12,927 . MINE EYES

MINE EYES

(new graffiti)

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the horde; they

are tramping out the vineyards

where the grapes of wrath were 

stored. They have terrified the

mountains and the features of

the Lord; the Truth goes marching 

on. Glory, glory, here's not to ya',

we'll be coming to subdue ya.' Our

better truth is marching on.

12,926. MY LAST PANE OF GLASS

MY LAST PANE OF GLASS

Before leaving town let me please say

this much: My outward composure is

gone and my doctor says now get a

move on. There are hills and valleys

galore that are better than this. I can

rim running waters more cheaply, and

wind a gas hose through my own trees.

-

Light up the sky with imbroglios of

new ideas. Make methods of madness

and be a star on my own. Paintbrush

and wagon, ladder and stars. I'm now

catching the next train out. It may not

be tomorrow, but I'm done here.

12,925. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096

(when lawlessness becomes the law)

One thing I always noticed in the

Pine Barrens  -  which is a large

area  -  was the lack of any real

police patrol or presence. It's

been said, of the many supposed

issues of dumped bodies and

hasty burials, that the mob boys,

over from Philly, in one direction,

or New Gretna and Atlantic City

from the other, that the gangs

and mob boys loved the sandy

soils and the isolated roads and

paths, for just that reason. An

easy dig, and an easy dumping.

Maybe so, and I read numerous

accounts of whores and call

girls being found dead along

the Atlantic City Expressway

and roads leading in and out

of the Pine Barrens. Always

unidentified, and always a

'mysterious,' unsolved slaying.

Perhaps. And only perhaps:

'Jimmy Hoffa, meet Jasmine

Lilyflower.'

-

The only times I saw police

activity were when a passing

State Trooper whizzed along a

paved road. One episode I had did

involve a parked State Trooper,

just sitting by observing what

passed, and then, eventually,

stopping and asking me of our

reasons for being there and

driving out of the sandy-road

woods as we did. It was all OK,

and nothing came of it. I never

ran across any citations or

traffic violations being written,

nor any patrolling. Perhaps the

settled anarchy of place and

tradition there ruled itself and

kept settled its own turf. The

abandoned cranberry bogs and

camps seemed never touched or

violated, and there was none of

that weird urban graffiti and

messiness that we so much see

elsewhere. It almost seemed

like a long, exaggerated, 1950's

that had never left.

-

Out along Rt. 206, I could always

find excitement at a place called,

for whatever the name meant, the

'Pick-A-Lilly Inn,' at Shamong, NJ.

It masqueraded as a dining place,

but in actuality was, for the most 

part, a down and dirty Biker bar, 

frequented late and frequented

often. And not always by the

most upstanding of characters.

Club guys, (I'm too weary to mention

names) out of Philadelphia, and

the local branch-office club types

around the area. You kind of had

to keep a watch on things, lest

'ye getteth your headed handed

to ye.' For all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps that kept the cops busy?

In any case, they never were in

the woods. A few times I'd run

across cast-off individuals, walking.

I guessed they were local enough,

never very amenable to talk, nor

friendly. I either just kept going, 

nodded, or, if stopped, found a

way to jump-start a conversation, 

just to get a read on the person. I

found a way to talk about anything.

There were fishing spots, hunting

spots, even piles of firewood, I

guessed gathered over time and

constantly as a stash to be picked

from by those in the know. And,

occasionally, there'd be someone

at one of them. Never a problem.

In fact, the biggest problem at

times were the one-lane sand roads,

for which, should another vehicle

be coming, in the other direction,

immediate decisions had to be 

made. I always ceded the territory,

immediately, and pulled as much

over as possible to let what I

always figured was a more local

inhabitant, pass. No challenge.

No beef. I don't know what the

local protocol was, between

two local fellows in that same

situation, but I guessed it was

always worked out.

-

I think it was 1977, maybe '78,

when I first discovered-by-entering

the Pine Barrens. It was, in any

case, the Summer before the

election that granted 'casinos

and gambling' to Atlantic City,

which at the time was just a

run-down rump of a place; a

black ghetto rezoned from an

older, mobster-elite ring of

clubs, bars, hotels and third-rate

entertainers running down their

own skids of a career. It was shot.

We got there at probably its very

nadir (lowest point) before the

'supposed' but quite temporary

renaissance of the gambling and

casino constructions and rebirth.

