13,824. ONCE THE SHOE

ONCE THE SHOE

Once the shoe is on the

other foot, I guess the

pressure's off the toes?

13,823. SUPERLATIVES WON'T CUT IT

SUPERLATIVES 

WON'T CUT IT 

This firing range is a busy place,

and out on Witherspoon they are

drinking their coffees. Froth, and

sugars, and cream. 

-

Ambivalent to a fault, I sling by

unrecognized in my ghostly raiment.

As one who has already passed, I am 

past all that. Words ricochet, but I

don't stay to listen. What do you say

when you say 'Hi!' in the street?

13,822. YOU HAVE MAJESTY

YOU HAVE MAJESTY

In the museum all they do is 

stand around staring : Things

to see, in wholesale distribution.

It's the same way I realize that

school is a lie : Teachers dump

their classes there, to study 'Art'

for the day.

-

By any token of the imagination,

they have none. The pallet of blue

and purple are only fashion tones

to them. The twittering of birds, on

the other hand, must remain outside.

'We'll break for lunch in half an hour.'

13,821. GREEN MAN FROM YELLOW MOUNTAIN

 GREEN MAN FROM 

YELLOW MOUNTAIN

Whatever that was, I had it twice.

A strange elixir delivered by post.

Not airmail or anything; just post.

The delivery guy was already gone

when he got here. Drunk, I'm meaning

to say. He was green for sure, but he

said  -  clearly  -  that he hailed from

Yellow Mountain. Now, that was a

place I'd surely not heard of.

-

If he had a sister, I'd have asked her.

'What's up with your brother?' or

something like that. But I didn't

wish to bother with family stuff, for

maybe the ongoing peril was still live.

'Oh, Mama always liked him better.'

Or, 'Daddy was a no-good thief, and

I guess it rubbed off.' As it was, I simply

asked her what she wore under her

dress. She snickered, and said,

'A Freudian slip.'

13,820. HERE I WAS, WITHOUT YOU

 HERE I WAS, WITHOUT YOU

All the drainpipes had already

fallen, and those old gutters which

had been filled with leaves now

screamed out for cleaning. Too

late. To say you're sorry.

-

That was always a refrain in old

songs, someone always rueing 

about something they did; broken 

hearts and sob-story effects. I

never got that  -  but then again

I never understood why a man,

any man, would sing.

-

It seems so weak. So whiny.

-

The damp cloth was held over

my face in the heat. Someone

made mention I'd fainted on

the field. One zillion degrees,

a thousand portly people, and

I'm the one who gets picked

out for the special effects.

-

Just tell me the time of the

Demolition Derby. Show me

the way to the next whiskey bar.

There's always something lurking

around the corner. I came close,

but it was still rather far.

13,819. 'HERE I WAS'

'HERE I WAS'

My eight surrogates were up on

the roof : apparent as alternate

versions of me, or the past-life

retrogressions of those I once had

been. All along this way I know

we leave things behind. 

-

This frightened me when I then

realized what all this was. I hoped

they weren't coming for me. Little

variation occurs within time, as

it seems all things just plod along.

13,818. FOR THE MAN WITH ALL THOSE KEYS

FOR THE MAN WITH 

ALL THOSE KEYS

That's the last jangle you'll hear :

And the deadened marsh oasis 

is not going to save you now. 

There's a fire at the thorn-bush 

where you're sitting.

-

Slice open that orange-peel

with some new kind of knife.

Inner-riches are waiting to be

found. Light-elixir, and these

are special oranges for sure.

-

I rented once a cottage by the

sea. I thought I'd have a crowd

but all that came to me were

the ocean breezes, gulls, and

sand-flies too. ('Live and learn,'

they used to say. Now they just do).

13,817. FOOL ME ONCE

FOOL ME ONCE

It's been proven, in American

life, that the most lucrative 

phrase in the everyday language

has been 'Would you like fries

with that?' I've even heard siding

salesmen say it! (Though at both

funerals and wakes, not so much).

-

This whole place is kind of like

a phantom runway anyhow, so

nothing much of it matters. I once

had a job at which I manufactured

calendars. My days were numbered.

