1199. SO LET'S SHOOT BOB DYLAN IN THE EYE

SO LET'S SHOOT
BOB DYLAN
IN THE EYE
What would he care anyway? That
stifling face purveying whatever it wants,
scrounging around to be something it's
not, nor ever was. Vaudeville charlatan,
pickle-poster poser, father of nineteen,
maker of many marks with a certain wry
false attached as well. A guy like a surreal
marksman, wearing a derby hat and pretending
to smoke a cigarette. Being something he never
was while making a publicity shot - but still
living home clinging at Mama and Papa's grace.
Forever like that. Living in a closet filled with
grime. Polishing the leather of never-worn
shoes. Traveling like a prisoner in a wagon
from town to town - and doing
absolutely nothing at all.

1198. MUMFORD

MUMFORD
I am reading once again 'The Brown Decades'
and think I've found its key : a strident
diction with a point of view and grand
grammar - strong and straight with no
hesitation at all. As once in Elmira, I
am sitting around a Civil War graveyard
thinking alone about the dead and all their
names. Those places of battle where they
died. Those strange coats of arms and
memorial insignias, and the way towns and
counties and states would proudly identify
their own men - the boys they'd sent off
to be killed...or kill. As if there's a difference.
It was Rossetti who once said to me : 'These
peacocks in groves of their own seek shelter
and shade, where they can be alone'. He had a
few himself in his great old yard. He knew, I
assume then, what it was he was talking about.

1197. TRUTH FITS

TRUTH FITS
I am not interested in dwarfs.
I am not interested in folk singers
or carolers or bangers of ancient drums.
I seek no remuneration for turning cards,
nor do I listen twice to stories told by old
men about their wars. Women's lingerie, alas,
doesn't really interest me, nor its fit or lack thereof.
All of this will have to suffice, as I am in clear in saying -
'Really, I do very little of anything at all.'

1196. SAME TIME LAST YEAR

SAME TIME LAST YEAR
Nothing stands still.
You're not what you were before.
The fallows have ended their siege.
Come back home with me.
I've rolled up the lawn, so as
to see straight to Hell itself.
And oh, it is so much better this way.

1195. SYMBOLIC REALITY

SYMBOLIC REALITY
Those numbers are always running;
remember, you have nothing. There
is no essential difference between your
fraction of 'Time ' - what you call
the oasis of the real - and the factotum
of what presents itself to you; symbolic
reality being all the rage. Take your
pole to the sideline; just stand and watch.
I will stand in for you if you will stand in
for me. Those numbers are always
running, or do you still not see?
-
I will speak up for all the lost and maimed,
the dead sheep and the lambs, the oxen and
all the other beasts who have stepped these
pains. I will shout a'high for Mankind too,
evolved from a cosmic rubble to a new
and ever-present low. I will shout aversely.
I will not let it be. The bottom is the top,
the top the bottom, or do you still not see?
-
For all the things not done,
it is the things done that
have hurt me the most.

1194. PERENNIAL BESTIARY

PERENNIAL BESTIARY

(Gullible's Travels)

I went to the monuments. They

were not there. Wreaths of accolades,

all the honors of high births, and I'd

most apparently missed out on them

all. I went to the highest mountain.

There was a castle at the top. I spoke

to the Castle-Keep, in his hut by the

side of the moat. Not moat really,

more like river of flames. I asked him

why it all had to be like this. He arose,

and said : 'Fine fellow no. It is not as it

appears at all. All these things are

temporary, even the fires and the flame.

And up high on that hill, there is really

no one at all. You see, you have made

all this up.' I pointed to my feet and said,

'Then why then do my feet hurt so?'

He smiled, and said back, 'And oh,

you are so gullible'.

1193. I WENT TO ELDREDGE

I WENT TO ELDREDGE
I went to Gertle's but it was not there.
I went to Eldredge to see what I could.
Nothing there left but baritone hammer-men
building scaffolds to make a new front and
install new glass. Paint cans abounded while
some old truck rumbled out front. Along
the street, newspapers and rubble. Free
like cats, things all blew along. The winterized
wind was rubbing the panes and the corners.
I hunkered down in my feeble jacket, in
a vain attempt to stay warm. Why now,
and how could they possibly work in this
weather? I went to the Seward Library,
Rutgers Park, the old dairy bar by The
Forward. It too was gone - some Chinese
joint now, big deadened fish swimming
to die, lugubrious in the large, clouded tank.
People eat this stuff, but first they pay.
-
I couldn't remember the streets any
longer. Everything had been taken
away. I wanted to go. I wanted to stay.
Jarmulowsky's Bank? Well, OK.

1192. HERE'S MY DEAL

HERE'S MY DEAL

I manage to scale the walls by payday and then right

after that my job is taken away from me in a pullback.

So soon I'm broke again and back to riding shotgun

for the taxicab medallion police. Up and down the same

gross avenues for seventy-eight-fifty a day : the selfsame

photograph might be the same. Hookers. Pimps. People

dying. Runaway kids. Criminals and muggers. Beaten

mothers and exiled fathers. Cops on the take. Cops

on the prowl, thinking they can do no wrong. It's always

like the moment for someone really big to arrive has

arrived but no one ever arrives. A funny feeling of

lost potential and missed opportunity. I never

did get used to any of that at all.

1191. MERITORIOUS SERVICE

MERITORIOUS SERVICE
('come the revolution')
For meritorious service he was suspended
by his neck until dead, hanged like a hanged
man from a rope draped over support beams
in the grand and spacious central square.
(Where, evidently, he had no support).
Just before death, as further honor,
he was given the key to the city, a
complete transit pass - anywhere,
ever, at all, anytime - a lifetime
gold-card National Library pass
and a full-expense paid portrait
sitting in the Atelier For Grand
National Artists. Apparently,
and unfortunately as well,
this all came his way just a
little too late, as the late
Great General is dead.

1190. SHAG BARK HICKORY

SHAG BARK HICKORY
Going the straight way is not always
the most direct : it is said, mostly opposite
of that, that there are various ways of
(what they call) 'skinning' a cat.
I wouldn't know the farcical
point of any of that - in fact I've
NEVER considered skinning a cat.
Be realistic, would you please? The
shag bark hickory, most lovely of trees?
We line the mountain roads, if you
notice, with rhododendrons - whether
native or natural, wild or cultivated,
I'll never know. As with so many people,
that is a trait that doesn't always show.
-
Memorize this : 'I shall never go where
I'm not wanted to be, I shall never plant
myself, in the same vein, solidly, like a
tree. There is nothing here in this life for
me. Consider what I'm saying;
shag bark hickory.'

1189. NOT ALWAYS ABJECT

NOT ALWAYS ABJECT
Walking a board - one thrown
over a swamp, moving on mud-soup
of a sort - abject thoughts glide by.
Always, but not always.
-
Man on a swing : rocking his chair.
On a porch. The old, orange car
is parked alongside. Huge oak tree
glories in its age and shape. From
the side kitchen window,
a head is seen.
-
Wooden steps, with a too-much distance
between them; slightly rotted. Platform
boards above that, solid and sound. The
feeling is 'we've got to get out of here, go
someplace else, and now.' But no one
listens or moves, and those who did
stay in place anyway. Abject thoughts
glide by; always, but not always.

