4684. IF THE FOUL POLE IS REALLY FAIR...

IF THE FOUL POLE IS REALLY

THE FAIR POLE, THEN HOW 
COME THE TRUTH ISN'T 

REALLY A LIE?

Justice demands; I say. Your pajamas are in a

heap and the water in the kettle seems boiling  -

I hear that silly water-whistle, it seems, over and

over. What is it you make with that stuff? Tea,

or some crummy coffee? 'Gads I hope not that.

-

The weather balloon just landed in my living room.

The markings on it proclaimed 'The End Is Near',

so I began looking around  -  seriously, hard, and

in earnest. All the best things in life are gone.

-
The plural of 'goose' is 'geese'  -  even I know that

much; but what the heck is the plural of 'plural'?

More than that, I'll never know. Seems there's just

too much of everything and it's all out of control.

-

If the Truth isn't really a lie, than what's all that

blather about the foul pole?

4683. THE BROKERED CONVENTION THAT SELECTED ME

THE BROKERED CONVENTION 

THAT SELECTED ME

I told my mama long ago :  'It wasn't no good, 

it was crooked.' Why anyone would pick me out

of a hat, I'll never know. She said 'don't be

silly, they just wanted to see what would happen -

now go wash your face and your hands.'

4682. MAGISTER LUDI

MAGISTER LUDI

I've read all that Hesse stuff; been 

Glass-Bead Game'd to death. Now I have

to look backwards and just marvel at the

ground; all those things I've passed. I once

loved everyone, then I once loved no one at

all, then I once more loved the world. Some

creep at the deli said 'Listen pal, I'll believe

that when I see the holes in your hands.'

I didn't take offense, just went on my way.

-

There no sense seeking solace in a boat 

that's filled with holes. Sooner or later,

the real depths are 'gonna get you.

4681. TIRED ENOUGH?

TIRED ENOUGH?

(laurel hill cemetery)

The robin never makes its presence known

outside of its own polite circle of being. At

dawn, I can see them running  -  skittering

along the ground, too loose to fly and too

busy to stop. All so curious how they go as

the new day's light comes up.

-

I've tried to spike my fingers to the ground;

holding in abeyance any wants or doubts. It

all comes down to what you believe : the Winter

days (I well remember) with the ground so hard

with ice for days you'd never poke a hole. No

birds either. I believed the world was frozen dead.

-

I hesitate to say, but here it comes again. Or more

perhaps I mean to say there it all goes once more.

We are ending that cycle of gleeful joy when the

mouth can talk. I know what it's like to be cold.

-

At the cemetery in Philadelphia, high above

Fairmount Park, they have displayed  -  in the

administration/office/store  -  an ice casket from

days of old. On wheels, metal and wood, made to

last, this viewing-box casket which would be filled

with ice in the chamber below while, covered by a

lid of glass, the cold-chilled body was displayed.

-

Now, in this frivolous season of Halloween, instead

of all that, they're running costumed tours for visitors

of the cemetery grounds themselves. Ghoulish cadavers

walking by, I stand back to be watching them pass.

4680. PHOTOGRAPHER'S HOLD

PHOTOGRAPHER'S HOLD
(cartoon world)
I took a first step; jumping down from the platform to
shoot out the TV. It was easy, and the sparks were
fun. Now I'm alone and all packed away. The man
with the ice tray, he comes pattering through holding
his arm high. He says he's here to help; spending time
with the doctor I knew. It's difficult putting things into
words, but no one listens anyway. Playing by the rules?
That's all so yesterday.

4679. INEQUITUDE LIKE TUESDAY

INEQUITUDE LIKE TUESDAY

(true story today)

That car keeps following me around.

That driver, I know, is a sinner. I can

tell he steals diamonds from mines.

-

All these birds are kept in glass cages;

a hotel lobby no bigger than Hell.

The guy comes over and starts talking.

-

About 'retirement', he says. I'm suspicious.

I neither know the guy nor like what I see.

He says he's 31, already double-dipping, in

the military, a Black-Hawk helicopter mechanic,

and wants to keep doing that until 60. Full pay

from the military, as a soldier, and another

pay as a combat-level mechanic.

