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S T I L L L I F E 1
The straight handle of a steel spoon Stands in a white mug On a pine table next to a pink pot.
A tall girl in a green shift Rests her head in one hand And stares at a book-- Face-open on the table.
Spread on her lap with paws gone limp, Lies her cat at rest, its bell silent.
The light from a paper globe is caught up In the still luster of long tanned legs She sits upon in a womb-like straw chair.
Her brownish-blonde hair sets In wisps against her cheek and neck; One hand extends over her knee, Poised above the tufted floor.
A child lies in the next room, asleep-- Our child-- And the clock on the wall has stopped.
G A R A G E S A L E 2
Bits and pieces
Remainders, remnants
Junk and treasures--
TWENTY YEARS
of memories souvenirs and tokens--
ALL FOR SALE
For bargain prices or
“Your best offer.”
Everything must go
Before we leave--
our house our home our refuge
From the fray--
For another place
And another day.
G E N I E S I N T H E G A R B A G E 3
Ali Baba jars, large and round, Line back-door alleys all over town:
Black ones and green ones with Hinged-doors in hinged-lids
Harbor garbage, refuse, bottles and cans
With room left-over For genies on-guard To rise in vapors Encircling in whirling winds
malodorously pungent and sweetly rotten--
Those smells almost forgotten
Save for and Saved by-- our genuine genies WHO over their thousand and one nights Have collected in storied and stored-up vaults
Decaying pleasures and discarded delights In desert places.
C R Y S T A L V I S I O N 4
For enchanted MERLIN Overgrown with ancient ice-- He waits one darkened night:
Frozen tree-fingers snap noisily In sub-zeroed winds as icicles Drip into instant silvered daggers Descending from the frozen tips Of blackened bracken-branches In bushes laden and packed hard With sepulchral snow, silent as night, Since Sunday last--
Unbeknownst to him, fast asleep, Expecting MAGIC to come.
When, suddenly, winter storms Flock his barren landscape in Christmas strings of glowing blue ‘n white Shadows that play upon him with lights From setting suns set streaming In their spiralizing horizons of ocean waves That send him flowing in suspended scenes Of iced crystal palaces formed in filigrees Of frozen snowflaked-lace Crocheted in cryptic encrustations of--
C H I V A L R Y.
Gawain dreams--on and on-- As his woods fill up with snow.
E D G E S 5
Hard-edged angles
Chisled out of precious metals
Micrometrically accurate
To one-thousandth of an inch
Fly about the sculptor’s studio
As he chips away at
His innards, heart and mind,
To form out of precisely hewn rock--
Statues of fire.
Or so
He would have it.
F I R E N Z E 6
A distinguished and elderly English gentleman Matted down in rust-colored, nappy tweeds
Wended his way Through labyrinthian alleys Pensive and lost-- A tourist abroad, like myself.
He came upon An intricately wrought iron gate That opened into a courtyard.
Cautiously, I watched him Step inside--
And there Rising around him Hung terraced gardens Of secreted apartments
Each inhabited By luxuriantly accented voices: “BUON GIORNO, SIGNOR!”
He felt at home; Would I ?
D A Y 7
Let us wake
Let us not lie abed.
The sun breaks to us now
If we will but wake.
Let us rise now
And go forth and fill ourselves
With the joys of this new day.
Let us walk and stretch
Let the light brush the sleep
From our eyes.
Let us live this infant morning
As if it were our first--and our last.
DAY--dawns to us, now!
DEATH IN THE O.R. 8
Strapped to a hard, cold table Covered by a thin, green sheet
I lie naked Staring up at lights Listening to the click Of instruments, cold and clean, Ready to rip My inner-body Cut-and-clip Broken parts From my damaged flesh--
AGAIN.
Tubes and needles Invade my veins as Dripping drugs of M E R C Y Close my eyes to Buzzing silver-sounds where Lights elide quickly Rushing into dark.
And consciousness ebbs As a bulb on a dimmer switch--
Fades to black.
SHALL I COME BACK?
