimes becomes rather
strange. The other morning I heard some
old coot saying 'I am still the full custodian
of my own rights.' And then, right after that,
one girl was telling another 'so here I am,
riding in the car with Pinocchio! Something
kept getting bigger, and it wasn't his nose!'
I guess she could have said 'but it wasn't his
nose' (instead of 'and'), but she didn't.

462. NOTHING I WOULD HAVE IMAGINED

NOTHING I WOULD

HAVE IMAGINED
A penchant for pain - such as it is - permeates
my space like the old candle-woman talking
harsh in my face : her cigarette smoke upon
garish yellow teeth, a haphazard manner of
posture and a wave of the hands. She has
nothing to say, of course, though attempting
to say - something and wherever and how.
-
I bow, at the last, to the least of her
good intentions. While reading a
book on absurdity (a notion all to
itself), I am brought to a halt.
Italian Futurists and avant-garde art -
all things we call by concept, though
nothing is really real. And then
I am brought to a start:
-
On this train, a conductor I always
see - working for the union,
to promote the citizenry's weal -
has tucked into his belt the book
he currently reads. Nothing I
would have imagined; it didn't
seem his mate. A book by V. I.
Lenin - 'Rebellion and the State.'

461. THE DEVIL IS SWEET

THE DEVIL IS SWEET
So it's a fine line we're given to walk,
one that's brokered by double hands on
the wheel : tokens of trade, sellers of solace.
The rub is the connection (whichever we feel)
of which hands are on the tiller and who's
steering that wheel.
-
And then I watch you walk in -
holding something hard, with an
infant strapped across your front.
I try to make my syllables work,
with the lining, the pure reason,
the thought of what we take.
-
Instead, I find myself once
more thinking of things to attach,
strap to my chest, haul on my back,
or drag by a chord.
-
(The Devil is hungry, the devil is sweet.
Gets you down on your back,
gets you back on your feet).

460. MY BRIGHT WHITE MORNING

MY BRIGHT WHITE MORNING
It seemed as if every tree was upside down:
reflecting a new sunlight somewhere. The angles,
the tone of each thing I saw, seemed different.
Holocaust charnel. Workmen smoking yellow
cigarettes, standing around, butts in their
mouths, contorted with laughter under
brand new skies. Someone kept a
tractor so sadly under control,
digging the earth for all it
was worth.

459. UNCLE JOSA

UNCLE JOSA
A World War I jacket hanging on the
wall might have been his - anyway, he
pointed as if it were. To be truth-seeking,
he'd have to be about 110 years old for that to
be so, and he wasn't. All along the mantle were
displayed old farm tools - hand implements, hammers,
chisels, mallets, even discs from a plow ('the only
kind they used to know'). He laughed at that -
a crusty, backspin laugh filled with ancient phlegm.
I watched it all cough up as he cupped it quickly
with a yellowed handkerchief. Truly, I wanted
to say, truly what a guy.

458. ANY GREAT RETURNS

ANY GREAT RETURNS
'We have to end the factotum and stop the
assault. I use lots of names anyway: one week
I'm Chloe Yarmulke and another maybe I'm
Celeste Murphy. Who matters, and who cares?'
With that, she heaved a fence around her shoulders
and walked off down the lane. I was certainly taken
by surprise by this one : a simple laundromat girl
doing someone else's laundry, or some coal-miner's
daughter (she'd said) seeking terms for a major
settlement - emphysema, black-lung, pleurisy
or something running in her family, but she'd been
thinking she could successfully blame the coal companies
for it and win some big money. I told her I really
wasn't that sure of anything and that my specialty
of late was complete Absurdity - and that it
really didn't bring forth any great returns.

457. ALL THE ACTIONS OF MY LIFE

ALL THE ACTIONS OF MY LIFE
Having reached your new place -
called Wit's End - I stepped inside.
Your previous decor was not so
attractive: the collection of samovars
on the light blue wall, with the antique
knives you showed in a bevelled
glass case, a tube full of oranges
and a map of old France
(as seen by mariners coming
in from the sea).

456. MY HERB RITTS PHOTOGRAPH

MY HERB RITTS PHOTOGRAPH
I want it.
Your impersonal momentary excellence
is like swinging from a guardrail over
the highway below. Yes, the bridge
would welcome a jump but - like
anything else - it is far beneath you.
-
I swear that crenelated steel and
the iron-bound I-beam together
make nothing; sports and a ball-field
stadium are a really dismal arena for
any thoughts to pass through.
-
Mind that, Porfirio.
Some nightmare like this
would have such markings
on the doorway, scraped -
in fact - into the very wood.

455. WE WANT/DO NOTHING

WE WANT/DO NOTHING
We grade the land, destroying its crop.
All I ever do is send these signals off to you -
while even the translator snoozes, getting each
word nearly incorrect in its retelling of each idea.
This old and brown land is flattened again.

454. FIRE IN THE LANCE

FIRE IN THE LANCE
Prolific how the many flowers bloom -
like decay after growth, their own future
beckons. We all must welcome something.
The tincture of the weed - a sadder sight indeed -
is measured only by the value the blooming
of precious flowers give it. High contrast, this
realization of seeing both ends of the very same
channel. I want to bow to Nature; Natura, the
crazed mistress of parks and boulevards and
graveyards and lakeside pavilions. All the same.
The power, the glory, the sadness, the pain.
Earthly glory, enraptured beauty, a passing
and momentary rapture we can feel.

453. LIAR LIAR

LIAR LIAR
Did my legs ever have anything to do with your steeplechase?
That, I never knew - nor could I figure any of it out
while you were away. Where was that again. Monte Carlo?
Uruguay? It really wouldn't matter but I need to have
something to say that's correct about you. For once.
I've already told a hundred tall tales about you to
any who'd listen. Your lips like butter, your heart
like steel - and those thighs and that other...well,
we needn't go there, it'd just get me in the slammer.
Oh, again. Or didn't I tell you I've been there before?

452. IVAN DURGIN, (1967)

IVAN DURGIN
(1967)
11th Street. 4pm. Oh Ivan, not you again.
Put your henhouse out to pasture, for
Tompkins Square Park is now in fashion.
I can hear your cymbals clashing, and all
that jewelry on your wife's closed face wants
to see the light of day. Let's go walking? Oh, OK.

451. THE RIBBING OF JUDAS ISCARIOT

THE RIBBING OF

JUDAS ISCARIOT
Like Judas Iscariot they went traipsing down
the road singing some miserable song about
angels, heads of pins and lightning pushing
fire through clouds. Everywhere one looked
they'd left their traces of Death and Misery.
Siamese twins entering Hell wouldn't have had it
any easier - getting away with the trickery,
getting away with the stealth. Murder was
nothing at all. All it took was nerve.
-
In the lane at the bottom of the hill,
the basket-weave lady was selling
her wares. Italian bags, Italian eyes,
Italian profit. Anything for nothing
and one for all. The little red car,
from the left, just then entered
the picture.
-
A man steps into the trattoria by
the fountain. 'Give me a drink',
he says. He looks around, points
to the small man at the end, and says
'Give me two of whatever he's having,
and one of what everyone else is drinking.'
He throws down some Italian coin and
refuses to go away.
-
Finally, Judas comes by.
He enters, sits right down,
pulls out a pistol, and
shoots himself in the brain.

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).