3120. MUST YOU?

MUST YOU?

This fellow I knew, the
laboring one, all fat and
bombastic and proud, now
he's posting lewd and obscene,
all in the name of his Lord : the
one with the money he worships,
with the cat-mouth and padded entrails,
the one with the secret ambitions and tales.
He lieth like Mofito. He fibs to tell a story.
This time, gone a bit too far, we've got him,
posting pictures on a poster, backed with
his own excuses, of some dark girl getting
it in her tail, from behind, from the very same
position he lives at. So fine. It's all understandable
however; trying and trying and trying.

3119. POSTING AT THE CENACLE

POSTING AT THE CENACLE

Now. One hundred things I've listed and
never have done : to be done. My life seems
a very simple salve for what it is that ails me.
I turn in place, and nothing seems amiss.
Keeping orderly things in a row is easy,
like a spouse to talk with. Putting down
the renegades and rebels, now that's
another order. They insist only on
doing what they will.

3118. WILY, STRANGE

WILY, STRANGE
She's somehow become an autocrat,
a Horn and Hardart Automat, dispensing
whatever I want : small change and coffee,
cold drinks and dollars and scents. And all
this without reading the words on the menu.
From cents to scents, it never was as if any
of it was anything I'd ever wanted before:
That very cold Winter's day, the manner
in which we walked broadside to counter
the wind jostling us around, the biting,
bitter cold, the comfort, and the seats
behind the banner in that very warm
(by contrast) luncheonette.

3117. FREE-FORM BASTILLE

FREE-FORM BASTILLE
Watch, look and listen to see;
they've placed the new chairs
along the lawn, upon the grass,
by the walkway, where people pass.
Straight lines, as a badger would make.
Unsettled squirrels race about; the
pure birds are singing in the air.
Everything else, hanging limpidly by,
wilts. The heat keeps rising, the light
itself is hot. On the tabletop, someone
arranges water cups and lemonade.
I feel as if I've been here before.
-
Some Civil War days, when the old,
ragged band tried playing beneath the
painted gazebo. When those wounded
fellows, still cut-up and bandaged, tried
stumbling by to salute. At something.
Red, white and blue bunting, hanging from
rafters and fences, where ladies sat smiling.
Keen to be seen, yet, in the same way,
sorrowful to be there. A few horses shit
where they may - swatting with
tails all those flies.

3116. NOT DEAD YET

NOT YET DEAD
I can no longer hesitate, must go straight ahead, calling
your name, shouting every word and thought like
Camelot once come to naught : battlements,
bullets, ballistic, defrauded, befriended and sought.
La Dolce Vita and five wagons coming, the surf
was pounding on the rails, the overhead banners yet
displaying your name : beleaguered, belittled, be still.
-
I am so sad as I realize Life will leave us lonely,
and you will die and so will I; and all the rest of
us remaining, we too will die and pass...
Old paint on porches I see peeling;
sometimes tattered flags as well, ripped
to shreds. Too many Summer winds,
too many Winter suns.
-
Please, I ask you, do not make me need
repeat all I have just said. I am
tired already, but I am
not yet dead.

The most of the matter has never left me,
pale perhaps as my face may be.

3115. LEVIATHAN

LEVIATHAN
Was just here, left by the train, took the
stage, ran off by coach. Yes, a large
being, but no different from the rest -
all that fervid posing and huff.
I sat him down to talk, and
we passed the time by
bluff - bluster and
rhyme, babble
and mime.

3114. RECITATIF

RECITATIF
(south bandermas mountain)
I had worn my hoops, my skirted
Scottish garter, the twine-dress
given once by Mallarme. Every
line, every instance, I knew just
what to say - had memorized
the words a million times, recited
anew by heart and mind.
-
We walked down to the valley; a
longer trek than I'd imagined it would
be, talking constant, nodding strenuously.
Every little nuance found had its meaning.
Head and shoulders above the rest, he
managed to bring me along. Docent and
protege? How would that go? By the
end of the final sentence, as well,
we'd reached the end of the line.
-
This was the little town, he said,
of heartbreak and loss, wherein
he'd been dwelling for years.
South Bandermas Mountain,
the well by the inn, the old
carriage depot where the
lumber yard stood, the
canal and the water,
still running.

3113. STILL SWIMMING NI THE VESTIBLULE

STILL SWIMMING
IN THE VESTIBULE
And why? What was that you said?
The speedometer, melting like words,
was speeding past eighty-five, and
our faces yet seemed in place. By
that lone fact, even I was amazed.
-
The old man played the dulcimer
at the edge by the pool. The tired
waitress, she kept singing as she
walked along : 'My love, he leaves
in fire, comes back in ash, a broken
pile of a man' - a sad, old Spanish
love song, she'd said. While other
cars kept arriving, bringing people to
the stage, we stayed in place, just
waiting, in what you called the
'vestibule' - to me, just another
place, some ante-room of Hell,
a closet in which to pace.
-
'Haven't you ever been in a place
like this before?' I asked, 'like
an open porch, from which to
see, but there is nothing there
to see; endless waiting, for
a play that never begins.'
-
'Why do you ask me these
questions?' she said. 'Why do
you as them, again and again?'

3112. ALL THAT EVER WAS, IS NO MORE

ALL THAT EVER WAS,

IS NO MORE
'We have all died in vain, and the cities and
given and gone, and true fires have destroyed
all that was - even God's vast aircraft had
their hands in this. Turmoil has, as its brother,
vengeance, which once was the Lord's.
-
Just as I spoke this, Washington fell, that
District of Columbia faulted and gone.
Grand Manhattan as well, now burned to
a crisp, and - along with all that - its millions
of miserable, striving people, torched where
they sat. Heaven-sent fury is certain of glory.
-
From Tucson to Amarillo, Chicago to Maine,
everything which once was is gone again.
Look not to see what you can find,
it is all gone again. Amen.'

3111. OASIS TO MAGIC AND MORE

OASIS TO MAGIC AND MORE
The shambles of me goes out
from here, far and away, to
soar skies on high while
hallowing as well the ground,
keeping those senseless things
in tow, from traveling to a false
currency and fool's gold. All idol
worship stops right here -
at a doorway now in ruins.
-
My hat, which had been flung to
the stars and stayed, suddenly fell,
dancing downward like electric blues
made serene by tremor and doubt.
It floated, as gently as a wind careening
a feather, right back onto my head.
-
Realistically, there are those things
we can effect, or not. And I stand
low on any perspective therein of
merit. Or height. As if crystals,
my lightning eyes do scan the skies -
only to see what is coming, only to
see what may soon alight. Really no
matter at all, an oasis to magic and more.

3110. ANTON MESMER AND ...

ANTON MESMER AND ...
(this travel changes the world)
Wring the hands from the hat
and shade; all sorts of nonsense
like that : taking fake photos of
the Malibu flats, dolphins and
porgies and castles and bats.
'Boys, we've boarded once more
the wrong train - now we're on
our way to Abilene and Kansas City
and Tulane, all those retro places.
So, might as well sit back and enjoy,
while this travel changes the world.

3109. SPECTRES OF BELLES LETTRES

SPECTRES OF
BELLES LETTRES
It was all washed and cleaned -
words pressed like cloth in a Victorian
suitcase. A solitary black raven had
settled down, already quite comfortable,
on its writing-room perch.

3108. 'WHAT AM I TO DO?'

'WHAT AM I TO DO?'
Now the patient rejects the conclusion.
'The diagnosis, it must be wrong. How
can one, any, mentally unbend the spoon,
put back the contents of the egg, reseal
the vacuum'd seal?' Standing as we are
on Promontory Rock, you mention the
impulse to jump; to end it all. This
fever'd pitch, the incline to Destination
Death. 'They've found the tumor, mind
you, in my gut, and won't operate. Things
I don't understand. I just listen - 'we can't
operate really; once the air hits it it will
multiply quite swiftly' - good Jesus what
does that mean? I don't feel sick exactly,
just humbled. It isn't, after all, like I've taken
a dose of pride.' You looked down, and you
cried. 'What am I to do? What am I to do?'

