4850. ON TAGGERT'S GREAT WHEEL

ON TAGGERT'S GREAT WHEEL

Don't desist to belittle, cut me short with your

knife. I have to decide what is needed. Now

the open-end of the highway shows my number

at the door  -  I'm running, I'm running, but

don't know what for. 

-

The blousy lass with the purple eyes; I knew I'd

seen her before : I was watching the Rolling Stones

piss in some alley, it was 1964. The gas-station guy,

with his funny 'petrol' bullshit, was yelling at the top

of his lungs. I think Keith it was gave him the finger.

-

I've noticed time passes just like that liquid in a bottle.

Today, I saw a bottle of thrown from a pick-up truck

yellow liquid, in a plastic Coke container. At the side

of the road, the driver really had to go. He'd heaved

his essence away. Taggert's great wheel, returning.

-

'Under my thumb is a girl who once had me down.'

Oh, man, all those old stories coming back again.

4849. AMERICAN MAN ESCAPES FROM BOLIVIA

AMERICAN MAN 

ESCAPES FROM BOLIVIA

Well, well, well, if that ain't hay. Or if that don't

beat all  :  something, somesuch, whatever. The

La Brea Tar Pits, as well, put me in mind of this

movement. Only the Sabre Tooth Tiger, no

dinosaurs, even though people make the 

assumption. Dinosaurs were already gone.

In fact, I think it was 1959.

-

They've found a few Edsels and even a velvet

Elvis. Or is that Velvis Elvet? I forget; but it was

all so long ago. Other things, too, surprise. Saran

Wrap and aluminum foil. A bread wrapper from

Wonder, and even a Twinkie. Oh, did I tell you,

American man escapes from Bolivia. Did he

bring the Samba with him? Or is that the

Rhumba, or something else entire?

Oh lord, the things I forget.

4848. SUBSTITUTE

SUBSTITUTE

Let the winds subside  -  they are bending the

afternoon trees and things look bad. The bark

and the trunk, they twist and stagger, while

some of the branches already are fallen.

What is this wind we are mindful of?

-

Like a precious idea, once thought and

then brought to fruition, it all quickly goes

out of control. Fury is a lark, not one to

be misunderstood. This fierce wind

can cut a land to nothing; bare earth

being all that's left.

4847. YOU MAKE ME PENNILESS

YOU MAKE ME PENNILESS

And I don't care  -  I'm beginning to hate

everything and savor nothing alike. No distinctions

are charitable enough. The two white sisters, nuns

of the Sacred Something, are walking into the

hospital lobby -  their backs seemed hunched

to me, they look poor as they walk along. The 

burden of too many Jesus-years has them weighed 

down. So sad, when I look. How could they go on

like that  -  for years, crackers and water? The

equivalences of no thinking, the acceptance of an

old, rotten doctrine. It's no wonder their 

backs are crunched.

-

We should revel in everything, love the entire world,

eat sunshine for breakfast and lunch, fast our times away

with the lushness of sexual hardness, the deep squeeze of

coitus and cum. These two would never know that, formed

in their horrid dreams before some altar entwined

with chains and a miserable crown of thorns.

-

No wonder this hospital calls them  -  walking in

where dead men sleep, chastising themselves

while remaining meek. Poverty is a vow that's

come to me without asking  -  these two, by

contrast, took it on. I wish not to have them

spread it, like a foul disease, to others.

-

Find joy and happiness, dear sisters,

where you may, I guess; or where

you can. The world is a poverty

stricken place, yes, and you are

in it deep, up to your eyeballs

now, deep.

