6069. SPLIT-HAIR HORSECAP

SPLIT-HAIR HORSECAP

No, no. I will not be the angel of mercy

to all the good words of the universe blended :

instead I will find my ways to speak the truth,

by the ways of Man untended. Lies there are

enough to bury us all, and the way men speak

is all a superfluous deceit while they know their

own ends. The businessman, the flyer, the senator

and the scientist  too  -  working hard to shape

their words to fit their own foul world. It is

no different within, and they shall all go to

own poor Hells. If the material is the 

highway to the immaterial, their

own toll-gates are already shut.

6068. EVERMORE

EVERMORE

It wasn't just the orange juice and the swagger,

the wreath which was hanging from the ceiling

to call forth a seasonal cluster of already-early 

wishes; it was me. This is, after all, the porter

said, 'The Americana Lunch Room' and I don't

even eat. It's not some temporary thing, mind

you, I've always been quite partial to starvation,

especially here in a place like this : ten-ton bagels

the size of rams, and three-deck sandwiches which

are larger than the land. What is all this?

-

I remember being a boy, and sitting in the yard,

just gazing and  -  most probably  -  doing my

most stupid cowboy dreams. Suddenly, above 

my head, a racket  -  30 or so geese, swarmingly

noisy, in a V-formation, swimming the air on

their own way to another land. God, how I

wished that I could fly right then.

6067. EMPTY HANDS

EMPTY HANDS

Birds call a chickadee backwards, a few stragglers

flit about  -  some morning workers are strolling

in, holding coffee and plastic drinks. Everything

seems still nonetheless. This is an early morning

arrival, another pestering day across the board.

-

I've got nothing to hold on to; empty hands all

about. Stretching the taut fabric of the day, I think

about Hart Crane and his bridge, those apples, and

my old seat at Chumley's with Bobby Beddia.

All of that's over now, and he's dead. I am

suffering, and still such a fool.

-

If there was an ever-present God, would I turn

to it in praise, or wonder? I myself, still unsure.

6066. HARPSICHORD

HARPSICHORD

In with the regions of Bach, where the 

dark-slide scrapings are turned into 

sounds, there's where I try to fit. 

Learning that ledge, and standing

straight. What I find myself 

distorted by is noise.

6065. CORNDOG FOR HIRE

CORNDOG FOR HIRE

I was once a farmer, riding cows and milking

pigs  -  the barnyard was filled with idle hens.

There I stayed, for a while, with a hay-straw

in my teeth and a corn-cob pipe smoking my

ear  -  like corn, like stubble, like all that

fancy-plowed ground. I had my tractor

always set - Massey-Ferguson on the go.

As soon as it got chilly, small-game season

called, the rifles came off the wall. There are

men who hunt, and there are men who 'hunt'.

Somehow I was neither. Then I upped and

ran away  -  my heart took its season to all the

things of another land  -  like a Willa Cather

runabout, escaping Indiana, I met my mark

and I set my lance  -  and never looked back.

How was it later said : 'Bright lights, big city?'

6064. TROUBLE IN A GREEN LINING

TROUBLE IN 

A GREEN LINING

14th Street was so grim  -  still is, but back 

then it was ten thousand times worse. 'Want 

this dagger up your ass? Give me your purse.'

One speedball all rolled up in hell, and you

could walk up to 23rd if you wanted it worse

in the Chelsea Hotel. 'Where you going, boy,

where you going now?' My habits, they slinked

in a dark green robe  -  pills and booze and girls.

It was all OK, and I never wrote home.

6063. GENERAL, AND FOR TWO

GENERAL, AND FOR TWO

The more the ice enters the atmosphere, 

the colder my own heart gets : like the 

blue light on the winter lampshade, there 

are nothing but shadows of movement,

the take-away moment of a long-lost 

time within its own shake of 

memory and fortitude. 

-

The small black car is unloading so many

people : where they all came from, and how 

they all fit, I do not know, though I see what

I see. Molecules crowd this place, atoms are

bumping what only seems in place.

-

A more roseate hue? That's for hearts and

lovers alone  -  my eyes, right now, see

charcoal black and coal-mine gray; a

simple seam, to be mined and

hacked away.