3107. 'THINGS' (John Ashbery)

THINGS
(John Ashbery)
And all the flat cities
I've seen before me,
bundled, as if in a
vestibule of night.
The severed hand
that stands for life -
well, much besides
your life depends on
it. Remember, call me.
-
Look down now from
this hapless window - the
wafer-thin pedestrians
are still passing by.
-
Seasons like this end.
Worms die upon worming
their own way out from
the compost heap.

3106. GRANDMAMA'S STORY

GRANDMAMA'S STORY

My great-grandmother, Shari-Lea, she
was the one who brokered this deal. Herself
having been forced into a badly arranged
Italian marriage, she wanted nothing more
to do with men or their wily ways. She
stripped boldly to the waist, at twenty-three,
to illegally bathe in the Arno River. Yes, well,
they took her away; two weeks in Doma Santa
Fillipa taught her to mend her errant ways.
After that, I'm not sure she was ever the same.
She used to tell me the story, from when she
was in Bayonne, some supposed he-man
accosted her in a elevator; undid his pants
and whipped it out. She stayed, in her words,
'totally calm' and stared the man down, saying
'Ha! You probably need a derrick to get that up.'
Somehow, she said, she shamed him into leaving.

3105. THE CUT-SHAVERS

THE CUT SHAVERS

Police work bores the hell
out of real men. Taking notes
at the scene of a crime like some
useless girl positioning bloodstains
on a cotton mat. Playing softball
for the PBA. Donating money to
rotten kids. It's all such baloney.
-
A cop is a criminal by any other
means - so it is said. The firefighter
setting fires, the mortician killing
people. Everything the same : we
envy what we most wish ourselves
to do. Hanging out, with drinks,
beneath the carport at nine.
-
My documented notebooks all show
you to be a creep. We've studied
your mannered ways - you've got
nothing to show but your bad reputation;
however that came to be. The prison
guard with the one bad arm, he says
you were the one who did it all.
The culprit behind every caper.

3104. MY OLD LONG-STANDING PROFILE

MY OLD

LONG-STANDING
PROFILE
'...Just doesn't no more fit, just no
more makes no sense, bears no
resemblance to anything at all.
All the trolley carries are features
from the past : stop at Akron, visit
the Missouri, pass the Continental Divide.
Like anyone else ever did it before, we
can go where you select to ride.
Mr. Floyd White and his wife
Marjorie; having seen their photos
right there, I know what they mean.'

3103. TOO MANY FOOLS AT TOO GREAT A PRICE

TOO MANY FOOLS AT
TOO GREAT A PRICE
You say something, and it gets lost
in the roar of this nibbling crowd: all
gracious losers, pushing hard against this
counter, this food line, this betting window
where no one redeems a ticket. I should
just as quickly see the Formica shine from
off this plastic grate than find a dose of
goodness or allegiance in any of this rabid
hate. I wouldn't shake the hand outstretched
of even one here sent and filled with glory
and money and lust. No, there's just nothing
there. Outside the place we stand I see the
dense green foliage of hedgerow and trees,
a manicured lawn of vast proportions, kept
in line and guarded by minions of mower and
cleave. They cut the sky, they trim the trees,
from buckets with saws and power on high.
Small cars rounding the perimeter police and
retrieve the trash and the dirt. Everything
perfect is in its place - for nothing more than
these : forty thousand foul souls leftover from
Hell, forty thousand cheering throngs of ones
and singles, attracted couples and married
fools. They link their loins to procreate.
They bet these horses, they wait this wait.
'Let the servants procure for us whatever it
is we wish. We shall soon be awash in riches.'

3102. TERPSICHORE

TERPSICHORE
I wouldn't delve to deceive this
wanton battlement - look, look,
they are dancing on the wall! How
flagrant their fabric'd costumes flow!
As if some cloud, dropped Heaven-sent
as from above, did needle and fit its
own way in. Demonstrative, indeed!
I would fain this lady-like charm
embrace would it but once come
to my face - to see me and settle.
Yes, alas, they are but charms
and fairies and nymphs - those
long-imagined of my hearts and
souls now dancing upon this castle
wall. I am lost in such a reverie
I do not know my present time
at all. And, no, not now, nor then,
nor ever shall I ever know at all.

3101. 92 MACDOUGAL STREET

92 MACDOUGAL STREET
And so may you drip my sleeve,
cowboy wakening doom. Fitter
at work, starlight blazer. I
jimmied your lock long ago.
Now regnant, I look to you
in arrears, past the old bread
shop, the sandal-fitter's
counter, the music store
and more. Even your
trellised guitar now
sings music.

3100. NOT PARIS AGAIN ?

NOT PARIS AGAIN?
Fog dips gray thick like
foreign soup. I grog the
sewer lines at my feet.
Long, dark passageways,
lined with brick. I am
writing, oh Paris,
in the rain.

3099. THIS HAPPENSTANCE CATHEDRAL

THIS HAPPENSTANCE
CATHEDRAL

Corral the intimidator! Beat down all those
who follow! Decimate the renegades!
Let's take back the hollow!
-
Just like that, the words dropped from the
book. We were outside Grant's Tomb and
someone named Brother Joseph was
spouting his revolution. A few distracted
tourists squirmed, having themselves
just left the cathedral nearby. Riverside.
-
'We are so confused,' the one said. 'Being
hard from Indiana, I'm not sure I understand
this querulous story he's peddling, and why
here, at Grant's Tomb? Does it mean anything?
Is it connected to Riverside Cathedral's politics too?
-
I gave them a simple answer. 'Here is a place, you
see, dear folk, where everything is connected to
everything else. You should be glad to witness it all.
Like nothing else in the USA, and Indiana then be
damned - not that I'm meaning anything bad by that,
and 'A' never does have to follow 'B', you see.'
-
Corral the Intimidator!
Beat down those who Follow!
It's all the very same to me.

3098. LIKE SHANGRI-LA

LIKE SHANGRI-LA

Between foresteps of indirection
and a bushel-full of rhyme, I saw
you standing in the rain, drenched from
head to foot. You, not me. It was truly
a wondrous sight. I gauged my eyes
by your composure and saw, in that
way, by what demeanor we'd stay in
place. Little pleasures don't often take
such grace. You smiled like a curtsy
first as rainwater seeped your grin.
-
Meanwhile, I managed to stand with
my hands in my pockets. Deliriously
enamored, abated of interest in any
other world, the slinking portrayal of
a portrait-sitting damsel stayed fresh
in my watery mind. You were so liquid,
so fresh. New paint dripped from
your eyes like water.

3097. THE PRIVILEGE OF STONES

THE PRIVILEGE
OF STONES
This is all too settled, solidly
serene and - of this too calm
wind - the passage made far
too easy thereby. And oh,
I am restless again! I hesitate
to stay and thrust forth as
if to go, untethered like a
wild horse not yet met of
its horseman or groom.
There is no stable this
foursquare by which
the rope can hold my
neck; in vain, in vain,
the sky would close.

3096. MY OWN 1924

MY OWN 1924

I am in the narrow zone, and haven't
you already had your share of yelling?
It seems like 1924 again, with guys
like Waldo Frank and Hart Crane
still beaming down. Ferries and
freighters, crazy river traffic
beneath the bridge, with
steamers and tugboats
and skiffs. Freddie, for
sure, would lie about
this; Freddie lies
about everything.

3095. FERDINAND WANTS ISABEELA

FERDINAND WANTS ISABELLA
It was only last Saturday that I walked straight into
the sky, long and definite steps ahead of me. Near my
eyes, the water was running, as if the falls before
me dispensed water and blessings the same. Two
women, eating crackers, sat serenely by, while a
man with a camera strolled across the scene.
I had just spent 6 days reading Hamlet, and
was ready for a new suspense. Who had done
this, and where and why? Identifying
myself as King, again I sighed. These
all were trying moments.