1188. MANFORKIND

MANFORKIND

MAN FOR KIND

Kindling wood makes the best fires;

deep in these woods we de-camp

as we tire. They tell me the year

is, somehow, 2181. I know no more

than that. These tall dark fir trees

above me are whistling wildy,

in a very strange breeze. Indeed.

1187. MENDINGHAM FICKLEPOST

MENDINGHAM FICKLEPOST

We sat at the edge of the quay, and I was

so distressed. Twelve years old, in a foreign

land, and going crazy with the realization

that I'd never get home. The singers kept

walking by, two guys and a girl, practicing

these inane park-like songs, things you'd

hear on the carousel or at some Twickingham

Park somewhere. Not here. People laughing,

not at me, I hoped. Funny little tourist kid,

taken by force, to a foreign land, by two creepy

padres thinking they owned me. Father

Flim and Father Flam; I called them that.

Boy's Town, my ass. They were having chocolate

drinks now, on the table nearby - two silly

men, sucking yellow straws to draw up a

brown liquid. I sat there, transfixed by the

idea that, soon enough, they would die. If I

didn't kill them, I was sure boredom would.

1186. EL CARMOSO

EL CARMOSO

I wanted to tell you about this:

The riot down by the waterworks;

fifteen hundred people with candles,

screaming for some sort of justice, and

the police on horseback riding through.

They split skulls with mallets, smashed

people in the face with their hard-rubber

truncheons, ran down children in the way.

A sort of dismal, nightmare carnival of

twisted faces and bloodied heads. The

entire town square of El Carmoso, later

that night, filled with people screaming

- all over again - for justice once more.

Was it all to be the same? Justice? Revenge?

You know, squalor has many companions, and

the dead are mourned for only so long.

-

I came upon this story in the

Mexico City Journal, buried

deep on page 24. Nearby, there

were a few ads for mortuaries and

embalmers and mourners for hire.

What kind of world is this, when such

curiosities are to what we aspire?

1185. NO OF COURSE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO

NO OF COURSE

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO

Need my heart stay inside

my chest, or can it come

out for you?

1184. LINDISFARNE IS NOT LANDISVILLE

LINDISFARNE IS

NOT LANDISVILLE

From Runnemede to Blackwood to Berlin.

A really simple stretch of nothing, and one

where I used to live. I left all the wet towels

in the closet to dry. I ran for my life. I left

there screaming for mercy. Now the highway

runs everywhere through it. The bird and

egg hatchery where they sold live chickens

and fresh eggs before they ranged range-free.

No sort of marketing like that back then.

Fred Kretz would just look and say 'It's a

fucking chicken, boy. Nothing more.'

-

Those nasty-ass Salvatorians with their black

hip-side beads. Swinging them forward and

back like gay hips. Clutching the rugged cross

to use the beads as whips. I know. Got the

lashes to show. There was no God at the core,

I found out. Only multiplication of rules, rites

and strictures, and that stupid Catholic math :

one equals three one equals three one equals

three; Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

-

I swam those shores to get to this island:

my own alone, a place of study, a cot

where the wise man sleeps. I wish

only wish I could be there alone.

All this remonstrance gives

me the creeps.

1183. NOW ANIMATED BY WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY

NOW ANIMATED BY
WHAT IT MEANS TO SAY
Escarpment. The lawn was folding down -
an old green, now tired and dying, the
color of Fall. Everywhere, things were
dropping. Bird voices tried singing again;
last attempts to cheer up the gloom?
-
Upcoming, we too rise like larkspur and
other floral charm, watching magics and
illusions prance the solid expanse - one
of dirt and place and room. We are not
leaving this place too soon, for the wind,
it calls on us to stay, and the light -
some solar-powered force of now -
elects that we will play, here, with the
living and not with the dead.
-
A harsh, chalkboard cough, like the kind a
dull teacher would give for silence, now
pervades this garden space. Water through
the fountain splays, as some personification
of Grace or Truth or Humility or Wisdom
or Love. One of those things we try, in
granite or stone, to have chiseled into
form, as if from above.
-
Alas, too deeply this heavy world
wields a hammer of its own.

1182. COLUMBIANA

COLUMBIANA

Across the great desert, across the vast

field, 'midst rains and waves and waters all,

they kept coming. One after the first and a

million more for seconds - by such steps

a nation was made. Slathered in wooden

ships, tyrannical in sea-swept fury, buffeted

and killed by storms and sickness, nothing

but the arrival mattered. Little else; the end.

So many fragmented matters arrived, so

lost to little but time, aware of the oasis,

and ready to salute. 'Your teeming hordes'

seemed like nothing, really. Across the

New York streets, they stumbled, forlorn

and lonely, brave and stalwart : turning forces

into forces of what they turned. Hoodlums,

wastrels, gents and crooks. Or, to be more

precise, 'the other side of everything,

Greenhorn!' Columbiana is watching you.

1181. PARADOXES

PARADOXES

There is so much I do not know,

there is so much not to know.

The bridge goes over the water,

the water runs under the bridge.

There are so many places I have

not been; as many as there are places

perhaps not to go. There are so many

shadows in the light, and so many lights

in the shadows. I can't handle everything,

and there are so, so many things I

should not handle at all.

1180. TESTAMENT

TESTAMENT

The softest part of seeing is in your face;

those little people of night, coming out from

the trees. I see them, sparkling, with their

eyes all aglow. Fearing nothing, I walk forward,

hoping to climb to the far Heavens above,

on something like the coattails of Love.

1179. CLOSE HIS EYES AND SHUT THE SHADES; HE WAS DELIVERED DEAD AS THEY COME

CLOSE HIS EYES AND

SHUT THE SHADES;

HE WAS DELIVERED

DEAD AS THEY COME

Death by grimace. Arterial sclerosis. Deadly

Nightshade barbecue tea. Off the sauce and

out to sea. It's over; every Raisenet in that kid's

box is gone. I was reading the headlines, and

then they fell over. Wampun Bristol Macademia.

Wampun, an Amerindian using wordplay.

Macademia, nuts attending university.

Bristol, what it costs to pay a moyel.

1178. COMA-INDUCED DALLIANCE

COMA-INDUCED DALLIANCE

'Come away with me' and all the rest; the billboard

graces the Van Allen belt. Stars high, resplendent in

their small-town sizzle, extirpate everything in the

way. ('I'm sure I heard the music ending, long, long

before it started'). Like this was Jurassic Park.

-

We ate the medallions of beef while standing at

the oyster shack. Behind us, the fat Brooklyn surf

beat itself to death on the sand. A signman strolled

by, in a Chaplin bowler hat. 'Eat twice at Neremans!'

it said, 'Once for pleasure, and once for fun!'.

In the basket, an old Jew was throwing dice.

