4107. GESTATION

GESTATION

('it's all about world domination')

There are poetry ladies of a dripping pen,

doing their time in cubicles of love and hatred;

they weep and lunge over flowers and clouds.

With so little to say, they manage so much :

a hatred of praxis, a government-fund swoon,

a 28-day period, a mood and a scream. I watch

them claw and wiggle, and I know what they mean.

'This life is a tired homage, a lonely whole; and I

mean that sincerely, like a child's love, or the beating

of a kitten's heart, or the fire of love that God passes.'

'What do you mean,' I said, 'what do you mean to say?'

4106. DERRIERE NEW ENGLAND

DERRIERE NEW ENGLAND

They washed down their cats at some halftime show,

a sporting event of delicious intent : all those naked

ladies come running through the snow. High above,

three starboard fighter jets did maneuvers, dipping

the sky in a lunge and a weave made for ice cream

and candy together. The massive crowd swelled and

pulsed, screaming and moaning, spitting out its liquid

powers while dribbling down the drool. This was one

spectacular moment : Patrick Henry forget it.

-

I sat with Hawthorne while he cried. The big oaf

could not get over the cheerleading girls, and the

magic carpet ride he'd always imagined.' Everything',

he said, 'has gotten so mixed up - my gables are

now all Clarks and the name Scarlett has taken over

my hue. O'Hara and Johannsen to name but a few.'

-

Last I knew he'd flown with the sky curtain just as

it opened up. A raging cloud had descended and

a fierce music played. 'Where are you going, Nate?',

I asked. 'I can't answer now', he said, 'I'm too dismayed.'

4105. BAEDEKER

BAEDEKER

Miraculous Mirabelle : she waits in the

confines of room 4e, on the right floor

of the solid-caste walk-up we now

inhabit. I love her, and her gaze,

and her grasp as well. Like this,

I shall nod for always and only

in her direction. We've captured

Prague, and Allentown, and

Buffalo too. I read about these

things with a map of her world

in my lap  -  Baedeker of love

and lust, guidebook to outlandish

destinations, a tourist guide to

places of the distant heart.

4104. COMMINGLE

 COMMINGLE

And oh so many times the varied hurtings cast their

plights; the arrows and the wounds. I move on, perplexed.

I alone do not understand  -  apparently  -  what it is that

drives other people. This jacket I wear bears my shrug.

As if I was in pantomime, a mime, a jagged sock puppet

drained and wilting. Nothing I get, though I've gotten it.

-

Now the storm drain pours its awful matter outward -

perhaps a wrong direction but running nonetheless.

-

Others may ask the commingling notes of fence and

barrier and distance; that awful medley of melody

sounding  -  the clash and cymbal of every noise.

In my brain, amplified by a brutish snort, I paw

and rut like a bull in pursuit of a fine-class mate.

4103. THOR HAMMER

THOR HAMMER

For just this inexpressable moment

let me be you; let me be me, let

me be all Mankind : blubber floats

home, brashly foaming, lining on

shores. The North Sea sings of

something, though I can never

quite catch that tune. I want to

just walk  -  this climate is good.

-

Two taxis float along : Madison

and Lexington, the art-gallery of

streets and fashions. Everything 

here hangs out to dry  -  even those

late-life matrons trying so hard again.

I really do love their smiles, and they'd

be shocked to know I'm older then

they are, by far. An old man, just here,

blubbering himself of the sea in an

ancient, strange tongue.

4102. SCOUTING REPORT

SCOUTING REPORT

I am at bay  -  as here I tend this

mannered place. Oasis. The report

read 'watch out for Scout; he'll get

you in the end.' I'm tired of listening.

People talk, rankly; all their

bread-wrappers and all their

stupid candies and nuts, and

stockings and banks and habits.

-

This unpredictable suit wears

me well; Poetry is both here

the manner and the fit.   

That's what gets you,

in the end. 