-

If I was ever saddled with you before, or
even the guilt of wanting, and then having,
and then losing you once more, I had long
ago forgotten. All I do recall is the thin,
dark girl in that wedding party looking
up at me along the higher ramp. She
was holding some flowers, and had
quizzical eyes. A waiter from some
Bolivian crew was busy dispensing
chocolates. All those female hands,
reaching out for sweets.

3094. WHY DO ALL THE KIDS LIKE CONEY?

WHY DO ALL THE
KIDS LIKE CONEY?
Hotel towels, tattooed feet,
junk-swept beaches and
freighters that float,
popcorn breaches and
a candy-cane heart,
mermaids, clowns
and screeches.
Why do all the
kids like
Coney?

3093. STUPID OLD MUSIC

STUPID OLD MUSIC

This stupid old music wears a crown
while the two ladies talk about someone :
"Too much information. I've decided just
to leave her alone. It's only my son's
business and no one else's. There's an
old saying for this. She meant well,
but it didn't work out."
-
No, I never did find out what
they meant, neither the saying nor
the event. 'Find out about someone
only from someone who knows that
other person.' Yes, yes, that must be it.
That stupid old music is at it again.

3092. ONLY HOW THINGS APPEAR

ONLY HOW
THINGS APPEAR
Truth be told, there are no
stars. The firmament is a
fiction. We are lackeys
of our own mind.

3091. SKINNY DIPPING

SKINNY DIPPING
...I'd thought, was an old
American frame of mind, but
it's not; as old as ever, in fact,
and worldwide world over, as
flesh to world and world to flesh.
A shrapnel, weaving itself over a
frame while an icy aqua flows anew.

3090. FORESTER

FORESTER

Can you follow me, oh Forester, through
all these chops and channels? As I link
behind the what's ahead to what will
follow and what will stay? The doorway
that looks like a gate is always open.
A trap it may be, but so what...it
is open and flowing and gay.
So many things, all jammed
together now in one
small moment.

3089. THE MOST POST

THE MOST POST*
Crenelated and twisted, as if
some architecture by Gaudi
had right now come to life, I
tried to look back from where
I'd just come. The strange form
of the Municipal Center, still dogging
my thoughts, seemed less a foil than
feint. How buildings can always deceive!
And inside, I already knew, those cheap
careerists with three-dollar ties and
bargain-bin suits try reading their
updates and bulletins and codes, they
still stood around probably yet gawking
at girls - the ones fresh from high school
last year, who'd gotten the job through a
family connection, that old battered aunt
who clerked for the judge, or the uncle who
stamped overtime tickets. Now they were
stuck in some far, other land - buying tight
suits and low-cut blouses to wear to work,
just to enliven the guy with the pen case,
bring him to life, otherwise a jerk. Egad!
What a stilted paltry life we can lead when
given first to choose. No brain of distinction;
nothing to bring forth the new flowers with
new petals of gold or new blossoms
of silver and silk.

[*from 'Iolanthe' - "The constitutional guardian I/of pretty young Wards in Chancery,/All very agreeable girls - and none/Are over the age of twenty-one./A pleasant occupation for/a rather susceptible Chancellor!"]

3088. DESTITUTE ARMS

DESTITUTE ARMS
And they fractured all the time,
the rhythms taken from us, the
staccato richness redefined. We
looked for glee, but found nothing
at all. Beneath the lamplight shade,
the cars, the buses, the small yellow
truck - each idling and each as well
for nothing themselves. The best we
can do, finally deciding to do, is
define and select definitions. By
the end of the day, yes, yes, that
is how we capture the world.

3087. THE NEW CRISP IMAGE

THE NEW CRISP IMAGE
Tokyo girl, the new crisp image,
the way she says things,
all the things she does.
Nothing like the foremost,
and all the swirls behind.
The banner headline reads :
'Such crazy words, deliberately
spoken, in haste! Tokyo girl
repents!" And I bent down in
supplication, and prayed."

3086. MARGATE

MARGATE
This pendulum swings; buddy you better believe it.
This morning I'm up, by evening I'm shot,
and there's no real difference between it.
One world, one big manner,
it's all the same to me.
-
Just like the Maltese Falcon, some symbol
on the edge of becoming, I stand apart, with
a withered hand, seeking your quarters
and nickels and dimes. Do you hear me,
Lazarus man? Have you not already risen
from the dead where I still am? I hold
out my withered hand.
-
Bent like a stolid reed in a windy marshland
setting; I may give a little, but I survive
nonetheless - and I suppose with no
thanks to you. Treble the features
where enmity lives.

3085. HOW LIKE ARIEL

HOW LIKE ARIEL
The bird sings below the swift-moving sky,
an early morning presence running by;
presaging something yet to come, and
its rain and wind and sun. Perhaps
the bird already knows all these things,
who sings - oblivious to a fault and
rich and happy just to be.

3084. I NEVER FELL FOR DAMASCUS

I NEVER FELL
FOR DAMASCUS

(my new doggerel)
I never tumbled from my horse, I never slid
down the hill, I remained always intact. My
dream was a surrender of sorts : bowing to
the oasis, drinking from the secret spring,
knowing where the stories were kept. Like
it was, always in abeyance. I mined the
underbrush for something to say.
-
'Are you powerless yet?' That was the man's
one question I was unable to answer. I'd been
to the pond, I'd been to the island, I'd carried
myself, on stilts, into even the museum. Yet,
I'd never looked him in the eye. Verily.
They said his name was Pablo. I was
ready to agree.
-
I can't even walk down the street, or I
find it hard to do, anyway. Without you?
Partially, perhaps - but that's not the
entire reason. I never learned the ease
and grace that a rich man has - 'I'll see
you in Paris, in July. I'll be there for
the month. I'll be in London on June 21.
Will you be there then too?' Old science
would speculate about the stars. Now,
we've even given all that up. A clarity
such as that is nothing more than crap.
-
I look forward to remaining. I missed
the Damascus trap - Paul thrown from
his ass, any and all of that. I never
started a church of my own, never
really even had a place to call home.
Two policemen I see, standing on the
corner. They radio in; something
about suspicion, something about
doubt - there was much more to it
I'm sure I'm leaving things out.
'Are you powerless yet?' I was
ready to agree...

3083. FIND YOUR OWN COFFEE

FIND YOUR OWN COFFEE

Then, don't bother me. Tartuffe
and lightning storms, all together.
Everything sounds like it wants to
be a flavor. I just don't know. The
potted plant on the diagonal seems
withering or crowded in its own
abrupt way. The lampshade with
forest painted on it - not that very
convincing. I'd rather meet the deuces
at the edge of the watering hole. John
Wayne, Roger McBride, any of those
old, dumb figments - a long, dry culture
gone dead and to seed. Buttonwood,
willow, hemlock, oak and elm. Everything
alike in one big definition. Nature calls, far
from home. It has lost its way as well. Now
seeking guidance, it finds it has lost the
means to speak as well. Oh dear,
this God is really dead.

3082. PENURIOUS

PENURIOUS

Give me something to pay with,
something, anything, and I don't
need a house. I don't mean a lot;
something simple would suffice.
I am lost and withered, falling
back, an indivine indigent now,
soon to be a wayside hulk.
Something has been lost in this
vital translation - I missed
so many words, I guess, and
there's no getting them back.
Divine guidance is free, yes
it's true. But a lot of good it
does me; does it do for you?

3081. THE LAST WHITE MAIDEN

THE LAST WHITE MAIDEN

Gloves of gold and feet of silver; clouds running
fierce and fast. That wand, beforehand unused,
now twinkling stars and light. Fixated on nothing
so much as a moment, eyes blue stare straight.
-
I need space and I need quiet.
A place so forlorn to go to and
return when...the new dawn
comes, the new people arrive,
the entire world is changed
over once more.