-

Then I tried working in a car muffler

place, but the work was exhausting.

Then I tried being a teacher, but I

lost my principals, my faculties, and

my class. Lastly, at UPS, I found

I couldn't express myself.

-

But only in America is there no egg

in eggplant, nor ham in Hamburger.

No, and neither apple nor pine are

in pineapple. Still, you've got to

figure, sweetmeats are candies while

sweetbreads, which aren't sweet,

are meat. That's cool enough.

13,816. PACKAGED LIGHT

PACKAGED LIGHT 

There was a broadstream at

22nd street, and I had nowhere

to go. Maybe over to Pete's, at

Gramercy, but I was so tired 

of that show-offy crowd. In

fact, tired of it all again.

-

The bus ran down the curb and

the old ladies cackled as the

black kid jumped the line. The

very idea of doing anything

about it, nowadays, is anathema.

We're all supposed to accept.

-

A thudding hurt was in my gut,

and I knew my knife could pierce

him. But even I removed myself

from such a precipice.

-

Once I remembered some camera'd

lady in Spain  -  she so badly wished

to be gored by a bull. I had heard

of Hemingway fixations before, but

she took the cake, or whatever it is

that Spaniards take.

13,815. CUT FROM TWICE

CUT FROM TWICE

The matter was nothing at all  -  

cinders in the driveway, and a

long unkempt lawn. Over the

ridge was some dalliance of

water and light, with the Autumn's

new arrival of north-migrating

ducks. Mergansers, by name.

-

Stiffly awaiting another chilled

breeze, even I gazed out as if

waiting for something. My sense

of space was diminished in this

open air as I stood. Allied to

nothing, figuring I'd be free, I

was able to leave the material

world behind. Thankfully.

13,814, RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,213

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,213

('co-opted')

Taking my fate into my own 

hands I think here that I will 

make one step into another, 

more local, domain than the

one that I am usually used to.

I know that I can successfully

weave it into the broader thread

of my narrative, and probably

withstand the gnashing of teeth

it will produce. But, some people

never learn. I define my NYC 

years  -  through my own lens  -  

as authentic, raw, and real. It

was still the 1960's,  and years

of puddling out through the mish

mash of hippie-denatured, media

bullshit, over-assorted pinata

hangings of sex, drugs, and a

supposedly nascent developing

of a new 'culture'  -  yet another

oasis of 'bliss' along a patterned

media-field of nothing more than

sales hysteria. 'Buy, and ye shall

be free!' Only later did the computer

and tech industries coin there own

phrase 'Gigo' (garbage in, garbage

out), for the selfsame flim-flam.

-

If someone has killed, do they admit

to it? Immediately? Or only after many

years? Ask any soldier, and get me an

answer. In 1967, that answer, for so

many young men was forced out, as

if being coerced with forceps: Death

and destruction, carnage and burning,

rape and mad-murder, in its latter days

infected as well by drugs. It is (still)

called, in 'History' books, which of 

course must the 'approved' version for

the kiddies to learn, Vietnam. In my

own case, the killings were as local

as they rancid domain I'd taken to 

live in. East 11th street, up and down.

Hippies and goons. A very few years

later (look it up, view the film), those

same apartments and streets were for

a while taken over and redone as old

Russian fronts and cafes, for the film

'Ragtime.' The 'Novy Mir Working 

Man's Cafe' was a particular favorite 

false front of mine. It looked quite

authentic too. Watch the film, that's

11th street. James Cagney too, in I

think his last role. It was so bad in 

that environment then that my wife

and I were directed out of there and 

told to flee, that we should be in fear

for our lives and that we could be 

killed for walking around there with 

such camera equipment on our shoulder, 

if anyone saw us. We were taking

freelance photos of the scene. Crime 

was somehow that bad. I figured that 

was pretty real, and authentic too.

-

If something is co-opted, the dictionary

says, it is 'diverted to or used in a role 

different from the usual or original one;

as in 'social scientists were co-opted to

work with development agencies;' or

'the green parties have mostly been

co-opted by bigger parties.' That's how

I feel about all this 9-11 crap  -  which 

today just happens to be 20 years past.