6062. HUMAN SIZE

HUMAN SIZE

Small eyes, like the human size, make for a

wonderful face  -  no dinosaur-jagged

protuberances, no wicked leaves in the face.

We don't walk this tree-topped high to have

to worry; I guess that's why. A long time ago, 

even I walked in my childhood woods; the trees

and the forests of long ago. I go there now, in this

present day, and  -  no, of course not  -  nothing 

is the same. They've bolted the trees with doors, and

trimmed back everything the same. I remember where

I used to laugh and jump, and it's now all gone though

the woods seem the same. They seem smaller, but are all

more jumbled up  -  our paths are gone, brambles and

thistles grow everywhere, and the ancient grass is high.

Not yet a whimper passes from me, looking around

instead in some childlike reverie. We are some dead,

and not all my friends have survived. Some still live

around here, and others, yes, have died. Too bad, all that.

6061. THE SADDEST TREADMILL THERE IS

THE SADDEST 

TREADMILL THERE IS

Your caramelized pajamas go well with lunch, and

my dog sees right through to your soul. Am I your

only game in town? Have I already grown too tough.

Here, by the way-station we call counter-top stain,

the kitchen apparatus has gone mad : this refrigerator

sounds like a whippoorwill, and I'm sure the pilot-lights

are out again. Is it just me who can smell the unburned 

gas? How does one ever know the difference, anyway,

between a friend for life and a lover just met? Not me,

I will safely say. We lumber for happy things, while

trudging away on the saddest treadmill there is.

6060. I'D HAVE THOUGHT

I'D HAVE THOUGHT

The distance between objects can only grow, as

this universe between us expands. What of it, I

say. Things which throw shadows are haphazard

markers of a weak imagining; and a blind man like

myself can't just walk in darkness and not hit walls.

I thought I knew once where everything was  -  now

it's as if someone, someone, has changed everything.

-

Accumulation has always been a mathematical thing:

the cash register at the end of the aisle, accumulating

and counting and making sums that one must pay.

Oh dear, I'm short of pocket again. I'd have 

thought that no one would notice.

6059. BOTTOM OF THE SKY

BOTTOM OF THE SKY

I'm laying in the grass looking at the sky,

looking up wishing I was some other guy.

Laying in the grass at the bottom of the sky,

looking up and think, just what am I?

-

Wouldn't need the gift of gab or the color

or the eye, if I was just someone else at

the bottom of the sky.

6058. MAKE THE FILTER FIT THE PICTURE

MAKE THE FILTER 

FIT THE PICTURE

(a jumble)

So many often times so often many times the weird

and wild world suffices the sense the tickless wine

and make men and women sick and then delirious

with both the harm and the idle crime of being hard

in love. the papers have the pictures, the printers

print the tales : he fell for her on a non-light afternoon,

he carried her farmhand's barrow across the harrows

of the farm. Each old corn-stalk screaming back.

-

I saw her. She has grand, dark eyes, and all the

darkest secrets of her gypsy heart.

6057. FELL OFF THE BOAT, LIKE MAN OVERBOARD

FELL OFF THE BOAT, 

LIKE MAN OVERBOARD

Hear those senseless hammers pealing, pealing.

And I am going home. Both Ecaudor and Peru,

they were nothing to me, the Canal, up north,

by contrast was a useful pike at least. 

Pick-up sticks. Pick-up sticks again.

6056. JAPANESE LANTERN

JAPANESE LANTERN

Tea Garden balderdash amidst the lemon trees and

the California wedge, all those people  -  right there  -

sitting around in their so-polite fenzy. Tea drinkers

to be drunk, tea-sippers to sip. I follow the carriage

with my eyes as it enters this scene. Mikado? Or

can it be? Something so close to that reality.

-

She enters on little dog feet, tipping and tripping

along  -  the miraculous sash and that pursed little

mouth, the floral pattern bold on her cloak. I will

sit to say nothing at all, for I am not of this.

-

Cartoon character I am not. Stoned to situation,

frozen into place, secure within an emanation, I am.

A hundred little colored lanterns, each one lit, rolling

both  - up and down  -  this pleasant hillside.