4846. FRED MOVED TO MGM

FRED MOVED TO MGM

My movie-money-guy friend is spending his

time at sea :  standing forth on water, and silent

he be. I haven't heard a word in weeks. Fred has

moved to MGM? I can't imagine when I'll see his

name again  -  some big-time headline about some

Saudi finance or Japanese money. Investors and

hot dogs and garlic. There's a spinning in this web

that leaves me dizzy looking  -  I cannot walk the

cable, nor leap the gorge it vaults. A couple of

fellows I once knew were trading gold when it

was eight hundred and fifty bucks. I don't know

where it's ended up, but the ingots and the bullion

are gone : they trucked it away one freezing February

morning, in an armored car that went the wrong way 

down a one-way street going up. Those streets down

by William and Nassau and Wall, they can be driven

at will if the trucks loaded with gold. Go where you

wish, my fellow. And now, a year or almost two later

all I'm getting is some nitwits playing carols on instruments

of brass. Christmas carols no less. Oh I hate the stuff.

Fred moved to MGM? Please, please, Fred; take the

Canadian Brass with you, and Jeff Spurgeon too. They're

worth their weight in garbage, I can tell you that. 

-

I was lost and now I'm found? 

4845. GENERAL AND SPECIFIC

GENERAL AND SPECIFIC

Two different tides at one time  -  the mix

of commingling, mashed. Harsh the dark and,

just as harsh, the light. Past the revolving glass

door, the view shows yellow taxis folding. It

appears overlapping, and goes away. The

long evening of artificial light drifts off.

4844. C. K. WILLIAMS

C. K. WILLIAMS

(there are no christian virtues)

I'm reading the words of a poet who's dying,

and (if you must know) it's making me sad.

Each little kindred thing  -  down the drain

again. My God how many memories hurt.

There's no snuffbox now between Magnolia's

knees  -  she spread them so long ago 

lest her guy go mad.

-

I'm reading the words of a poet who's dead.,

and God it's making me sad. Why should we

have to die? We should live forever; we good 

men, we soldiers of the road, we valiant warriors.

Every day is another deep freeze  -  frozen heart

and frozen emotion. Here, I am walking through

the crunch of an iced-over snow. The light

is just coming on in the canyon.

-

And I already have to leave.  I already have

to leave : reading a dead man's letters, to what

can my main heart cleave? 10am on a rotten

train filled with men and women alive  -  to

nothing, by contrast, really  :  lipstick and

face gloss, dainty brassieres and fingers

with rings, heels and shined shoes everywhere.

I am but a poet; by comparison, bedraggled.

We really should live forever.

4843. WE MUST COME TO TERMS

WE MUST COME TO TERMS

I am an aggravated man  -  with

varied levels to both my treacle and

venom. Either way you wish, it's yours.

Go for chance, and disappear, or  -  

no matter  -  stick around. From the

hand of my tongue, here is one thing I

surely believe  -  there is no truth without

authenticity. One cannot listen to 50-year-

old songs, my friend, and replicate the

times, nor the ethos. Be done with that.

You are not so hip.

-

The car-catcher is a cop, while the

cow-catcher catches cows on rail cars

of old across the American plains.

Understand we no longer fathom these

things, we are confused and we are 

adrift. Yet, because of all this, my head

 is somehow still full of illusion. I may 

marry these dates and times.

4842. ROMAN CARNIVAL OVERTURE

ROMAN CARNIVAL OVERTURE

That's how it's called, and I call it same  -  I love

some Berlioz any old time. Like Brahms, he's just

as much a king of gold. A man of old. Does eat oats

and mares eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll

eat ivy too, wouldn't you? Berlioz, well the rest, I don't

know. I guess it could fit some stupid-ass rhyme.  Does

eats oats and Berlioz and little lambs eat ....

-

Give me some better gumshoe malarkey, can you?

In this darkened, narrow room, the man in the dark suit

is sitting down with a deck of cards. I don't know how

they're marked, but I know they've got to be. He even

cheats himself at solitaire. I know that for a fact.

That's how it's called and I call it same.

-

That face I remembered before, on that detective I was

watching today  -  now, I remember again why it caught

my eye. The man was growing a thin white beard. It was 

about 5 days old, I'd guess, and he already was looking

as uncomfortable as could be. That kid'll be ninety-two.

Wouldn't you?