The stories were legion, and even

Springsteen has a song about

that one. I never for a minute

believed that anything good would

come from it. What most interested

me, to tell the truth, was how the

Pine Barrens just sort of emptied

themselves out, at New Gretna, and

all that sand and stuff began to be

little, old, strips of towns running

towards Atlantic City, which once

really did have a big presence.

If the Pine Barrens were the 'lungs'

of New Jersey, old Atlantic City

had been the lungs of Philadelphia;

the Atlantic City Expressway, running

a cool straight east and west, had

seamlessly connected to two. Places

like New Gretna seemed all mixed up;

neither sandy Pine Barren towns, nor

Atlantic City show and club glamor.

Every once in a while, along that area,

you'd run into some great and glamorous

looking building or old lodge or club

or hotel, just out in the middle of

not much  -  looking seedy and dirty,

but still there, and proudly so. The

reality was, instead, all a lost, old 

America eating with its own bent 

spoon and fork. That's called Legacy, 

good or bad. Nowadays they don't 

let that stuff exist.

-

The Pine Barrens burned often enough

too; great big portions of it would get

set off, lightning or some other natural

and localized calamity. You see, the

amazing thing was, with all the dwarf

pine, or pitch pine, or whatever it is,

I learned, that those trees depended

upon fire to propagate. That's how

they reseeded themselves, and how

new trees got started. It was pretty

amazing to learn that, in the heat of

fire, the trees explode their seed pods

and send them flying, everywhere.

Of those that land, some decent

percentage of them then take, in the

burned sands and soils underfoot.

Not a good deal, I grant you, for

ground animals and small critters,

but it seemed that they usually did

manage to stay ahead of the flames.

Back in those days, on another point,

as I think of it, there were a lot fewer

animals around; nothing like today,

when we have plentiful deer, hawks,

scavenger birds, herons, egrets, and all

else. Take it from me, 30/40 years ago

it was NOT like that. Nature was a

quieter place. People now get all la-la

and fired up if they see a red fox, or

a coyote, hell, or even a raccoon. Like

it was some foreign object. That's the

kind of thinking that nearly wiped

them all out during the 1950's and 

60's. A weird, tired, sicker world, if

you can figure for that  -  DDT,

exterminations, wholesale plowing

over and building, no regard for

waterways, swamps, or fens and bogs.

All the sorts of things the Pinelands

thrived on and were filled with.

At least some things got done 

right. The funny thing is, now, that

the average Joe no longer does that

stuff, so much anyway, but the towns

and road departments  -  all the ones

who make the restrictions and laws

about what other can NOT do, are

now the ones doing it! Toxins and

defoliants spread at will along

roadways, sidings, and turn-offs.

When lawlessness becomes the

law, then there is no law. Just

like they did to Atlantic City.

Killed it.

12,924. BEREFT

BEREFT

Not your sad lungs alone : how

things change. No one dies any

longer from lung cancer? And 

ulcers have disappeared as a 

malady? How's all that be?

-

I used to stand at the corner of

Broadway and 8th and breath in

the brown air : the layers of dirt,

and none of it rare at all. The men

from the loading docks would be

cursing aloud while they worked,

with cigarettes and smoke in their

mouths. I shrugged.

-

For what did I know of any of that?

The 1967 air was foul, whether here, 

or there. I stayed pretty low, and just

went with the flow; that nighttime,

and evening, air.

12,923. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

(no joke, but it was funny)

Some people said Pine Barrens,

some said Pinelands, some said

Jersey Pines; some even said

'The lungs of New Jersey.' 

Whatever they said, I always

knew what they meant. It was

a grand expanse of open-air

space: Water, streams, lakes,

camping areas, old roads, the

factories and encampments

(most fascinating)  -  seasonal

encampments. Bog factories.

Cranberry-workers' settlements.

I found at least 3. Lines of 10 

or 12 cabins, weedy and almost

wrecked, with communal outdoor

water-troughs with soap and

shaving mirrors, all that stuff

just left there, as if the guys

just departed; except it was

dried out and caked.  Fungus.

Bugs. Mold. Slapping screens

and doorways, and old  funky

cars left, down on their springs.

Here and there, old houses, or

remnants of old houses, homes,

small farms, and recreational

camps were still left around.

By the 1980's, apparently from 

what was seen, the informalness

of the earlier era's (1930's or so)

was gone, and Government had

taken over park areas, campgrounds

larger lakes and such. Park Service

police and rangers, camp-stores,

for supplies, canoe rentals, maps

and guidebooks. And of course,

the rental format, for access to the

waterways, gave one's name and

group away to the authorities and

their darned 'timing' systems of

closed at sunset and all that. No

longer did the 'adventurous' linger

or stay out all night on sand or

water. (Of course, the really

adventurous, such as we were,

made it a point to stay away

from such organized sites. No

one was ever to know where

we were....and we had no 'when.'

