10,004. WITH A MESSAGE

WITH A MESSAGE

With a message my new potato

came home to stay and I left the

water running to clean it. I thought

we'd see eye to eye soon enough,

and then the funny man with the

bleeding Buick, he came over.

-

This was a certain type of reverie for

a certain type a day : like a Tuesday,

with curtains, and hob-nail boots.

-

Perspicacious and overturned, the 

paint bucket trying telling me something 

but I paid it no mind and walked away 

while Calhoun bled. That was my dog's 

last other name. At the sideboard

where we kept its food.

-

The lady named Jill, she too had 

something to say, so I let her and then 

I tried kissing her hair. Mentioning 

how I'd always wanted to write something 

that could not be understood, she got up 

and said, 'I think you just did.'

10,003. RUDIMENTS pt. 88

RUDIMENTS, pt. 88

Making Cars

I look back now and I realize how

much of everything from those 1967

days was nothing but a pretense. It

was so very simple to put something

over on people, there being so little

foundational knowledge, by the common

schmuck of the level I grew up with.

In about 1968, for instance, there was

this really almost horrid, pretentious,

little musical group called 'The Incredible

String Band.' I've always disliked performed

live music in every way, so that, in my entire

adult life, I've only attended two concerts,

both quite minor. One was a Sarah Vaughn

songbook/Gershwin thing, with a live,

symphony orchestra (I was given 2 free

tickets), and the other was this String

Band Concert. It was high Hippie-dom,

beads, bangles, wispy girls in flowing

skirts, and weak-looking guys. They

played mandolins, lutes, guitars, chimes

and stuff, and sang about ducks and birds

and dreams and wishes. It was a sort of

quasi-mystical, tribal-gypsy, medieval

operation. How they named themselves

'String Band' is actually beyond me, the

only real strings being on the guitars and

other instruments. The group was British,

or Scottish or something, and they trailed

behind them clouds of incense and aromas

that lingered. I have to tell you, the only

thing that really caught my eye were the

two or three girls they had on stage, part

of the group. It was very late 60's, the

whole bunch, and I just got bored  - but

the idea was the gimmick, the entire

ethos of what was going on was the

transcendent idea of elevating oneself

into a higher, or at least taller and more

distant, mystical realm. It was all that

Hippie-nation was about, and it was a

complete, blank lie. Once, of course, the

merchandiser dweebs got hold of it, it

was completely over. On the one hand

we were left with the likes of Abbie

Hoffman, and his ilk, throwing dollars

down onto the Stock Exchange floor,

and on the other hand all the wise-guy

bagel types in their suits and ad agencies

having meetings on what to sell that was

'Hippie cool' and how to fleece the public.

It was a complete disaster and  -  yep  -

 the public bought it; just ate it up.

-

When I got to Pennsylvania, there were a

few commune-like places strewn about,

but I kept away from all that. It was the

last thing I ever wanted to see -  celebratory

music, people in fields, nudity, crops, group

baby-tending, 'the family' and all that crap.

Up by the Water Gap  -  far away from me

actually, and of no consequence at all,

there was a big one. It was run by a guy

who called himself Peter Coyote, the

 'Coyote' reference being to some

mystical mushroom-cult Central American

 religion of which the mystic 'coyote' was

a shape-shifting, fantastic creature that

wove spells and altered events. He named

himself after that. Point of fact, under that

Peter Coyote name, he actually later became

a famous actor. This commune thing he ran

was on the remnant of his once-really large

family farm. Everyone was gone, his real

family,  I mean, and he somehow he got

the place and had turned it into a really

big, functional hippie commune. It went

on for years. Portland, NJ, or maybe it's

PA. The Delaware River is the border

there, and  depending on which side

of the often washed-out bridge you

ended up, that's the state you were in.

Of course, the hippies never cared;

they were nowhere; it didn't matter.

I can hear it now, with a slow, 

patterned, drawn-out vapor-cloud 

drawl: 'State, man? What state is that? 

And what's a state? It doesn't matter,

man; it's just like where you are, now, 

that's what counts.' Yesiree Bob,' as 

my father was wont to say.

-

Whenever people just assume you're 

just like them, that's when things go 

awry, real quick. It's not, of course, like 

you can simply ask: 'Hey? Are you just

like me?' That would be totally stupid. 