Big whoop. To see the way people and

scumbag politicians handle the drivel

it's all nothing but co-optation. A mix

of sentiment, false emotion, rudely

re-directed uses for politicized ends,

and  -  in fact  -  unauthorized and

inauthentic, any, purloined, uses.

Anyone anywhere is invited to lick

their own asses on this matter as much

as they like  -  as loudly, as broadly, and

as publicly, as they wish. BUT, for me

to yet again have to witness the screwed

over co-optation of this by municipalities,

fire companies, politicians on the take -

and the make - is sickening. They can 

all go  straight to Hell! If I see one more

flag, or one more hand-over-heart

bullshit move, I'll simply and loudly

call it 'pandering' by weasels.

-

There really ought to be bombs 

and  firebombs absorbed into the 

schoolbook definition of what 

America is; along with the plain

old, regular American definitions 

of Freedom and Commerce and

Coercion and Control. Instead it's

as if we get the opposite. Everything

that's being proclaimed and taught 

is wrong, and all we're to be left with 

is a meddlesome mass of wise-ass 

preacher types trying to refine the 

smelting of the foul metal that's being

served up. I'm  an old guy now, a natty,

piece-of-crap rabble-rouser, I suppose, 

but that makes me no different than 

anyone else, just off in the other

direction. At least  I'm real and will 

speak my mind (which will most 

probably be censored here). When

a nation reaches the point that all

it's matter and opinion is reduced to

sentiment and emotionalism, there

is little left that's any good.

-

Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001, was a very

crisp and pleasant day  -  weatherwise,

in NYC terms  -  as had been Tuesday,

the 11th, a mere 4 days back. The city, 

in a complete and continuing turmoil,

was shattered and shut-down. Getting

to anywhere below Canal Street was a

total risk and crap-shoot Everything

had to be on foot; no vehicles. Even

the tunnels were closed. Lockdown

and a weird sort of (real) fear was

present everywhere, as if most people

were certain yet that another 'shoe'

had yet to drop. The awesome spectacle

of the smoldering ruins, twisted steel,

the smell, the paper and debris everywhere,

and things still fluttering in the air,

the very psyche of terror itself, added

to the psychological terror. An unknown

'America, never before seen - Militia,

soldiers, ambulance and fire-workers -

ran everywhere. Sirens and signals

blared. Thick white ash and smoke

was still settling, and had coated

most everything. Cars were left in

mid-street, from where their owners

had fled, one assumed. Enormous

tow-trucks were dragging away crushed

vehicles  -  cars and taxis, commercial

trucks and firetrucks too! Crushed and

mangled materiel, everywhere. Along

each curb, to far downtown, were the

generators the size of of freight cars

which had been put in place alongside

the curbs. And from each of them, and

running along all the curbs, were plastic

tubed conduits of wires and connections

and hook-ups, everywhere, for temporary

electric power. As quickly as they were

put in place, as quickly were they then

coated with falling ash.  Police and

authority vehicles were everywhere, in

rows, parked wily-nily, on sidewalks,

walkways, grassy small parks, etc. No

longer did anything of that nature matter.

Already flyers and posters of the missing

(and the dead?) were tacked onto bulletin

poles, light poles, most anything vertical.

These bore the photos, the descriptions,

the places of employment, in or out of the

towers, the personal left-behinds, the traits

and habits, the likes and even the grooming

of the individual being sought. Desperate

pleas on paper.

-

The medical-command stations, amazingly,

were empty. The expected rush of injured

and wounded had never materialized. There

was, really, nothing left of all that. The large

Medical Station in Battery Park  -  tents, cots,

workers, EMT's, were idle, were just waiting.

Outcomes were in doubt everywhere. Wherever

and whenever a body was found, a blast-horn

sounded, the work at that location stopped,

and a macabre sort of recovery took place. 

An ambulance would then soar off, to St.

Vincent's Hospital, in Greenwich Village.

(That hospital too now, alas, gone to local

development; by the same cranks who

boasted so of it then). Nearby was the White

Horse, a famed tavern that was being used

as a re-freshening post for workers, firemen,

cops, soldiers, anyone in need of that respite.