People seem always so willing

to dilute everything away to

controls and systems, all for the

sake of one organized place where

they could buy their damned chips

and soda. I never figured that out).

-

It wasn't always easy to find, but

at the 'place' called Indian Mills,

which I found a way of getting to

by turning off 206 by the Columbus

Market (a sort of 150 acre highway

horde of flea market, junk shop,

vegetable and food stands, and a

million outdoor sheds with tables

selling everything from holsters

to motorcycle parts, comic books

to flavored condoms, musty, old

issue magazines, of cars, hobbies,

motorcycles, or women, and the

attendant 'sellers' of all these goods

loitering about, just to be making a

riotous array of fat, skinny, toothless

or over-toothed, cowboy or hillbilly,

farmer-anger-girl or slut). Once I'd

make a left there, at an fine, old, brick

house, now long gone, the road would

sled out, after a few miles, over and 

into a more rolling greenscape. There

was an ancient old house  -  wood,

turned almost black by the weather,

slats and broken slats, windows,

etc.  -  which house had claim to

being the home, a hundred years

back, then, of someone called

Indian Mary, as I recall, who'd

been an original, tribal, Indian,

local, until she died, quite old.

The house had since then just

been left. It was pretty weird, 

almost ghostly, to look at. The

fence slats were everywhere fallen,

the foundation was of rock, very

shallow, short to the ground. And,

off to one side, amazingly, was a

small oval of racetrack, from the

way, old days  -  a horse-track

oval, like something painted by

Albert Pinkham Ryder, in a

painting he's got called 'Death

Rides a Pale Horse.' Pretty

spooky, and caught me every

time. Last time down there, 

doing something else, I tried 

to find it, but couldn't. Not was

I ever able to figure out any

import for that race oval, though

I, yes, did find a reference to it,

and her, and her racetrack, in a 

history-book-guide. Hers was

but one of the old, rather

mysterious, houses I kept

somehow running across. 

You need to imagine, really, 

an entire network of roads, 

paths, and sandy lanes, just

things never paved  -  in the 

same manner we now have 

highways, cross-streets, and 

main boulevards. In some 

older American ways of life,

whether by horse, or wagon, 

or horse cart, the Pine Barrens 

had a life of their own wherein

people traveled by just those,

on just those, small but solid 

roads. It's quite fascinating to 

still see most of it intact. One 

can drive out, or along, almost

any sort of odd lane or pathway, 

being careful of course first

about seeing car tracks and 

not just ruts and soft-spots. My

rule of thumb mostly, though I

admit not 'always,' was that if

I saw no evidences of previous

car tracks, I ventured not.

The danger of getting stranded 

in some of these places was too

real. Lakes and waters abounded,

as did swamps and bogs. Here

and there, maybe, a  fishing hut, 

hunting club,  or rifle-range, 

perhaps. But you'd not find any

foodstuffs, nor refreshments, nor

amenities.  One pee'd on trees,

if that 'one' was a male anyway.

Once again, my wife was strafed

one day while in her girl-pee crouch

in secluded weeds, by fighter jets. 

No joke. But it was funny.
-
The center of all of this, if there
has to be a center, a sort of 
'place' anyhow, from which I took
my bearings, mainly because from
that point at, in each direction, ran
the sand roads, the center of the little
area was called Chatsworth, and, back
in the 198's anyway, the center of 
Chatsworth was Busby's General
Store. There's something still there,
but owners have changed, the place
has been totally re-done, and all the
charm of the original sense of 1920
has disappeared under the toilet-paper
facade of new charm, 'Chatsworth'
mugs and towels and spoons for
sale, and a sort of new and genial,
chamber-of-commerce type BS
charm. The original Busby's was,
for me, the real McCoy  -  hardware,
hardtack, a furnace fire in the center,
during cold days, a service counter,
sandwiches, coffee, and any sort of
sundry barrel and crate loose goods
needed. Shovels. Hammers. Dog food,
ground corn, syrups, chips, sodas and
most anything else. A few benches
inside, and a table or two, often had 
old-timers and locals jawing about,
over coffee and cake, or whatever.
They did have a great sandwich and
salad counter, and, along with the 
long wooden bench out front, when 
all that was, suddenly, one day, on 
a return visit after a while, gone, all
the air just left me. It was like killing
a town by, yes, killing a town! Ripping
a heart from something living. By
contrast now it's just a dead lump with
not much around it. The old Gulf
gas pumps, along across the street,
is gone. The Cranberry Co-Op has
moved on. Ocean Spray Cranberry
Company used to even keep a presence
there. All gone. On time I found myself
in Chatsworth in a terrible-mileage
Land Cruiser, way low on gas, like
'E' and under, in a most troublesome
fashion, and the Gulf guy whose door
I knocked on, refused me gasoline.
Infernal outsider, late on a Saturday,
NO! Be gone! I did fortunately make
it along to the next, larger road, where
I did find a normal, corner gas station.
Damn I do miss Busby's.