-

'It never was like this before!', the guy said. 'When

I was a boy, we could stay here all day, for a nickel!

And I mean all day, and I mean a nickel!'

1177. AT ONCE

AT ONCE

Here comes everything together -

a consort of great apes and voices.

Sounds ringing; the salamander

at the bottom of the basin, like a

soiled old penny, is found again

at the bottom of the ledge. Again,

and again it slinks steadily upward

from the slime it inhabits. We

really must sort this out.

-

November is cold and hard and harsh;

a very serious month decked with grey,

and those low, running skies. Not a

month for dreaming, to be sure
(yet still I am dreaming of you).

1176. WE HAVEN'T HAD TO DO THAT YET

WE HAVEN'T HAD

TO DO THAT YET

I am heavy with symbolism tonight.

The dark beard of doubting I tug.

Regard me but for the instant, the

stars and moon astride my window.

They reward the watching in a silent

brood of detail and place. Just as all

the Heavens are arrayed, so my own

Life is listed : squarely, solidly, and set.

It seems things are like this always.

So many, many items to do, when all

one really wants to do is watch the

setting moon, (a sight not seen before),

which I've never seen go down.

1175. VANDALS AND HUNS ARE COMING TO DINNER

VANDALS AND HUNS

ARE COMING TO DINNER

'And then we snapped his fucking head off with a

crack.' The hordes, the hordes were taking back

whatever they could - cranium mountains and

those rivers and streams. Horses, red-eyed horses,

sweaty and pumped, pacing to prance at their own

fiery breath. Eyes bulging! But more than that, the

piercing force of those on foot. Lines and lines across

the land where blood alone dwells. No company

like this before. Land and space, together, and words

without words. We are growing tired, too, of all

their Christian ways - gutter-prancing pagan-induced

half beliefs. What is the difference anyway? No time

for this as we cross these doty but savage civic squares.

Bells and encampments are everywhere. You seek

compensation? There is none, you vassal cunning serf.

'And we snapped his fucking head off at the neck.'

1174. EXIT PLAN

EXIT PLAN

I've minded these manners for 100 years,

with nothing to show for it now but old date

books filled with the complaints of whiners

and hacks. I can still see their faces, hovering,

like ghosted images seen late at night. The ones

who would complain, even in Paradise. Those

whose motherboard has always been loosely

connected : liars and apes and chimps and

twisters. Wrestlers with the Devil itself.

I finally said this to myself: 'put down

that pile of crap, place everything

ever touched down on the table,

get up, look around, and walk out.'

1173. SCRUM

SCRUM

Deficiencies alike to domination,

and the caterwauling along the roadway.

Look out, just see, peer easy from your perch.

These are five million eyes looking back at you.

The one man, rolling his sleeves, the other five

looking on. The woman, adjusting the strap on

her bag and then slinging it back to her shoulder.

Like ice on an already-frosting, she brings her

cold aim to direction. Reflected in the lights

above her, a glimmering reflection of a

Saturday sky. Everyone passes quickly.

Far, far above, the jet stream follows

a tiny, pinpoint plane.

1172. A RANK SATISFACTION

A RANK SATISFACTION

A rank satisfaction from this seventh-year itch

would be colluding with policemen and doctors.

'We can say he's dying, and he did the crime.

Set up the circumstantial evidence until

we have him crying. Send him up for life

and then send him a pardon. It will all

be a big joke and it'll drive him crazy.'

-

Who in the world are they talking about?

I wonder to myself while I light the last

match in this final pack. They're gratis

matches from some machinery shop

way out in the Bronx. How I got

them, I really can't remember.

-

Before this freaky donut shop, last

night late, I think I was at a party

on the piers - an artist's bash for

a west-side show, or something.

The people there were nuts, I

remember that; lighting flares

to Jersey on the old rotted wood.

1171. AND I LIKE THAT AS WELL

AND I LIKE THAT AS WELL

We have men and ladies shopping at the

Proto-Garage for small and lacy underthings.

They all seem so candy-like, the caramelized

surplus of plums and cookies and creams.

Nothing worth nothing, to be almost concealed

but not quite. 'We only want to suggest coverage,

you see,' the fey one is saying outside the store,

smoking a brown cigarette and leaning on the

bus-stop post, 'a nipple is still a nipple. whether

it's partially covered or not - even for the girls,

we merely want to titillate, leaving things only

quite unseen.' I think to myself, 'they must

teach this shit in some lingerie school.'

I really think Victoria's Secret was that she

wore nothing at all underneath her heavy

clothing. How else to pierce that darkness

of night of the era which now, obliquely,

bears her name alone?

1170. IMBROGLIO

IMBROGLIO
Everything was hazy, journeying back.
Maybe my arm had broken off in your hand,
maybe my Mom was in that sling, maybe you
carried the breakfast we never had. The entire
world was washed in a sepia light, things were
moving slowly, in some staccato fashion I'd
not seen before. We'd hatched some plans as
we trekked, but - again - we already knew
nothing would come of them. That old miner's
camp at the bottom, in the valley where the
Perse ran into the Boto, the place where the
warriors lived : a sort of invalid camp for
old, wounded knights and horsemen. So many
men, in one place, with only one eye. I was
almost wishing it was a nightmare instead.
The horses whinnied as we walked along.
Ah, the slice of life, the places where people
live, the mildewed paint, the peeling stucco.
All those tarnished incidentals of an old,
tired existence. A hundred small
villages, broken at the core.

1169. AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF DIAMOND DUST

AGAINST A BACKGROUND

OF DIAMOND DUST

Against a background of diamond dust I have

nothing worthwhile to say. Things are piled up

everywhere, and I seem insipid to a fault. The

heavy mantle of the sky rings low my hollow

head and things begin to fail, to falter, to droop.

I capture me a waterfly by only the most

sumptuous means. Placing my head down on

a most comforting rock, I close my eyes to

see if my head will fit. There is a crevice

seemingly perfect in shape. A fly fisherman,

so to speak, would never have a better day

than this. My joy should be in a magazine.

-

You have wondered what I was talking

about, what elixir I drank to get this

way, what tablet, perhaps, I ingested.

No, no, it was nothing like that.

Rather, oh bystander, it was this

more than momentary feeling

that I shall, truly, live forever.

1168. AUTUMNAL

AUTUMNAL
I am walking through
leaves ankle deep, things
fallen beneath a waning moon;
one that now seems upside down.
The stars and the planets around it,
as well, seem errant in their hanging.
Suspended and skewed in the fairy sky,
white with wisps gone passing by.
-
Rough spots? Hilly? Stones and
rocks and all the things of Earth,
they now make second-drawer of
all the rest of the world. And now the
men are talking too : bold colors on
the hillside, broken limbs and branches,
leaves, ankle deep, on the forest floor.
So much to do, and more....

