4199. RUNNING IT ON

RUNNING IT ON

You'll get the picture once the frame is finished and I send

along a diagram of the potential for the right development of

every line and scratch and dot. And I guarantee you'll never

have seen anything like it before : all those putrid revelers

scouring the street for nickels and dimes to drink with, well

this time they'll be green with envy. Had I ever crossed some

border before like this before, all that old horse-manure talk

would be gone: St. Patrick and all his serpents, all those

drunk monks at Lindisfarne saving civilization from ruin and

abandonment, and all those Irish lick-em-aid lasses running

their tresses over valley and gorge, they too would be so

over. We all now wear shoes like Dorothy did. We all now

treadle the yellow brick road. The faith of our fathers itself

hides now behind a curtain that only Toto can unveil. Toto,

as in All, as in Totality, as if every fucking thing that ever

was. And 'ain't that a slap in the face!' Someone once

wrote about the century being over, another century

anyway, about an 'old bitch gone in the teeth.' It's just

like that now. I have been to the forest, I have seen

every fallen tree and where they crashed, and seven

months on they all still are there where they fell.

In real life the world little changes. An old bitch,

gone in the teeth, with little bark left at all.

4198. MAKING MINE THE PATHETIC WRETCH

MAKING MINE THE

PATHETIC WRETCH

I've summered on the high seas, ending up in

California, after leaving Peru. I've stayed for days

at Point Dume, thinking of nothing and walking

the sands. My boats have come and faltered,

listed and sunk. I walked away, always unharmed.

The edge of my frost is the edge of my music -

steadfast I sing and stand alone. I am, truly, a

pathetic wretch. Now my schedule calls for Europe,

a passing month of frenzy after lighting down in Rome.

Funny how they say that, because I don't consider

Rome to be Europe at all. After all, and anyway, I've

actually been asked, how can I go on living by being

angry all the time? It's just my way, I answered.

-

The waitress at the Olde Town Tavern, I gave her

once thirty dollars for the scene we'd made - noise

and clamor and rushing and a mess. She laughed it

off and said 'no problem; you won't be the last of it.'

Now, whenever I re-enter that old brick building I think

of her and hope she's there. Not always, but mostly

she is. If I could carry her away, I would.

-

Cocktails at two-thirty? That's OK with me, but what

I refuse to stand for is the clamor of a television on the

wall - that gets turned off or I don't show. I detest TV,

that marvelous Jewish marvel. I detest everything it tries

to define for others : the scent, the sense, the sound of

living. And all those names! Oh, everyone seems from

old Kiev. That's OK, but they should have remained.

-

My cards are over-dealt; my table-man's a lout, and

his sister, Marjorie, is the last person I'd think of

kissing. More a pout than a love affair, for sure.

Oh what a pathetic wretch am I.

4197. REPRISE

REPRISE

One wishes to do it over, do it better, make it all

happen again : but buddy your days are done. There

is a smoking gun in your corner, called Life. It's got you

already together and tied. The marigold in your freezer

is thawing and the ranchhands have entered for their lunch.

Try to tell them something new : reprise that story, perhaps,

of the elephants and Katmandu, the daughters of Marcus

Wheyman and the time you hassled the Mayor of Lima, Peru.

-

Everything amounts to nothing that amounts to everything

which is really nothing at all. Believe you me, all this magical

living is really just an operation underway for a while on

an island of the dead. I offer you my goodness, but

you'd better take it, strings attached. I know you

wish to do it over, make it better, make it right -

but like that historical marker on the old brick

building says : it's already finished and done.

4196. AMERICA

AMERICA

Some have called me haunted, yes, by the

glimmer and the audacity of Time : everything

amassed and spinning around. I bow to nothing,

yet I never stand straight. Paradox and dilemma,

oh I know them both. I'll walk for you, if you would

let me. And I'll speak for you, if you would just say.

-

Walking the world of marvelous things : I want to

close off the Cumberland Gap and I'd like to sink

Hawaii. Just to see the ancient rumblings again,

and what would come forth in their places. If I am

myopic in my ways, the mirror I stand before is you.