6055. CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Thou art : my rage and my victim, my fire

and my flame, the burning and the ashes,

the heaping and the fury, the heat and the

meaning. Without all of that, nothing else.

-

Were I to bring you in, invite or call, I would

find you already there, for thou art all, and

thou hast made me, before all this wanting

at all. I have the signature of you, before

I have even started to write these things,

I do not know why.

-

Some kindled image before a pack of sticks

outstretched, reflect already what Thou art,

and all of what Thou can be  -  yet already

are  -  before the Time elapsed has even

begun to count itself  -  as Time, at least.

-

And all these things  -  oh so powerful motion!

6054. UNDER

UNDER

Beneath the embers of a witchcraft and the 

flames of any daughter's son stands a long 

wall of deceit and bad presentation. I've 

swaddled this day in a hotel filled with lies 

and armchairs of every description. The

porter sang upon command, and every 

call girl went upstairs with delight. 

Now all I need is money to get out.

6053. WILL YA' NOW?

WILL YA' NOW

I read him his rights  -  he made a right at 

Locust and another at Vine. Even he agreed 

to that. Sitting there like an eagle, he was 

dousing his sorrow with mendicant gin. 

In one arm and out the other again.

Oh how I want to travel.-

-

In the middle ages they believed that

God was a star  -  some stellar emanation

coming down from above. I could never figure

how to approach that entire, outmoded affair.

Nowadays, we look up at the sky never

thinking who's there. Have another

look, will ya' now.

6052. RAT TRAP

RAT TRAP

The tanks were coming over the hillside, and 

I was holding some French girl in my arms. She

had said her name was Mariette Chaudimanche,

and I had to believe her. To me, her last name

meant 'hot Sunday', but to her it was just a

name. Whatever. I'd never tell a difference.

-

A part of my mind was saying '1944', but I

knew that somehow couldn't be  -  after all,

I'd just plugged in my charger, and  -  over there  - 

some idiot was playing the Beatles. How 

confusing a mess can one life be?

6051. I HEAR WHISPERS

I HEAR WHISPERS

Nuance in all the intrigue; alacrity in the

misinformation : the store on the corner

- it says - 'now cuts keys'. I think I 

understand the conversion.

-

Here we are, looking on again towards

nothing : I'd like to steal your broker's 

name and reputation. Putative interest,

alone, I'm sure.

6050. UTILIZE THE MAILMAN

UTILIZE THE MAILMAN

Utilize the mailman, America. Put his ass to

work. Send yourself letters with postage due.

Make sure it's return-receipted and registered too.

Get the best insurance, get those signatures returned.

Make sure the postage is paid, hell, send it next 

day air. What the hell, put his ass to work.

-

Drop molasses in the corner mailbox,

so when he comes, it's sticky. Get his bag

and hands all wet, make him walk his ass

off, pissed to be so sure obscure on what a 

sunny day. Annoy the fucking bastard.

-

Utilize the mailman, America. Send him rain or

snow or sleet or frigging radiation samples in

a large brown envelope. Staple everything and

leave the ends unturned. Cut and pinch his nasty

fingers. Make the mailman wiggle, dammit...

earn the pay he's getting.

-

What the hell, put his ass to work!

6049. CALENDAR

CALENDAR

You should never follow the calendar, for it lies to you

and you are dead. One day, the sky tells you of the moon,

and then an eclipse of a lunar stage, and suddenly you claim

you're a Druid. The calendar swears to it. Believe me though  

-  oh instantly converted one  -  it doesn't work. You are driving

a car and eating from plastic and drinking from sweets and

cardboard cups commingled while singing of radio songs

about lovings and lusts. No such Druid, no one trusts. You're

as fake as a tree, brought inside at a Christmas ball, of 

silvery, tinseled plastic and laughter and all.

6048. STATELY MOUNTAIN

STATELY MOUNTAIN

I went to Stately Mountain, where they buried 

the dead from WWI. All I could do was laugh.

I went to Stately Mountain, where they buried

the dead from WWII. All I could do was laugh.

I went to Stately Mountain, where they'd buried 

dead from Korea. All I could do was laugh.

I went to Stately Mountain, where they yet bury

dead from 'Nam. All I could do was laugh.