-

The 'pension' he says goes like this : he can stay

working at Wrightstown, for twenty years, and 50

per cent vested pension, and then do the same as

 a mechanic and get 50 there. He says 'people

misunderstand '20 and out'. After twenty, it's only

50% -   you have to work 40 years to get 100%.

I'm not working for 40    instead I can work for

20, double-dip, and get the equivalent of 100%

at two levels of 50%.' Then he asked if I understood.

-

I'm so fucking proud of my God-damned nation.

4678. A QUIET CAB

A QUIET CAB

Having never shot from a window, I can't

explain the idea of movement. Aiming a bit

ahead of the moving target, I think that's right  - 

but I am moving too. The globe itself is turning

and moving, both. But relativity takes care of

that, making all things appear as still.

Stationary. In place. What sort

of world is that?

-

Erasures blur the surface  -  scratch the

image, move the eye. Nothing seems

left when done. I look for glare at the

window's edge. There is nothing in

this quiet cab : I have a broom, a knob,

a door-handle and a lamp. Six hundred

years ago, would I not be a rich man?

-

The elixir of Life is the elixir of Self, and

the journey of the two together matter.

I am searching hard for something,

but have I lost my way?

4677. RIDE ME THE REDEMPTION TRAIN

RIDE ME THE

REDEMPTION TRAIN

I was walking along Park, thinking of death :

pale rider, symbolic horse, and all the rest. Up

ahead of me, I realized, was Grand Central and

a reason for my thinking these thoughts. Someone

recently gone  -  wasn't that the way? Sorrow

sometimes likes to linger, though I don't know 

why. These were streets I recognize, in the

light, in the dark. From some sacristy or

choral post, I heard voices rehearsing a

recitative. One, two, and then more,

words and voices together. Out front,

I saw a man alone, smoking a

cigarette in the wind.

-

'Ride me the redemption train', the voices

now were singing. So close to zero, so

near to the hour. I could have sworn an

angel descended from a rooftop post,

fluttered and, hesitating, had to decide

which of us two to take : the man

with the cigarette, or me.

4676. SEASONS

SEASONS

I've never made metal, and I've never made

stone. How they even do that, I've never known.

I notice we loved Summer to death  -   now

it is Autumn, come taking our breath.

4675. JAILER

JAILER

If I was a jailer in a biblical cell, I'd

call out the lions on you. If I was Salome,

calling for a head, I'd put you in the place

of John. Nothing else would do.

-

Now they're writing poetry on bathroom walls

in places I never go  -  others tell me about it  -

long poems with weird words, words like tits

and twat and crotch. What do these people do

who sharpen these quills,  and where now has

Will Shakespeare gone? All attempts 'to pluck

out the heart of this mystery', as Shakespeare

put it, would fail. I am sure of that.

There is no prodding the line.

4674. CIRCUS ACT CIRCUMFERANCE

CIRCUS ACT CIRCUMFERANCE

Twenty-three clowns all in a row, riding

mini-bicycles and grinning. Two monkeys

fighting over large plastic keys. This crowd,

like a closed fist soon to punch, roars with an

almost jealous laughter  -  at something so

vague as to be too dense. What are these

idiots doing? Why does a monkey yet

care about keys? And  -  going around

in bicycle cirlces like morons  -  don't

those clowns know, right now, that

someone is home, at each of their

homes, with each of their wives

at this moment?

-

(It ain't me, but I'm just saying.)

4673. PNEUMATIC THE TENSION

PNEUMATIC THE TENSION

This room is stifling and you drill me like a

drone; tensing muscles in the face of my head.

Outside, the girl with the yellow Kia has left

it running again. If such things would only

ever run out of gas. The serene after-effect

of pleasure makes me wish you'd already left.

I'm too old now for this snarky shit again.

-

I must ask my father once more  -  why, oh why,

was I born into this mess : poverty and dire

straits, replete with foundational instabilities

and a family of liars and cheats. Detrimental

happiness is nothing so good at all.

-

I wish I was running for office, then at least

I could lie and stammer. As it is, something

in my blood makes me speak the truth, which

always hurts. You jackass. You fool. You

tempermental lout; emphasis on mental.

