The Parson's Daughter

There at the window early
comes the rooster's crow,
and the maiden I love dearly
ambles along also.

She's come to the well for water,
a clay jug in each hand.
She is the parson's daughter,
and wears no golden band.

If I were the fair Queen's soldier,
I'd slay me many a foe,
Nor wish to be one day older,
I'd fight for her honor so.

Yet amid the strife and slaughter
my heart would keep a place
for the eyes of the parson's daughter,
that gleam with queenly grace.

If I were a temple-builder,
with naught but wood and stone,
I'd treat them as gold and silver,
and build as it were God's throne.

Near the stars I'd swing my hammer,
near Heaven my church would stand;
yet still would my fool's heart clamor
for my beloved's hand.

But I am a harness-maker,
an apprentice one at that,
far poorer than butcher or baker,
to whom I tip my hat;

and I've not the courage to query
around for hope nor hint
that the parson's daughter might tarry
to meet this workman's squint.

And so at the window tomorrow
I'll lean my mug at dawn,
and drink the day's draught of sorrow
when she steps over the lawn.



8.20.13

Over the Meadows

One day she will come walking
as stately as a queen,
in spite of the old hens' talking,
over the meadows green.

Her feet will lightly amble
straight to my cottage door,
and then my heart will gambol
and sorrow nevermore.

And naught will give me sadness,
and naught will give me rue;
my heart will be rife with gladness
should this one dream ring true.

One day she will come walking
as stately as a queen,
in spite of the old hens' talking,
over the meadows green.




8.20.2013

Thirty-Nine Less than Forty

I took a street where houses on my right
were small and neat. To my left, a fence, and then
the avenue, further off. The cars streaked by
and whistled, radials whining on the tarmac.
I gave no thought to people inside them, hands
casually at the wheels equipped with covers
because of the heat. But it was early morning
and still cool. Earlier I lay shivering,
a few miles short of town, under a bush,
curled up, on my side, my hat and coat
pulled tight to cover me. I had steered the car
to the side of the road, parked, and clumsily stepped
over the guardrail. It was early, and still dark.
Up north the desert bit with cold at night,
and I was glad that I had brought a coat.

I'd planned it: Put the coat and hat in the trunk,
but forgot the gloves. I lay there until daybreak,
trying to sleep, but drunk and drugged awake,
conscious and interested. As light began
to take hold in the sky I looked before me
and had a sideways view of what looked like
a forest in miniature. Not any forest,
but one that elves and halflings might inhabit.
Dead in the middle I'd made out a door,
or what might be a hatch, or magic portal
to some new world. That was the drug at work.

I felt at ease, at rest. But some time later
the cold had bitten deeper into me;
my thoughts had cleared a little; so I rose
and turned around to take note of the car
just up the embankment. In my clouded state
I had left the trunk wide open. I climbed up
and found the key still stuck in the ignition.
Christ or an angel had kept old Sofie safe.

I closed the trunk and drove on into town,
spending the last drops in the tank. I parked
at the visitor's center. In the back of the trunk
I had stashed my runaway bag. It held two books:
a novel, and an anthology of poems.
From the glovebox I took a pair of sunglasses,
pulled the woolen hat over my ears,
and walked away. Kingman was strange to me,
an old town lying along Route 66.

I took no notice of the names of streets,
but wandered aimlessly. Soon enough
a deepening thirst, the product of hangover,
gave me an aim. I found a restaurant
and went inside, noticing only then
that I had run out dressed in my pyjamas,
shod in light shoes scarcely more than slippers.
At least I looked the part that I was playing.
I asked for a bottle of water: a dollar-fifty.
I had plenty of quarters in my coat pocket,
enough that it was heavy against my side.

Scantly unburdened, I wandered off again.
Along my right a sad and empty park
lay narrow, between two streets. I went uphill,
and came to an overpass. Leaving the road,
I clambered down the embankment, crackling brush,
and sought the shadows of the underpass.