4841. WITH PING THE ARSENAL

WITH PING THE ARSENAL

Bring me home once more and I don't care

what else happens. You can tuckahoe your

own grand canyon ways - weaving the most

obstreperous things of a thin, weak lace. Look

at that lady over there : she thinks she's cagey,

but I know her other name. The high-fashion

parson she thinks she's dating - 'courting', my

grandmother used to say - to him it's all just

another illusion; he's got no arsenal, he's a Ming

the Merciless, a regular killer-dude. Everywhere

one looks now are funny names - the butcher-shop

calls itself 'a cut above'; the cafe owner reads the

rabble-power to name a new brew. 'Augey-Doggy'

is what they get. A real high-power eye-opening brew.

-

You know me and I know you. The funny trellis-man,

my sister calls him Ping. George Pingry is the full name,

and he owns 71 guns. I call him Ping the Arsenal, for real.

(Now we're sitting down to dinner, and I'm nervous as Hell).

4840. DORCHESTER AND AERIE

DORCHESTER AND AERIE:

(the art world, nyc, 1946)

Isn't there room for me in your random dream?

Can there be anything unsaid ? I walk along these 

pitter-patter streets where once Joan Mitchell walked - 

paintbox cardbox stretcher bars and cloth - and she was

crying, in her way just trying, as within every weathered 

surface she'd find something to make better and color 

and line and she'd stay late at places where the sad men 

cavorted drunk and talk back to them : 'stop it you 

cock-whacking infantile deadmen you all talk too much 

and all your infested imported daredevil dreams seem 

nothing now until you do them' : Franz Kline the beast in 

his black and white dreams; Hans Hoffman who jumps

from his push/pull mantle all listening to the sounds of old 

Europe ripping itself to shreds piecing the shrieking past 

back together again as best as can be : blood-dramas and 

Armegeddon playlists in the backrooms of Dorchester and 

Aerie but for us here instead wicked 17th street dreams, 

dying whimpers, the flaccid hand and the dead embers of 

all these dying days : rouse up oh men of this new age ! 

your sons and your daughters shall all efface time and 

make everything disappear and your own disgruntled 

words shall make me sick!'

4839. PSALM 53

PSALM 53

The walking dead man speaks thus:

'There is no God.'

-

Ravaging and abominating themselves

and others  -  they bring sorrow wherever

they go. No one works for the good of Thee.

-

The Holy One looks down  -  searching

for his persons of understanding those

seeking out Divine Truth.

-

They too have turned away, grown

foul and rotten with stench  -  

not even one seeks goodness.

-

Don't you know, evildoers, you who

eat other people and savor their beings

like bread of your own  -  you who

never call out to your God  -  that you

will meet your end, whenever it may be  -  

gripped with fear, shaking from within when

no terror exists. Your body your last venom.

-

God has already scattered the bones of those

like you. You will be filled with shame and you

will be refused at the fountain of a newer life.

-

So what's it going to be, fine landsman, ye  -  

will you seek joy, or captivity?

4838. LET THE MAGIC HAPPEN

LET THE MAGIC HAPPEN

Don't be a fool and let the points be lost : just

find the rest of those bones. Put the pick-axe down.

-

It's all as in a dream : we tumble, we jumble;

it's broke. Before the man arrives, in his ermine

coat, the silence will find us here. 

-

Now you have the skull. Alas,

poor Yorick, I knew him well.

4837. HOW CAN YOU MIND THE MENU?

HOW CAN YOU 

MIND THE MENU?

Put the deep fry far away, break the eggs

with kisses. Hold the syrup and toast the 

bread. How can you mind the menu?

-

Watch the water fill the glasses. Keep the

tablecloths clean. Play the moment and pat 

the butter. How can you mind the menu?

4836. FAKE ARM

FAKE ARM

The deep forest, like Ardennes, the

wallowing way of darkness and shadow :

I've come this far to take one minute more

to show all love and affection. I have no

regrets, but that the chicken-man was run

off the road. Trouble everywhere I go.

-

If Thursday was a bad day, why shouldn't the

Monday next be a disaster? I've noticed a 

hundred things now, each a little different.

Different? - as regal is different than large; only

that and nothing more. The silly girl is lying again.