It's more that it all begins to conflict 

once the wheels get turning. Much 

of the real, outside world, is like that.

I've been fortunate (and that's one 

thing beneficial for me to mention; 

ain't much else), because in the vast 

majority of my endeavors people 

have known right off that I wasn't 

particularly 'normal'to their frames 

of reference, yet it mostly always 

worked  - I got my tasks done, was

civil enough, and bothered people 

little. One time I had an uncle who 

turned on me, in that fashion, right 

in his car, driving me somewhere. 

I was supposed to be 'sponsoring' 

his kid, for confirmation or something 

(yes, actually it was confirmation, so 

I don't know why the 'or something' 

went in there). It was the kid's choice, 

not mine; I just said, 'yeah, OK, I'll do 

it.' Probably not even thinking much.

This was the rehearsal or the practice 

run, a day or two before. This uncle was

a pretty hard-assed guy, and I suppose,
thinking back on it now, (it was light-years

ago), that I in fact - (my 'presence') - 

most likely embarrassed him, among 

his friends and all, and that was the 

real root of the problem. Anyway, out 

of nowhere he just starts saying, 'What 

are you doing here? You don't fit in

here. You don't belong here'  -  it kept 

on. He was pretty mad by the time he 

was done, and I frankly can't even 

remember what transpired after that  

-  because I really don't remember ever 

actually going through with the ceremony, 

or forking a gift over to the kid. But what I

ever did to deserve the calumny, I never knew.

I was just being me, best I knew how to.

-

So, now I'm pretty old, yeah, and I still

never know what people want out of 

others. The whole wacky mess of this 

life just messes with my head. I'll take it

for what's left, but I'm kind'a done too.

10,002. I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING

I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING

Please go away from my door, the 

concrete is not yet set, nor dried, so

you might get stuck here forever.

And what a conversation that would 

be. My friend Greg said it once to me: 

Recondite? I hardly knew what he meant.

-

I painted my yellow car blue now, and my 

blue car yellow; but I did it with a magic

paintbrush and they both came out green.

No matter what you see, things are 

not what they seem.

10,001. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH

The way a bird pecks at things, the way

a dog sniffs the entire world. Those are

figments of the world alone. Little marvels

at the corner stops. The fire hydrant and

the half-dead tree. The loop of a kite string

around a kid's arm, on a wide and open park 

field  -  that too makes me understand the

living I am doing. Maybe herbs placate the

showy flowers : One is quiet, one is loud,

but everyone loves them just the same.

-

Outside the prison walls, along old Rahway 

Avenue now, it's only blacks and Asians

who seem to run against the grain, patrolling

the flea market there like a prison guard would

do. We should conjoin the two, for otherwise

there is no sense in using up this place and

time. Plastic junk from Haiti, and marked-

down dish liquids from 'fallen off the truck.'

-

If I had a voice, maybe I'd start singing : but

what about I'd never know. The big new street

and the big new warehouse going up? Men 

working hard to make their pay : hardhats and

yellow tractors moving earth and tree-stumps

together. We claim to love the land as we kill

it; we claim to seek forgiveness as we err.

10,000. WELL HERE WE GO

WELL HERE WE GO

Sometimes I feel like a tumbling dice 

or some sort of liquid, running just before

the drain  -  you know, when it eddies and

twirls, sometimes even with that funny noise.

What's that called, the gurgle of drain-water?

Probably has a name, though I don't know it.

So, I stand here, not knowing what to do either.

If I could, maybe I'd dance, but I hate the dance

and always go on against it, yawping and yelling

about how useless it is. What's called sometimes

'Hedonism', others call 'fun.' Maybe 'pleasure.'

-

I don't do much of that, myself. A thrill for me

is going seventy on a big, fast roadway. When

everyone else touches eighty at least. (You see

all these numbers, they fly by, and I throw them

around, as they just get high, or higher anyway).

There's one speed, I seldom reach, when everything

blurs, even the sky, and the whole, round world

starts to seem like a rotating bubble of color.

-

I like to stand firm and observe what's before me,

and you can't, it seems to me, do that at speed.

Essentially, everything adds up by one  -  at a

time, I mean, a slow accumulation, like a rainwater

puddle filled a drop at a time. Who knows when it

overflows. And then who knows where it ever goes?

9999. LET ME GO, WILL YA'

LET ME GO, WILL YA'

Grandma had the kettle on. It was 1956.