-

Today I visited the Delaware Water Gap again

and hiked for miles the Appalachian Trail,

looking for a place where I could jump off

and not fail  -  splatter on rocks, splinter

to pieces on the far down-below. Die

of a million newly broken bones.

4672. SUSTENANCE

SUSTENANCE

Giving me my daily bread must often

get so boring : niceties abound, the

world is a shelf for space.

4671. THE HUMMINGBIRD'S QUEST

THE HUMMINGBIRD'S QUEST
(the arsonist)

I went absent at the great conflagration, running

for my life at the time  -  fleeing past countless

horrors; the ways and the endings of hundreds.

Building to window to building and glass the

flames spread, fast. People were subsumed as

quickly as their awareness awoke to what the

flames bespoke. Death and destruction and

the drummings of doom. I stood not fast

to look back; the hummingbird's quest.

-

Put your pencils down, for I will speak

no more. It is too late to infiltrate the

gate. The money has been spent and

the deeds already done : finished,

all that work. We spread panic

and we spread fear. Flames

here and flames there.

-

Now 'tis the morrow of the notion,

and another day entire. In place,

still wings buzzing, only still

the hummingbird's quest.

4670. GROLIER

GROLIER

I'll mark you down for nothing as much as

your little place, your mind in the weeds of

stackpole and venomland. Nothing really at

all, just made-up places in the mind. Yes, I've

studied hundreds of things : all to no avail.

Those natives on the watery-land, Manhattan's

bad end  -  for trinkets and beads all sold down

the river to some Dutchman's weird accolades.

It's over now, Buddy. Listen up and take note.

-

The carnage is now on land : eighty-story buildings

eating sky for breakfast. Down below, in patterned

waverings, the umbrellas' people swankly stroll.

Movies are made of all this now. How droll.

-

I shot my wad at St. Lucie. I split my hatch at

Ray's Sport Shop. The firing range was open

for years  -  no questions asked. Let me say

this one more time : It's over now, Buddy.

Listen up and take note.

4769. AT FRIEDLANDER STATION

AT FRIEDLANDER STATION

The hemp-rope twined itself around

the piling  -  a wood and fiber jewel  - 

while trucks rolled in drooling. The

stevedore contingent had already arrived.

'These boats to be loaded, men, are all

ours for the task.' By 8AM, the new

sun was already old.

-

I have lived with contradictions for ages  -

like the Latin words it comes from  -  'talk

against' or 'one diction in opposition'. However

you'd like it, there it is. And  -  whoops again  - 

the yellow sun is shining in the rain.

-

Young boys playing marbles by the alleyway

walls  -  the church on eleventh street with its

too-precious school and its absurd blessings  -

all of these things fight me to contradict, go

against my heart, speak foul things.

Go on, go on then, growl.

-

Another truck has just come bounding into the

yard  -  more noisy than the others, more sinful,

seemingly, than the ovenbird bums nearby. I

remember finding a dead bird at the edging, there,

with its beautiful beak : yellow/gold and long,

like a needle-point-dagger, I buried it in the

nearby soil  -  beak and all.

-

'Used for digging bugs and probing,' the bird book

said about that beak. I didn't know a thing. Now the

men are throwing bales and barrels, instants sparking

on the pavement  -  unceasing rumble and rattle and

racket. All that, it seems to me, at Friedlander Station;

used for digging bugs and probing, perhaps, in a

pure contradiction to my imagination.

4668. JUMPING THROUGH HOOPS

JUMPING THROUGH HOOPS

Having met the Friday mothers I am no worse for

wear  -  passing through them as I was  -  slacks and

jeans and hair. They seemed so self-possessed.

-

The terminal itself, it seethed with quiet. The

getting-to was all the thing  -  cars and strollers

and carriages and bags, and the rattle of all

those kids  -  truly, a hubbub of inequitude.

-

But, I beg to differ this : a man who spends all

his days with kids  -  like that father with two

nine-year olds  -  now that is a different thing.

Though he says he loves his free-time too, what 

can be learned from the winds and wings?