4101. I AM A HOPPER PAINTING

I AM A HOPPER PAINTING

Doudloom, I arch the domed

cornice, all windows and light,

and I am that fleshy, naked

being who occupies the open

floor : I unwind, thinking of the

night creeping in 'round that

darkened arch of trees or

those rendered, simple souls

hunched over their dark and

lonely streetscapes  -  where 

the city-street unevenly 

stretches, reaching its hand 

against corners unseen.

4100. SIDEWAYS TO MANKIND

SIDEWAYS TO MANKIND
I am just like that : oblique, the wrong way,
turned and twisted about. I only see my reflection
upended and backwards to everything else. I
do not fit. Look at this cosy place - even the
doorknobs here keep pace with any internal
monologue which may be going. I scribe my
only fearsome figure on a penciled draft of
nothing in a notebook of no account.
-
A mailman is walking by - oblivious to me
and lost within his task, I only for a moment
wish I could be him, doing what he does and
staying right to focus. My world is, by contrast,
a rainbow of churlish colors and speed : no grace
to last the moments, no outside voice to heed.
-
It is entering late afternoon. My God, I am
lost to myself. A few cars, instead of staying
still are moving by. Someone makes them go -
not I. My post, in here is here. I am present.
I am fully accounted for.

4099. DIOGENES

DIOGENES
Take these battlements' arches and walk them off.
Carry all the philosophies you know and bring them
here inside. We are sitting doing nothing : the pallid
moon endears itself to the vase. Purple reflections
shimmer back an uncertainty I'd forgotten all about.
Before you start the bonfire, make sure the world
itself is not your kindling; and then just walk away.

4098. COUNTRY LOVE (a place in rural time)

COUNTRY LOVE

(a place in rural time)

Let us roam the periphery

once more  -  see that rambling

brook as it roars the rushes, note

the grimy window on the barn  -

each of these are pleasant things

we live with; and, even here, the

winnowed sky stays blue.

-

I have no match for this heaven,

though I bid you in : your marsh-like

heart can be our lantern, or mine, at

least. Poorly lighting ways to move

and amble, instead  -  and together  - 

we can cut those daring straight

lines like a hawk.

-

And only now have I suggested rest  -

rest and disclosure anyway together.

I close my magazine hat gladly over

your lids, and maneuver with admittance

this intention to steal your love away.

4097. HOMO HABILIS

HOMO HABILIS

Man the Maker, that's the guy;

from Frederick Durenmatt to Uwe

Johnson, I've walked that sky. Look, look

at how all those awesome coffee cups, now

reflect this kitchen counter's light. Every

word has carried some form of force, and

we've talked for idling hours of the world

and all its course. This playwright's returns

are diminishing now, and   -  for sure  -

1949 only happens once in a lifetime.

I remember when Brecht died, where

I was and what I was doing. Very

simple, this odd shadow-theater

of stately feelings and minds.

I held it all together, once,

but now it is lost.

4096. INTIMATIONS

INTIMATIONS

I hung the bicycle from the wall-hooks.

Everything in this loft was ship-shape

order. The news was not good : the

television blared both death and war,

and the doctor I'd just spoken with

had said one of those at least.

Errol was doomed.

-

What mattered in my mind was what

mattered least : what to do and how?

The knowledge of approaching death

is somehow not the same as Death itself;

one you can touch and caress, while the

other you run from and hide. Which was

this? I couldn't decide

4095. DOLEFUL ENIGMATIC MATTER

DOLEFUL ENIGMATIC MATTER

Uncle, father, daughter, son - each

of these things matters to one. Yet, to

see past all that is to really reach a

fulfillment. We are selves, and selves

alone each we remain. Like the wind

here, cutting my face, objects pillaged

of shape and design are flying past.

No connection to be made, I nonetheless

try telling myself that I recogninze these

things : powers, shapes, and pointed

settings by which we recognize the

mold of time. Imprinted like fools, we

continue striving. I walk this wandered

waterfront, sure and sorry of my own

being. In time, I too shall be replaced.