12,922. LEARN THE MOTHER TONGUE

LEARN THE 

MOTHER TONGUE

That's really saying too much here,

because there isn't really one at all;

this 'English' having now become a

tub of lies and fester. I still bow down,

don't you know, to Andrew Jackson, 

Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson

(who slept with slaves!), George

Washington, Robert E. Lee, and

Jefferson Davis too! Need I go on?

You want more, 'Motherfucker,' as

they say in the old language here?

-

To me they are ALL the Mother Tongue.

12,921. I AM NOT LOST

I AM NOT LOST

Along the way, running hard and

traveling warp, looking little back:

soldiers sailors, monuments and cars.

Cattle festooned with Blue Bonnet

ribbons, the old Lancashire guy in

humble coarse khaki. He whittles a

field like Tom Sawyer whittled a twig.

-

My own coat is dripping with a

lather made of eggs and ideas. One

point past another; leap-frogging,

I think, into infinity.

12,920. DR. NAMIBIA

DR. NAMIBIA

I awoke on a day when the sirens

were sounding, something distant,

though I could not tell. A noise unlike

others I'd accustomed myself to : clang,

siren, fire-whistle, firework. The pop

of a Diet Coke? No, of that I knew.

-

Some other, a man, a guy, with a

swizzle-stick tuner, was walking the

tracks, just over the fine edge of those

new apartments, another escaped

Afrikaan was all I figured. Who

knew what there was to know?

-

Those people are all mysteries to me.

Fat Lives Matter? And yes, I figured

so. I even yelled out to the big one,

the black-bottomed girl from Queens,

(or was that Queen?), 'How's it go?'

-

She smiled nicely back, amid some

purloined pilferage of tears and three

kids with her. Aged 2, 3, and 4, I'd bet.

Even though that sequence has to figure

rather loosely, though you never know

with an active scene how those things

go. The newly-opened coffee-shop was

open, newly. Or nearly. So I sat.

-

The owner said his name was Peter,

actually Pedro, Monfostofoli. It

sounded like that; never written

down. He talked so fast and handed

me a card. Part business card, part

punch card  -  10 punches, one free

brew. Best he could do?

-

A few cars swilled along, and the

gay frontiersman from the Performing

Arts Center, two of them actually,

escaped across the street, to that little

unmarked tax-cheat place they also 

run. A town full of heels, and loaded

down with dirty deals.

-

Pacifico? Monfostofoli? Panini?

Cappuccino. Is that all the crap

they peddle? The Mayor's got a

crooked lance, and that much I

already knew, but Monfostofoli

sounded like he really had something

to say. Should I let him go? Tell me?

-

The fat girl came by on her way 

back from something; she was

crying again and said her pants didn't

fit and they'd shrunk in the laundry.

I said I doubted that really, but there

was no mirror around. 'You'll go far,'

I told her, 'looking like that. Don't

worry about a thing. I've got an

uncle in the business. He can put 

you in a sling, but first, can you

sing? He'll surely need to know.'

12,919. SNAP-DRAGONS?

SNAP-DRAGONS?

There are a few flowers along 17th;

a place I used to know. They would

bloom each year maybe June or July.

I never knew.

-

I used to know, but I never knew.

I've boxed myself into a corner?

12,918. RUDIMENTS, pt.1,094

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,094

(dreaming once my dreams of sand)

Deep into the Jersey pine barrens,

once I got a decent vehicle, we'd

often enough go. It was like exit

6 or 7a, I forget, on the Turnpike to

Rt. 206, if we went that way. We'd

get off the Turnpike at the exit and

it dumped out at the old Sandman

Truck Stop. It was cool. All these

trucker guys from like Tennessee

and Georgia, deep south accents,

sitting at each table, and each table

had a telephone, next to the juke box

music thing. They'd be calling their

home base (this was in the 1980's),

reporting on where they were, on the

way to whatever, small talk, reports

on the roads and freight and mileage

and all. There was a Go Go Bar

attached, and, of course, a motel,

low, and with strips of rooms. I

imagine too that they had a fine

stable of girls for service. Food

showers, rest, etc. for the truck

guys. I used to love that place.