Outside, the Bayonne street was dark and

gray, an idling grocer's truck nearby. Th

basketball hoop then next to her house was

busy  -  some guy just looping lobs. I stayed

to watch, fingering my sneaker. There wasn't

much else I could do  -  it was always a strange

feeling to me, being someplace I wasn't sure

of. This wasn't home  -  I'd been moved away

some two-years ago, to a new place in some

suburb-wasteland town still laying down stories

and streets. New things. Crummy. Anyone I

knew I'd just met. No fun, and nothing old.

-

The guy kept driving for the net, and hanging

up a decent lay-up shot. But how many of

those, really, can a person do alone. Everyone

looks great in solitary. Grandma's kettle began

to whistle, and I headed to go back in.

9998. ANYONE WHO WISHES

ANYONE WHO WISHES

There's a climber, a tiny red bug, on

my view-screen today. Walking around

as quickly as ever, in a circle to me. I

would wonder the concept : for certainly

the bug wouldn't know it's a circle.

-

Nonetheless, I talk the matter over :

we agree. It's only a circle to me.

-

I think to mention  -  to this bug  -  how

I too have experienced exactly what it is 

doing. My whole, entire life. But then again,

I figure, anyone who wishes can tell it the

very same thing.

9996. IT SEEMS LIKE

IT SEEMS LIKE

The general atmosphere it queasy. It seems like

things are green around here : the long mantle of

Summer dwindles, but it's ever so slow and some

things yet grow. In site of calendars and the rest.

Who makes those marks that note these things?

There must be some clerk in a Heaven of time.

9995. LET ME SPEAK

LET ME SPEAK

Beneath the garment of innocence, 

an idle man dwells, eating his ice cream

off a stone. The thin jacket is thrown

over his shoulders, as a centurion 

would wear his leather cloak.

9994. I PAID

I PAID

And left. Then I went home

and sat around, and then I went

out again, when I saw that there 

was a rainbow in the sky, from the

rain that had just ended; two parts

vermilion and five parts the rest.

Moisture and the hidden magma.

I paid for all that, and, as I already

had figured, it must all be mine.

9993. PUREBLIND SCIENCE, AND MY HEART IS DEAD

PUREBLIND SCIENCE, 

AND MY HEART IS DEAD

My retort to this is 'But at least I live on.'

If you could read my mind love, what

a tale my heart would tell. That guy singing

that stuff, I remember him too. But this is

the future and then is then. Now I've got

my brakes on this candle, waiting for a light 

to go out. I'm wondering, cagey, and broken 

and bent. You just touch your skin with 

something sharp, it's going to bleed, and 

bubble up, right away, a drop of blood 

feeding itself. And who wants to walk 

around like that, with a tankful of guilt 

and a chrome cylinder of mischievous 

dalliance tucked away as a note to oneself?

Just like a paperback novel; the kind

the drugstores sell...

9992. FUSION'S FISSURE BREAKS

FUSION'S FISSURE BREAKS

Henceforth we shall be known as the fallow

men who come from Adam and leave at nothing.

The books will describe us as a puzzling folk,

a culture given to wandering and argumentation;

even beating swords into plowshares is something

we've always considered but never have done.

9991. EVERYTHING THAT RISES

EVERYTHING THAT RISES

Am I to take stock? : Of what, and why?

Long taken for nothing, a life off the rails,

a weather filled with bad longing, I am stuck

in the situation I crafted  -  oh so wrongly  -

long ago. I would depart this world tomorrow,

if I knew a way out would get me somewhere.

And I do not know that so I will not leave.

Long, long in this future, there's another 

April looming : Or so I would hope. Or 

so I would hope. Or so I would wish for. 

Or so I would hope.

9990. MEN OF THE BOWLING LEAGUE

MEN OF THE 

BOWLING LEAGUE

I can watch them  -  timorously  -  drunk,

from the door of my car at the light.

Most everyone still smokes cigarettes.

And I am so tired of everything else.

Around them, there seems nothing.

9989. WHERE WE ARE AN OPEN DOOR

WHERE WE ARE 

AN OPEN DOOR

When the wind blows coolest, the wind

blows most quiet. The harm-quest of the

Spring Azalea, over, brings only the Winter's

dread of Rhododendron, closed in and buckled

from the icy cold. As for everything else, all

things are accounted. At 5:45 in the morning,

a dread-light so early but not yet attired, the

only things I see, truthfully, are these little

Princeton Linden Street windows where

computer screens light up the dark. Old

men groan, while their wives roll over.