4094. I WANT YOU TO KNOW

I WANT YOU TO KNOW

I rekindle the fires within; those matters

you may have forgotten, they still live and I

can see them. Halfway up that hill, where

the little pine tree grows, that was once

my campsite - Cowaw, where we sat.

Cowaw, where we stayed. I sat bemused

by every rustle in the grass. All those

views towards westward skies, we watched

and saw them grow : the pale, long mask of

the Appalachian rim, high tops of rocks and

eddies of golden stammer; water steaming

in a new pool of stone. As I stayed there, so

I lived - a warrior honed and ready. I walked

three hundred miles, over time, to go forth and

to return to these loose-limbed lands that

were my home. I did a million things in my

natural time; at one with the Earth around me.

4093. SAGAMORE

SAGAMORE

They are shooting maples down where I live;

shagging trees and cutting limbs, making the

oasis that here once lived now but a paradise

for ghouls. I am, understandably, wild and upset.

Shall I chain myself to a tree, or just stand here

with a gun in hand? I don't know and wouldn't care,

either way, for them and all their doings.

I am the worthy one, not them.

-

So long it's been like this, and I am very tired.

My royal venom is running on. We once killed

men for poaching the King's trees - or deer, for

that matter. Everyone agreed and no one said

a word - everything of might was kept within

the royal precinct, and there was no other way.

-

I liked it better then : I was a man with a royal

aplomb, I carried my armaments gaily. I shouldered

my shares, marksman that I was, and killed my

few as well, as needed, and finely. So much of that

world is now so gone away. I stand alone, at

this empty, bare corner, silently wishing

I was back there once more.

4092. BROUGHT FORTH

BROUGHT FORTH
First the Tuesday mailman enters, walking
in from Avenue B; lobby entryway, no man's
land. Is that perchance a flashlight in his hand?
No one seems to be sure, though they have seen
him before. These are target times, and this is
all some Democratic joke : nothing marked for
nothing, a few dollar bills with written codes in red.
-
I've been living here for sixteen months now, off and on. 
A new delightful chapter in a growing book of
time. Time? I've done mine : that little girl can tell
you, the kid in neighboring alley. Why am I here again?
-
Writing a book, a research screed on Poverty.
Power-madman-politics, the type these ward-heelers
and shysters love to work. They've promised me
seven thousand dollars, and a pre-publication deal -
just to get it done their way and make my conclusions
seal their assumptions. Every piece has to fit. By this
grand careers are planted, fed and raised. Yes. Yes.
-
That potted plant grazes my hands, the water is
leaking all down the wall, the drain it is clogged and
the parrot cage - where once Hidalgo kept his Moluccan -
is empty to the wind and the air. Everything is just so sad.
-
They bury bodies in Christoforo Park. I know it, I've seen
it, yet I can't say a word. The big blue car, the guy with the
frosty tophat, and the gunman named Chig, they'll all be
around here again, by tomorrow at the latest. I know it.
I'm covering the scene for my Chapter 29. The one about
the dogs being poisoned in Ratherburn Gully. I'll bring
everything maybe forth someday. You just wait.

4091. DETERRENCE

DETERRENCE, 1958

(twelve feet underground)

It used to be the Soviets, I can remember it well:

we'd hover, thinking back to when all began - dad

cursing the skies, mom cowering in confusion and fear.

Star lights and satellites up high above  -  whoever knew

the difference, not us. If it moved up there, suddenly we

were told, it belongs to them. They would have us if

we let them  -  had to be prepared, had to stir the

menace down, be ready any moment. Dig down

underground, or pierce the sky, our very own,

with rockets too. What a fucking, zany,

rocking life that was. Saltine crackers

and a jar of honey, twelve feet

underground.

4090. GRIEVOUS PENDULUM

GRIEVOUS PENDULUM
My son, that grievous pendulum bears little
watching and matters less - its arc and sweep
will soon enough swoop low and touch. Nothing
we can do. Hide the rafters in the rafters, do what
you will to escape; you will not, nor I. It is the way
of this Life, this pattern, this time. Let us watch the
apples and pears on those backyard trees - they
buzz and crinkle right now with both birds and bees,
yes, but 'ere long too those limbs shall be vacant
and broken, and strewn like kindle on this
insatiably hungry ground.