3080. THE WHITE PAINT MARKER

THE WHITE PAINT MARKER

A man was putting down white lines like
a child puts down white lies - voracious
by appetite and spread everywhere. All
that work for one piece of candy. Up above
the heads of the people, I saw a single
low-flying hawk ferociously swooping,
intent in a gaze steered from fury : pity
the end of that flight's line, I did. How
harsh it must be to have to live that way.
-
I am out of the line of fire, and I am
not some mad bird's prey. I am walking,
instead, a land full of lines, going this way
and that without end. From on high, that
too must look like a crazed man's deadly
scribble : touched by fury, touched by
fire, strange white lines all over the land.
-
Shake hands, my friend, with the person
who walks the land. Shake hands, my
friend, with the white paint marker,
the man with the wand, the
Johnny-Come-Lately of the
Johnny Appleseed Brigade.

3079. LYING DOWN BESIDE STILL WATERS

LYING DOWN
BESIDE STILL WATERS
They'd never told me the ending hadn't been made up
yet; flowers in a vase, the mantelpiece dripping with
fragrant honey, some sort of biblical reprise like
things I'd heard twice over already. That jet above,
slicing a piece through the sky like a labor of love,
it made me think of seven hundred other things
I'd only wished to do. Sitting beneath the maple
tree, the outer banks, that field, and you. I never
shaded a word before. Nor was I ever at a loss for.
-
The old key fob, I found it in the hedgerow, looking
as if it had been there for twenty years. Cracked
and weathered, the brown packet held a few keys
and - yet oddly alive - someone's old photo of a
girl. No one I'd ever known (of course not) but
instantly recognizable as a creature of comfort,
a horse to exchange for, a tie-dyed figment of
another day : all admiration, gentility and grace.
-
Well, perhaps. One takes one's comfort where
it's found, after all, and only goes on from there.
Anyway, all this Lord is my Shepherd business, it
was always peripheral to me. Never had a sheep,
never had a lea, and took my rest wherever
I happened to be. Every item in this dream
has always been in fog (and no one ever
told me what the ending would be).

3078. WALKING THE HILL UP TO CORNELL

WALKING THE HILL
UP TO CORNELL
It can only be that book I read, the
one with the bridge on the cover. Aisles
of accolades and words by the ton, everything
precisely going nowhere. The adventures of
marshland hawks, the last words of Henry
Inglemeyer, the lost direction of Samuel Clemens.
I already forget all that. I've been killed by words
and decimated as well by every punctuated
sentence ever penned. Egads! Unpin me Mr.
Nabokov, I am no butterfly to you at all.
When In Ithaca, do as the natives do, I
suppose. Climb that steep hill, bent into
the wind, as any San Francisco Chinaman
would do as well. My name is Thorstein
Veblen, please now take me in.

3077. TAKE IT FROM ME

TAKE IT FROM ME
(14th Street)
He's got an old name that bears
watching - yes - and I am
watching for you. A few new
beers in hand, some guy
slouches forlornly by the unlit
corner, and that odd, old
serving window framed in
ancient green wood, fronting
the street. They just don't make
things like that any more, there's
just nothing like that left around.
I know the corners and the alleys
too; you can take it from me.
-
Yesterday has come already?
My God, what does that mean?
I saw you, startled, in that great
white dress, all yours and yours
alone. You looked wonderful
there, take it from me, and
without the sun even the
heat's not warm. I am
watching for you.

3076. MY PRINCETON DRIVER

MY PRINCETON DRIVER
...was a rough looking lesbian wearing
a British driving cap. She'd left the
Cadillac running. She sat behind the
wheel - door ajar as she slouched
half out and half in together, smoking
heartily a cigarette whose puffs she
threw jauntily out to this world as
she waited. It was an early morning
farce, and I was instantly amused.

3075. TWO TOWERS

TWO TOWERS
The short end of time, that
thing you were left holding -
remember, it's yours and it's
already shortening up. Hold on,
or it's taken away and you know
it not. Two towers there are,
in town and city. I see them.
One bears the brunt of infraction
and age - it crumbles along the
banks of the old running river - while
the other, proudly bearing something
still, like a bawdy poet prancing by,
stands straight and stiff across from
Mt. Beacon, which is where I see it
now, which is where I see it now.

3074. THOMAS EDISON IS DEAD IN HIS YARD

THOMAS EDISON IS DEAD
IN HIS YARD
(west orange, nj)
You can make mystery if you like; everything is,
after all, no more than a question. How was it
early man did bridge that fjord? How was it
they learned to cook and horde? Now, eons
later, we've practiced and perfected so much
of this human craft that it seems to go for nothing
at all. Old men tire and die. The young girls,
birthed and battered, rotate and grow old. Even
the rattly stories of tires and cars, battles and
wars, are worn from the telling, and (yes) Thomas
Edison is dead in his yard; a burial plot, right
there, with his wife. For them it's all over, this
living and strife, this porridge and rice. And
it little matters either way any elephants
they may have killed, electrocuted, or burned.

3073. ALL THAT WE CAN DO

ALL THAT WE CAN DO
Circumstantial evidence surprises;
at evening the whetstone, still turning,
is honing the edge of the wheel : the
blade tickles as the sun goes down.
We release ourselves from bondage,
thinking back to how much savage
nothing has been left behind. I am
sitting, in a cleavage between two
buildings, a fire escape between
me and the next. A dim light escapes
the fold, and it is 1964. Across the
way, as I watch, the girl in the other
window, somehow, is taking off her
clothes. She seems so proud of her light
and the views afforded. I do nothing
but gaze. Circumstantial evidence again.

3072. 'WE ARE A LITTLE EARLY' (how things appear)

'WE ARE A LITTLE EARLY'
(how things appear)
All things appear : unfold and
then (of course) appear to unfold
just as well again. I am your raincoat.
I am your brother Henry. Mark well
and list all the contents twice :
marble marble, loaf, loaf,
bye, bye.
-
It is too tiring to uplift my arms.
Heaven too wields its stick. I come
forth otherwise undone and unknowing,
unwise and unseen. The falling moon
is all I have seen - and - yet contrite,
I travel the windswept roads, otherwise
each without vapor except the cloud of
my breath. In such an early morning
tactile I note each blade of grass wearing
each its bead of dew - a gemstone effusion
like the brutal touch of a gentle God, or,
perforce as much, the gentle touch of
a brutal God, I know not which.
-
The way in which I see you?
No, to Hell with all that. Lime-cast,
slime-coated, ground-crawling weasel,
remember that song : the ship, the
black freighter, Pirate Jenny, and you.
-
Remaining perpetually intransitive,
a portable heirloom handed down by
a pioneer, a slave-girl drama, my
sermon of the unconscious...it is
all these things, and more, how
all the world appears.

3071. LACHRYMAE CHRISTI (with Hart Crane)

LACHRYMAE CHRISTI
(with Hart Crane)
'Sphinxes loosed from the
wine of Death have freed
my tongue from bondage.
I now can speak - without
the fear of punishment
or whip. Nature itself can
weep these human tears and,
now, with me, even the stones
can learn to speak (of all
that which I am seeing).'

3070. THE AGRIPPA CONSTELLARY

THE AGRIPPA CONSTELLARY
It seemed useless. No fun at all.
A black tie and a jacket. Standing
in place for hours. The man said
we were there to look at the sky.
An observation point we should be
privileged to be part of. Two months
notice, a sky map, darkness. And
that was all it took. Watching
planets, stars and oceans of
things in the sky. Oceans of
things in the sky.

3069. WELL YES

WELL YES
(really was no real escape)
Well yes, I rode that drunken boat in on a wave
of seeming heave, riding the crest for a moment,
then dipping the dive as it crested. The passing
glint of sky was all I needed to remember.
Lashed and buckled, my feet tried every way
to stay in place; wild hands flailing, mouth agape.
Well yes, I rode that drunken boat. There
really was no real escape.