9988. CITY RATS

CITY RATS

: The brown rat's teeth are yellow.

The front two incisors being long

and sharp, stand out like buckteeth.

When the brown rat BITES,  its two

front teeth spread apart. When it gnaws,

the flap of skin plugs the space behind

its incisors  -  so that  -  when the rat gnaws

on inedible material like concrete or steel,

for example, the shavings don't go down

the rat's throat and kill it. :

-

: Its incisors grow at the rate of five inches

per year. Rats always gnaw, and no one is

certain why. Sometimes it is thought that

they gnaw solely to limit the length of the

incisors, which would otherwise grow out

of its head. But THIS is not the case. The

incisors wear down naturally.

-

: In terms of hardness, the rat's teeth are

stronger than aluminum, copper, lead,

and iron. They are comparable to steel.

I have always felt I had thoughts like that:

harder than what you'd normally find in a

bullet-proof vest, to use a POOR example

about the hardness of a rat's success.

9987. RUDIMENTS, pt. 87

RUDIMENTS, pt. 87

Making Cars

I can recollect lots of things but

I never am sure if a recollection

is to be seen as a memory. There's

probably a slight difference in the

relational reality between the two;

perhaps akin to 'tasting' an orange,

versus just finding an old shirt still

soaked with the wet juice of an orange.

So I can never be sure which of the two

it is that I'm dealing with, though both

are real to me. Maybe a recollection is

the one done in quiet tranquility; which

the memory still throws up, its heat and

steam of the moment remembered. Over

in Towanda, PA, for instance  -  a place

I remember well and have in fact again

re-visited a Spring or two back  -  there's

an old bandstand in the middle of the

town lawn  -  it's mostly nothing now,

all the nice paint and detailing having

been removed, and replaced by a merely

'modern' efficiency, easy to be kept up,

painted, and maintained by town workers.

Seldom used. Like town trees  -  mostly

now considered useless or even dangerous,

and cut, trimmed, and/or removed for

purposes of supposed 'safety' and efficiency.

Anyway, back in the mid-1970's, this

bandstand still wielded all of its aspects

from the 1890's. Ornate curlicues of

wood and molding, very fine, decorated

panels along the top, a wonderful

center-crest and pointed vane, I guess

a lightning rod too. (None of that

remains any longer  - just now a plain

shelter with a bench wall). In my

experience of it, I often sat there and,

in reverie, was transported to 1890,

whatever : bunting, flags, a crowd of

swells on the grassy lawn, big flouncy

long dresses on the ladies, the gents

all jaunty and dapper, sideburns and

curls, looking glasses and bonnets.

Inside the bandstand, a brass band

tunes up, for marches and patriotic

songs and the romantic songs of the

day; kids twirling wheels, bicycles

on large frames, a few horses and

wagons, the entire town, it seems,

drawn out for some afternoon's

attraction : bright, dappled sunlight,

green grassy lawns, the Mayor, fat

in a top-hat, and his gentle wife,

milling about. Everyone is chatting.

It's a strange long-day afternoon. I

know I saw it, and I know I was there.

I 'recollect' the memory? Or I 'remember'

the recollection? Either way it goes,

it's my ticket to this life, and I'll

not deny myself entry.

-

Long time back, maybe 1966 or '67, I

knew this guy, and his friend. They were

completely enamored of this Who song

called 'Happy Jack.' They took great and

unending delight in the happiness and

carefree attitude presented in this tune by

some person named 'Happy Jack,' who

evidently, was bothered by nothing at

all  -  kids throwing stuff on his head;

ridicule by others, etc. He just stayed

happy and got through it all. The song

meant very little to me, inasmuch as I

was more taken with the three-minute

fierce intensity of Keith Moon's drumming

and to heck with the silly words. And

all that high-voiced, group-chorused

'lap lap lap lap' as vocalized, sort of just

annoyed me. But it came across as two

very different points of view. And one

of which I could never share. I never really

'enjoyed' anything  -  I was always trying

to fit something into its context, I guess

you'd say. How it was done, where it fit

in, what would it bring forth next. They,

however, just reveled in the howling

good time it brought forth. 
Strange to me.