1167. TYGER

TYGER
[Maybe we get tired of the symbolism,
yet on it goes nonetheless - things
speaking for us, like that tyger at the tomb.
Tyger, tyger burning bright, in the forest of
the night....what fearful hand or eye.
-
The artist draws lines with both hands,
one into the other in a row by row.
-
Creation is a myth circulated by all.
Shadows are repeated over and over
by all those passing in the dark. Rather
this scree, this projected picture we
imagine (each other imagining), should
be talking about us - and yet, as it
grows apace perhaps it is. Tyger,
tyger buring bright....].

1166. IT IS STILL UNKNOWN WHAT ANYTHNG MEANS

IT IS STILL UNKNOWN
WHAT ANYTHING MEANS
Fuzzy starry sky I cannot see you.
Too far for sense and logic, I suppose,
and I am gone forever : the deep
distances make your yesterdays my
tomorrows. The lights waver and hide.
Everything new is old outside.
-
Like leaden gold it came down hard -
all the chariots and fires and angels.
No one else said a word as, after all
the whole thing took but a minute.

1165. DECIMATION

DECIMATION

(my father said 'keep your

head up when you write')

This being the smartest fire ever, I am

slaughtered by a million cuts. I am burned.

The swivel chair has hit my head. That

toilsome burro yet chases my figure, and

I have nowhere left to turn; beset by

rumors of high tide and low rent.

I listen to the rumble-roar beneath

the ground and realize - only too

late and with sorrow - that I was

destined for other things of no

import. The blind boy in the

leaking bubble : perhaps,

yes, maybe, that was

always me.

1164. NORTH AMERICAN GROUNDS

NORTH AMERICAN GROUNDS

The checkered flag grows wild on Grand Street,

as the Chinese girls are smiling. No one really

knows why. We all withered in the kitchen

for a long, hot Summer now gone. The dumpling

cart, like some frosty cake with icing, swirled

round and round, every hour anew.

-

No one left. No one ever came home. We loved

every moment : the businessmen in suits who

would come in to watch the horse-races on TV,

Asian guys between deals, loud and laughing.

Throwing dumb money around. No one ever

won anything at all. It was light and airy.

-

When I met your first cousin Hua-Mei,

I knew right off she was related to you :

somehow same dimple, twisted smile, and

those wandering green eyes. You both

said something about your fathers being

the same, but first-cousins nonetheless.

Not in this land. I didn't follow at all.

-

When the sugar-berry fell to the ground

everyone rushed, praising Buddha, to

pick it back up. You all lit candles in the

bowl, with twelve oranges around it.

Odd customs, and this North American

land. Old, old stories on this

North American ground.

No one really knows

why.

1163. THE RIVER LETHE

THE RIVER LETHE

-(part a.)-

I am riding this bark along

the river of forgetfulness; trying

not to sleep, yet failing at that.

Above me, a lethal form of sky

is hovering low; caves and flowing

water assuage the doubts, as I

duck and timber the flow.

-

My brain this time is purely the

loser. Attempting its own deceit,

so sure of the reality before it, it

pauses at nothing at all - but goes on,

and on, relegating a propensity for

reflection to only the water alone.

And even that reflection is but

the faint glimmer of moving illusion.

-

-(part b.)-

What is it I've carried this far,

and strapped to my back, no less?

What is it drags me through water like

leaden weight, sinking and falling? The

onus of this magnificence? Oh, surely

not that! The plaque-worn, granite-load

of memory carried, ever onward and more?

Perhaps. Singing like sirens, I hear a

feminine sound - voice, songstress, singer.

And, oh though, would it be, she were mine!

-

-(part c.)-

This foul nomenclature; I bury the

name 'neath the waters. Why try the climb

and the flow? I am sinking as I sing. Both

regard each other equally, these words -

past me strange landscapes pass.

I am entering Heaven,

or I am leaving a Hell.

1162. A FEW MEN

A FEW MEN
A few men making mischief can ruin a
world already gone high to Hell; can take
a tree and bend it 'til it breaks, can re-route
the rivers and streams until Scylla and
Charybdis look serene. I wouldn't pass
their way, for even a dollar or less.
I may have been to the hills. I may have
been past the gorge. I saw the arrival
of new Fall and all its colors and noise.
The toll house was filled but with skeletons
as I passed - and, to be truthful, it was
not any longer Halloween.
-
I get sick of the costumes and pretension.
A few men like this, feigning magic and skill,
can alter my world and enter at will. But I
will not let them in. The high heats of August,
all of them as one, will still linger in my memory
and keep their cold faces out.

1161. I'M GOING TO TAKE THE BET

I'M GOING TO TAKE THE BET

That the light on your face is better than

any light of God's or glory, that the sun in

your hair can make miracles. I already know

that the miles within are always greater

than those outside. This is the story

to which I subscribe.

-

Mandolin meadows, scrumptious saliva,

and the deeds of every common man.

I am going to take the bet, that within

this world, we are each doing all that we can.

1160. ONCE PASSING THE ZUIDER ZEE

ONCE PASSING THE

ZUIDER ZEE

Kindling wood. An oasis of little men. A

pile of flowers cast away. Don't tell me

anything I never knew before - these

are catcalls I hear; the frown of the loser,

the arched eyebrow of a distant King.

-

To all those men who play cards, I say,

'play on! Eat your cigars and finger those

cards. Leave nothing behind but ash for

the mice. This is a miserable Paradise,

yet a Paradise nonetheless - and you

never get a second chance at that.

Malingerers always remain idle.

At heart, anyway. Look up, once,

as I pass. Just say something,

and I'll keep moving on.'

1159. TOO LATE FOR THE PARTY

TOO LATE FOR THE PARTY

I'd come too late for the party : the tables were down,

the cups had already been taken away. A few dead-drunk

people were set around like puppets props from the

Living Theater : twisted limbs, frost on their faces,

and all that shouldered harmony of the dense. The

pretty waitress from the kitchen sauntered by. Picking

up scraps, she sparred with the busboy; as if throwing

darts and flirting with results. Only the lighting saved

the day. I'd asked if I needed a reservation. 'Now?',

she said, 'we're going away.' Hallelujah to that.

-

Along the stairway, the crescent moon had bent strips

of yellow light; they rolled across the steps lending

a color to the night; not much, but a color nonetheless.

Had I been a smoker, this would have been the place.

Instead, I took my rest - leaning on the wall I watched

the three men from the Carson Warehouse load their

crates : marked from China, big, strapped wood,

probably filled with marbles or nothing really good.

Cheap wares and Chinese flares - all that stuff of

dollar stores and emporium fairs. Junk, probably

like the boat they also named.

-

I realized I was late for the party. I realized what

I'd thought, as well. If I had a Chinese junk, I'd

sail the harbor solo, never setting foot on land

again. Impractical as that would be, from all this

patter I'd be free. It took a moment more to sink

in - nothing mattered anymore, and I was

drowning anyway. Too late for the party,

and too late for the festive tray.