-

'Having met the Dalai Lama,' another says, 'I am

no worse for wear. His wisdom said 'adore the

little words, for there is a wisdom there.''

4667. DOESN'T INCLUDE FINGERS

DOESN'T INCLUDE FINGERS

I realize now the shallows are deep, and I'm

not headed anywhere soon. The fixture of my

own time is but a memory, sad and dingy, of

things I may have missed  -  the crazy guy on

9th street swinging a two-by-four at people

walking by; that topless girl I saw in August, 

riding a bicycle with her nipples erect. The

whole world is sometimes a bad language

I cannot understand. My sign-language

doesn't include fingers.

-

One day  -  it was a Tuesday  -  this guy

said to me : 'How is it you're standing here?'

'Who's to say I am?' I replied. He let it go,

and moved aside. The whole thing was

like playing cards with a moron. I'm

Pretty good at that, for sure. My sign

language includes no fingers.

4666. DISTALIC MAD RUSH

DISTALIC MAD RUSH

I never know what anyone is talking about :

heart attack blood pressure diet and health.

What the jingle-jangle silly shit do I really

care? Everything on the circle comes back

again, and  -  as the graveyard clown said

when popping out of his cadaver cake  - 

'ain't I dead already?'

4665. A MILLION FEET OF MANNERISMS I HAVE LOST

A MILLION FEET OF

MANNERISMS I

HAVE LOST

(How Morphs the World Away)

 ........

- Behind the Iron Curtain of Mind -

Not being around long, or not so much

these days anyway, I know I have missed

a lot of things  -  yet I enjoy these distraught

vagaries. The guy with the metal hammer,

looking straight at me, he seems to stammer:

'I love Bellow, and oh, that Augie March.'

Time flies like a petal, pedaling now from me.

- -

All the nervous tables I've sat at, and all

those awkward people with their strict tattoos

 that must be seen, amount to nothing more

strange than you. Like turning off 'Guns & Roses'

for 'Jessie's Girl' - which is what the coffee shop

guy just did here. It must have been a million

feet  of goodness that we passed.

- -

How morphs the world away :  all those old,

American blues guys become Led Zepplin, which

then somehow itself becomes Def Leppard. Well

maybe, almost the same - with the double P's

and the 3-letter start.

--

(It must have been a million feet

of goodness from the heart).

4664. PRE-SUPPOSE

PRE-SUPPOSE

Remember before the beginning, when only the

wind was high in the trees  -  no line, no lights.

I liked it all much better when I was awake.

-

Now, like a garnet, set in some wild oasis, I'm

sitting in a car. How ever did I reach this point :

some starry-eyed misnomer, this high world.

I do not belong.

-

My second life is as a man of the streets : something

strange and awkward; life among taxis, days within

weeks. Along the highway, I suddenly see how they've

faked real rocks with concrete-formed illusion to

pretend a highway through the hills.

-

How false and illusionary all things are.

4663. I DESIGN

I DESIGN
I design the minutes I live in, thank you :
that wonderful window overlooking the sea,
the stairway that climbs the sky. Here are the
daffodills I dreamed of in Winter; somehow now
they have come back again. My dreams are all of
my hallways; as my doors are my entries to bliss.

4662. HABEUS CORPUS CHRISTI

HABEUS CORPUS CHRISTI

A town in Texas, perhaps? Or a new title by

Ashbery or Seidel? Calhoun, Sumter, Lincoln,

Webster  -  all them old-time dudes fighting off

their plague. I never cared, nor understood.

John Brown's body did what it should. Now

John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave.

-

As it seems to me, under Autumn sky, under

April's fronds, under Lincoln's last-in-the-courtyard 

bloomed lilacs, we should at least  -  if we are teaching

a History  -  teach the Truth. The Truth is that all

facts lie and there's not a nothing that's not another

attempt at twisting the truth.

-

'The veriest spawn of the 'Father of Lies' is

that creeping creature called compromise.

Come to your senses! Up! Arise!'

-

October 1859 burned the distance between the

bridges  - all hate and solidarity now had their

forces aligned. 'John Brown was hanged, and just

in time,' they said. 'Stop those Abolitionist bastards
where their mothers dined.Their pabulum of fetid

milk shall we spoil anew!' John Brown's 

body lies a moulderin' too.