3068. AT THE HOSTILE GARRETT

AT THE HOSTILE GARRETT

Samuel Barber and his Adagio for Strings,
why yes, OK. I listen again. Outside the
window, another form of weather strikes,
the low sound of some creature pines, and
the wind whistles the branches soon green.
Low as this, the sky too groans.
-
We are together like a fist. All across the
room, a dim light gathers and each corner
still dark allows forms to jumble. My
new friend, Mr. Arcora, I watch as he
slithers back into his jacket and the
newspaper falls from his grip.
It splashes the floor like paper water
and we are all still listening to that
Adagio for Strings.
-
There is no field joust as good as
any of this. The thin girl, with the
graceful hands, she rounds up
her things and prepares to leave -
this room, or this world, I'm not
quite sure which. I spoke to her
once, and she laughed back,
energetic and happy, it seemed.
-
Outside, in the street, I see now that
new raindrops are falling - hard, they
splash as they hit the pavement. In
this early morning light, it's as if
a new sort of bombardment,
small and soft, has begun.

3067. STRAITJACKET

STRAITJACKET
This straitjacket begins hurting only as the arms
enclose me and it enfolds me like a travel plan.
The creased paper retains its itinerary - all those
things I must follow. The being here and the being
there. I am, right now, in fact, walking the dead-end.
-
Fallow fields lie short before me. No corn stalks
grow, and my hands are bartered already away :
traded off for the things of the mind. That rapt
and circumstantial bird, that evidence of creation's
only growth, has taken root within me. That is
what I feel, and still my arms are somehow tied.
-
Alas, as a spirit soars so do I; but to no real
effect nor gain. I know neither the language
nor the end of all these people's words : those
tongues so engaged, those reams and reams
of idle verbs. Supplication little matters.
This straitjacket has me tight.

3066.THE JACKAL AT SATURDAY

THE JACKAL AT SATURDAY

'One swarm warming,' the old sign said -
it read like a child's writing on a kindergarten
blackboard chalkface. Something about bees.
-
For myself, I passed it right by. Who's to care
about such things except the science-mind, and
what it brings? Certainly not for me, and not
myself at all. I went for the higher wall.
-
Entering the artist's lobby, I knelt for a
moment in some awesome mental prayer -
all those lines and colors, imagined, even as
my imagined kneeling felt. I genuflect to really
nothing at all. And, to be sure, I rather dislike
museums and galleries and all that collection
stuff : post-dated warnings on whitewashed
walls. What is art anyway, but what someone
else calls it for profit and motive? Never see
a dime of anything for all it's worth.
-
Jangled nerves suspicious and tight -
the man with the special jacket tries to
impress. No, not really, already he knows
his place : some stupid, cloying walkie-talkie
guard at pace; slowly turning as he walks.
-
'This was once a cutting edge of stated design.'
Blah, blah on that. Now the lights go out.
The lights go out at 6, all over the entire city.
It is December 22, and getting very dark.

3065. IT'S EASY

IT'S EASY
Act as if a rich man;
as if cavernous with money
secreted in a vault, buying small
islands, isolated, alone. Act as if
some whimsical, tyrannical habit
has you by the throat, keeps you
jagged, makes you run. Act as if
happy - like a crazy man just let
out from school, some sex-fiend
in a teen-age playground running,
some autoland voyeur speeding past
the cars. Act is if the rich man, buying
drinks at bars. Noodling on guitars.
Sunning where there's absolutely
never been sun at all.

3064. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE

JUSTIFICATION BY
FAITH ALONE

'Saul of Tarsus, be damned. Go ahead and storm.
Fuck you, delirious rabble-rouser. I kill where I
choose to kill. I am no master to no man but me.
From the skies we bomb and peril, little children
and all the infirm and lame, the aged and not
already dead will be. I am justified because I
believe in what I do. Dead end, rifle scope, run
away, antelope. Yes indeedy, don't be greedy.'
-
Parade grounds and tenters in the square;
playing taps for all to hear. Lightning
strike. I fall to the ground and think
of nothing, really nothing more at all.
-
Waiting for Winter; and Summer
hasn't even yet come.

3063. VAGARIES OF AWESOME

VAGARIES OF AWESOME

This is as if nothing as this should be this is.
I walk the vague abstract - the line where
the line should not be, the mark where there
is no mark at all. I negate the negation of things
that are absent : the curve of the curvature,
the mathematics of simple numbers. I am,
after all, all that ever was and all that never
will be. My dark-line profile only shades the
shadows and takes light from distant corners.

3062. WATCH THEM DIE

WATCH THEM DIE

I went home holding the palms from my heavy heart
open like leaves of green lettuce spread out for a feast.
It was another Sunday in May - one coming through
with a message. The castle at the edge of the forest,
right near where the three-ring king had settled in,
was lit by fires and circling domes. Small men were
coming out of the sky, crawling about backwards
where they'd land. I felt somehow out of place.
-
Without any meaning, all this withers.
The cacophony you hear is like some music
of the spheres gone quite maddeningly crazy -
all tympani and gong and racket.
Yes, planets yet hang in a wide,
distended sky, but they long
ago have lost all meaning,
and now we watch
them die.

3062. POST-EXALT THE EXALTED ONE

POST-EXALT THE

EXALTED ONE
I see the CaMeRa was left running; your
lights were on, sex-goddess working late,
with all those reflections on the silver-glass
wall behind you. Oh how you must tire!
-
The little guy, the one with the weasel face
and broken thumb (I saw you writing curses
on that little cast), he looked about 15 and I
wondered what he did. Or what he'd done
already to get this job of glory with you.
-
Pale blue paint on a large room wall.
A mirror above the counter. Three
people sitting around to talk. Really,
what sort of philosophy is that?

3061. HOME LIFE

HOME LIFE
Sweetheart I'm not finding much except
your death behind this curtain. 'I love
my house,' I hear you say. Gedding and
Bagger sit like two brand names on the
shelf of malarkey you keep. Even the
dog makes a soiled motion towards
both finish and ending - an otherwise
dull commotion towards a finish we
all face and each can see. There is a
lethal dose in the cabinet - 'always,'
you tell me, 'always and always kept
at the ready.' Odd, how, like some
cold-war spy of a LeCarre novel, you
live your life secret and sly. Occam's
Razor, however, (you must remember),
isn't something you shave with or use
to cut your wrists. Oh well, I digress, and
- I need here to admit - you are otherwise
quite sweet. What faces your wall is a
mirror, turned wrong way over, sweet
one, for sure. There's nothing to reflect;
just an otherwise dull commotion.

3060. PERHAPS IN BETWEEN THEM, LIVING IN A DREAM THEN.

PERHAPS IN BETWEEN THEM,
LIVING IN A DREAM THEN
(April)
All the things we seem to have found
are somehow still here, yet time better
defines them passing. The sky, like a
soup, covers deeply the most defining
edges. Shapes and forms together
avoid reason and names. Avoidance
can no more advance then can dead
landscape and dormant flower.
Everything has possibilities now,
and we will start out again.

3059. THE HARBOR AT SONG

THE HARBOR AT SONG
Don't say unfortunately unless you
mean it... and only then shall they
ask me what I want - a dew drop
glistening on each blade of grass, a
morning's new light and awakening.
No, no, I want for nothing more.
-
And oh thus forever I structured
my time near where only the lyre
bird would sing : high buildings are
all gone where nothing left exists.
I am thy humble wand.
-
Look out, as desperate eyes encircle
the view, and see all things, variant,
fixtured and vast. It is the very heart
of one, of me, of you, that shall possibly
last. And here we are then looking, alas,
at our own and only peril. I want for
nothing more. I am thy humble wand.