Those within it, or on the sidewalk, were

always heavily garbed, and themselves

coated in white ash-grime. To and fro

they went, that entire day and night. Some

walked determinedly up or down Hudson

Street, returning to the scene for more, or

taking their time to walk off the horror. Cars

and vans dropped other off. Amazingly,

two things I saw that day live brightly on

in my memory. The first was the manner

in which, each time a walking rescue worker

would pass, donned in work garb and, as

I said, usually coated with ash, sweat and

grime, bystanders stopped, moved aside,

and applauded. There would be little knots

of people, standing together, applauding

the passing worker. The second thing, even

more vivid to me, was, at the NY end of the

Holland Tunnel (which had been closed to

all traffic except necessary vehicles and

police and militia use), when I saw, as

I was standing there for the vista and

the vantage point of the twisted and

smoldering ruins afforded me from

the nearby Nancy Whiskey Pub, and

heard the miraculous clamor of some

20 Negro marchers exit9ing the tunnel, 

armed with shovels and pickaxes, and

accompanied by a brass-band troupe

of companion marchers, playing a 

dirge-like tempo to some spiritual

tune I didn't recognize. They were on

their way to help and work. I figured

them to be from Jersey City? Hoboken?

It was awesome, touching, and amazing.

(I have photos of this. If I can find

them I will show them).

-

These were just a few of the scenes I saw

in those days of aftermath; and I'll tell

more too. Both my wife and a friend who

accompanied us, saw all these marvels  -

and not one of the things we saw can be

outshown by the inauthentic drivel that's

prattled about these days  -  recollections

of nothing much at all except the usual

cant and the usual agenda and the

usual seeking of 'something,' whether

money or a vote or some new form of

todays condescension playing itself

out over the dishonest and self-absorbed

counter-American defense of what passes

these days as 'America.' It's all crap,

and it deserves nothing.

13,813. THINGS SLOW DOWN

THINGS SLOW DOWN

(Italia)

This beachfront location affords me what

I see  -  the caprice of the sea, As feathered

things are falling; seagulls arch for

what they can reach, reacting to the

sodden world with a nearly marveled 

screech. The boards of the walkway

seem dried and white.

-

A more distant horizon line draws

ships that graze at sea; tankers from

Dubai; cruise ships from Capri.

13,812. JUNOT DIAZ

 I AM JUNOT DIAZ

And tired to my bones. The wrestling

match between honor and valor really

brings me down. Along the field there

are stakes in the parkland. New Brunswick

references, where the river's high waters

take over the ground. But not for any

real reason, because nothing is there.

-

Rutgers no longer has any gents; just

black crapheads, as if washed up from

the Raritan's waters. Footballers. Hunks.

Pieces of lethal debris (claiming their

'education' should be free). I watch the

bonfire at night. In late August like this

it's always football, football, football.

-

Just as education should be. A long,

deadly pass from Newark to Brunswick,

sailing for free, so Neanderthals can learn

how to breed all over again, or at least see

what it is their ruined world is presenting.

-

Little white cars. Doilies and rear windows.

13,811. WHAT'S INSIDE?

WHAT'S INSIDE? 

I come inside to pay my bills, at

a little desk in the corner. I come

inside to put things away as cutely

as Little Jack Horner; but what's 

inside of me and where else can

I go? So many things are left 

outside, vulnerable and almost

forgotten. My own words, ribald

or tame, cannot withstand that 

much exposure. But where can

I place my inner feelings?

-

So many things I do already know:

body parts and diagrams and where

this is and where that goes. But, still,

at heart, I'm a restless soul more yet

worried about hiding than to where it

is I am riding. More than that? Yes, I

come inside to eat, or chat, or maybe

sit around, and sleep. That's all natural.

-

What I want to know is  -  really now  - 

where to go to keep my secret things

so safe and sound that they'd never

be secreted  -  no matter what else

is found. I ask again? What's inside

of me?

of me?

13,810. SHOW NO EMOTION, MAKE NO MOVEMENT

SHOW NO EMOTION, 

MAKE NO MOVEMENT

Potato pickers in Maine, who come 

down to Aroostook? Lines of Canucks 

with French faces. How marvelous 

can any of that be? I love that scenery.