I sat on a concrete shelf and gravely took in
my new surroundings. Several blankets, shoes,
empty bottles and cans, were strewn about,
some flyers, a magazine, a circle of stones
where someone had made camp. I felt for those
who had taken shelter here, from desert heat
and desert cold, which strike in the same day,
from rain and wind, from sharp and wary eyes.

I put my bag of books down on the shelf
beside me, drank some water, and took note
of the flimsy plastic bottle, narrow, crinkling
inward as I drank, as if to warn me
not to take too much. A dollar fifty,
when water sprang from fountains everywhere.
Stupid mistake. But then, I needed the vessel.
I looked around and saw the other vessels
scattered pell-mell, a bounty of empty vessels.

The Lord provides. I knew with certainty
that that was true, but also knew its contrary,
That He taketh away. Not being privy to
His counsel, I stood toe to toe with nature,
which looked capricious from my ignorance.
I walked and shuffled among the litter, toed
a leaflet here, an empty matchbook there.
I stooped to grab a bottle from the dirt
and held it up, its former contents drained,
its cap still twisted tight. A bigger bottle.
I poured the water from the smaller bottle
into the bigger, then discarded the smaller.

Back at the shelf I took my runaway bag,
removed the books, and threw the bag away.
I cracked the big book open at Robert Bridges.
How fitting, being that I was under a bridge.
But poetry didn't speak to me just then.
My eyes just skipped and darted over the words
like a flashlight in a rundown movie theater,
not finding much of interest, only lines
and curves of black ink on the aging paper.
I closed the book and put the thing back down,
then put the novel up on top of it.
When I left later on, the books remained,
a gift for some lost reader down on his luck.

Time passed, and nothing happened. I remembered
the pills I'd put in one of my coat pockets.
Not wanting to waste water, I chewed some up.
At first they tasted sweet, then turned bitter.
I didn't waste the water. I ate more pills,
I ate and ate until there were no more.
I thought that that foul taste had better stay
in my mouth, to remind me of what I was looking for:
an ache in the mouth and in the gut, an absence
in the body, but fulfillment in the heart.

My mind went haywire once the pills kicked in,
but that was later. Let me take you back
to where we were at the start of this: a street
with houses on the right; to my left a fence
and further off, the avenue. By now
the drug was coming up. It threw the webs
of hangover assunder, its wedge of light
a sharp straight line that cut across the mind,
parting the clutter there, the flotsam and jetsam
of liquor's sloppy and obnoxious rioting.
I thought that at some point the fence would break
or stop, and I'd be able to skirt across
to the avenue, but the fence ran on and on.

I turned around and walked back down the street
I'd just walked up. No matter, we had time
to waste, I and my winter coat and hat,
my pocket full of Washington in profile.
But there was Someone else. Not Delmore's bear,
not Harvey, but much bigger than both of them.
He always went with me, wherever I went.
I always knew His presence, and spoke to Him,
From childhood on. I don't need secrets now,
so I'll let this slip out: I felt the hand
of God one day, right on the top of my head,
without so much force as a baby's breath,
yet bearing behind it an unspeakable power.

That's all I'll say, and if you feel the need
we can part ways right here; or you can stay
and listen, understanding that I speak
to Him that touched me, bold and unashamed,
not fearing, but loving His hand. And if I shake
it's not in terror, but reverence, and awe.

So I continued down the street, and now
the small houses were on the left. They seemed
perfect and stately; some had tiny lawns
of neat cut grass, inside of low white fences,
and in the desert they looked out of sorts,
but quaint and homey; warm and sentimental.

At this point I was missing home, and felt
a stranger in a strange land, unwelcome
and untrusted, a man without a purpose,
which meant it didn't matter where I walked
whether it be north or south, or east or west;       
a drifter, lacking a long black duster, my eyes
hidden and thereby shifty, maybe squinting
if I should of a sudden feel romantic.