D R A G O N F L Y 9
Circling P again Diving-Down U Soaring
Skimming the surface of a pond or pool
With cellophane-see-through wings
Whirling Churning Buzzing in blurred circles--
She flies hypodermically hunting for
Pink rosy flesh :
What daring airy ability to my earth-bound life--
This oversized fly (a caterpillar canterlevered outward not any dragon, then or now)
Hovers, hanging over water Endlessly whirring on whorling turnings--
Stops, starts, startling those nearby With threats of poisoned stings from Nosey protruding needles.
“Thou art unseen, Yet I hear thy shrill delight.”
10
E = M C²
The mathemetician ponders
R E L A T I V I T Y:
“Formulated abstractions
Attempt to reduce to fractions
Secrets locked in equations
Extrapolated from obfuscation
The ‘laws of nature’ for interpretation.
That ENERGY can be measured
By simply multiplying the MASS
Of the object-in-motion
By the SPEED OF LIGHT squared
Is a relatively valuable idea
For one interested in such things--
And I am.”
MR. GUPPY 11
A blanched fish-faced man Of guppy eyes and guppy mouth With a wisping lock lingering Next to his smoothed forehead.
Speaks, always in arrears, Venturing forth indirections To find directions out.
An oily eel insinuating sinuously Into the affairs of others Vaulted above his grovelling station.
Yet a man of genuinely ingenuine Sentiments; or so he would Have people think.
Misunderstood, Mistreated and Misbegotten--
Dickens only knows.
J O U R N E Y 12
Sheets of ice Collide and crash Within my brain And I cry out in Silent seething pain.
Until the beam has bent And broken Into dreams
And winds relent resume subside once more
And the warmth Returns to Linger long.
S O U P 13
POST-OPERATIVE CONSIDERATIONS:
Primordial puss oozes and organizes Inside scraped-out stomach hole Behind abdominal walls that realize Into newly-forming flesh unfolding.
Biological lava-like fluids of blood And gristle and thread and goop of nerves Knit themselves together in red-hot cud Flowing in magma-motioned speeding curves Around a lining alive with burning fire-- Screaming pain in my rising ire.
A new body-part is being born In muscled, scar-tissued soup Growing daily, deep and dark Around my intestines--
As in and out it loops-- For now.
M O T O R C Y C L E C O P 14
Growling, growing thunder reverberates in the Air around me As a black leather-jacketed Ivory-helmeted lone ranger of the law Curves and careens in my rear-view mirror--
And I decelerate accordingly--
Faster approaching, gaining on me steadily Until he pulls up, alongside, then passes To my relief, leaving his rear RED, BLUE and AMBER lights Pulsating in speeding distance Ahead and away From my beating heart and anxious brain.
Who WAS that masked man? And on what mighty horse-powered steed Does he ride and rove and speed?
This lawless LAW, no less Tied to the ground by a zooming machine-- Mustachioed, truly blessed-- And mean.
e. e. 15
what of a much of a which of a MAN could lift your heart times-two and sprinkle everywhere with Spring-time balloons and yes and true?
un-til did you(and me and she and we) would be-leaving him and his
games up mixed letters squriming with
(all ways re-ever-turning to i plus you is us in-love)
now here then there everywhere evermore?
What say you--
In plain English--
mr. c?
M O R P H I N E D R I P 16
“Hypodermic needles out ; Nurses freed.”
He pushes the clip to hear the blip: then waits for the drip begin to rip... He feels no pain for the gain
Of masks made for blocking brains
In drowsing drifts.
His heaving heart struggles to be sane
And gasping lungs bend to distraction
Before dripping drugs start
their coping
actions.
NOW, he sleeps--in peace.
Y E L L O W M O N S T E R S 17
Pre-eminent domain dominates the landscape
As growling, grinding yellow monsters
Cut into living earth
Squelching its soggy skin
Squealing as its flesh is ripped
AWAY--in chunks and cast aside.
While next to a newly sliced swath
Of muddy soil stands a pool of water
Reflecting sky above with
Mottled clouds blown by.
There’s always WYOMING !
-end PART I-
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S T R O N G H E A R T 18
One blistering Boston summer’s weekend, I hitch-hiked to the CAPE, Alone.
Once there, I tramped up, over and down the dunes, Cooling breezes in my face.