-

Any money I may have had is gone now, in the

bank  -  no interest to speak of, but it was always

a pretty dull subject. I can extroplate while you

exfoliate  -  how's that sound to you? OK? Good.

Trouble everywhere I go, and that silly girl is lying again.

4835. RAMPING THINGS UP

RAMPING THINGS UP

Without a doubt, my fellows, we are going higher :

only using big words now, even my dog has a formal

tongue. I'm sitting back with a chromium pretzel, watching

some more of the news. All lies, but news nonetheless.

-

The world itself does not exist, until we make one up.

As water is neither here nor there  -  one minute a gas, 

another a steam, and then a stream and then frozen, a solid,

and then back again. All noxious, all disproving our existence 

too. I think 'Evaporation' is another name for God. The

Transformation of Water proves a forethought for sure.

-

Like the police say in legal terms proving a case :

'malice aforethought' means that guy thought about

the killing first and then intentionally went about producing 

it, doing it, executing the crime. The very worst kind.

Murder most foul. We should all be so lucky.

-

My own life? All things have lost all meaning  -  are

simply not there, have lost all intent. I exist, therefore

I am. Like Descartes getting an enema. 

That's good enough for me.

-

Now there's some creep on the TV : ranting and raving

about two inches of snow, a bunch of dead kids, a ramped-up

school shooting, and poor people spitting on food. He worries

more about his coif, I'd say, than his choice. His life is stinking

like shit. I can already smell it from the airwaves on TV.

And he can go to Hell. And he can go to Hell indeed.

4834. 4. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

4. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

I understand the clouds that cover thine

eyes  -  thou mayest see but not be seen, 

as we can be seen but never see. And

what am I without Thee, but an unseeing 

guide to mine own downfall. And what am

I at best, a suckling infant blind to the fault yet

searching with hands and mouth for succor. Yea,

let the strong and the mighty laugh at me while

my weak and needy soul  -  like so many millions

of others  -  shall ever confess to Thee.

-

And now I am knowing only that you knowest. 

I watch the parade of white buildings fade. I rue

the Rue  -  this or that Parisian street  -  Rue St.

Sulpice, Rue de Dragon, Rue de Baume.

Tu scis. Thous knowest.

4833. IS THIS EYE OPEN? (Prudentius)

IS THIS EYE OPEN?

(Prudentius/Job)

Wise motion spleens the new day.

Already, people are talking  -  it is

soon to be once more the shortest day.

No digressions needed  -  and besides, 

on that day there is no time. 'There

was a man in the land of Uz.'

-

I don't know about this idea of bliss  -  

why cave? Why give in? This is Job : 'the

Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.' T'was

Satan killed Job's children, and lambs and

cows and servants? No, it was God. Job tears

his robe and shakes his head. Is this eye open?

 'Blessed be the name of the Lord.'

-

Then it all goes to him  -  his skin boils up, the

worms, the clods of dust. 'My life is wind.' As he

sits down in a pile of ashes his wife is heard to say :

'Give up. It's over.  Curse ye God and die.'

-

Now it is me  -  I look out, curling pure color, and

cursing line and form. In my own hands are Eliphaz

and Bildad and Zophar too  -  the three wise men 

are negated by these three blundering oafs. It doesn't

 matter what one does  -  this world makes no moral sense.

'Miserable comforters are ye all. I am a brother to dragons.'

-

(We set our souls ablaze. Such sorrow passes)...

Sometimes we would teach, sometimes we would learn,

of one another. Docere aliquid invicem aut discere ab invicem.

4832. ROUGHENED TIMELAPSE ROCKCLIMBING

ROUGHENED TIMELAPSE ROCKCLIMBING

(nyc, 12.13.13)

I will not list more than this : trees can think; windows 

reflect; the car-drives will never drive themselves. 

My new friend owns a cabaret named 'Waddle's'.

Nothing more than that will ever occur.

-

Believe me, I took a real chance with this meadow  -

watching like Humbert Humbert viewing kids with cancer,

or lepers with boils; all things for the thrill of the road.

Now, the lady with the gentle voice is saying it's Christmas

time again. I cannot accept anything like that and go on living.