I went to Stately Mountain, where they yet bury

the dead from Desert Storm and all the rest.

All I could do was laugh. I went to Stately Mountain,

where they will be burying 'tomorrow'. All I

could do was cry in sorrow.

6047. DANGLING CONVERSATIONS

DANGLING CONVERSATIONS

I shouldn't have shaved the title off that last

Marquis' moustache, it was looking so good.

Not it's morning on a likely Winter's day and

can't really remember a thing. We were talking 

in a half-dark of a now-late afternoon; some old

song reminded me of that. Still-life watercolor,

it went. And then  -  just like that  -  I thought

that I was powerless and should probably let 

you know. I was no longer part of the tribe

I was seeing. I felt like another being.

-

Troubles keep tumbling from that old dice-chest

and the house ups the ante to whatever they think

is best. I quit playing. I laid down my cards and I

walked away  -  humming a distaff tune on a girl's

afternoon, wanting to see eyes everywhere I look;

instead I get a bus-station filled with schmucks and

rumblers, travelers from the darkside looking for

the light. Wrong train, right tracks, or the other

way around. I said I couldn't remember a thing.

-

There's a man with a spelling book walking past

the alley  -  he's shouting oaths while he gets them

right. I don't know which is less important, the

grammar or the spelling  -  as long as the message

is clear. In the now-late afternoon, in the darkness

that's here, in the dangling conversations that

we no longer hear. Everything comes together;

each piece falling gently into place.

6046. DISCOURSE (situation savage sandwich)

DISCOURSE

(situation savage sandwich)

They were standing by the pier, doing nothing really,

right over where the fish market used to be : Fulton,

that is. Now a sad and abandoned nothing trying to

fill itself with happiness and touristy glee. I won't

add to this confusion. Let you see : 15 Japanese

tourists out strumming cameras like guitar-fish

stringing violins, 2 folks from Germany, in that

standard German tongue consulting a map and

pointing. A harbor-tour boat plying customers

with thrumming beats and a few barkers at 

shore. A bunch of shuttered stores, and not much 

more. The rain, the cold, a storm with wind, and

memories  -  that was all that was there. No

guidebook yet for that; I don't think anyway.

-

If the stormy new Mayor came by right now,

even he would stumble in this gloom  -  trying 

to give the city away he'd lose it all real soon.

Indigents in each compartment of the Dowry-Berry

Star-Room, stateless small people from southern

climes and nasty drunkards entwined in vines.

-

I could bet even I'd be there soon : give me your

tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to

be free. Yes, well, anyway all that. It's a joke, for

sure, a joke too late for the learning. The what-

to-be for the who-should-have. I cannot ask any

new questions. They've all been asked already.

6045. NOISE

NOISE

Some idiot's car has

jumbled its locks, and

is wailing like a baby

at sea. I can do nothing

but wait.

6044. METICULOUS PORTRAITURE

METICULOUS PORTRAITURE

(I am bereft)

Someone's meticulous portraiture caught my eye,

seen cast as a stone on a beach. Wicked ways and

gentle meanings, together. I approximated colors

with my mind's eye alone, and it all brought me

backwards, to home. Again, in slavish devotion.

-

These weren't the things you were made of  -  candles

in the wind, precious hearts and flowers, flames that

won't go out. By comparison to my heart and mind,

all that is magic. What are we, anyway, but motion.

-

Please don't sit still  -  keep moving. Bring your own

eyes' passions to the flight of the moth, uncomfortable

as ever, onto one of those flames  -  soon brought to

attention, soon singed. That too, just like a heart, and

just like a passion. Here, take this now. I am bereft.

6043. RUN MAN, RUN MAN

RUN MAN, RUN MAN

It's not a supposed thing like the halls

of eucalyptus or somesuch : it's real.

Instead of fat-bellied men blowing

flugel horn trumpets on the side of a

hill, we have beautiful urchins sweeping

the walkways and pathways wherever we 

look. I haven't seen so much fun since

the barrel of monkeys was let loose.

Inside of a minute, bananas everywhere,

people slipping on skins, and monkeys

spitting at one another. 'Run, man, run' 

was all I kept hearing. Then the parking 

lot was torched and the new pavement

took flame  -  it had a good saturation

beforehand of gasoline. Those guys knew

what they were doing : beautiful things

grow like strumpets, rich, ripe, and well

comported to comfort a man. Willows.