But the sun set And the dark encroached. The breezes turned to chilling winds As I searched for the refuge of a slanted dune To hide the night away in.
Unable to dream, I rose, walked, stumbled Towards the province of the town.
On the road I met a woman Who stopped me :
“Young strong-heart, where are you going?”
She did not invite me in ; Rather, we parted ways,
Her “strong-hearted” words lingering in my ears--
And keeping me warm throughout that cold, cold night.
U R G E S 19
Ambiguous desires
Accellerate unexpectedly
Upwards and outwards
Reaching and ramming
N-E-R-V-E C-E-N-T-E-R-S
Raw molten masses
E R U P T--
From within my heart’s core.
S O N N E T 20
Frigate birds fly floating far above Earth-bound bodies in the burning sun Where green-vermilion parrots preen like doves Cleaning their flocking feathers straight and done.
Rocks fill fresh the heaping hills all stilled With bouganvillas burgeoning, as pleading Trees hold green coconuts, cream-filled, And ivy-snakes lace winding tapestries.
Waves rise to smack the flat, dark, grainy sand And rush back-out over tumbling, clacking shells To line an imaginary band Where future waters seek to swell and dwell.
I sit poolside in the evening shade Quaffing drafts of pink lemonade.
F I N G E R S 21
My fragile hands Designed in digits Separated and interlocked With phalangeal bones Held in place by muscled tissues
Run through with needled-nerves Fed with coursing capillaries Webbing out of blue-red veins
Wrapped in elastic flesh Covered with rippled hairs Knuckled at the joints
That grip down fast around Mothers’ hands to hold tight Before disengaging, unlocking, letting loose To roam, graspingly.
Age, spot, then, crease and crack Riddled with arthritic spurs Attacking cartilege and tendons That, finally, tremble and tumble Into earthy dust.
I crack my knuckles and stretch my fingers tight--
To test my delicately connected
M O R T A L I T Y.
R A I N 24
My “words have forked no lightning” Yet it rains from dark sheets of sky Upon the ribboned boat basins below Coating all by-ways in black-lighted Ripples of smooth asphalted-like sheen.
Water-filled drops impinge upon the streets And pop in staccato rhythms as they collide With the captured waters of swimming pools at rest.
Nature’s night-time show of
Flashing streaks and echoed rumbles Caught up in the syncopated spatter of Patterned rain--
As the Commodore sits warm and dry above it all On his covered deck, safe from heavens about to fall.
A F F R O N T 23
A bent old lady with leathery skin
Her silver hair spiked by a ruby clip
Fingered the long-necked
Fluted bottle of LICORE DE STREGA.
The owner stared,
Smiling suspiciously
Down at her.
“How much?”
“For you, nothing.
A Christmas present.”
She straightened up--
And walked out the door.
Good for you, MADAM!
B U T C H A R D G A R D E N S 22
One sunny summer’s day In Butchard Gardens, Manicured to rosy perfection,
My love and I did walk Until we came upon A reflecting crystal ball that--
Mirrored images made shiny to refract brokenly In pools and in lakes and in watery gardens that Mimic to imitate what they dare to stare back at In lightness and darkness and days loomed long.
Silvered globes and flashing strobes leave prints That vibrate and bounce and shake and etch Their outlines filled-in by pooling sketches Forming, then fading, finally disappearing by tints.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Us, I think. But more,” she replied.
S C R A T C H E R S 25
“Hearers of my words,” he said.
“MAY unlock my chimes
With symbiotic keys
And, once freed,
Fleshed-out figures
CAN walk out of their graven cells
To strut and charm
Upon the ready minds
That set them free--”
And rapidly drank a glass of water.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
R E N E W A L 26
Sealing silent-sounds and breaths
Buried beneath layers of his lethargic lists
Twist and bend in labored rituals.
A telephone call.
He passes through light one more time
To emerge renewed in stellar shapes.
She was bored, too.
So--let’s start again.
I N T E R N E T D I R E C T O R Y 27
MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTES
“masterful suffering”
D R I P P I N G
with
Coprophagous colors, brown and white
B O L D
I T A L I C I Z E D P R I N T
hawking--
CASH PRIZES & COLLEGE BOWL CONTEST
PLAY NOW !