-

Along Lexington Avenue, the fat fellow with the coffee cup

again asks me for change. 'Change?', I say. I gave him two

quarters. He smiled and said, 'been waiting for a long time, sir.'

A part of me wanted to say 'how'd you get so fat then?', but

it's Christmas time in the city, and I'm a really nice guy.

4831. BLOODLETTING

BLOODLETTING

Shaker Heights in Ohio  -  the long production of

another play, wherein the warrants are handed

out by a yellow and tan monkey. He keeps the

keys in his hipster pocket. 'Hart Crane I ain't.'

-

I remember now : her name was Shirley and I

was filled with rain; the doorways were coated

in white sleet, iced over like Hell in reverse. When

her mother came down that expensive stairway, 

I knew I was doomed.

 - 

One warbler makes no sound. 

Two can make a racket.

4830. MR. APPLESTUFFING

MR. APPLESTUFFING

This lake is as big as a pond; this pond is

a large as two oceans. Nothing makes much 

sense from the inside out  -  the man from 

Laramie Heights is still twirling his gun. 

-

One hundred men are outside at the gate-watch.

Two long dead kings are returning. If they've

come back to  life, no one wants them. if they're 

yet dead there's no welcome anyway.

-

The last time I played cards with Death and Life,

two simple sides of the same shell-casing, we sat on

a beach  -  a rickety table roughed by the tides. No

one won and no one lost. That's just the way things are.

I am still here  -  it was a draw.

4829. 3. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

3. FRENCH FOR SPECTACLE

Good wishes bring us to make the one of the

many  -  e pluribus unum and benivole too.

And I have taken my own slow time, passing

backwards, returning : with Thee, where I

wish to be. For not Thou Thyself but my

own idle fantasies and errors were sometimes 

my God. Groaning and weeping make us be.

(As I head towards something, I realize it is

 and only arrive too late. Darning this life needle

is a death to be. Et tamen, and yet, et tamen.

-

Even these dismal French streets are wet :

glazed as they are with an ancient water like

tears, all things are shining back to source in

a grand half-light. Where was it possible to

fly from my own sight?

-

Where should I not have followed myself?

Quo non me sequerer?

4828. YOU DON'T NEED THIS DOMINO

YOU DON'T NEED 

THIS DOMINO

(1924)

Sugarman keeps the cattails swinging :

my East River blues are just starting. It 

was F. Scott Fitzgerald I saw at last,

just beaming his rifleman face across

that lonesome bridge, with a few Negroes

nearby in an open car  -  bug-eyed, happy,

and wide-awake. It all meant nothing, but

that the moment departed. East River blues.

East River blues. The red car is riding the

East River blues.

4827. A ROOMY CABIN FOR BULKY CLOTHES

A ROOMY CABIN FOR 

BULKY CLOTHES

The universe is a problem, an accent on a language 

that does not exist, an image projected within, from 

which no separate self-light emits except darkness. 

We crinkle our fingers around an orb and say 'this is it.'

-

I have a hankering for nothing, and nothing to hanker for.

Here again, the voices are warbling, 'soon to be the darkest,

soon to be the shortest day again.' Take that solstice stuff

and shove it please; for only is lonely as lonely believes.

Better believe me instead, 'there is nothing, Jeeves.'

-

One time, in a boiling attic, I feel asleep for a decade. I

was sick, and a headache and nauseous degrees of angst

had gripped me like fever. I awoke, transformed, and some

people from England started feeding me warm tomatoes on

toast. They said to eat up, this was breakfast in Britain.

-

And what did I know; I did what they said. A car that I

called for finally came and got me  -  drove me away to

another day  -  perhaps this one here, I forget. The driver

said his name was Dave. 'Like David, in the bible, but much

more suave.' I laughed at that while he suavely drove, that

Dave. The universe is a problem; an accent on a language

that has no reason to exist. Yes, we seem to still struggle 

with this. We crinkle our fingers, and say 'this is it!'