1158. EPHEMERA OF THE SCATOLOGICAL

EPHEMERA OF THE SCATOLOGICAL

I knew it wasn't going to work from the moment

she walked in. She took her dress off. A moment

too long, it seemed. Nothing underneath; oh good

God, a pussy like a fist. My sunglasses, as I recall,

came off in an instant. With her one hand, she

flicked some sort of radio on to a songbook of

her making - a shifting yet frolicsome jazz

I'd never gotten to like. We sat down for a

spell, just learning to breath. She said her

name was 'Emee'. I couldn't quite grab

the pronunciation.

-

I'd never done this before : 'too many years

in school and not that much to show,' I'd said

to her long before, when her mother was

still around. Back then it was a difficult

choice, the 'her or her' - now that she

was alone, it was much more simple.

-

I jacked up her car with the only

lift I had. The car stayed up

a very long time while we

worked on the engine parts

parts below. Things

running, and

things not.

1157. AVERROES

AVERROES
I found Averroes with his abacus
slopping up the floor - using his
perpetual rags to clean up his mess.
It was so very simple : migrant
headaches and Iberian disputations.
People nodded as we passed. He'd just
put everything back, saying he had
reason for this and reason for that.
None of which I believed at all. Like
anyone else on this ripped-torn planet,
he was wandering without guide
and lying to boot. I laid my head
down and cried.

1156. SICK UNTO...

SICK UNTO...

Death. And the old Rambler,

parked at curbside - half a century

old already, limping, leaking, leaving.

Puddles of oil where once the sweet

Byrds sang. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian

Church. Gaucho Corral and all those

gay boys, choir-singing themselves

to Death. Again. Mention at your

own peril. When Cult becomes

Culture - isn't it true - we're

all in trouble. Double. Trouble.

-

Weltschmerz. Gotterdamerung.

Wiener Schnitzel. Oberamaggau.

-

The hand on the light bar is

controlling the stage. Things go dark,

go light, go dark again. We don't know him.

Don't know who even let him in. Mention

at your own peril. Or mine. Death...

and the old Rambler, sinking at the curb.

1155. BRING THE POPE TO ME BY TUESDAY

BRING THE POPE

TO ME BY TUESDAY

It isn't an egregious harm, this web-craft lounging

that we do; inexperience, amidst those whom I admired.

Wantonness, together, brought us both to this sepulchre

- where now the geese fly by, along, and high overhead.

Atop the clouds, the sky. Atop the sky, the Monday moon.

-

I'd always wanted such meritorious service; alike to

myself and those around me. We swilled the beer in

the open field, wrote stories of each other in

darkened classrooms, and practiced at the target

with our lethal bows and arrows. Yet, somehow,

still alive, we stand to thrive. Will not leave.

Demand an impression, a visit, a blessing.

-

Let Him come then; nothing like that matters.

Bless the baloney sandwiches, and bless again

the sacred water. The Red Sea parts at noon.

1154. NEW HOUSE

NEW HOUSE
(suiting myself very well)
I lifted the new house sideways until
its cover came off the door, but by then
I was already startled with wonder. There
was, as well, a new tenancy - beneath
floorboards and cellar doors, precious
moments now, of a newer calling. I was
dwelling in a box of my own creating,
and suiting myself now very well. The
wild lilt of the cardboard edges, right
there, where once all the boxes had stood,
left forms of ghost image, like memory,
in the space where a closet should be.
I came away with nothing, but felt all
the more secure. In my new house, I
so sure, I would want to stay forever.

1153. TITLE

TITLE
Let us call this something nice : the juggler, who
loses a hand in an accident, the singer, whose
vocal chords fade, the soldier coming home
with one leg. Or - as I've heard before -
the ballerina who can dance to nothing at all.
Everything jumbles together in that shop on
the corner. In a window, the fortune-teller's
globe and a wand. A plastic pyramid pretends
at ancient Egypt. The lone red light beckons.
I wouldn't know anything if I knew nothing at all.
-
In the rich man's atrium, I noticed, he
displayed his collection of medieval armor.
What appeared to be knights in full regalia,
chain-mail and weapons strange. Studded
balls and quaint devices with which to kill.
Things I've forgotten the names of already.
I wanted to laugh, but just scoffed instead.
Yes! This is how we built our world, and
who else but this rich fellow should know.

1152. DEEP FOCUS

DEEP FOCUS

If one goes to deep focus, a penetrating leap,

the edges blur from the distance and colors

seem enhanced. Lines and angles thereby change.

Like the swiftest, sleek ship skittering swift

across an ocean smooth, there are seeming blurs

where things should be. Wild maritime breezes

blow things crooked, as bent-by-time-itself worlds

change and collide. We live a far too comfortable

life when we don't know things such as these.

The threat of comfort looms, the slow demise

of any integrity and daring snaps us shut. The

very midnight sky trickles down upon us into

a dark and bloodless ooze. If one goes to deep

focus too soon, on the other hand, there

is only one mistake to be made - the scent

a track dog takes for granted : that this flat

life will last forever, or should; that reason

and logic make everything right, or could;

that we are most alone when we are

working with ourselves. Beats me

what any of that means, but

there it all is nonetheless.

1151. 44 CARNATIONS

44 CARNATIONS

I counted 44 carnations on 24th Street along

the front of someone's store. The light was all

brand new and the day hadn't even really

started yet : tall buildings massed in the looming

distance, as if trying to overhear a word. Lights

changed and taxis dove for cover. Something

like the Flower District was limping along; all

those sagging storefronts still old and decrepit.

No one had yet fixed up a thing, as if the

rest of the city - all that new glass and steel -

didn't really exist at all. A man was on the sidewalk,

his prayer rug on the ground, and he was actually

bending to the east, as some form of sun came up.

The solar-powered worship of carnations and men,

it was, that made me realize right then - and stop

dead in my tracks - that I was living in a moment

of time unprepared for by me. I never thought this

would be. I still live in a court of milkmen and

breadmen and doctors who came to one's house.

Maybe a simpler time, but one still there for me.

Too bad then - all this super-speed and overlap,

people playing notions off the ground. A million

ancient things beneath the sun, still leaking in

to color a day that's just begun. For me, I

shrugged and moved along, still

watching shadows on the wall.

1150. RANDOM THOUGHTS

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I want to bless my readers, anyone who does,

and especially those who comment. I really

love them all - invisible matter I can think

about to no recourse, having nowhere to go

nor image to see. Unlike the sky before me,

or that orange-fat moon stuck low and full

on a Halloween horizon, I get nothing back

tangible from them except the wizard-like

feeling of knowing they are there. Trick or

treat this, I say. They are the razor in my apple,

and I am only too happy to bite. What that says

about me, I leave to you to decide. But please

don't write me about that. Please just say you

love me back. I'm really that miserable a person.

A cat, meowling in sickness in my own sour milk.

1149. DEAR UNCLE NEFARIOUS

DEAR UNCLE NEFARIOUS

(before I hit the ground)

I am writing to say this to you :

I want to take my own life. Very

slowly, mind you, but take it

nonetheless. I want to go double-time

slow on the breaths I take, taking

only one in the space where two are

usually needed. Will this then redden

my face? I wonder. I want to drink my

poison by the drop, in droppers I think

I can get from Joey's chemistry set. I think.