Beware the ‘lest it fill us all with dread.
B R O W N - O U T 28
The apartment closed in around him--
Lights faded, dimmed
Walls browned, beleaguring
His eyes tried to shut
Mind-tricks conjured panic:
QUICK--
He turned to
The faded PAINTING on the wall--
And the gleam returned again.
G A R B A G E T R U C K S 29
Man-made machines Massively clanking, clawing behemoths Prowl the city’s strewn streets Searching for
Gobs of green-bagged globules Lying mountainous and curb-lined Ready for ravaging.
Green-suited handlers hopping Off-and-onto their putrid perches Stride one slow-gliding metal monster
That yawns and yaws and opens wide for Daily allotment of ready refuse.
Ingested churningly These tag-tied sacks collapse Into chunks and bits and pieces To pass through peristaltic, pulsating channels to End-up packed deeply into heavy holds enfolded.
For their ravenous ride to fly-infested landfills Where they shall lie-in-wait--
And rot into eternity.
While I busy myself With making more.
E A R P L U G S 30
I sit down to write But with the aid of--
Triple-tiered rubber plugs Rubbing toadstool-like, Inside insulators Filters to stop
I N V A D I N G S O U N D S
That push and penetrate to distract and accentuate Outside invasions Of the waxed canal With extraneous vibrations.
Removed, The stems pop free-- Encrusted with resinating layers Rubbed off to Flake upon the page--
That held the words in abeyance Imprinted in synthetic silence.
I M P R I N T 31
A mother and her daughter Glowing In gold and silver
Radiating
Stroll the congested mall,
Faces in a place Passing to and fro--
Parade In kaleidoscopic flashes As I watch
The on-rushing crowds to and fro.
Our eyes meet and focus
For a moment
ETCHED INTO ETERNITY--
Never to meet again.
W E A T H E R 32A
Sky-bright sun slants down as The blowing begins to shiver bitter cold And my girl and I are off to B R Y G G A-- The “harbored meeting place” Just below the darkening sea.
Step-gabled facades of houses Cling to each other and Looming high gothic spires Jut up into the cold grey sky As we walk by.
We buffet into blustering wind Muffler-scarfed and mittened mightily Against the first spiralling Flurries that begin to fall.
Into and out of public places We hurry, bustle and bolt, Passing by laces, mussels and saints.
At last the snow begins to stick, Spins stingingly into our naked faces And out come black ear-attaching patches And head-covering terrorist masks To make a dint into the glittering gale.
We make a last-ditch attempt To bend a progress Against the wall of wind.
32B
When--S U D D E N L Y-- Her umbrella blows inside-out and Carries her off, Aloft and floating Over roof-top and tower Like a winterized balloon Popping in-and-out of White-washed Belgian beauty.
And I wave as she glides by, Out of view--
“ADIEU, ADIEU !”
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S M A L L W E E D 33
Carried around LONDON TOWN Upon a litter, portered by lackeys Like some kind of cut-throat pasha, His dirty golden locks Dribbling out from under A stained and patterned cap.
Trumpeting his entrance Into any establishment With the decorum of a swan-in-heat : “THERE’S MONEY ‘ERE !”
He duly orders his bearer To “SHAKE ME UP” Upon which command Some man or boy or girl Grabs him stoutly about his chest and With arms encircled and locked Does, indeed, SHAKE The old bag of bones Up and out--
To do his nasty work In dark Victorian corners.
HELICOPTER FROG 34
“NEWS OF THE WORLD” Flashes on the silver screen--
Like a floating toad
Its underbelly descending slowly
At an upturned angle
This bespeckled green
Camoflaged machine
Comes in for a soft landing
Among reed grasses
And bamboo shoots,
Opens its disgorging mouth
To take on fleeing human-cargo
In between
Machine-gun bullet-blasts
And exploding mortar shells.
The newsreel ended, The audience leaves.
C O N F R O N T A T I O N 35
A stiff and virginal-looking matron In startched brocaded jacket, tailored severely
Advances unafraid towards the bar Inhaling her courage in rapid breaths.