4661. MAD DISHEVELMENT

MAD DISHEVELMENT
They ran off with the stranger before his
name was even known. They took him
at face value, and dropped him off at home.
The most simple train to Connecticut was
running late and off the track. I squandered
nothing, and just walked back.

4660. I NEVER KNEW WHAT A BALLAD WAS

I NEVER KNEW WHAT
A BALLAD WAS
The idea behind the essence was the notion of
happening and act. Otherwise, I always figured,
we are just frozen in time. Outside this filthy
window, yellow taxis are trolling by like disease.
-
One of the girls, I notice, has left behind her
nicely-lined gloves. Out in the street, two kids
are jumping about - must be some sort of
music in their ears. I never was partial to that
manic stuff; yet, I never knew a ballad either.

4659. IN THE NAME OF ROLAND KIRK

IN THE NAME OF
ROLAND KIRK
Every trill staccato, every jump, is mine -
I've stood in this loft for seven years just waiting
for this day. Now Velvet Brown, now Disney Dank.
We've got to find a name for this sort of new push
overnight. Brash and bold, I am doing that. This 21st
street location is perfect - there are men in the
freight gate waiting, and all this loft is mine.

4658. IRON MAN

IRON MAN
The one in the middle, demanding to pay, he stood up.
I watched the rendering of a scene as an artist would watch,
lines moving, shaded colors, edges. The sounds were from
another world altogether - a few couples, expensively dressed,
out together. The one guy, soaring like an appaloosa on high,
showing his stuff by grabbing the bill. Is that how the wealthy
do it? To prosper so well; how much I enjoy the very idea.
-----
Were I to say 'My Avanti needs a tune-up; my Ferrari sure
can run' something along that line - would it get me to that
club? The way I figure, this fine fellow can pay for my lunch
anytime he wishes. That's not the issue here. I walk on my
sliding rocks, just hoping not to fall : far above my head, the
tall skyscrapers remain - steady and present and sure.

4657. AT HAMMENSTAT AND IRINDY

AT HAMMENSTAT 

AND IRINDY
These are two streets in the map of my mind -
streets where nothing intersects with nothing
and yet all points converge. There are signs
attesting to same : the spider's web of logic and
the details of coffee and wine. Movies play endlessly
all hours, while drunks lurk and stagger in corners.
Three children write their biographies, backwards
in sequence and time - they see all things and
are there all the time. I think that one of
them is me, at Hammenstat and Irindy.

4656. OVERTIME BLUES

OVERTIME BLUES

Tasting raspberries like marbles, picking peanuts

off the linen cloth  -  settings of mirth and delight.

Someone was trying to explain holiday parties to

me, but as I saw it they failed. I just wasn't truly

interested. See? Then this elderly lady came out,

lighting tall candles with a long-stick match.

It seemed like Act 3 in a 2 Act play. Or

something. The crowd roared in

approval. Like they ever knew.

4655. DAINTY FREAKING LOVEHEAD

DAINTY FREAKING LOVEHEAD
And the photographers agreed : never take
an inch when you can get a mile. Never take
a grin, when you can coax a smile.

4654. HYPATICA

HYPATICA

Blossom. Bloom. Field Spray.

Whatever entrance one makes, the

same exits will appear. Fall will bedevil

your leaves and flowers. All will be gone

in a week. I look skyward to see the steel

heights  -  things are glinting in the chiseled sun.

4653. HEAVY HANDS AND THE HOLDER

HEAVY HANDS AND

THE HOLDER

How do I know and where have I been? Simply, these

are things I do not understand. I have suckled my mental

infant in all stages of decay; what's come forth is a ragged,

raging youth. Now, the water at the E Street harbor still

rocks the boats and  -  it seems  -  nothing goes anywhere.

-

The light is on in the canyon. They have written books

about all these discoveries and finds. Is there anywhere a

man who can decipher these runes  -  in a way I'd want to

understand? Along the sorry bar at Puffy's, dead men sit.

-

More than a forest is the need for a tree;

something to take me in.