4195. SLAVE TO MEANS AND NEED

SLAVE TO MEANS

AND NEED

When I was twenty-four I was taken away

by armed men - scarves around their faces,

they pointed guns at me head. Palestinians,

or so they said, out to avenge now a dirty,

land-stealing Jew. It's the same old story -

Haifa to Mt. Hebron; we do the same. When

the bombs go off, it seems the only extra

topping on your outdoor Jerusalem pizza is

blood and guts and glory, freely given.

-

I'm so tired of all the groaning - over who

gets what and who owns who. Even the old

language makes me sick. I grovel instead.

Just to think that mankind could be so stupid;

to fall for ancient G-d tricks, jumping voices over

buses and limbs, caterpillar arms with sacrificial

lambs. Men killing sons, and fathers being fooled.

-

What a mixed up, sickening rule this all is.

Listen to the silence, for that's the only thing

that really rules our day - the silence of the land

and trees, the silence of the river, running slowly,

over every hill and dale, through every wicked curve.

The land was here before we were. Learn that first.

-

Yes, I was kept prisoner for thirteen months; held in

seclusion, though not alone. I was fed two meals a

day by an intrepid jailer who would push me mush

through the bars. We said little; he knew I was subject

to fits of anger, broiling over, mad and crazed, as I was,

by this horrid situation. I little cared for Arab, Jew, or

nation. I was a slave to means and need instead.

4194. SALLY FORTH

SALLY FORTH

I have such roving hands and eyes as these that scan

the landscape : a frost of snow, a lightness of the now

cold air, the reason for the shade and dark. I am a painter

of many moments, and change all things. My hands

stretch forth, for magic alone. Look forth, then, to see

how wise and enigmatic are my serifs and scribbles -

those tensioned lines which run along the page. I care

not for man and all those foibles. Nothing rests more in

my mind than these gloved hands within your framework,

and I can move the edgings to where I wish, and will. The

magic of this artful world is in the containing of all emotion,

and it is balanced within the spheres of reason and good.

I outline the traces of grace, and heavier line of love and

warmth, around the newer forms of your growing figure.



4193. ONLY CIVILIZED PORTRAITURE

ONLY CIVILIZED

PORTRAITURE

Only civilized portraiture will end this torture -

something wherein every line and shadow is

perfect and right. Like an ideal, in the best of

times, to which men ascribe blind wishes and

all good intentions. There is an easel on the

hardwood floor, set up to hold this canvas. I

go to it, steady, to find my own center.

-

Only civilized portraiture will end this torture -

something too aggrieved to mourn for, something

too mournful to consider. I have all the happenstance

of both shadow and light, each thing I shall need for

this perfection. Like that crazy Russian girl I remember

screaming at me on Atlantic Avenue for money in her

head : too bold for me to give any care back to. I did

simply walk on, away from her onslaught of noise.

-

Only civilized portraiture will end this torture -

The means never justify the ends, all dead dogs

come home to roost, the beavers are out of their

kennels, and the chickens are all howling at their moon.

4192. AT THE WILD CAMP

AT THE WILD CAMP

Horses are broken here like steeds

at a poker table, wincing for nothing

and then letting off steam. I don't know

the means nor the manner, but that's

how the cowboys tell it. My little car,

the Opel that brought me here, lies

now leaking in its own puddle of juice.

I certainly cannot just walk back home.

-

Should I look around for some other ride:

some horse-guy's junker sister in an

open-top convertible would be about right:

a Jean Harlow lookalike vamping like some

Marilyn Monroe? I couldn't tell anyway,

and she'd probably be taken. Bank books

and credit cards are all these people know.

-

I have a birthmark on my belly, a swirl in

brown shaped just like a woman's buttocks.

I can fully explain that to anyone who sees.

Around here, I can just say I was kicked

by a horse and get on with the sister.

That's really not so bad at all.