Girding herself, She exhales into the den
To find-- Men, rough and unrepentant, Drinking, swearing, laughing loudly.
She approaches one Directly, decisively, desperately.
“Are you William Finch?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I do, you bastard.”
And with that--
The play began.
S C I S S O R S 36
for slick-slicing and quick-cutting
these twin-triangulated blades riveted at their fluid-fulcrum connected to flexible finger-grips
direct straightly-lined incisions across paper and fleshy parts
needing separating into sections with precision and pre-vision where a single slicer won’t do--at all.
so, someone’s solution set TWO BLADES singularly side-by-side and by sliding past each other this now double-edged instrument
--in a surgeon’s hand--
enfolds and inflicts the “unkindest cut of all” :
discriminatingly segregating
one part from another, et al.
SLICE CAREFULLY !
H O T - E N - T O T 37
hot, hot, hot--
tot, tot, tot--
hop, hop, hop--
up, down, around--
shallow, deep, abound.
SO--hot, hot, hot--en
tot, tot, tot.
SO WHAT?
N O T R E D A M E 38
High gray gothic spires soar Up and out Flying buttressed to Spiraling, reaching towers Dripping with ornamental Encrustations of Griffins and gargoyles That gaze and pout Demon-like Above the milling crowds That swarm and gather In the square below With visions of Legends still Ringing in their heads--
As Quasimodo swings On thun’drous echoing sounds To rescue Esmeralda.
G I A N T-- For his love Of bells.
W H I T E F I R E 39
I awaken with--
Gliding wind of billowing white sheets
Gauzed free
Undulating, flapping up and over
At once covered by AND creating
The design of a puffing tent--
Rope wraps itself within its ivory folds
And snapping flashes of mind-arcing sparks
IGNITE IN FLAMES--
As I dream
Alive, in bed.
D I C K T R A C Y 40
Palm-sized silvered slivers
Flip-top folding-hinged
Razored-thin black plastic--
ACTUAL PORTABLE TELEPHONES--
Sans wires or pod-like bases
Protrude and proliferate
Our newly wireless landscape
And fill our audio channels
With Beethoven rings
And lavaliere mics
For hands-free talking-sqwaking.
Who would have thought it--
A reality?
G I R L S A N D B U O Y S 41
Bobbing multi-colored corks
In the YMCA swimming pool
Octogenarians adrift in
RED YELLOW BLUE GREEN
Splash, paddle and stretch
With floats and caterpilar tubes.
The smells of stale chlorine
Rise from off calcified white tiles and
Waft among rusted lockers--
As I run and seek for air.
D E A T H 42A
A little, fat old man hurries Across a lawn of green, Trembling, nervous.
I meet him and his eyes Quickly tell me what he has to say:
“My wife--she died last night-- Suddenly, she just fell. I called the fire station, but...”
And that awful sickness Dirty, black Rises in my throat And I am powerless.
I say some words and, Stunned, hurry on.
It was a glorious day-- Sun, green, warmth, sweetness; But now, all has changed And earth takes on the sickly smell.
All day long I hesitate As my actions seem to mock me.
A siren shrieks on a street nearby And I wish to flee-- Away into trees and rock And silence.
42B
A little, fat, old lonely man Has lost half his life--or more.
And, for a moment, so have I.
S P R I N G S 43
“Sorrow’s springs are the same,”
The priestly poet wrote, knowingly.
“Y E S, Margaret
All those springs are ONE--
LOSS after
another.”
As the seas roll on, curl white and crash back to smack the flat black sands
And pebbles ring in the currents of the Holy Stream--
He continues to pray for Lordly mercy.
As Margaret, by and by,
Unleaves her golden grove
And learns that
It is--Margaret--that she grieves for.
PIED-PIPER 44
A tall man An elderly man bent over with Grizzled beard greying-out on black skin
Whimsically whistles his happy way Up-and-Down In-and-Around Streets lined with schools and playful parks--
And his long wed-in-wood filled-with-air
FLUTE lures with magic (or so it seems) those mesmerized Lemming-dwarfs all-in-a-row lined-up-to follow
This lightsome merry musician To-and-Fro their summertime classes And-back-again to their harboring homes
ALL for a chance of a promised smile
Played upon a F L U T E .