3058. NOT MY ETHER WINGS

NOT MY ETHER WINGS

You've brought me no satisfaction like the
lilting toil of struggle and work. Just outside
my face this morning, perceiving a hundred
new things, I perfectly picked out your visage
among the monk-flowers and new rose bushes.
The tall sky loomed, breaking off only where two
perpendicular jets made their smooth and
effective ascents; passing each other, it seemed,
so close but really miles apart; and all those
comfortable people, just sitting. But where
can you stare in the sky, and why?
-
Therefore I list my things : a paucity of
rainbows and ice, an amassed predilection
for duty self-chosen, a nightmare trickle that
won't go away. I close my eyes and try dreaming
once more. It works. I am soon far away.

3057. WHAT DOES MAN WANT

WHAT DOES MAN WANT?

Daylight prelude skytop premonition.
What does man want? Wist-gray,
blue-sky, early morning break to blue.
All the birdies springtime sing. What does
man want? Taut blossom, leaf and water,
all things together, brought as one to new
fruition. We speak the same words.
What does man want?

3056. ASPECTS

ASPECTS
Only in my other aspects were there great things to
move : the crumbling train stop, the broken rails,
the powdered and cast-off red bricks of another
industrial day. My backdrop was a broad, fat
mountain, more like a hillock than an alpine
shaft. Below my feet, just realizing itself,
roared a meager, yet thrusting and swollen,
small river. Any sexual doubt in this world
was taken over by a terrestrial and vital lust.

3055. CHELSEA ART

Chelsea Art -
with Felicity Goins:
I was the odd man out. I was
the man in the postdated middle
of turmoil and time, the one
spinning in his grave, the onerous
marker of all this percussion.
-
He watches as they all line up to see.
'It's all for you, and it's all for me. There's
nothing to be had from being here, and
nothing to be gained by going : your
bullet to the brain, in fact, having
been quite inconsequential, leaves
you nothing but a standing potted
plant, a stupid lamp, a shade
above your fading head.'
-
And still I've got the magic for you :
the one who peels, the singer who kneels,
the perfidious actor in charge of all those lines,
with his keening and his cries. Really, I want
to hear nothing more at all. Nothing.
-
High above the street, atop heads
of those who speak, the raining
lament falls down to its own and
a silent fate.

3054. JONGLEUR

JONGLEUR
I once shared a space with a man
who thought he was God. We shuffled
and shoved each other mercilessly.
He eventually did win out - I ceded
the space he claimed,
and moved away.

3053. FAR TOO HARMONIOUS FOR THAT

FAR TOO HARMONIOUS
FOR THAT
As if seeing misplaced things,
there would be an understanding -
of place, and time, of location and
space. After all, we do move about
yet keep our bearings - learning
our own coordinates before we
finish the race. I am not of the
opinion that we 'wander' this
Earth. It seems far too
harmonious for that.

3052. AND FURTHERMORE (ABSTRACT)

AND FURTHERMORE
(ABSTRACT)

Not the pleasant value of the dumb oasis,
nor the leaving lane of some wide thrush
highway; safeway to the stars? I don't know.
Winkle-green, the mordant verity of morning.
Just today : the spangled meadowlark swooped in
from somewhere south, sat on a limb, and proceeded
to pace. T'weren't nothin' no better than that!
-
All the signs say 'Spring!' In the same morning :
two fellows within one briefcase, and the lovely
lady with the bag of silk. The little guy with the
audience jumps in his Audi TT and takes off,
not even looking up or down. How can one
live with neither smile not frown?
Well, again, I wouldn't know.
T'weren't nothin' no better
than that!

3051. THE BELLS OF ST. GENEVIEVE

THE BELLS OF ST. GENEVIEVE

It's five a.m. somewhere again.
Nothing sounds but dark birdcalls
and the failing moon - sunk low
now on a crooked dawn horizon.
Soon to be - light, and another
brand new day. An hour or so off,
I know the bells will ring as I am
walking by. I'll try to listen smartly,
but, as usual, I'll be captured by the
attention of something else - a new
bird on the wing, some seam of light
forking over the arch where the
cemetery bends, or the lowly roar
of some slowly departing truck.
It always seems I am so alone :
no one listens, no one talks.
I live in a brazen solitude of
the sad with the quiet.
Everyday, almost
the same.

3050. BUT FREDDY, THE LEAVING IS DRY

BUT FREDDY,
THE LEAVING IS DRY

Barnyard, cardyard, shovel shed.
The place where the suffering
animals frothed and shimmered.
I always stayed aware of the gleam,
even as a boy, watching the calf waste
away, eating the gloam from the ribbons
of whey. My Coleman Lantern, as I
remember it, I kept it lit for what seemed
like endless hours of days, as the animals
groaned, the Spring birthings went on, and
those who wouldn't make it prepared themselves
for death. It was like that then, even two hundred
miles away, at my Bradford County home. Dry as a
hat, Warren's barn, burning, just toppled and fell
with a fiery crash - everything streaming out
at once. Flames and animals, the women and men,
all those Pennsylvania people with pails and buckets.
They looked in wide-eyed awe, as everything around
them, everything they'd ever known, burned away
before them, finally, to an absolute nothing at all.

3049. THE SELVAGE EDGE

THE SELVAGE EDGE

What have I managed to save, in my mannered
way of means and wishes, shredding imposition
as the impulses waned? I stood so idly by as
this numbered world passed by.
-
The yellow lights at midnight, seemingly
alive, standing pat in darkness and shadow;
the leftover parts and pieces of everything once
said or spoken of. Nothing matters now. It's all

over and long gone. I was once impressed by
the spectacle, now I can only marvel at the
indifference the absence brings.

3048. AT THE GRAVE OF HERMAN MELVILLE

AT THE GRAVE OF
HERMAN MELVILLE
They have fractured the time I am living through;
though I came with nothing, I am leaving with a
million memories of time and life and objects.
In solace, like a broken dog at the end of a leash,
I stand soaking wet, looking down. At my feet,
in the marsh, lies a space. Something I myself
should fill? Never knowing, never sure, I take
instead one hard step back. Solid ground
still holds me. I am part of another race.
-
Yes, I felt a void and I felt a space.
The fierce, wet wind was blowing
rain across my face.

3047. 'SENTIMENTAL HATTER, BROKEN HOURGLASS IN HIS HAND'

SENTIMENTAL HATTER,
BROKEN HOURGLASS
IN HIS HAND
I am hearing things that make no sound.
I am seeing things that do not exist.
The dark and spectral, that ghost
in town, is making me nervous with being.
I should have left here long ago.
A curlicue of cigarette smoke wrangles
its way past my face. I want for nothing,
I settle for less.
-
There are old pictures on the wall -
some crummy, stub of building and bricks,
which used to be the post office, an old
hardware store, shown here on a dirt-
covered road with square, dainty cars.
It's all labeled as 'used to be here' -
whatever such a foolish phrase would
mean. Like God, Uncle Charley, or me.
I should have left here long ago.

3046. LOVE, DISTANCE, NONCHALANCE

LOVE, DISTANCE, NONCHALANCE
Of all the noble young women I've seen, this
was the finery's best : a Mogen-David doubter,
a chickadee of the highest array. She'd only
sat down once, I saw. Bare-feet cresting on the

wooden railing, near where the white porch
crossed the stairway; some crazy magazine in
her hand. No slouch, more a crouch of an overtly
determined stance - love, distance, nonchalance.
-
I quickly remembered a Christmas Eve, long
ago, when three at-lunch postal workers, off
their routes, had sat together for a pizza lunch
at their local Italian counter. They talked of
nothing, really, two guys and a girl; squiring
back and their jovial talk, surmising meanings
from nothing and mirth, joke and froth, back
and forth. Yes, yes, it was their noonday Christmas
Eve, but so what and 'yeah, glad now that it's over.'
All that Christmas rush and traffic,
I guess; cards and mail, one real mess.
-
I would have thought they'd have all given it up.
But (back to today) this presence astounded.
Blue eyes like tarnished gold, set back and
distant, small and sharp. A birdlike wren,
stabbing at my heart.