4089. ZERO FOUR LANE

ZERO FOUR LANE
I may have made my mind up a long time ago
and then forgotten : I can't recall. Now I'm
watching that stupid kitten once more,
lapping milk from the creamer, slapping
butter with its paw. I don't know the
circumstances any more.
-
I've labeled my Life as a fireplug just one
too many times - all these hoses, jamming
in and all demanding something - water, power,
consideration or light. Everything comes with a
bill to pay. My lord, I've done too much already.
-
Take my packaged steamer trip, for free, you
can have it : go where you may, travel the globe.
To Malay and Pango Pango, I bid you adieu.
I have a few more things to do.

4088.TO MY ENDEARING CHARM

To My Endearing Charm
There's no cut-off at the canyon that your
knife could not handle : rapier-like wit, fiery
tempest of reason and a solidarity with all
things beautiful. I knew you when the lazy
waters ran. We stood at Kelvin's Corners
together. Your mother ran the hose that
doused me through - for a week later,
I coughed a dead-man's hack.
-
And yet, now, all these scarf-years later,
you are standing once more in a secret light
without me. The mother is gone, the old
Chevy that leaned at the curb, I do remember,
has long ago been cubed into someone's
footstool of junk, and all my ideas and
years of trouble and schooling are so
long past as to be forgotten. You once
said I would never want for anything -
God, how wrong you were.
-
Everything in the refracted glasslight
is sour and listless; even the straight
lines are drooping. Time is like a
circus master, now spinning his
hoop past lions and tigers and
more; past lions, and
tigers, and more.

4087. IN PLACE OF ALL GOLD

IN PLACE OF ALL GOLD

At the witching hour, like this it comes : dark

shadows and the wistful fall of night. We've left

the words behind  -  those are things for

horticulturalists and those scientific types

with their lists and categories and definitions.

I never walked a step in that muck, for fear

of soiling my shoes. Look around you; that's

really all it takes. State of mind? Not mine.

-

I've tried science and found it wanting. I've

tried religion and laughed it off  -  all those

spiritual moments of Yves Tanguy and

Rosicrucian madness, Swedenborg, Blake

and Steiner. Art makes the grade, only then it

too fails as money gets its ugly face involved.

Nothing is what nothing does. How's that?

-

Now, instead of Death I'm just settled in :

I can ride this wagon until the wheels are

gone, and then coast this broken chassis

to the bottom of the hill. As I see it, that

will do, until.....the real gold rises up.

4086. NEW FRUIT TO BLOSSOM

NEW FRUIT TO BLOSSOM

My plate is a pattern of despair  -

on its face, etched, is all the botany

of despond and all the sickening

tendrils and vines of overreach and

clutch. Would such rancid growth

were trimmed and cut immediate.

But I am not a trimmer, nor a cutter.

For Life, why Life, there is no

second chance? I have lived already

ten thousand years and years and

years. My razor's all-thwarted intent

may have lost its edge, yet here in

place I shall remain; for my plate

is a pattern of despair, and I am

waiting for new fruit to blossom.

4085. KESSLER

KESSLER

Kessler I am running barefoot now,

and my shoes are gone and I note my

feet up on a couch while coffee smokes

from a Mason Jar  -  pure glass filled

with a dark brown roast. Well, Kessler,

we come to all these odd agreements.

Anyway, be a man  -  I can't stand

all these fey guys today.

-

The things I have to listen to! Egads!

It's noted here ('OK') that I'm not

against this modern day but only

here these people  -  while young  - 

all act so very old! Accepting all

the same old verities as everyone

before them  -  which, of course,

are not verities at all! You see

my point?

-

I'd like to decimate this Mankind,

or at least leave it broken upon a rock.

Listen to them :  Like they are slicing

bread with a perfect knife. But I have

found a perfect life, Kessler. I am running

barefoot with my feet upon this couch.