ALL watched by one who would also pipe his words upon young playful minds.
L ‘ I N F E R N O 45
A horn-rimmed bespeckled stationery salesman High-browed, Valentino-jacketed
Entered the salon; Exited Armani-armed To prowl Italian ways.
Seated at a cafe In LA PIAZZA MAGGIORE
He sipped his frothy cappucino, A soupcon of cream upon his upper lip.
Bella ragazzae ambled on,
Swarthy Lotharios peacocked by,
Camera-clad tourists wandered lost.
Not enough To quench his penciled thirst,
He opened his book And turned to--
CANTO XXXIV--
Briefly,
And ordered again.
T O M M Y ‘ S S N O W 46
White-washed dust of snows
Up on brown-blackened branches
Fell from heaven last night
Enwrapping, clinging to
Enchanted forest sights.
What wonders of delight
Shall we two encounter
In day’s light?
And we go forth, together,
Expectantly.
D U S K 47
Gray-golden shafts of sun shift tight
As my light clicks down from day to night.
Looming rays refract reflectively
From green fields
A few minute moments ago, no bigger
Than a gnat’s eye sparkling up
From within its flower’s blinding cup.
My eyelids close
No longer lit by day’s flaming fire
Now subdued in evening shade.
Twilight streaks across the orange-azure sky
And night grows large to swallow all
In blue-black shrouds of dusty pall--
Before I sleep and fall-- One last time: candle out.
C R U D D Y C R U S T S 48
Miasmal mists of daily dross
Settle down
Up on my middling mind;
Dark-curtained shrouds
Halt my daily motions.
They grow round my sparking synapses
And petrify into encrusted barnacles
Attaching in enervating layers of ennui
That STOP the ebb and flow
Of excited currents
To dead, stand-stills--
Caught and stuck in my flight.
B E W A R E
The weights upon my mind--
Can kill
With most subtle skill.
END OF PART III
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B I G C I T Y S U M M E R 49
A young boy in torn and faded jeans A worn baseball cap aslant his brownish locks
Walked the streets Humid-hot with summer’s heat.
Vacation in East Midtown Manhattan Was long And vacant For ten-year-old boys in those days, Games and amusements limited to--
Museum of Natural History in Central Park A haven for eternal Indians and towering Dinosaurs And for wandering wondering minds.
Playing throw-and-catch With pink “High-Bouncer” Spalding rubber ball Against smooth, sand-blasted facades Of elegant apartment houses Where uniformed doormen, Officiously, Chased LITTLE BOYS--
A W A Y B A C K
Into their brownstone houses To color in books and Carve models in soft balsa wood.
G O I N G T O T H E S U N 50
Mountains grow As the car curves around each bend And the shoulder falls away To shifting silver-grey Shines off Lake McDonald far below.
Sun fades, winking inside Grey-white clouds And cool rains sprinkle the windshield.
Lightening forks flash In distant thunder-thuds As Sibelius’s SECOND sounds By chance or By design.
Light crashes--
And it climbs and climbs
Towards the summit
But detours near the peak--
Stalled and stopped.
M E M O I R E S 51
“Ou sont les neiges d’hier?”
“Dans les plaisirs d’aujourd’hui.”
“Mais quest-ce que c’est laisse ici?”
“Les bons gouts d’hiver.”
T H A L Y S 52
This high-speed, streaming
French super-train
Flies by in rushing window frames--
STICKS
of looming dying trees
Left quaking up
On white and brown-patched
HILLS
stretching rolling down in lichened carpets
G R E E N
Between iron-flowing streams--
Flashing on the inside screens
Of my focused mind.
J A N I S I N J O Y 53
A live wire Arcing high-voltage sparks Ribbons into rainbows Of revolt, regret, fear. Jumping in ranges High and long, Rarely heard before or since-- Silenced by a silver needle’s fatal song.
A misfit in garlands Out of Texas’ blue-jeaned dust Into a spotlight’s star-shined glare-- An exploding red giant too bright to burn, Too dangerously loud to lay to rest.