4191. THE PEOPLE MUST BE STOPPED

THE PEOPLE

MUST BE STOPPED

The landsman enters the arena, singly

and alone. He wears no cap, nothing to

signify a place or a rank. Bowed down,

he is already beaten and wounded.

We rise on one great cheer: 'Kill him!'

-

I am of little faith but essence. I wonder

less about my place than about my name.

I want to be whipped, in the same way

the landsman was killed; by the jumbled

roar of seven hundred people : idiots all,

fools, those who jeer at nothing.

-

They themselves are haunted by their

own awareness; of their ignorance and

stupidity, their lack of place or sense,

the slow, dense dribble of all that keeps

them living. Beneath the secluded sunlight,

I would watch writhe and quiver. As they

died, in the manner of the landsman they've

killed, I would rise to cheer. Oh man, how

I would rise to cheer the deed!

4190. NOTHING LIKE

NOTHING LIKE

There is nothing like bird speck on a pale horizon,

or some sickening painting of a scene of death -

all those king's horses and knights in armor bloodied

and dead on the field - to bring me home for a rest.

Refresher courses in bullshit art I do not need. The

medieval scholar, the Professor of Smirk, all those

Princeton guys with fat books for commercial heads,

they make me run off screaming. Who runs this

dog-like place, some other creature from the kennel?

I walk the trees towards Nassau Hall and wonder why :

where anyway am I headed and for what? All this old

colonial drivel covering lies and covering twisted tales.

Names of voracious men eating anything in their way,

that's all I hear. This was a Christian farm for mama's

boys when it all began, and not much else. What do

we have today? The same crap, but with an international

and guttural outreach so paltry as to lose all focus or

want. The cock crows every fifteen minutes around

here, and they ring the bells of decorum while the

ivy-lingered windows gape and grumble. The little

train in the distance, with all its turgid noises, just

comes and goes, over and over again, all day long.

Nothing like a regular plum to bring the doctor home.

4189. ALL THE DEALS AND TASKS

ALL THE DEALS

AND TASKS

The situation grows : all along the

wharfside piles of bottled beer get

emptied and somehow an empty

pile grows. These guys talk and

drink like birds pecking at bread. I

have a headache just watching.

-

Just down the ramp, where I sit about,

my Huck Finn demeanor has my feet

up, perched on a drayage wagon filthy

with straw and old tomatoes. I never

understand such rural feelings in the

middle of a large, teeming city like this.

-

Twelve bucks a day gets me going. All the

deals I can have for the picking - wristwatch,

record player, shoes or a hat. When a young

kid starts working, the eyes go blind with the

expectation. I really need a bicycle, but I

can steal one quicker than buy.

-

Now I rise up and see a noon-day sun blaring

down on me. I have ten things to do; that list

this morning was large, but it's going OK. I

see two dogs playing kettle by the leaking

hose. The water runs down the ramp, dropping

listlessly into the harbor. no one seems to

mind nor notice. Least alone me, in need

of a reason to go on to the next.

4188. AT THE CORFU DIG

AT THE CORFU DIG

I've rattled the bones of Nature's last

archaeological tidbit : I came away with

all the dust of broken hearts and limbs.

The marks of all those students digging,

for naught, meant nothing, had no use

at all. Every night in Greece it was drink,

drink, drink. Some sang by fires, under the

open sky; other slipped away to fuck. But

why? Under all these madman-ancient-skies,

is there no place left for other men's dreaming,

other civilizations' tries? We walked the ruins,

constantly searching  -  a stupid university

group on Summer tour digging. Bones and

implements of kings and paupers. Everything

found, but nothing uncovered.

Bare and naked, all things were.

4187. AT THE TOWER

AT THE TOWER

At the tower up there I thought

I heard you say 'if the captives are

coming, I bet it's the end.' Probably

that was all wrong anyway, but that's

what I took from you. I need to alleviate

this stillness that haunts me  -  all

these tainted things, my soul, your

open heart and mind, the edgings of

all my muscles and the traffic of my

blood. We walk together like kin, but

the hardships always linger. Distance

and time make a filigree of my sordid

crossword mind. I want to be where the

action is, yet I can't even find a doorway.