They seem to make small campsites

along the lakeside beds, where they

talk away the hours  -  children and

mothers, men and boys. What's said

gets said, and then to bed. Another

day's picking looms.

-

The landscape gets dotted as well,

with lumber trucks and cut-through

roads that bring this to that, and vice

versa too. It's been told to me that one

should never ask a Maine native for

directions to anywhere  -  for they take

a fond delight in mis-directing outsiders

and laughing off the result as great fun.

'Show no emotion, make no movement,

and then be done...'

13,809. THE ENDING OF A WORK IN PROGRESS

THE ENDING OF A 

WORK IN PROGRESS

For this I say, 'Not enough!' From Cochise to

Geronimo I want Amerika to go and Amiri

Baraka to know that all men are created and

just leave it right there. Utah? Massachusetts?

Qui a farmez ma porte? [who slammed my

door]  : huddled masses yearning to be free,

wretched refuse of teeming shores?

-

Here they can wallow and bask : Taylor

Pork Roll, Jersey Ham, Vidalia Onions,

and cans of Spam? Beef Chow Mein and

Egg Foo Young? Daylight under his feet?

He's well hung.

13,808. THE KETTLEDRUM SOCIETY MATCHBOOK FUND

THE KETTLEDRUM SOCIETY MATCHBOOK FUND

When he asked for money I said

I didn't know there was a kettledrum

society matchbook fund. Then I

added how I didn't know there was

a kettledrum society. It all went on

from there and I really could have

started to doubt everything.

He was washing dishes and baby 

clothes too. A very domestic man,

I thought. On his kitchen table,

where I'd been sitting, was a set

of books, by the Dalai Lama and 

by Deepak Chopra. That could

have explained a lot.

-

He said his wife was away for

two weeks, visiting in Minnesota,

a sick mother or something of that

nature. She was an Ojibwe native.

He kept the TV on for his company

while alone, and it lulled the baby

to sleep. It had the opposite effect 

on me, I told him, like nails on a

blackboard in a locked-down school. 

All I wished to do was flee.

-

Whatever and however that kettledrum

thing was, he'd brought it up coyly and

with some skill too. Woven it right in

to whatever we were talking about. 

Sly dude. Slippery fellow. Like a

white man, with an Indian,

ready for the kill.

13,807. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,212

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,212

('Salute' : completely abstract dumbbell)

Sometime back in the darkest light

of a pre-dawn time, when the swollen

Hudson was running fast and the old,

sagging trucks sat cheap and idle along

the wharves and piers  -  those old,

gathered places of lost reverie  -  

there gathered that usual clump of 

men who come out of the wintry

darkness morning after morning,

seeking shelter again or jobs or at

the least a day's work pulling and

hauling for some 7 dollar measly

mound of beans and coffee, there

arose this scene, both quantified

and derelict : twelve men, not

chosen like disciples yet holied

nonetheless, hunched over and

wearing old jackets stained with

oil and food and the leaky contents

of whatever they'd lastly carried, and

their worn-out, finger-holed gloves

frayed and well-used tried squelching

the cold. The men stood alongside

the building where the wall was

marked with schedules and lists and

they talked endlessly, chattering, 

endlessly back and forth between 

them, each with a story to tell, a

tale or a mark to relate. They stood

in the early morning New York City

Hudson River waterfront cold  - when

that waterfront was real and not as it

is today, a prattle-formed playland 

of golfers and loons. They was a day

for a pay, or a ride; something to do

by which to continue existing. It

was an early beginning already to 

a Winter long in coming, and the

rounded, black cars went by overhead

on the elevated roadway trestle, the

long, fat, rows of ChevroletFordDodge

careening past post and pillar and

light stanchion in a buzzing silence

of awe and distance combining with

all the energy of travel and space

and time, gathered as on, together.