4826. PSALM 49

PSALM 49

First part:

Listen to me now, people :

everyone who is bent and cut

by the knife of time. You. All.

-

You who farm and toil and work, and

you big-wigs as well, fat and sassy. I'm

speaking the truth here, and from my own

heart. I'm only saying those things that I know. 

-

I listen hard for stories and words. I scratch 

out my questions like a music score.

-

What do I care now if bad things are coming  -

Calamity Jane doesn't know me, especially when

all those unfair people behind me start unleashing

their bills and dues and unfounded damned wants.

-

I don't care. All those with faith in their money and 

riches, they praise only themselves, are puffed with 

vanity. People don't help their fellows, nor do they 

come to God seeking help and forgiveness.

-

Second part:

Fact is, they coudln't pay what it would cost to save

themselves, and then they wouldn't want to anyway.

Envy and greed have already gotten their numbers.

They die forever. I don't know; can't they see?

-

Muscles weaken, flesh decays  -  on everyone  -

and they're not going to live forever. Even the wisest

men perish, and always have done so. Even the best,

just like the fools and the brutes; sunk in their holes.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

-

Everything they had  -  all those wealthy men  -  both

given and gone away. Given over to others and to the

grave in their eternal rest.  Forever. Go read the

names on their markers and plaques.

-

I listen hard for stories and words. I scratch

out my questions like a music score.

-

Third part:

No one is buried with their money  -  before God

we are all like silent beasts of the field. That's how the

foolish go, and the wise as well. Try to stay happy and

win with wealth? A fool's game, and the end is the 

underworld. Death eats the flesh of their bones.

-

The good ones among us  -  the straight and the humble  -

use the same path in the morning as the dumb and the

stupid. All to be bodies withered from Death in the

grave, and all those big-shots fallen away.

-

But there is a chance? God will redeem me from darkness? I
will sit with Him? Do not fret as others around you win and get

rich, with their houses heavy with all that's within. They can't take 

it with them, and won't. That's one weight won't follow them down.

-

While alive, they may appear footloose and fancy and 

blessed  -  but if they're not thanking you, oh Lord, they'll 

be sorry. It will all fall away; they'll be blinded by darkness 

and death, and, like the rest, never seeing light again.

-

See : all mortals are visitors, and we do not understand  -  

like silent animals before the will of God.

4825. FALLOW MOTIONS

FALLOW MOTIONS

I was sitting back some hundred

times ago and more. The cat said

nothing while the dog meowed. 

Someone was playing 'Midnight In 

Moscow' on an old Victrola, and

that was followed by 'Paint It Black'.

The dog said nothing, while the

cat growled back.

-

So, baby, where do we go?

And how do we know? I have

now blasted these things from my

memory, and they've all come back

nonetheless. And now, look, look  -  

this couch-back is crawling with ants.

The cat is purring as the dog begins to

pant. These are dangerous discs 

someone is spinning.

-

Life is good, only as you're winning.

The dog is asleep. The cat begins spinning.

4824. ALL THOSE MEN WITH SHOVELS

ALL THOSE MEN 

WITH SHOVELS

How little the time we have; I am translating

psalm 49. Three yellow men, in slickers, fight

the rain and snow  -  never realizing the battle, 

there's really no place to go. My life is a trophy

of pain and boredom and death. I'm not there

now but I'll get there yet.

4823. NEW

NEW

(a N.Y. morning, aug. 1967)

My rambunctious hustle : shatters glass

and breaks eggs, blows down doors and

knocks over walls. It can not be stopped,

and won't. Every whore and process server

along 27th street's angry dives and curves will

let me in  -  the midnight knows my name, the

coroner carries my number  -  and  -  engraved

like an Auschwitz memento on my old Polish friend's

arm, our survivor memories will keep us going. In

the early dawn of mornings long past, he used to

serve me coffee and gruel for a quarter. Lazslo

never really talked, just ran his little corner diner and

cried over his life : fucked-up Nazi numbers on his

forearm, and all the miserable moments that went 

with them.Twenty-five years later, there he was,

by himself, with no one, and never said a word

with so much to tell but no one to tell it to. 'Cept me,

but I wasn't interested then, nor was he interested in 

me. He's dead now : they buried that poor man in 

silence, on a small rise in one of those endless New 

York cemeteries that dot the Bronx. Or somewhere.