4084. LISTENING IN THE STANDS

LISTENING IN THE STANDS

Billy Joel to the rafters : Allentown

and Goodnight Saigon; or whatever

passes today for the situations of

pomp and circumstance. How free am

I? Not very. I want the Senators and

Congressman all rounded up and jailed;

they are, after all, you know, cheats and

liars, thieves and criminals, and war

criminals too. So, why not? I'm so free

that I can't say that. I want the Presidents

and all their cabinets and officers taken in,

incarcerated. I want their Libraries burned,

and all their sick, Presidential papers. Screw

them. How free am I? Can I ask that?

And we're living here in Allentown, and

they're closing all the factories down.

I want the IRS shuttered, and all those sick

indigents floating on my dollar broken down.

I want the military blown to bits itself.

How free am I? I want the schools closed

and all the churches shuttered. And we're

living here in Allentown. We came as

brothers to Parris Island; we left as

inmates of an asylum.

How free am I then?

4083. THAT OLD MANSION

THAT OLD MANSION BY
THE APOTHECARY SHOP

Well, old man, it had many grave windows too,

all looking out onto the blustery shore. No, you

couldn't see it of course, but it just felt as if it

were there : copper-limbed light dipping down

from the treetops to linger and stay. I do so well

remember you there  -  Mr. Henderson, and all

those underfoot chickens you kept in the yard. The

eggs, a dollar-twenty-five a dozen and a minute of talk.

You said your wife 'was sick inside'  -  you meant,

I remember, in the house, of course, but I mistook

it to mean she had a growth or cancer, or something

mortal. We laughed, but it was all very hesitant  -  as

it turned out, she did, and died. I was sorry for months

after. Now, you too are gone : that old place is near

crumbling, and where are all those chickens, Mr. H.,

where are all those chickens now?

4082. WHAT I DID

WHAT I DID

I took to carrying blood and ashes, guns and butter,

leafs and bark. I took to hiding out behind boulders

and walls. I wanted just never to be seen at all.

Why? You may rightly ask? Because I want no

field, no house nor hovel. I want no brother

nor sister nor shovel. I wish to be left at the top

of yon hill  -  bunkered and sagacious though

unbroken, not bound. I want to be the flight

in your fleeing. Let me light the fires of my

mind with only the matches I first make  -  

the tinder and the kindle, the shards and

the shavings. All these things  -  I know

at least  -  will ever cheer me on. I am

the hermit in the thrush hut, the old

man, lying buried, at the top of

the unmarked hill.

4081. ENDEAVORED AVOIDANCE

ENDEAVORED AVOIDANCE,

LOST MISAPPROPRIATION

There is the chisel by which I chip through this

world : one marvelous wedge-point with a harshly

hammered stump. I go happily banging on.

-

Trousers rolled? I shall instead put this

newspaper down  -  for there is nothing there

to see. I note that everything has, already,

happened twice and I have left the village

anyway. Vague vapors, the fast-mouth-talking

words of gossipy little men.

-

Any ghost of Waverly has already here

appeared. The woods of Birnam have

moved, and what care I for nothing?

4080. REPEAT OF THIS

REPEAT OF THIS

The gutters run with mud, inches

deep, and - where trucks have sloshed

through - the tracks are deeply etched.

Mute and strapped, this whole, entire,

tired world is running down but yet still

drips Love  -  a wander-skate, an echo,

an heirloom. They've managed to gather

up the old, discarded Christmas trees,

thrown willy-nilly where they were.

People are done with them now, and

they are dead. Dead too is any Life

their growth-to-expectations may once

have held; so much like these storm-tossed

people. Too bad. Who cares? Their tainted

surf has thrown them gravel and sand  -

their boardwalks and promenades, they

maintain,  are gone as well. Too bad. Who

cares? No more glitter palace and no more

sleazy bars; no more boozy, frothy girls

spreading lips for tips. Oh, oh, even the

ocean is in mourning. Too bad. Who cares?

I'm sure the drop drops for nothing at all.