The food was cheap and good

enough for the kinds of crap I

ate. Charles Sandman was a big

name down there  -  old-line family,

state senator or something. He even

ran for Governor once or twice, as

I recall, against Jim Florio; losing

each time. This whole truck-stop

empire thing was his family's heritage,

selling of big landholdings and all.

Probably, like anywhere else in

Joisey, mob-infested, paved with

dead bodies, and crooked as sin.

But the living was good, the girls

were nice, and dead men can't talk,

as the saying goes. Or doesn't go, if

they can't talk. It was a perfect spot

for a turn-off, refreshments, a break,

gas and food, etc. I'd sit there just

listening to the phone guys, all

those wall-bound truckers on the

phone  -  to whom and to wherever. 

The itineraries were cool. The

others in the place, the non-trucker

folks, were travelers, locals, or

any of the assorted stage-hands

who kept the place going.

-

Big trucks, little trucks; station wagons,

and cars. Solitary folk, families with

kids (less often than most). The

Sandman Truck Stop was quite the

place, and upon exiting the Jersey

Turnpike right there you were put

on Rt. 206, N/S, the road that then

directly got you to other places  -  

straight south, the shoot through,

past Chatsworth and all that, right

down, headed leftward (east) to

the back-end haunts of Atlantic City.

A quick turn, a little after Sandman,

would get you to McGuire Air Force

Base, and Fort Dix, at Wrightstown.

Along the way there, you'd turn at the

huge car-auction field of the NADA

(National Auto Dealers Association),

which basically meant 30 acres plus 

of clean, used, cars for auction  -  at

auction for car dealers, not regular

people. The cars were mostly brought

up from the south, or maybe west by

Tennessee, Missouri, etc., for resale

here; NJ cars, mostly, after clean-up

(and probably falsification too, of 

things like mileage and history and

paperwork), were, in turn, sent there.

For the same sort of deal. Pretty

weird how all that worked. They'd

tell you to look under the trunk

mats and floor carpeting for flood

traces, mud, search for dings and dents

hidden over, and to tap around too

for plastic, body-filler panels, and

all the rest.

-

Once into the Pine Barrens, let me

add, down 206, as longways as you 

wished, there existed and endless series

of barren sand-roads, lined with pines,

traces of abandoned villages, cranberry

bog collection locations, campsites, old

homes, old cars, and the rest. Abandoned

villages abounded  -  Ong's Hat, Indian

Mills, Martha, etc. It was the most

fascinating and secluded place ever.

One could fornicate in the woods, at

will, and for hours, ride the sand roads, 

walk around, find weird things, and

generally just walk streams and creeks.

Every so often  -  which was quite

amazing  -  overhead and quite low 

would pass an air force training flight.

Huge cargo planes, lumbering along

almost at treetop. One time my wife

was skinny dipping (Yes, it happens!)

along in one of those streams, on a

fine Saturday afternoon (at the site

of old 'Martha' town), and she was

swooped low by a fighter-jet training

mission. Freaked her out, but was

cool fun! And the water itself, fresh

and cool, sometimes has a reddish

look, due to iron content. Which is

where colonial era America made

its 'bog-iron' from, Allaire, etc. (A

process and a use I'm no longer

sure of, but will try to refresh 

myself on. As for the abandoned

town of Martha, for which we'd

been searching and walking, the

few remnants we found told us

little, except, a book we'd been

using as a guide, brought us to the

clusters of catalpa trees, and their

long seed pods, that had once been

at the village center. It was amazing

how so much had simply disappeared

into the zany Jersey pine-past. There

was one other time, traipsing through,

stupidly, in a plain old Dodge vehicle,

the sandy roads and off-ways, when I

bogged down, deep in sand, and only

getting deeper. We were alone, probably

miles from nowhere, and there seemed

no extrication. It was already a late

Saturday afternoon, and looked

helpless. In frustration, I did find a

way of collecting limbs, branches,

tree parts, logs, and any old crap

around that I was able to find, and  -

fortunately  -  construct almost a

drive ramp up out of the trouble,

and back onto a heartier path. At

the time, it all seemed rather

remarkable. (pt. 2 follows)...