3045. A GARBLED LOCATION MESSAGE

A GARBLED
LOCATION MESSAGE

Intending nothing but entering all:
the wave of high grass already grown,
the templed sunlight of a midday sun.
Ancient messages on a frieze of stone.
Two forms, like shadows fit together,
are bending now over the new landscape.
There is nothing to be gained from watching,
nor anything to be gained from the sight.
Words fail where the picture enters.
-
This small place, this hieroglyph - an
ingrown message from a deadening heart.
Winsome, heavy, and embroiled in all,
this location but sanctified by its part.

3044. MY ELEVEN CAVENDISH MUSCLES

MY ELEVEN
CAVENDISH MUSCLES

I strengthened my hand with the play of
erasure: Shoshone ribaldry and captains
by a campfire of gold. Dry and tawdry,
even the tent flaps cracked and split.

3043. THE FIVE DOYLES OF CRENSHAW

THE FIVE DOYLES OF CRENSHAW

(my abstract loom)
The paint was sequestered where the pail
was held. Five story buildings, painted a
midwestern green, showed only numbers
and glass. Traffic ran by like a nozzle-nosed
faucet with a running stream. Those eating
cakes ate their cakes. Fighter-planes screamed.
-
Battleship gray and tarnished with walloping
steel, a pale midshipman - I was watching - held
his ears while his heart plugged away. Two
banjo guys played something on the fo'castle.
-
I was quizzical. It meant nothing. Across the
portal, the sandcastle held the roadway's daunting
edge in check, and someone had (already)
put up some new monument to the dead, or
those who had died at that scene, or someone
alone at that particular intersection. Sheila
or Krysta, like, on the ground. Bunnies and
bears, and some crude hand-written sign.
-
No one knew from nothing, whatever had
really gone on. The sweet-faced cop garbled
his talk with a lemonade ice. Just near the
bicycle store, where two girls stood giggling,
two boys were stood up. Springtime turning
their minds to fancy and their fancies to love,
both their lush purple pants bulged.
-
I meandered the creek at the bottom.
In this rural land, the cities loomed large -
while, in this city place, all that country stuff
as well seemed so huge and so daunting.

3042. AND UPWARDS THEY FALL

AND UPWARDS THEY FALL
I am reading Robert Lowell before the lamp goes out;
this is, after all, our rather astringent age and he was
of it still. He saw the cars - 'ten thousand Fords are
idle here in search of a tradition' - with echoes
girdling this imperfect globe. It is, I say without
my usual circumspection, the luckless world we
both inhabit and run from, together. These are
not simple clothes hung out on our line - no shirts
and jackets or pants and skirts - but rather the
thin glimmerings of the textures of our lives and
all their days, the things we talk of and the words
we save; all the items, left limp in the trav'ling
wind, by which we manner our simple ways.
Philosophies and edicts take a second seat to
that. All those deadly Popes and Kings, long
now gone away, never meaning a thing.
-
We've scooted our royalty long away, and - even -
no longer understand the things they once were
wont to say : all those fearsome, land-locked
medieval minds, their concepts of God and Duty,
the kingships once fought for, the dark, narrowing
minions of their dreary and secular ways.
A din of dark-world duties done in the
names of their feckless God.
-
Even, as well, now Lowell lives on far past this
point. His death may have been mannered, but his
grave bespeaks a revolving door, one which never closes,
and one which never - in the same way - opens. He
long before us bought some words with blood and owns
them still. I am reading Lowell; leaning back on a
pale-green wall, window behind me, my feet up on the
sill. There is nothing much more to be said. The past
is the past, and prologue as well.

3041. FLAWLESS

FLAWLESS

My words are edging towards your own fruition;
so many things go into the making of this fuse.
Myself, and you, the little red wagon at the
side of the house, the tall glass with the cold
iced tea - small items of the sort which
make this life connected to something
with strength. The lineaments of vision
and the sight of a hundred moments,
all together, as one. If you can't
take the small, you'll never
get the large. Men have
died for less.

3040. YOU'RE PRETTY MAGICAL SWEETHEART

YOU'RE PRETTY

MAGICAL SWEETHEART
If I had the planar motion of the stars, I'd
tell you how I really feel. As it is, you're
pretty magical sweetheart. Leonine eyes,
pursed lips, a shanty face like a lover's
own warrant. Everything I'd want in food
or spice - all in one place, and
wrapped up nice.

3039. I'M TAKING A BEATING BY TAKING THIS RISK

I'M TAKING A BEATING

BY TALKING THIS RISK
Your long, supple Hedgemont looks good underfoot.
I soil the shally for the times to come : in outlandish
scenes where the bed-whacker lies. Two red birdhouses,
and a cage for whatever comes by. I've taken these
interests into consideration, and also I've understood
the procedures : the names and the colors, the bricks
and the mortar - both, you see, of some equal
importance. And now, as the raw day arises, a sunlight
of yellow-blue awakens my hope. Fervid desires for you,
ideas to kindle in full view of whichever crowd will
amble by. And, just now, some silly guy in his red
Mustang convertible pulls into the lot at too much of
a speed and then runs out for his donut and drink.
Yes, I could have stolen that car twice in the time
it took him to pay for his stuff. No more than that,
'stuff', was it worth; junk words for junky food.
How's that, Mr. red low-boy mid-life crisis
Mustang dude? I'm so over you. I'm so settled
and rude. He backs out, looking straight ahead.

3038. THIS DAY OF THE LOCUST

THIS DAY OF THE LOCUST

The wind was wailing. I interviewed the vampire; he looked
down my shirt gripping tight my wrists. I knew not what
was coming nor what to do. Just like that, in the essential
moment of a tyrannical dream, I escaped from myself -
for that moment - in lieu of a scream.
-
Escarpment and all those treacherous rocks.
We fell together, it seemed in one momentous
leap, dashing ourselves on the rocks below;
but never, in reality, hitting the bottom.
-
Life. This life. It twinkles like a starlet,
and is over in an instant - like a bad
movie role in a film that should never
have been started, by a girl who really
should just have stayed at home.

3037. INQUIRY STREET

INQUIRY STREET

Amended to nothing at all, deleted and taken away,
that junkyard along the hill always looked special
to me; now it's gone and I'm still here. Water-barrel
rain-spout dripping rooftop mind. Over-covered
rusty metal, paint and peel, glass and steel.
Everything from so long before,
disappeared like an open door.
-
You can scribble in your open book, write
notes to the very environment itself. It
won't matter, here now on Inquiry Street.
Where the trailer park is, the junk yard was,
and the old poison mill (we called it) that
made bug spray and insecticide gel. Their
lake of cobalt blue water? Who really ever
knew. Water that color, too blue to be true.
-
Yet, no matter, Wednesdays to death, I lived
my life athwart those tracks. Train whistle
locomotion black smoke turned electric
whiz-kid fastball gopher trains heading south
to nowhere and north to Hell. Nothing really
made sense. I lived there nonetheless.

3036. ADVERTISEMENTS FOR CONDITIONS

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR

THESE CONDITIONS
In a manner of speaking, silence is better.
A grueling smokestack of blinding grime will
never blot the landscape or cover with smoke
this valley of hope. With magical keys and
miraculous cards I have climbed this mountain,
lived and remembered, so as to tell about all
I have seen. Sit, my friend, sit. The waitress
is soon bringing a tray.

3035. TRUCKLOADS OF STUPID GRIEF

TRUCKLOADS OF

STUPID GRIEF
Constable, police chief, master rabbi,
teacher, leader, dupe or clown : each of
these are mere conditions of Man. Some
without a meaning and others with nothing
to do. See the foolish one over there, singing
before guitar and heater, mouth on a harmonica
like a stupid, lethal greeter, or a canary in some
closed-down coal mine no one ever cared about
anyway. Watch the truck go by; look at that,
it's rolled right off the cliff. And, up there, in
the sky, I swear that plane just blew apart.
-
My mid-air vanishing act, my roadway wreck;
these are the same as all of your illicit dreams
and lies. Fellow, man, friend, pal - once a
something or other to me, a kiddie's pal, a
nothing now. So filled with bile and puke as
to make me sick myself. These are roles,
of the sort that men play. Harmless
tomorrow, but lethal today.
-
By those standards it doesn't matter,
for there is no tomorrow anyway.