A marshland of grasses. Everything

we ever wanted. Everything.

6042. I'LL GRANT YOU THE WALLA WALLA

I'LL GRANT YOU 

THE WALLA WALLA

As if in a western running on down dark-horse,

running, nostrils wide open, horse-spit flying,

there I am. I can't sit still, and anyway now this

saddle has given my ass the rash it deserved.

Give me two whiskeys, barkeep, and please

stop talking to me. This burrito cowtown

implant is getting on my nerves. I want 

to punch his eye sockets.

-

Oh my love, isn't this life one big amazing

fantasy we play on each other. A pony-time

prance-out we get to do once. I can't read the

wanted posters, fat boy, can you move out of my

way : like a 'lik-em-aid' stick or a sugared powder

I have the memory of a spider and the wisdom

of a web. Shouldn't get in what you can't get out.

-

No buddy. No bother. (No time like the right 

time, and baby, the right time is now. 

I'll grant you the walla walla).

6041. NO WASTING

NO WASTING

Saddled the horsemen. Wise guy.

Go with caution, brother; and watch

the wild winds. There's not anything

here to be left behind. We've cleaned

up everything that was left.

6040. BEGGARMAN, THIEF

BEGGARMAN, THIEF

He died whenever you want it to be  - everything

was pre-arranged like that. Think it over; it's

really pretty amazing. In the same vein  -  right here,

dark green armchair, lantern-light on a table, feet up,

smoking a pipe, it's me at station thinking just this:

This 'God' thing I keep hearing, I've got it figured,

if it was. This "god' thing didn't have to do anything 

at all. No seven-day creation, no fall of man, no long,

sad story of jettisoned love and hope. All 'God' had to

do, by script, actually, was come up with one 'idea' of 

something that accepts all that as possible, and let them

do the rest. Yes, yes, let them do the rest. Mythology,

History, Religion, it's all up to them. I've done my part.

6039. A WEE BIT UTENSILE

A WEE BIT UTENSILE (1958)

Not a word maybe but it means a tool, and that be

that. Not yet, I wasn't born yesterday. It's difficult

to eat when one's mouth is closed  -  I learned

all of that a long time ago, as a young boy out

out camping in the woods. Wish I'd never left.

-

Do you really need to know more? I'll tell you:

when I was eight, I was hit by a train and only 

woke up about half-a-year later. They thought

I was dead at the scene, until I groaned when

some rough-rider first aid guy started to drag

me around. I was scrunched, you see, beneath 

the metal dashboard of a '53 Ford wagon.

-

My mouth was wired shut for about nine months  -

broken jaw and face and such All I could eat was

baby-food sucked from a deep spoon through the

metal clamps and braces holding my mouth. That,

and custard  -  which, believe me I grew to hate.

My parents' neighbor, Myrtle, used to come and 

visit  -  after I'd awakened from my coma-death -

about every two days with another bowl of that 

crud. Oowee, I hated that stuff.

-

Then I was in traction, all wired up, for another long

time  -  and some stupid male nurse kept coming around

to change the sheets  -  every time, twisting me and turning

me until I grimaced and cried out. It was so weird. Can

you figure any of this out? But, hell, do you really want 

to? I'm still here, and here I am. Utensile, it is.

6038. WALK AWAY WITH EYES

WALK AWAY WITH EYES

The sensitive, simple narrative no longer

works. Homogenized flute. Part-time Wall

Street. Walk away with eyes. Just trying

things sometimes works. Amidst, oh, the

pulse of a supernova; rocks, like heartbreak,

crush even the rivers of Eden.

-

At the Roman Circus I met the cartwheel

of the sun, that has no name. Fires had gone

out, and everything was already leveled, with

just people milling around. 'Our Jesus is kept

in a bottle.'

-

By hand I am needing a breakthrough  -  

melancholy surprise, and the blues are

of a postcard hue. Starry heavens.

Box-shaped malingerers, more shy

than boys. It is axiomatic, all this range.