She shrieked her gin-soaked rants Across scales etched In tracks of pain, Marking spots in loss of life’s blood-- Spilled along mileposts of fame.
A flower, a boa, a bottle of booze-- Born to sing, Born to lose.
T H E I S L A N D 54
EARTH contaminated itself into
A conditioned biosphere
Where all life heretofore
Went on--disturbed.
They ran out
Into the feeling world ;
Were caught,
Brought back to-- the SHADOW LAND.
The film flickered out, And so did I.
V I S I T A T I O N S 55
My old ghosts gleam and glimmer on The dry walls of my brain Draining its dying sparks Across gaps that Ignite with memories Of moments held in check--
Ones vindicated, Ones banished.
Only to return Uninvited, Ineluctably, unintelligibly Save for tiny blips On the radar of my mind.
H E A R E R S 56
An audience of three lost souls
Gathered to hear him speak:
His words spun forth
Astounding sounds
Into their ears,
His phrases scattered rays
And his pauses--hung fire.
He emptied his mouth and,
Drained of magical spirits,
Spent and exhausted,
He left the table
To sip at the springs of life--
A light draft at his local bar,
Next door.
T H E S A C 57
We all gathered in the SAC, Played at flipping trading cards To build our collections of famed Yankees
And learned our Latin responses By pure rote-sounded memory :
“Introbio ad altere Dei”
(Or something like that For that was as far as I ever got).
We learned more about the streets In this, our refuge from the streets, Than in all our Catechism lessons Injected by stern-faced nuns.
The sacristy was our home away from home--
Where the Lord rented rooms.
C A L L I O P E 58
Inside his sounding mind
There lived a chiming machine
Of multi-faceted notes
A colorful muse
Of smoothest euphonies
Of clanging cacophonies
Conjuring up tones
Of eliding shapes and hues
Up and down on scales
Of sliding bells and rings
All colliding
Clicking into slots
Creating in his world--
Unheard music.
A V I E W F R O M A B A L C O N Y 59
In the black night sky
Planes alight with white
And red-tail lights blinking to
Push by smoothly, steadily
As beneath
Upon the near distant
Parking lot
Empty but for
One long, white stretch-limousine--
Also white and red tail-lighted--
Rolls its way across the black
Asphalted tarmack of its
Earth-bound corridor--
And sparks the lonely landscape
That reflects my singular mind.
FRAGMENTED PHRASES 60
Obscure outlines
Follow into patterns
Positioned into
Juxtapositions of
Paradoxical propositions
U N T I L--
Words alone will have happened
I N T O P O E M S--
If they do.
R E D I C E 61
Stare into the sun.
Then, close your eyes
Real tight--and behold :
Bright jagged-edged red cubes
Or green holes with blue dots
Crystallize in your inner eye
Before yellowing hues
Appear to divide squares
Into honey-combed hives
Waxed with luminous lines
To settle into
Black-circled pulsations
Pixalating on your retinal
Curves without cessation.
I rise and walk in--
Out of the sun.
MR. KROOK 62
A foul-looking foul-smelling foul-mouthed
HUSK of a man
Imbibed in spirits To the flash-point Of spontaneous combustion.
He lets rooms To lost souls With pasts to forget And presents to hide Cloaked in mysteries and living hells.
A growling barking slurring V O I C E Of a gravelly throated villain Parched for his next bibulous bout.
Who upon his last breath Discovered that he COULD Actually read his cryptic Treasured-letters--
Before he went up in smoke In old London Town.
B I G S I R 63
Sea meets cliff In waves of blue-greened and spindrifted foam,
As I careen around each treacherous turn
Rocks fracture and carve Into bent and broken fragments For birds and seals and otters--
And beleagured drivers--
To light upon in refuge from The relentless rhythms of the Sea-escape below.
And circling, far above, In spins and whorls One “hurt hawk” With wounded wing Drifts on wind, rises and falls, Cries out in mawkish notes--
“Oh, sir, big, big sir, Won’t you come and glide with me For awhile--
Before we each decide To death-spiral Into the amoral arms Of the grave sea below?”