3034. I YET DON'T SEE

I YET DON'T SEE

I don't want to make a rude remark or leave a
posting in the dark but all this really should
come as no surprise, why not? It isn't as if
I've killed an eagle or speared a native or
anything like that. Instead, with a particular
ease, I've painted meadows with my dreams
and tinted skies with shades of lighter blue.
It's just my way - seeing things lightly, with
a different hue. I just can't walk off angry.
-
Is that, or can it be, ever enough for you?
A wise man runs and hides ahead of the
danger he sees - I think I've read that
right - and, by contrast, someone like me,
apparently, just walks in from behind on a
broadly covered field of trouble and danger
and angst. A dandelion field, so heavily
populated as it might be.
-
With all these eyes, I still cannot see.
With all these eyes, I yet don't see.

3033. YOU ARE DOWSING THE BONES

YOU ARE DOWSING THE BONES
Charlemagne or Albertus Magnus,
take your pick, neither would do it better.
There's a magic seam running through
the spine of this world, and it's
always trying to run things out,
exhaust us, make us flee, end it all.

3032. MILLIONS OF DREAMS

MILLIONS OF DREAMS

I caught the image running a horizon of
gold : spaced and swift, forging ahead,
a vast alliance of angular thought.
This, this is was. All in one place, the
light-blinded rabble in a hundred
different tongues, all speaking, all
seeking, the very same things.

3031. WHO IS THE MAN

WHO IS THE MAN

The one who chisels,
the one who sings. Plays
cats and cards, divines all
things. We do not know,
and never will. I rest
assured, by goodness,
nonetheless of his
presence. Who is
the man?

3030.TOO MUCH AT THE GLEN

TOO MUCH AT THE GLEN

Well we may have stayed too much at the
glen; shades of falling waters, distaff sides
of wooded lands and all those fertile trees.
Things grew to abandon, all while we
tried to live. No one ever said 'stop'.
We gained nothing from the forcefield
but a mind's eye acre of ideas.
-
Some delicate artist, crowing and crowned
like a rooster, came by to stay. His stupid
open-air paintings and all those ideas of
goodness and right did nothing for me.
I tried talking him away, but more than
that he stayed. Libidinous, fruitless and
faithless as well, he painted all day
by the old brick well.
-
I wanted to run him aground with ice and
a pick, saying 'too much at the glen, too
much at the glen.' But, as it always goes,
I simply had not nerve enough.
-
'Open wide your eager eyes! Look about
you, all the things you see!'. I shouted that
from a nearby rooftop, both to keep him
annoyed and awake. If he was not tired,
he'd sure tired me. 'Open wide your eager
eyes. Look about you, all the things you see;
too much at the glen, too much.'

3029. TRISTE

TRISTE

Yo no me senti triste.
Ella se habia ido definitivamente.
Por muchas diasnp puse nada en mi boca,
solo unas sorbos de aqua.
-
I was not sad now.
She was gone.
For many days I took nothing in
my mouth except a few sips of water.

3028. WEAVERS AND COAXERS

WEAVERS AND COAXERS
(In Progress : 'Stouver's Gold')
I awoke already walking the ridge,
called, somehow, 'Firefly Casement'
by the locals. I never have known at
all what that means. Yet, I knew
(always) what I didn't wish to hear :
'You have mistaken me for something
that once was. My sleight of hand, let's
say, is your Reality. It's fairly simple,
when you think of time just folding in
over itself, mixing idea and image, then,
with consciousness - always changing.
I am that which you guard.'
-
Now, by contrast, this soft Meadowlark
bows, the fleet Robin, seen running, escapes.
Their trapped reality, the very same as mine,
gently enfolds whatever they are. As for me, the
same holds. Blue, speechless skies, the sinews
of grasp and construction, the place of new matter
on a world made of Gold. All true, this, and would
that it could last forever and more.
I really want to be with you.

3027. TO HEATHER THE MOTHBALLS

TO HEATHER
THE MOTHBALLS
(Spring)
This Spring is arriving like marbles on a glossy
slab. The low hand of the horizon rests, and upon
it sets a new Sun and Moon and the planets.
The stars commingle at dawn; watch them,
brother, to tell me what you see. Before I
speak, the birds of daybreak have already met.

3026. I AM VERY SIMPLE

I AM VERY SIMPLE

Not much there, I've heard it said.
My father, not a boaster, was born an
orphan and sent away - just that quickly -
foster home and orphanage and healthcamps
he abhorred. At 16, running off to join the Navy,
he enlisted with a very false given age. No
one seemed to care. Next stop : Solomon Islands,
but not before, as he always put it, a few trips
to 'the biggest whorehouse in the east' - that
would be, according to him, Scranton, Pennsylvania;
from sea to shining sea. 'A real navy town, that
was, inland as hell, but the ladies was swell.'
Anyway, that's all I really remember of what
he said. Later, he learned a trade, upholstery,
after sewing up body bags for three years on
board a battleship-tender; that's a ship that
brings supplies to the larger ships at sea.
Battleships, which needed 'tending'. So
much fun I could hardly remain.
-
There's a lot more to tell, but, suffice
it to say he was simple as Hell,
and, then, so am I.

3025. SOME MEN

SOME MEN
Some men are fond of their cigars :
here, at evening, I watch them sitting
out at cafe and restaurant tables -
eating while they smoke, it just seems
ill-kempt. Or distasteful anyway. Who
would want that? Portraying a drink
as a mistress to a fat cigar? Where
are they going with all this anyway?
Or should I ask about?

3024. THE HOW AND WHY

THE HOW AND WHY

I never made it to the galley-post, I never
walked along the plank. The shoestring,
bushel-bale sailboys never even looked my
way. The men with the hammers, they just
kept busy as I passed; young construction
guys boringly infatuated with their work.
-
I brought my crayons to the match-play;
coloring on paper, writing black lines
over posterboard and tarp. Everyone
seemed happy, and so much got done :
a regular finished Archimede's wedge of
form and shape and color. But, has
anyone really heard me? My shallow
roots try hard to cling to something,
yet everyone seems a gardener with
their ever-clipping shears.

3023. ARMED TO THE HILT

ARMED TO THE HILT

Someone was telling me something vague:
'Air power could have won the Civil War',
or words to that end. The effect was of
wind on reeds, or a fire over marshland.
Steady, but unsure nonetheless. I sat down,
to feature the listen. He was now talking to
his companion, a wonderful girl whose lips
seemed to glisten. I thought of my own
Shakespearean bliss at witnessing drama,
at witnessing this. Sensation like the
unfolding of a deep-written script.
-
She said: 'But then, why would they want
to win if that's all they'd needed to do? And,
anyway, they hadn't those airplanes yet
back then. You're just being foolish again.'
-
I laughed uproariously to myself, behind
my gilded pillar. The sign nearby said that
these hedges had been planted first in 1881.
They had prospered well. It was late Winter
now, early Spring, whatever, and they really
were raring to grow - all buds at the ready.
-
Such strength pushes even the most
beleaguered among us into new life. Ideas,
moments, actions, regrets. All the same
when the hammer comes down. Air power
could have won the Civil War? Oh
but with what a fearsome sound.

3022. AND THEN THE ARYAN MAN

AND THEN THE ARYAN MAN

And then the Aryan man, the strict one, the

white one, the original one, he came through
on a yellow steed, holding nothing in
his hands but a rigid form of death -
all passive and forlorn. 'I used to
own all this,' he said, 'then I
gave it all up.'