At the tower I thought I swore I heard you

say 'I love you, let's run.' Yes, now already

you deny this, and everything else too, and

my sickening trajectory flies downward like

stocks and bonds on a massively bad day.

4186. BOUNDED BY IMMOVABLE OBJECTS

BOUNDED BY

IMMOVABLE OBJECTS

(alien life forms)

Alien life forms, in the kitchen sink;

when I get older everything will fall

into place so well. Arch Street thinks

not much of these Indians, so to speak.

Detour the blizzard and overtake their

ice. Now listen up, all Life is perfect

and everything fits perfectly into its

place  -  and anyway, who really

remembers the Trail of Tears?

-

You are not of this Earth and even

your body is Divine. Your breath is

miraculous and your face  is design :

Listen to me  -  take no refuge in the

clawhammer antics of Reason and

Logic. They will fail you in the end.

You are Divine, and if you do not

recognize that fully, you will fade.

-

First face the impasse of reaching

the great divide. It is your human

passage, and your Spirit will recognize.

Pass through it, carefully, and come

out the other side. Alien life forms

your Soul will abide.

4185. GRAND ENTANGLEMENT

GRAND ENTANGLEMENT

A grand entanglement will take me

away and carry me far to some other

place. Old people must prepare for an

finish to this fair and foppish race.

Labor, speed, strive, design, love,

cling, uphold, give way : ah! what

a stupid litany this Life and Living is.

'Love that well which thou must

leave 'ere long.'

-

My pen is the pencil of this grieving  -

and it can be erased, but only if I try.

To these carnival-vented eyes instead

is preserved a version of fear; one elixir

of dread and doubt. Drink up this old

draft of love and money, why don't you,

and then find that woman and say to

her : 'you are mine!'

-

The voices are tired; not soft, just tired.

All that ribald chatter at the now empty

tables has gone away. A thin, weak voice,

like Billie Holiday's itself, bears no new

retelling, and I won't say. Bring me home

again to your arms. (Permit me voyages,

love, into your hands).

4184. LENNY BRUCE AND RANDY NEWMAN

LENNY BRUCE AND

RANDY NEWMAN

...Don't know the difference between a race and a

trace, or grace and 'all Thrace is lost'. Glory, glory

hallelujah, how these little Jews'll do ya'. Ribald

humor, theatrical shtick, Vaudeville pick. I love it

y'all. My Jackie Kennedy joke to your 'short people

please Mr. President' routine. Have pity on the

working man. And what have we done to deserve

all this? 'Lenny Bruce is dead; I rode with him in

a taxi once...'

4183. STEADFAST

STEADFAST

I held all the premonitions as true to what

they were. My sombrero said 'where's the hat?'

What part of lucky do you not understand?

-

Far-flung places between ports of call :

I entered Morroco in June and by the

10th was in Malta itself  -  that little old

bookstore lady I knew, talking so crazy

once more. She stands five feet five and

talks like a man - idle, deep voice, all about

guns and criminals and men in charge.

All that, and then she laughs it off.

-

The sparkling oasis never sparkles more

then when you finally realize that all the deeds

they give you to do are but the ones they won't

do themselves. That's how it is with class struggle.

Fat cats pretending to be nothing more than on

your side, while they take it all home for themselves

and giggle in stride. Guns to the battle,

take arms to these thieves!

4182. ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE STOLEN

ALL THE THINGS

THAT ARE STOLEN

Up the causeway and over the bridge, the guy

running with a stolen bicycle : flat tire no matter

run fast get away. I can see how it all works.

One must operate fast, swiftly, quickly, like

illicit love on a train, in a cabin you're not

supposed to be  -  stretching somewhere

across the middle of France. Her bare ass

up over the webbing on the back of the seat,

your legs straddling her like a machine gun

blasting down a cavern, a fox hole, a bunker,

a trench. Just like any of the old wartime stuff;

and isn't war just sex anyway with another name? 