The meanings and the visuals by

which we then think we recognize 

this world and give visual shape

and form to our times and works

and duties. Salute! The passing 

world and its wharves and ferries

and the downtown slaughterhouses

and animals braying. Being prepared

as well near there was another day's

worth of clean-up after the glaze of

red-stricken stream of fluid along

the gutter, and the bleats and yells

soon to be over as the carcasses

hung outside on hooks and chains

and the sidewalk conveyors showed

the men with their saws and cleavers

hacking at and cutting apart the parts

and body chunks of fresh-killed

animals  -  the way cities were once 

fed, on-site rendering. Local produce.

And of off them in the cold  rose the

wet-sweat of bloodied, dead, meat

which sent a fog of moisture and

mist out and into the chilled air

of morning/mourning, (oh cry the

beloved country!)...The meat trucks,

The open-air markets. The cold-trucks.

The slabs and shanks and sides to

be trimmed and rendered into their

saleable butcher-block portions, and

citywide. Meat, fruit, vegetable boxes

everywhere along the west side lower

market streets, the hounding yells

and yapping of sellers and buyers,

those who walked to rows of goods

and pointed, making lists, placing

orders; with men in dirtied-white

aprons and their odd, white-paper

hats ubiquitous as were the cigarettes 

dangling from lips everywhere.

- 

The slamming of truck doors and the

starting of engines was mostly what

was heard over the din. Freight-guys,

cargo-haulers, and wagon-men; two

by two trucks teams mounting the

running boards and sliding by while

the truck was already running. Guys

here could enter a moving truck at

will. Out on the river, huge ice chunks

went by, moving sideways and up

and down as they passed, with the

occasional chinks of crashing into

one another. Strange sight. Upstate

water, upstate apples, upstate fruit

and vegetables too. Farm town

after farm town with a signature

strut entering the big city, wild-

eyed metropolis of fame and glory.

For some. For others, the last

path before the grave.

-

I never knew by what lights I

saw. I just saw. Period. Like some

deep and infernal charnel house,

all of this had somehow become

my home, erasing all memory of 

my past and place. I could weave 

whatever story I told, and make

it real. Lethargic shirts, for me?

No. I found a hundred ways to

walk in drama. The entire universe

was right here, or whatever part of

it I ever cared for anyway, and these

mornings were like porticos to

Paradise: light gliding in, daybreak

perhaps for an hour or so, not much

to do, the occasional patrol car

prowling by, the taxis, the doubled

over man puking his curb brains 

out, wearing the same, soiled,

coat he'd ever had. The sounds

around me were all of the same 

sounds that every human environment

had ever made before; the grown,

the wheeze, the squeeze of sense

being poured forth ignominiously.

Again. Whatever came out of that

man's guy, I knew  -  orange, red, 

purple, all together. It steamed on

the cold ice as it splashed, while

he stayed straight-down in his own

remission of time and place too.

Staking the posts and the dimensions

of all that was for him. Alone. A

mute and anguished testimony to

his own living and lost talent?

-

The water rolled by, all of it, and

beyond the boats and flags and the

far shore of New Jersey away and

everywhere  -  this was business and

all was Business too. Truck after

truck seemed to be awakening from 

a slumber of the dark, those returning,

growing quieter, and those leaving

now groaning with new weight and

a load of freight. Men with age and

power and pull  -  and those without  -

willing and waiting and ready to give

and to work, heaving and pulling,

delivering and taking, ripping and

sorting, loading and wrapping; the

whole, entire forever day through.

A world alive, with energy and force

and power. Such energy and such

power in the freezing dawn cold!

13,806. HANDMAIDEN OF RANCOR LANDING

HANDMAIDEN OF 

RANCOR LANDING

Down at the middle, where the paragraph

ends, they placed the picture of her in her

crown. Czarina something or other; staring

out like a sabre toothed tiger ready to pounce.

Sell her venom by the gallon and her poison

by the ounce. You can quote me on that.

-

The small people, gathered like mites on a

head, seemed unwillingly to be anywhere

else  -  mainly because they had no choice

and couldn't be anyway. The donkey carts

they rode in on were smarter then they 

were. All those mud-thatched do-little, 

cadaverous hectares stretched out for

miles. The old czarina used her phrase

'desyatina' instead, meaning 2.5 acres;

and supposedly everyone was granted.

-

They had to live on it for five years

before it was theirs  -  what a trade,

this blood-for-land scheming arrears.