4652. HOW CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT YOU?

HOW CAN I LEARN

MORE ABOUT YOU?

I open the book and this photo falls out  -  nothing I know,

no one I've seen. In your hand, unassumingly, there is held

another photo, an image I can barely see  -  I think it's a

brand new car. The old kind of car, the big square box.

-

If there's a story here, my God I've missed it. What was

your year, and where are you from? How many things here

are characteristic of the rest of you? On your finger seems

a large purple ring  -  what is that, why is it there?

-

All these mystreries abound, swaddling me like an old

delivery blanket  -  the excitement centers on my not

knowing at all. I love the thought of darkness  -  yet I

seek just a little light. Yes, I seek just a little light.

4651. SOLID MATTER

SOLID MATTER
The first thing you learn is there is none :
the world melts, it drips, it sags. The world
goes bad. Keep away from that which most
happily bothers you. There is no glee in sorrow.
-
I listen to the jingle of that scat-man's keys;
he is walking the 12th Street harbor way, down by
Westbeth, while whistling some natty tune. What
is he thinking? Perhaps he will know soon....
-
Only myself, and another angel, we know together -
the world will split, the world will break you, the
world will dissolve away. There is nothing so
vital as something today. All is solid matter.

4650. TARANTULA BOYS

TARANTULA BOYS
They hammer at their luck like men on a mission -
striking fists, hard as steel, walking the tightrope
between the gulf. It never begins to dawn, all this
idea of having ideas, until too late. Late at night,
when the stars are out, skating figure-eights in
a dark-man's alley, they are seen still hard at work.
I want to egg them on, tell them stories, make things
up. Why not? I think I will.

4649. JUST A FEW MOMENTS FOR TIME

JUST A FEW MOMENTS

FOR TIME
The cars in the caravan can carry you, Len,
be not afraid of that. All the sky that rumbles
has not the power of this. I've looked about
for anything astray, anything loose or amiss.
It's only us again. I'm gazing at this concrete
face of someone, it seems, I once knew. Didn't
really - but that's what ideal character portrays,
is it not? Grace and the effrontery of perfection.
Right now, I'm so busy and I must be carrying on -
yet, give just a few moments for time,
if you don't really mind.

4648. UNITED MUSICS OF GEORGIA

UNITED MUSICS OF GEORGIA
Running the cat 'round the castle, the guy in the
treehouse sat up with a gun. Out there somewhere,
it was hunting season again. September's like that
when you live far out - here where the belly-bars
rustle, the cat-tails sway. I haven't mis-spoke now,
have I? Some Jim-Crow miscreant comes running
'round the bend. 'Be the one between the lines!'
he yells. What that means, no one tells. I just
move along. Scamper. Listen. All that song.
The united musics of Georgia again.

4647. HE STAMPS IN SILENCE

HE STAMPS IN SILENCE

In the year 1945 there wasn't much :

cigarettes and booze in a jagged, dark room.

The shadowy ladies, in their black-seamed

stockings, walked forth, proud to show their

show and smile back. The sailboats were out

from Marseilles. Fifteen magnetic moments.

-

Now the cattle-clock shows nothing; the dogs

are sniffing porcupines, going into the pond.

The flat-chested girls from the film festival

walk by; gingerly I look up, seeking the new

enhancement of a very treacherous life. And

pale-faced detectives walk down the halls.

-

Everyday, there is something in the road :

the dead elm has fallen; its large limbs

splayed and broken on the dirt. Had I

been there, beneath it, or anyone, I'd

be dead  -  and them. Wind rustles the

marsh-grass, silently.

-

Fifteen magnetic moments.

Pale-faced detectives are walking

by as the wind rustled the

marsh-grass, silently.

4646. MY FUNNY BLUE HOUSE

MY FUNNY BLUE HOUSE
My funny blue house will blind you, will
rip out your heart. The wings of a dove
are robin's egg blue? Could that be and
would that do? Everyone laughed as
I sat down to tell : this house on the
side of the road, in the sun, shining,
glowed. Everything else was still.
-
Sadness and sorrow are two brothers I knew....
We all went to school together, learning much
and forgetting much else. The shoe leather
burned the soul right through. Walking,
miles away, intentions won out.
-
My funny blue house will hold you closed,
shackle your heart as it unburdens mine,
will squeeze you tight 'till the
goodness flows.