If I poke my skin with a sharp knife-point,

just a poke, day by day, will it eventually

add up to a jab? What can you tell me?

Perhaps, as I am changing a tire, let's say,

can I get the car to only slowly crush me?

Can I outlast the hurt? Why no, of course not,

if I could outlast the hurt I wouldn't be

planning to do all this. Asking these stupid

questions. If I jump off a bridge or building,

remember too, I only want to come down

ever so slowly, floating this way and that

like a feather, for a very long time,

before I hit the ground.

1148. IN MY TIME OF DYING TOO

IN MY TIME OF DYING TOO

There will be nothing like the haste of passage when

the passage makes haste to come : enter at will for

there is no turning back. That bevy of shoes and socks

in the doorway, remember, they were all for you :

left by the millions, forgotten by all, never needed

in any case. Cavemen and acolytes, millionaires

and troglodytes, the mixed sortie of ten-thousand

atomic bombs - all going off in your face, at once.

Lights the brilliance of flame, clouds as silver as gold.

1147. SPURIOUS & FURIOUS

SPURIOUS & FURIOUS

What will you do for me, Mr. McMosty?

The genuflection we never see, the rip in the sky,

the poise that makes a skater shy?

I can never be what you are now, but at

least I can sit down and alter the place

I sit; finding better places for that.

I open to you now both of my hands,

yet you will see they are full of ink -

ink and paint, the mainstays of my

existence. Yours, on the other hand,

a spurious form of money made vague

by speed and froth. You say so much of

nothing, I blanch at the cantilevered fabric

of your fulsome cloak. You anger me, you do.

But that fact makes no difference.

Together, we are a team from Hell, both

reading different signals from the

selfsame signal giver.

1146. WALKING ON THE EDGE MARLENE

WALKING ON THE EDGE MARLENE
My God, I really don't know you :
I am walking on the edge, Marlene, here
where the early-morning street-sweeper
crawls along the curbs and corners, splashing
water out beneath its scratchy brushes. Like
the cat's low meowling, I am heard to utter
sounds - long and short, no matter, all
my sounds nonetheless. I walk past all
the empty doorways and the broken lights.
I really don't know you at all.
-
Turning inward is an infelicitous thing -
inscribing thoughts in private notebooks,
writing small ideas in bigger places then they
deserve. The sin is wanderlust, some seer says.
I laugh back at him, and say 'I've been walking
since I was ten, you fool.' I really don't know you,
Marlene, but probably wouldn't even if I could.
-
Paradox and conundrum. Two paired ideas
of nothing, going nowhere. The frog shouts at
the pond, and the pond shouts back - yet only
they, in Nature's way, can understand each other.
I find that seems a lot like us. I really don't know
you, Marlene, but probably wouldn't if I could.

1145. TURTLE DOVE OASIS

TURTLE DOVE OASIS

Camarague, mistral and the sands

of distant Morocco and such - I want to

land upon my feet, you see, where I can.

Tortmeister, hammelsinger, Wednesday's

King of Prague. How those ancient names

remember. Let the torch flame singe the palms.

-

Native lallygagging layabouts

listening to sweet squiggling musics.

While their fair girls dance all

the way to France, I envy

all their aplomb.

1144. KILLER

KILLER

Wanted dead or alive, keeping company

with bedposts and bar-girls, spinning

a six-gun under his covers. Let us find

ways to reach him. Writing in cities

to people in the country, while sending

letters too from the country to the town.

He's a voracious sidewinder of subterfuge

and disguise. And though I'd know him

anywhere, I'd have to see his eyes -

the eyes that have killed, those eyes

which look past the pinpoint aims at the

end of the barrel. The Rook at the head

of a chessboard sweep - really nothing

so valuable, and nothing we'd keep. String

him up, in your imagination of course, for

he only gets down again and can ruin -

certainly - any day you may have.

Free is nothing. The task is simply

in staying alive.

1143. OF A MADRIGAL AND LACE

‎OF A MADRIGAL AND LACE

Madrigal and lace - a gloved suggestion for your heart

to be reached for by others. Lights of the great world

around us. Inspired by the Heavens, all the arts are

at your feet, and I thereby beseech you for your

Winter ice and Summer heat, all those things

which make us vanquished. In the inner harbor

of the greater mind where we all unknowingly

live, there are things amassed we feel but never

recognize : a heartfelt face, a wiry heart, the

pound and pace of all Life brings us.

-

The grab-bag stories of Gods and grace, we

memorize the lines and speak them, in haste,

only then pretending to understand. In front

of us, some mental marshall with a cloak and

scabbard pretends to force us to want to go

on living. That ship has left for outer seas.

We are standing by the seaside posts,

awaiting the salvage ship of Time itself

to bring us rescue, rescue and

solace, and rest.

1142. SYNOPSIS

SYNOPSIS

Into my nature there entered something dark :

spinning a shadowy maelstrom right into my

heart. Doubt equalled spin, and I questioned

within. The rising and falling of breath bespoke

my goal - a sparkling Freedom, from both

ascension and the falling down. Like the

airs of a distant star spinning afar, the

darkness kept moving about me. I looked

out, shrouded in flesh, and found - for

the nonce - that I couldn't move myself.

A certain heaviness depleted my strength.

I knew too soon how much was over.

My dark soul resonated with its

black depth. Suddenly, I felt

ready to move on.

1141. KAISER AND FALKENROY

KAISER AND FALKENROY

"I can't shouldn't have done anything looking back

the measly way it ended still makes me sick excuse

me I'm sorry not then but now." So, bedraggled, I stayed

to watch : fifteen sickening more clowns and that frantic

reporter from the Post, the dead, raggedy body being

drawn from the water, the car horn somehow playing

itself, an alarm gone bad or something. This was how

it seemed things should never have been like this.

"I'm glad anyway you came it's good to have you

here. Yes, he was my brother, but you probably

knew him far better than me. To me, he was

just always a creepy outsider. So sorry now

so sad." He turned away and walked to

his car. Same old black Buick I'd

seen him in last time. The other

people too started breaking

away. I took a breath and

walked off, leaving

nothing behind.

1140. HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS OF A NEVER-ENDING GRACE

HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS OF

A NEVER-ENDING GRACE

(nyc, 1969)

I walked the jester every night.

I never felt about 5th Avenue this

way before. Not at all. 'Shining light,

good night, Applewhite' was really all

I could remember of living back then.

If I'd ever attained anything, it was

no attainment at all. And then there

was you. You were just a heart by the

riverside - probably why I loved you best.

Kept as chatter, released as lust, held like

so much else. That small house on the riverbank

bluff - late night yellow illumination by lights

beyond. A side-apple romance, and you sure

knew how to bake. I've got my own story and

I don't need yours. Simplicity kills, and baby I

ain't got the breath to go it alone. How is it that

when we touched we touched on two sides? My

belly to your belly, it always seemed, out on

that highway of a never-ending grace.