4079. I TOOK IT ALL THROUGH TO CARRY IT AROUND

I TOOK IT ALL THROUGH 

TO CARRY IT AROUND

(amalgamated fourth fugue for Delmore)

'My life is pretty good and I don't know

why, except effort. I've got stuff everywhere,

and my pockets seem always full of money.

Emphasis on 'seem', 'cause I don't always know

if it's mine or someone else's, on loan from

some bank or something  -  though I don't

care, because it's really all the same.'

-

This life is not an ending, just an is  -  and I

must be both alienated and indestructible

together. I am dedicated, and I survive.

(There's no ice cream in the freezer either,

big boy you're now on your own)...

-

On a sandy, topside bluff they said 'this hill

was an old Methodist prayer meeting camp.'

I stand looking out, over both water and land :

ruined marshes, brushy grass, sand and salt.

Nothing seems moving, and nothing will last.

A place called 'Toms River' must be like that,

has to  -  living on past its old station.

-

And someone deserves only this : there is

'lonely town' playing, and I ply the raging waters

alone. I have my rights, like some guy who talks

too much with his hands, some Italian baker, or

a Jew about money  -  loud, lugubrious, tiresome,

unending, lurid, lush, frantic and freely; though

all these things with suspicion. Yes, God, I

love it all  -  like looking at women all day.

Just again, this morning, someone asked me:

'Has anyone told you you're a crazy man?'

-

'I'll kiss you wherever you think you're poor,

wherever you shudder, feeling tiny or skinny,

striped or barred, feeling you are

bloodless, cheerless, or marred.'

4078. MUSIC

MUSIC

'They are not running horses are

they today?' - I listen to the drunk

man talking , nay slurring, what he's

meaning to say - 'Can't get a word in

edgewise, it's like everybody's got

something else to say : Eddie Wiseman

carries his guitar in a gunny sack, looks

all around but never looks back. You 

know what I mean? And, yeah, they

practice all this too?'

4077. WANTING

WANTING

I must want to know you, I tell myself.

There, upon the carousel you walk through,

are all the maddening moments which keep

me here : a constable's confusion, a massive

confession before a judge who's dense and

deaf together. No one notices, and no one

seems to hear a thing. I tell myself, again,

I must want to know you, there, upon the

carousel you walk through, with all the

maddening moments which keep me here.

4076. I LIVED

I LIVED

I lived above the Washburn Pickle Works

in 1949. It was not anything special, just a place for

entry, somewhere to be until I was five. Nothing

made any difference  -  looking out the window

I saw tugboats and tankers and fishermen's

harvests. Across to the right, the grand

arc of the Bayonne Bridge, making some

sort of solid marker for place and time.

All these little cars and trucks, splaying

over water. How prescient was I, really?

Not knowing anything, but just taking

everything in. Before I knew it, 

I was gone from there.

4075. STACCATO LUMINESCENCE

STACCATO 

LUMINESENCE

This makes me sick : this leaves me cold.

All that back and forth for nothing.

The brownstone fronting  St. Luke's Place

is toying with the sunlight; fading fast it

dips over Jersey's silly edge. I've been

everywhere ten thousand times. My 

head hurts just from travel.

-

That guy, he's the icicle on the carpet - 

where he lives there are five other men.

Each of them a dancer, fine and fair,

those sorts of guys you see in chorus

lines or Broadway plays. Why would,

really, anyone do that?

-

Here comes my yellow cab - it stirs the

pavement like a regal lion swooshing

along the path. I get in and crouch.

Oh, the guy behind the wheel seems

touchy. My goodness, I won't say

a word.

4074.YES, THIS IS THE NOW

YES, THIS IS THE NOW

How golden the clarity which comes from

profusion : yes, the sun is shining, and yes,

 the cold, gray sky is gone. The rain yet

lingers in the gutters and at curbs. I listen

to some sound  -  whether a diminished

squirrel in stress, or the rolling sound

instead of a Winter bird, I'll stay to hear;

for I have nothing to lose, and an

entire world to gain.