6037. I WATCHED THE OLIVE

I WATCHED THE OLIVE

Loaded like a dictionary  -  pimiento and

garlic indeed. Here it is, we sit at the table

holding napkins, wondering what's ahead.

Horror night? Things that jump out of candles,

or into the candle-light, however that goes. I

can see through ghosts like the fabrics of a

gauze. Ghouls. Goblins. Skeletons. Ghosts.

-

Some fools are eating fire   -   the mental man is

bending spoons, the card-reader is, well, reading

cards. Outside of my small circle of friends, the

only things left are the dead and the haunted.

By George, let's run to the graveyard again. Yes!

Let's run to the graveyard again.

6036. HARROWING, THE POSSIBILITIES

HARROWING, 

THE POSSIBILITIES

He took his tie from around his neck,

he ran forward a couple of steps. Screaming

aloud, he projected his intentions : 'I will alter

this world once more!' The surge of the roar

of the crowd of the hoard was all that had

commanded the scene. Police boats in the

subtle harbor rattled. Some few marksmen,

hired police snipers, took their aim. 'Lethal,'

it was said, 'this man is lethal, and he has to

go.' Demagoguery with a human face. Truly

the worst : no worst than the collective

for of assassin police  -  up for anything

and able to do the task and cover the

needed tracks. Just a few pops  :  I 

heard I heard it all.

6035. DASHBOARD FINGERPOT

DASHBOARD FINGERPOT

I am the engineer, the small one reading the blueprints.

I nod as if I can understand all these lines : understated

elegance, the glory of the universe. Here goes the beam 

that will hold the edifice up. Watch out for those things 

which dangle. I have such delight  -  on my face and in

my eyes  -  when I see how all things work. The man with

the gabardine hammer, all he wants is a silly profit.

Dollars for dollars, and a penny for your thoughts.

6034. AMASSING THE SMALL THINGS

AMASSING THE 

SMALL THINGS

She had nice, red cheeks, but that was that : 

first words spoken, 'we in America!' I was 

not sure to be alone anymore, yet I 

gave her a blanket for the taking. 

-

Conspiracy ends when people get hurt :

there's a story for every disaster. In the

morning, the bells and the whistles will

ring and all those new factory hands 

shall run off to paint mercury and 

lead on their own disasters. For

every story, there's a lie.

-

That girl was still dancing, when I left

this 'gentleman's club.' It was not that

at all : more like a tendentious assault

on even the fact of being human.

6033. RUNNING THE APOCALYPSE

RUNNING THE APOCALYPSE

Now that I'm running the apocalypse, let me settle in : 

my dangling feet have just landed, the candy-jar is

filled to burst, and  -  already  -  I can hear five 

hundred kids splitting seams at the door. As my 

father used to say : 'this is not a couch, it a 'settee'.'

He was an upholsterer and all that stuff made a

manner of difference. I'd always figured a settee

was one who sets. Like me.

-

Now that I'm running the apocalypse, let's make

flames come out of faucets and water from a

match. I think that would be a grand coaltion

of moment and matter  -  grand photos on

buildings, bells that won't gong, and women

sitting around with cigarettes in their holders.

I  -  truly, and in despair  -  want a new world.

-

Rilke it was said 'you must change your life.'

When it all comes out in the wash, there's no 

change to ever be made, he knew not of what 

he spoke, and I never too much dug his 

overly-sensitive nature anyway. But  -  

since I'm running the Apocalypse now  -

change will start today.

6032. NOT TRUE, ALL THOSE THINGS

NOT TRUE, ALL THOSE THINGS

It's not true, all those things he said : the water

was already wine and the hordes weren't fed by bread.

We were short already, by a hundred, before we even 

started. None of the cars would start  -  jumper cables,

new batteries, all those guys with wrenches; it all

seemed sincere, but no one really meant a God-damned

thing they said. I stayed around to watch the ending,

but fell asleep instead. Now there's bunting on the

alley wall, and the crocodiles steaks that people

were eating were  -  supposedly  -  tasting really good.

Holy Frijoles, Batman ! What to do now ?

-

I rode the train this morning  -  way before dawn  -  to

New York City. When I got there, I had time for everything

(it's like that now) and I watched the sun come up over

the east-side buildings. Light was everywhere, suddenly.