1139. OF STAN LEE AND PEPPER WALTER

OF STAN LEE AND

PEPPER WALTER

They were carrying their wallpaper home like

gendarmes on parade - comic book characters

frozen in time. Nettlesome voyagers, glue-paper

fiends, superheroes now stuck outside of time and

thus powerless now forever. Past doorways and

garage sheds, past all those tank tops, all those tits,

along the city's streets and alleys in this Summer heat,

past windows of dawn and afternoon and evening too.

It was a gracious pronouncement by a humorous God :

a Being of salvage, a Maker of many things. Stan Lee

and Pepper Walter, forever together, walking by.

1138. LONG NORTH AMERICAN FORCE

LONG

NORTH AMERICAN

FORCE

Well, well, what should it be! A voice

like this, talking to me. All along the

deep horizon, that Mohawk warrior

slipping through some Glimmerglass

woods. That upright and peering soldier,

staring straight ahead. What he would see

if he only had eyes : His complete future

of nothing is made for our ruination. He

killed this Mohawk for tar and retribution,

a never-met occlusion made for today's hate.

All ass-backwards too. Would such a stupid

soldier see, over the Mohawk's corpse, parking

lot buildings of glass, abandoned downtowns

and Nature walks, mad, frenzied shoppers

beating each other off? And off? And, of course,

that dollar sign that chokes every newborn

baby's cry. For these sickening nascent social

forces, soldier boy, go home and let us die alone.

1137. THE MOMENT, THE NORM

THE MOMENT, THE NORM

You should then have to witness everything -

passing vignettes of solace and harm, the

complacent, dull homage of a million separate

lives. In that window grange, the two people

in their kitchen, eating one guesses a breakfast,

by the hour of day. The light thrown onto the

courtyard like glass from where they sit. A

dull, yellow kitchen glow somehow brought

brightly to life. A red sweater on a woman's

body, like a tea cozy on some ceramic pot.

A pottery bowl showing shape and form.

All the same, everywhere,

the moment, the norm.

1136. THIS MIGHT BE DIFFICULT

THIS MIGHT BE DIFFICULT

A man I once knew as alive is dead - not the first,

mind you, but another in a line. I barely outrun the

bunch of them. Suicide, bullet to the head, cancer,

motorcycle death, diabetes, stroke, aneurysm...

I'm naming but a few for those inclined to know.

Not a one of them did I truly 'know' in that sense of

a science or a chemistry of knowledge or psychology.

In fact, the whole entire lot of them baffled me always -

left me stranded, bereft, without too much emotion.

Misunderstanding all I saw, so to say. But I was never

too much concerned. I'd listen and nod - whom they'd

just fucked, where she was now, how it went with

Lola or Cindy or Jane, career crap, exploits, every

outrageous claim. The idiot with his made-up shit, stories

of expensive clothes and imported denims and leathers,

three-thousand dollar sunglasses, whose ass he'd just kissed.

I was supposed to be impressed - by such fucking lies do

you know them. Reality being, he was probably a psychotic

freak still locked in a cage. But one alone. There were the

others, more sensible, more gentle, sweet and kind. The

writer friend, living alone like a snipe in a garrett, unsure of

everything but his isolation and distance. Much like me -

I had to say 'yes!' to that. The academics, the union guys,

the ones with the money and big jobs. Everyone a circus unto

himself, my guys, one by one passing dead for death and

gone for forever. It's so fucking over everyday.

No more, no never.

1135. STILL LIFE IN BLUE AND WHITE

STILL LIFE IN

BLUE AND WHITE

For at least the time being I am living without

reference, without you, and without direction.

Now, to my left, are the heights of Morningside -

as they are called - and, farther off, the jumble of

the Jumel Mansion. So many things are different,

while so much is yet the same. I see little women

with petticoats and bonnets scurrying around.

They hold trays in their tiny, small hands.

Tea and coasters, things to eat. Odd it all

is to see this now, years and years on.

-

If people say I am a seer, it is because I see, but,

yea, only backwards - through a mist of time,

through blue China dyes and porcelain tiles

and Delft. All those things of those very odd

words and very old days. In essence, whatever

I am and see, I want to be left alone. This is

all ruined by crowds, dissembled by noise.

-

I am jarred anew by the sound of a truck or a bus,

one or the other, breaking through space. Two modern

men, loud and annoying, are bolting past me walking

fast and - seemingly - now shouting towards each

other as if they actually have something to

say. What a wasted day. This is leftover time,

poorly spent, a civilization of laggards and dopes.

Others are eating from paper wraps, spitting as

they talk and chew. Gentility falls to the ground

around them, their still life in white and blue.

1134. EVIDENCES

EVIDENCES

Abound. Everywhere.

Small towns made of sutures

and stories, monuments to the

war dead of decades old dread.

Persipolicitic nurses still handling

judgement bandages and kindling wood.

Ideas, campfires, hospital wings and

graveyards where the teachers wait.

Tell stories. Review the past. Engorge the

new reviewer : we are what we are not now

and never have been what it is we set out to

be. Wars and revolutions may be dandy,

but they accomplish so very little.

1133. ROOTING THE END TIME

ROOTING THE END TIME
I was finding things out : dirt turns to mud turns
to dirt once more. Light turns to dark turns
to light again. What essence each has is
far beyond my comprehension. An
American atom bomb project called
Trinity? Three Gods in one hat?
-
I drank coffee at the Livermore Lounge.
She came over, to sit with me. Her
name was Alice, and she'd said
already that her mother was
a communist but long ago
dead. Named her other
sister Enola, after the
Enola Gay.
-
Beats me, all this does. Broke my mind
and broke up my day. I really wanted
somewhere to hide. All I had was
a drink with someone who lied.
No chance of anything
more than that.

1132. GARGANTUA

GARGANTUA
Embroiled are the lights of Sydney,
massive are the flames of Koche. The
frogmen sit around, talking of Melbourne
Harbor, or the swift currents along the
Adelaide Breach. Of a sudden, behind
them, rises up the great monster, roaring
like a fountain full-flowing, tearing down
all beaches and walls. Ancient foundations
crumbling, structures of 600 years fall
away. Like Galileo, Newton, Einstein and
Godel, it has effected a great certain
change in the sky. 'Let us cancel all
knowledge now,' says the lanky fireman,
'for this has now altered all things.'

1131. PODCOAT

PODCOAT
This world won't be mine, this world won't
be yours. We are probably as good as dead
already. Things change and time passes.
The variegated coatings of the round
pills we digest are the colors of a life well
lived. Nothing escapes fancy : watch those
tree-leaves turn their ways, listen to
the black walnut pod fall; it hits the
ground with its own sweet thud.
We can ignore or we can absorb,
but I bet we can't forget - all that
which we know - from those
long tribal pasts in the forests
and woods, when sense and
reaction was all that we had.
Say what you want, but
life gets no better. Of
that, you should
be glad.

1130. INSENSATE

INSENSATE

(bulgaria/cold entry)

I have seen every valve turned the wrong way once -

gas flowing, water flooding, gates closed

and long doors locked. No one could escape.