Throwing that skirt up over her face, I thought of

nothing so much as getting it done and leaving

no trace. Like the coal car in a picture of some

old blackened train  -  spewing smoke and grime,

but no one really knowing a thing, no one

really knowing a thing about any of it at all.

4181. GODDESSES OF THE MARKETPLACE

GODDESSES OF 

THE MARKETPLACE

Goddesses of the marketplace on New Year's

Eve! Aye! It's me! But not really. It's she!

It's all self-image; from Ayn Rand to the

Dorsey Brothers, with their feet up on

an old Dodge coupe. Nothing ever 

happens. 'Less you expect, the more

you get.' A great showman : Elmer

Gantry : Sensei : I am Teacher.

-

Open up your dowry, sister. Watch

the moths fly up : (cantankerous

counter-pussy conflagrations always

arise  -  since she was a little girl it's

never been right). Black sister white

woman snowball acres in black and

white, all that livid groan and moaning.

There I go, dreaming again.

-

The gamblers have shuttered the

mouthpiece : pencil skirts and bare

legs and spiky heels. The smokers

sit still at the table  -  the greedy

guys eyeing the lasciviously all that

they see : 'this one's for you, that

one's for me.' Genial, affable invite

of pure sexuality. I wonder why it

all happens in such a quiet way.

4180. MOONLIGHT

MOONLIGHT

Moonlight is dregs over a sad and

broken landscape  -  moonlight is

nothing at all. It is a tincture of taking,

a blight of delight. Moonlight only 

reflects  -  the big beam over the

trestle'd pond, the chafe of the

train dragging hoarsely itself over

the face of this Earth. It is sorrow,

and it is loss  -  to those who take

pleasure from all moonlight's old

cliches, I say : 'stand back and

listen to the moonlight's gloomy

sounds. Yes, even the birds sing

glumly of their darkened fates.

Moonlight is nothing at all.'

4179. SHANKER, NY

SHANKER, NY

Many are the offspring of such delight and aim :

the differing stars align, the old hills are groaning.

I walk along this drifted stream, watching train cars

and a bulldozer snack in the trees; an old fence sags,

graffiti'd with words of no sense 'Lackadaisical songs

sound O long DYR.' Across from all this, in the old

house now a gallery, a group of little kids are held

in a party; birthday streamers and balloons out

the front door while the mothers watch

and others arrive. The train rolls away.

-

Dispatched like gravy from a ladle, the people

who have come off the train walk their way

across pavement; oblivious to all else

around them, they enter the small

town as one, knowing little of

what they see or where

they are.

4178. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

I've haunted every landlubber like a tribesman

on the hunt - vowing to murder each intruder

I find. This enormous place was once alone my

land, now they've put crap at each corner. My

ancient Chinese Library has taken a dive, the

crumpets at the Taoist Center are stale, and

every English bastard I've ever known keeps

drumming on a barrel in a sweat to save the

Queen. What do I care for that? I am a totally

sorry soul, and a very peaceful man. Any

act beyond my real intention can only

be an aberration.

4177. MY COUNTRY WIFE

MY COUNTRY WIFE

My country wife serves me daggers

and is a braggart  -  all those eggs on

an insensate sea. We are like a deck of

cards  -  my joker to her queen. Listing

all the sanctions, I see the country doctor

cut the deck  -  to make the country wife

smile, he sutures the gashes shut.

4176. GONNA' FINALLY FOLLOW

GONNA' FINALLY FOLLOW

That one to his death : holding hands

with someone I love. That crazy girl

with the black Mercedes who wants

to be a boy, the lady on the lake, the

girl in the far Canadian wilds. I'm

dreaming I made a mistake. Sometimes

everything happens at once; other times

nothing at all. My heart I place in the

hands of one who feels. I am strangely

lost in the space of my time. Miraculous

board games? No, not that. Alexandrian

quatrains; OK then. There beats no better

place than hands that have touched the

abstract to the core. My art is an act of

love, and vice-versa too. Gonna' finally

follow, no matter what else I do.