-

Each of these items just related I recollect

and remember. One I lived through (the

Happy Jack routine), the other....I just

don't know. It throws me all off, any of

this. Like (only maybe) Proust's swooning

over his Madaleines  -  those pastries from

Aunt Leonie recollected. Remembered?

He breaks it all out between involunatry

memory, and voluntary memory. I'm not

sure if that's the same.

-

I never had a light moment. Sure, I make

a lot of dumb jokes and puns, but most

of that's because my mind is always

churning language. Words. Speaking of

'involuntary'  -  I can't help it. What others

saw as a good time, I most usually hated.

It seemed I could never settle in with froth,

or foolishness and idiocy, even if it was

dressed up as a real event : the theater,

a dance or a prom, a graduation or a

wedding. (To say I enjoyed funerals would

be a gratuitous slight). There always is a

distance I keep, somehow, between my

'self' and the event. I can't let it touch me.

Even  the time I went to Trenton to pick

up my seven-million-dollar check for

winning the lottery, they wanted to make

a big, happy deal out of it, and I refused.

(OK, so I'm kidding).

-

Back in the late 60's, there wasn't much of

a call for what we today term 'comedy

shows.' The world hadn't yet turned

goofy, and there was still quite a trail to

walk before we got there. A couple of

assassinations, a few beheadings, and a

few real mistakes. They all had to be

gotten out of the way first. Everyone 

was, it seemed, always pissed off about 

something and there was very little 

humor about. Lenny Bruce, at the 

Cafe Au Go Go, on Bleecker St., he got

hauled off the stage a few times, and

arrested for obscenity, just for trying 

to BE funny about things  -  things no 

one thought were funny. Like sex, or 

Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy, 

riffs about words like 'to come,' and 

'cocksucker.' Hauled right off-stage

in an instant, and punished for it all. 

They used to send undercover cops, 

and then later just regular, dumb-ass 

Tooty and Muldoon type cops, to sit 

in on these nightclub acts, watching 

from the rear, and they'd walk up and

shut-down the act and drag the comic

off-stage. Truly unbelievable stuff.

The world was pretty frazzled, Happy 

Jack or not. I had real trouble with that, 

because although I enjoyed nothing at 

all, I did feel that the world was pretty 

funny, a lion's-roar of rip-roaring

hilarity, with things off the track 

everywhere. Within ten years. of course, 

I'd be proved right, and the entire world 

opened itself up to its own sick situation, 

and the dire humor of it all. But for right 

then, it was all a no-no.

-
So, a lot of people sure got a lot of 
things wrong. Things I remember. Sorry.
Like that whole banana-boat song fiasco, 
about 1960  -  ' Daylight come, and me
want go home.' What were people thinking, 
I wondered, with that false pidgin English
and twisted suburban romanticsm about
slave-wage owners on some island somewhere
breaking their backs to harvest and load 
bananas. There should have been cops
locking people up for that. There
weren't, as I recollect.

9986. EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE

Using this pockmarked calendar 

I can maybe try to reach you by 

the seventeenth if that date's good 

for you. Otherwise, I won't be able 

to see you for a very long time, as 

I'll be traveling in space. Which is

really nothing special, people do it 

all the time  -  meaning to say, where 

else are you going to travel? 

But I use it make a point.

9985. JAM PEACH HEAD SELECTION

JAM PEACH HEAD SELECTION

Once there was the midnight hour, and I

saw it and let it go : my career pumpkin

turned back into a car, and I was nowhere

going. The same thing, once, when I first

learned of drinking Bourbon. You twist

your face and belt it down. That first swig,

a real surprise. After that, you're standing

good, or you've fallen down. I see a lot of

mindless cops, in my line of work. Ha,

made you look. I don't have one, but they

do, so you'd think they'd watch. And that's

all they do. Extra work on a day off, perhaps,

to watch a construction site or a road crew 

work. They just stand out and look pretty

beat. What the use of any of that is, I'll 

never know, because you sure can't enforce 

by a bad example. Glum lawman with a gun,

leaning on a car, so bored. Rip it up, and

rest assured, things get better with age.

-

Now, back again, the dark is all around

me. I walk to look out, but what's that ever

mean? Why are there reasons for most every

thing, but that emptiness still stays inside?

It's a philosophical dead end, and that's what 

needs guarding. People die for less.