Me? I remember the little things, and now I wish him

back. Ten thousand things I want to know, with every

question comes another fact. With every question

comes still another fact.

4822. WHOLESOME MANUFACTURE

WHOLESOME MANUFACTURE

List the raiment, show the gold. The Mayor is

walking his dog, the hospital sponsors the parade. 

Winterfest, once know as Christmas. Religion and the 

secular cannot be mixed. They say that now without 

question, while pushing the Druid instead. The Mayor

is walking his dog; the hospital throws a parade.

4821. HUMAN EYES

HUMAN EYES - 

The name of God is but a gesture  -  

more like a wink, that gesture, that never

invites or calls. It does not behave, or have

to be; unlike a sign, bringing us no meaning

and standing for nothing at all except our

own intention, seeming. It is the name that

calls out to the lack of a name to these,

our all-too-human and common clues.

-

In the Kabbalistic cosmology ('align, oh stars,

this single sky within') all that which is created

constitutes one name : which is the name of

God formed out of the twenty-two letters

which correspond to the twenty-two parts

of the human body. Now who's telling

me that? And what do ever mean?

-

Comes these angels, and cover my limbs.

They walk all over me; each within themselves

bearing the divine name  -  and they leave

me branded with that word.

-

The glory of God inhabits the earthly temple

through the agency of the Name. Do not

fear that you will not know : for you will

not know, quite simply.

-

The world (of passing moment) is to be

read as a Divine text  -  in which we are

but words, with human eyes, spinning each

alone in the world we live  -  the slap-shut

of a door, the bonding of a tree, the glimmerings

of water. Such things are all we be. (In human

eyes, yes, alone, we are free).

4820. THINGS I'S LIKE TO POST

THINGS I'D LIKE TO POST

There are things I'd like to post  -  for you, for

you, and for you. How idle is my life, how crummy 

is this slot machine I'm spinning  -  or is it spinning

me? Everything never comes up all fruit alike.

No strip of oranges, no line of red cherries.

Ah, too bad. Right now  -  I know you're

not watching  -  I'm turning around in place,

just like that. Wearing nothing but a new

beaver-skin hat. 

4819. KANGAROO RIDING

KANGAROO RIDING

At the back door of so many runways,

dorsal matter, Adelaide : I am to be

singing all the praises of flight. Yes,

incorporate me, writing now, into

your yellow logo. Australia of a

heart, catch-can of the cast-off

and mishap, kangaroo riding

takes its new flight.

4818. SEVEN CHAINS

SEVEN CHAINS

Seven chains across the river : help

me at the Tappan Zee. They fail us anyway,

and the enemy is always coming. Nothing

brings forth agony like defeat, and those

Generals, like Fitzwalder and Faldee, well,

they end up deserving only their names. And

I have humor too, at least some, here. I make

light of these dire circumstances, only to keep

myself going  -  if no one else. There is no landlord

for the leaseholder of irony, or funny lament, or

ribald reminiscence. Eighteenth-century petticoats

are my way of life  -  it seems now they were always

made of long-distance steel, under lock and key,

with no clue for me. Anyway, as it is, these 

men never even see their wives.

-

Seven chains across the Tappan Zee and a group

of Catskill squaws for glee. You think that's just a

name out west? Put really too and golly gee we have

them right here too  -  and not so bad either. Captive

women eat for free. Nothing to get upset about but

those crazy native braves, always yelling about something.

To Hell with them. Distractions all. We've got the other

troops to flee, we've got a bigger river-fish to fry, seven

chains across the Tappan Zee. This revolution better be.

-

Plattsburg was a northern post, near more to where the

sky resided. Any would-be mover-man, right there, would

need to be of very clear proportions. In any of these camps

all that is alike : definitions and outlines, shadows of figures

in the night. None too careful, one can't be.

Seven chains across the Tappan Zee.