The mind-rending shatter of glass and bulb,

blowing out everywhere. 'We know our men by

what they leave behind them.' It is so bad, in fact,

that carnage of this sort has its own encyclopedia entry.

-

Wipe the countertops down after spraying.

Burn all the cloths. Separate the cuttings from

the regular trash. We are done with our work.

1129. MY OWN ANDY WARHOL MOMENT

MY OWN
ANDY WARHOL
MOMENT
So upon coming my saint white-eyed
over-present dominator of one's only
ragged dreams; you opened eyes
commingling but faintly with things
upon this Earth. I'd seen your kind
before. The trailers of all my stairway
trash - where the man so inspecting
the new table stays in place as he
crosses nonetheless a doorway. Paradox
is like that everywhere we go. A repetition.
The random rateables and the oh-so-constant
precisions too. This is, after all (you said)
'what makes art art.'
-
Kiss Brillo Box Empire State Blow Job
Sleep Kiss repeat Kiss Brillo Box
Empire State Blow Job Sleep Kiss.

1128. ONLY SO MANY SHADES OF RED

ONLY SO MANY
SHADES OF RED
There are only so many shades of red.
No? New? Old only? Say what can you
say see do you paint me? Red? Homosexual
tablet you say you were watching Spartacus
again 'for probably my twentieth time.' I
honestly turned and said what I thought,
'but I do not know what that is.'
-
'A movie,' you said, 'just a movie.'
I replied, 'but they're like billboards,
they're everywhere but you don't have
to see them if you don't want. They can
be ignored.' You laughed back, and said,
'only so many shades of red make
this red world red.'

1127. LIFE DRAWING

LIFE DRAWING

To be just sitting around, drawing

the lines from the life before you -

drawing like talking and drawing like

draw. Either way, what I say : the

modular forms of the things placed

before you, like icicles or vases within

the orange or pear. I know as I go I

cannot see what's there. My own

achievement is this smudgy line,

drawn from where I cannot say.

Lifted from a memory, or a

fantasy of flame.

-

As I watched, distant enough,

but still alive, the entire world changed.

'Don't write that letter, rather keep

your opinions to yourself.'

1126. SCIENCE GENE FLOW

SCIENCE GENE FLOW
I awoke as if from another land,
one better suited to my ways and needs.
A needle into a spike - I'd goaded these
changing illusions on. I had not wanted
words, but got them anyway. Used
and unused both, they received their
comings no matter.

1125. THE BLESSING OF THE DOGS ON FERRY STREET

THE BLESSING OF THE DOGS
ON FERRY STREET
I stumbled here by quite the accident
- dog yawp yowl, unleashed and how.
They stretched the rope and gathered
on the grass. All those leaders and their
dogs to follow. The parade was a graceful
canine bite - more like a suckle than
one of fright.

1124. SANCTIONED AND OVERDRAWN

SANCTIONED AND OVERDRAWN
There was no taking back what already had
passed. I'd known that anyway. The lumbering
light had broken our brows as we spoke; patterned
reflections of leaves and trees splashing oddly,
I noticed, on your forehead and hair. That newly
installed black iron fence, so perfect behind your
form. The passing of a season, just like this,
would be a pleasure to behold.
-
'Come over to the this corner, watch my heels
in play.' I didn't understand your words and, gaping,
my own jellyfish mouth wondered what to say in return.
Or I wondered, I guess, what to make it say. Life
is a funny process like that - a part of me commands,
and another part follows. The mind is in control,
but everything else wallows, not knowing what to do.
-
Perhaps in itself that is why time passes.
We're lost without a referential edge, so -
as the sun passes overhead - we fill our times
and days with sleep and patter. Tongues wag.
-
Just out of reach, to my left, lines of people
kept passing. Art gallery denizens, weasels of
taste and fashion, high-line skippers running
a dirge of their own making. The city out
before me broadly stretched, buildings cloaked
in form and color and light of their own reflected
glory. I'd read the book, yet I forgot the story.

1123. MAKING THE GRADE

MAKING THE GRADE

Making the grade means handling a heart,

breaking an arm, forecasting displeasure,

causing alarm. See no idle postehaste here.

The wily wren I just saw catching sunlight,

scooting away at a sound or a hint of trouble,

how unlike anything I know is that bird.

Reading air, understanding space, flying

through time. I envy the unexcelled marvel.

-

Down at the river, athwart the canal, the old

steam-man was seen sleeping in the sun :

on the bench built along the toll-house wall.

I noticed he threw no shadow at all - it was either

noon or, better, his image was but a chimera,

teasing me back from some hundred years ago.

(Either way, I'd never know).

1122. A MR. KAFKA CALLING

A MR. KAFKA CALLING

Having feasted on new ptomaine, I

ate all I could without having to swallow.

There was no necessity, and I suddenly

felt free. Black leopard in its cage, or

crazed lion running vibrantly free. For

myself, I had to think : which would it be?

-

Down at the village square, in the little brick

post office, they were selling futures. Many were

the takers - yet no one seemed to care...about

which future they were getting, or how it was

going where. I stayed in place, just to watch.

My black cloak eventually wound itself around

a fencepost and I (too) found myself stuck.

No future for me. Just my luck.

1121. AMENDED MYOPIA

AMENDED MYOPIA

'We have broken into the melange of waiters and flavors

and trays. Now this vague kitchen is, suddenly, happy

again.' No reason to take it past that, there is no

reason at all. Nor to understand. Mad preachers get

like this after a while : henhouses and blather, try-outs

for salvation with real winners and real losers. You can

never figure it out. The high clouds of Heaven, now

dependant on so much, really count for so little.

-

'You don't have to like it, but we've all been here

before, and still are.' The salt shaker was on the

tabletop, and the soup bowl, sloppy and empty

and stained, was by itself next to a crumpled

cloth napkin. The High Priest of Max Factor,

or someone just like him, had just walked in.

-

'The settlement is open, for grace or for prayer.'

Everyone sat down, entered their little parcels

with greedy hands, and - seemingly at once -

pulled out their little black songbooks. No one

really wanted to sing, they just weren't used

to it, but they did so anyway. It was bad, and

and you could really tell. Life like this

could really be Hell.

1120. BAROMETER AND SENTIENCE (alabama)

BAROMETER AND SENTIENCE
(alabama)
Everything is running off : the finish line,
the perpetual cause, the ending before the end.
Breadloaf patters, small-talk talking, the lines
of marvelous people lining the curb. I know
them all, or want to, and really know no one
at all. Like a truck transmission grinding in
place, I groan and want to go, but move
towards nothing instead. Great Negation,
perhaps a constellation in another sky,
stares down at me, shining. Each night,
I note, brings another carnival with myself,
as always, the somehow-featured midway clown.
I hedge and I banter, back and forth, nothing
gives : the dam never breaks, the levee holds, the
final drains remain plugged and clotted. Oh to
be in Alabama once again, with the barkers
and the dulcimer bands while,
alone, the trumpeter plays.