Things glinted and shone; glass reflected back. What a

worldly kingdom all this is, I mused to myself. I went

over to the man holding coffee in his hand and repeated

that selfsame sentence. 'Would I wish that that was so.'

That's what he said in response to my good intention.

-

He meant a material gain. I just meant a good intention.

NEW POST NOT POETRY, TEMPORARY

Artist: Gary Introne, born 1949.

 

1967 - Began at The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, from its initial location at the big loft on old lower Broadway, to its new home at 8W8th Street, the old mansion of Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, later the original Whitney Museum, as three brownstones were joined as one. Lived in the basement, after moving from 509 e11th Street, also as a sort of night-watchman of sorts until Mr. Rush came in each day at 6:30am. Being paid $16 a week and sleeping either on the grand old art-library floor or in the basement cubicle I'd constructed from, and within, an unused, huge fireplace space.

 

Wordsworth it was who stated 'Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility', and I guess that works as well for my art. I spent my times there in a small glory  -  working under the presence and the instruction of Milton Resnick, Philip Guston, Nicholas Spaventa, Charles Cajori, Esteban Vicente, Mercedes Matter  -  and her husband, Herbert Matter, photographer  -  sculptor David Hare, and others. Also, the wonderful music lectures of Morton Feldman. John Cage and Buckminster Fuller showed up too!

 

Both my 'emotion' and my 'tranquility' were paired with my 'art'. From the trudging with and building of stretcher bars, to my endless street explorations of NYC : cast-offs, old wood, found objects, ads, paper pieces, posters and street art, I 'recollected' my days. That is my art. The straight, yet very crooked, line  -  the paradoxical joining of one into the other mixed with pigment, color and form.

 

Anyone can identify fringe activity where something is appropriated loosely (and in art the 'modern' world allows this). It is the artist's activity now, the academy being long dead to us all. I grab onto stuff, move it around, reconfigure and transfigure it  -  into psychology and new drama. Value is added and influence acknowledged. This is culture making, not some minority activity. It is what artists do, and how they see. It is not the act of making a commodity  -  instead it is the mark of the transformation of the world around us. I want it to sink into you and become a part of you  -  and trouble you.

 

I like the work of art, and I like the ease of art. It's the easiest hard thing I've ever done.

 

I was also accepted to the San Francisco Art Institute, which option I declined, not wishing to undertake that 'lighter' transplanting. I like the darker world of my own New York. In 1973, I went to Elmira College, with artist-in-residence Gandy Brody, until his death in 1975. Since then, and here then, the rest.

 

Most important is the line, and then the form, as they are both brought into play  -  into something else altogether.

 

Gary Introne

6031. LORD FORGIVE ME FOR PASSING JUDGEMENT

LORD FORGIVE ME FOR

PASSING JUDGEMENT

Justice O'Hare, oh how I hate you, and all for which you

stand. I'd rather hang from a bridge than talk to you.

-

At the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, at the Manhattan side,

underneath it actually, is a plague about George Washington.

-

No one cares and no one reads it, or even knows it's there.

It was Cherry Street then, and, as President, he lived there.

-

He and Martha. They had a pew over on Broadway, at Trinity

Church, and the plaque says they were seen to ride each Sunday,

-

in the morning, on their big white steed, riding to church.

A dumb enough story, but worth something, yes.

-

What galls me is the stupidity of today's world : no one giving a

care to anything of the past at all. Nothing real. Nothing true.

-

Lord, forgive me for passing judgement, but

it seems now it's about the only thing I do.

6030. METAPHORS MAKING ME WINCE

METAPHORS MAKING 

ME WINCE

Twenty harness doctors standing in a line where the tree

meets the horizon and the maid in her lace tells all she

knows. Juneteenth this isn't. It's more like a Mayday

for the heart. Here, here are the keys to the car.

-

On days like this, my mother used to bake. Cookies,

bread, anything to pass the rope of time to another

set of grabbing hands. The priest in the rectory, a flute

ready to play a steady accent, the man with the payment

book, they always came swooping through.

-

One or the other of something shows up at the cat-milk

doorway. Meowing goes on in the middle of night.

While everyone else seems far away at sleep.