4645. THE RUINATION OF ALL WE HAVE LIVED WITH

THE RUINATION OF ALL

WE HAVE LIVED WITH
I am so sorry for being alive, here. I am so rueful of
what transpires : Jesus in the imagery, a burning bush
in a Moses hand. The tallest building in the world stands
less tall than the least of us all - man from Mankind,
like a missile from Mars. We surmise our gropes from
mere shadows on the wall.
-
Now, I have lived long enough to love. To love not...hing
and everything at all, in equal measure. From the magic of
my hands I have made another world. Inducements to bring
me forth, and bring others in, at all times, are open. I do, truly,
love the world and all its little things and all its largest matters;
and for all the rest, be all of that as it may be.

4644. MANDELBAUM THE FIDDLER

MANDELBAUM THE FIDDLER
He runs circles around even the circles; making
moments that re-arrange the world. Magic flumes,
ancient fires, words enscribed on clay and platters.
Here I sit, five thousand years out of place.
-
Had any Adam said to any Eve, 'let's not even
get involed,' what you're saying is I wouldn't
be here now at all?

4643. ZERO FOR THE HERO

ZERO FOR THE HERO
The hour has finally come - when the nightbirds
are singing and the midnight flames are lit. We must
be on our way. A few people, sitting around a table,
cannot plan a revolution. What passes for equality these
days goes for nothing at all and all is one big heap instead.
-
Cufflinks and finger rings? A cigarette holder in solid gold?
What kind of peasants are these? The lead...er came and went
in less than five minutes : he mangled a phrase or two, and
ran off. I witnessed him picking his teeth. How gauche?
-
Run away with me instead. Who needs the violence and
the deep blue pain and loss? There's nothing to salvage;
skyscrapers and reflective glass, like this pale plan for
uprise and anarchy, are really all the modern age reveres.
-
Father forgive me, for I have sinned.
I murdered 14,000 in His name. 

4642. MENACING MOMENT

MENACING MOMENT

Those who came before have left the

belt of time and place. This train I'm

riding  -  I feel it is jury-rigged. Nothing

but memories punch the ticket I hold.

Outside my glance, the ambling

fence goes running on.

4641. SOURCING ZION

SOURCING ZION

Let me be the one; hold out the external hand

and I will fill it. There's a new sky above  -  all

different stars and constellations now. Something of

that, well, you've just got to take it, or it leaves you

by. So bad, would all that be. Let me in on

this now : mountains of the deluge, rising

no more. My own personal Mt. Ararat standing

next to Yasir Arafat, or, anyway, the ghost of.

And that's how very strange all these things are:

sourcing Zion at its source - more trouble than

it's really worth.

4640. YOU THE ONE

YOU THE ONE

Who brought down the house, who snapped the cable,

who ran the wires, who built the house? You the one?

Who tore the fabric, who paged the cavern, who flooded 

the cistern, who broke the wedge? You the one?

Who stole the car, who twisted the lattice, who

ran the bridge, who slept in the attic? You

the one? You the one? You?

4639. I MAKE NONE

I MAKE NONE

79th Street down on my luck; apologies, I make

none. She was the sister of Maddie Groves, and 

I took her quickly. She came all over my face 

and it was done almost in an instant. Never

before in that manner. Then we took a cab to

the Carlo Club on west 14th. There were at

least fifty others in line  -  starting to talk about

sex again, these two fumbling girls were sure

they could squirt. I believed not a word, just

waited in alliance. Friends with everyone, that's

me. It's so simple to go on and on, believing in 

yourself is the first step  -  I learned that in an 

Actualism class in California I took in '83. Then

this Zen guy, here, in the Zen Center, 2005, he

pretty much began spouting the same thing : it 

wasn't much, and it wasn't Zen, to be sure. In

his funny way (wavy accent) he used to say

all he 'wanted was to be getting laid.' 

'Never begrudge a man his dreams,'

 I said back. He told me that

sounded deep.