S A F E 64A
Underground in a sealed-off room
The young man wrote--
Without sound, without disturbance,
With only enough light and air
To sustain thoughts
Spun out of himself
Like a patient spider’s silken thread
That coalesced
To form a web of words
To hold a novel’s thread--
And a captured thought--
From the fires
That flamed below him
Igniting scenes of
Desperate characters burnished into
Hidden lines of haunting memory.
64B
For a time
He felt safe
Behind his vaulted door--
Inside his safe-like room.
B R A K E M A N I N S T E A M 65
Billowy white puffs of large hot steam Clear to reveal-- a FIGURE Looming, spread-legged on gray-white tiles Hunched over, he sits--squat, silent, sweating:
A boulder of a black man outlines himself-- Big, bald-headed, Spilling flesh and muscle in floppy folds Over six feet of gristle and bone With stomach swelling over thunder thighs
H E S I T S
Wiping his slick dome With fat, swollen knuckled-hands.
The steam room at the local YMCA Holds this angry giant Ex-brakeman Late of the UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD For twenty-seven years Now disabled after a fall one windy night from a wobbly, fault-welded train-car ladder:
“When train rolls ‘round the curve Canna’ tell whas a-movin’-- Train on rails, ladda’ or you.”
He whistles through tight teeth and Sheets of hot white steam.
LONG ISLAND RAILROAD 66A
From NEW YORK CITY streets Sleet-wet and black ash-faulted, I mix my way through pushing throngs To find PENN STATION; then Down, descending moving-stairs That funnel-out onto running platforms Compressed with crushing crowds Who separate out-- Like the silver spheres In pinball machines That find their ways Past bumper-guards and Pulsating toadstools of flashing lights To fall into their proper exit gates: These garlands of holiday and silver-belled travellers Slide down multi-channeled tracks To their waiting, breathing trains below.
Trains in darkened halls of Labyrinthian lines of Straight, curved and switching Series of iron-rails that Ease forth each set of Coupled cars until they Squeeze out like snakes from Their shriveled, shed tunnel-skins To find their singular routes Rushing due E A S T-- due to arrive at their duely appointed times.
Gliding past refracted 66B Scenes of freshly frosted snows, Snows in puffing swirls Of sunlit flakes, Blowing, blinding with Sparkling speed as Our iron-horse Gallups along this L O N G Long Island Railroad route Elongated steadily, making its way Toward that Island’s tip, Past Islip to Montauk Point At land’s end Where sounding sea meets Long Island’s singing SOUND.
We S T O P; and S T A R T again-- On rails reverberating repeated syllables Of spinning wheels, bearing Steel on steel As slick and smooth as Click-clack clicking ice Cicling over singing slippery slopes On rolling leveled land.
On either side of shifting train-car Slanting through sun-blinding Shafts of silver-slivered light and Beaded drops on dripping wild glass-- I see the sea Stretching dark-blue plains Etched-off at the horizon line Where light-blue lighted sky Meets and blends With motion and with time-- S T O P P E D.
S I R E N S 67A
I sit Chained at my desk Lit by halogen halos And watch Through slanted slats My window view Of old-man lamp posts, Foregrounding spotted lights, Roll back into backgrounds of black.
When, In Doppler distance The sirens’ Silvered voices Pulsing closer, closer, Sing seductively.
Their haunting sounds Focus into streaks Red-flashing Going by my window Receding into shrinking bleats: OUT.
I then return to pitched-black, silent Echoes off the Inner linings of my mind:
QUIET NOW-- Except for bumping rubber-tired tones Cruising headlamps Along the empty Still streets below. 67B
Now, the danger past, I relent, relax Undo my bindings Raise up my blinds.
Yet still I hear the piercing music As the sirens now sing softly-- In the fissures of my mind.
R O O M 68
Sliding panels of reconstructed sections
Fall into place
As more structures are ripped up and open
Leaving exposed areas of pipes and wires
Gaping and dangling
Caked with crumbling debris
Of plaster and paint.
My room is being rebuilt
From the inside out
As my mind struggles
To reattach its dangling ganglia
That also gap and snap
Between the spaces
Where the sparks catch hold.
My mind’s space needs a new addition.
END OF PART IV
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