After a while I found myself far off
from the visitors center, farther out of town.
I took a side road where I watched a pick-up
growl fast along the tarmac, up a hill
and over, vanishing from eye and earshot.             
When I surmounted the hill and leveled out
I scanned a brush-cluttered ravine to my left
that wound along and below a railroad track.

By now the drug played havoc with my balance:
I nearly fell when I stepped over the guardrail
and made my way down the rocky embankment.
It may as well have been the wilderness
for all I knew, once I had gotten into
the heavy brush. I stomped, crackled, and trampled
as one not too familiar with such things,
as one whose hands were used to pressing keys
and making words appear before his eyes.

I wanted to lay down and have no reason
to rise again, in a shaded, hidden place
where only God would see me. I stomped on,
pushing through brush that looked to me as if
it had been pushed before by force of water,
all of it leaning in the same direction.
                             
Beyond this concentrated wilderness
I found a private place. In front of me
the brush was scant, the ravine grew broader,
then leveled out. Right before it widened
I made camp. To my right, the tracks continued
and then bore left, but where I sat they loomed
a good ten feet above me: I couldn't see
the rails. Behind, a sagebrush had my back.

I sat, legs stretched, took out my water bottle,
but didn't drink. The drug had given me nerve.
By this time it had taken such hold that time
slowed down: my last ten feet of movement seemed
a mile, the last few minutes, hours. The world
had shrunken to the dirt and rocks around me.

I think I lay for some time on my side,
then sat back up and went to the other side
of the trench, my back against the rocky slope
that went up to the tracks. After a while
I leaned to my right, taking a deep interest
in a small arrangement of rocks and dirt beside me.
Also I noted a host of butterflies.

Some of the rocks had shapes that made me think
of creatures, this one a fish, and this a mouse.
Then I saw that all the rocks had faces.
The mouse I still have with me. I gave him an eye
on either side, etched with a sharper rock,
and called him Fiep, the name of a stuffed mouse
I received as a boy of twelve, from my grandfather's
sister, a nun visiting from Germany.

She gave me the toy, and a toy to my brother and sister,
from her natural kindness, and I cherished it
like no other gift that I had ever been given.
To this day I cannot say, if I am honest,
and so I am, under the eye of God,
exactly why I cherished that toy mouse so.
However it be, my Fiep has never left me,
and never will, unless the Lord will take him.
I know, I know. There comes a time when a man
must put away childish things, but I confess
I never will, God deal with me as He may.
                         
The more I leaned over the better I fixed
my vision on that little arrangement of rocks
and dirt, so that before long I was on
my side again, my right this time, so that
my left hand had its freedom, my strong hand.

I always held it just that God had made me
go at the world from the left instead of the right,
to see things from a minor point of view,
affix perspective at the peripheral
and sympathize with nature's also-rans,
the blurred out players on the limelight's fringe
who spoke a line or two and then returned
to unengaging silence. As I stared
at those tiny rocks and clumps of earth it seemed
as if I looked on a house without a roof.

With a small stick held in my left hand
I shifted the furniture about, a fleck
or two of dry green verdure gave the place
a holy aspect. In my inebriation
the flecks of green were palm-leaves, and I thought
of Mary Magdalen, and thought she slept
there in that microscopic roofless house
on the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona.

I hoped I had not disturbed the lady's chamber
with my obtruding twig, nor desecrated
her place of rest, nor her sacred memory.
In childhood I had wantonly destroyed,
and as an adult, in anger, I've wreaked havoc
on God's material objects, disassembled
items that had cohered, by His design
or aping human invention: broken them
is the easiest way to say it. I take comfort
betimes to think of Moses in his anger,
also in the desert, raising high
those tablets whereon God Himself had written,
and dashing them against the ground, breaking
the sacred work, because of his stiffnecked people.

Not that this precedent gives me excuse,
No, no. I'm guilty of my infantile wrecking,
and many an evil, as is any creature.
Now look there, take note: as is any creature.
See how the creature wants to lose himself
like a grain of soil in boiling tar, dissolve
and hide his blackness in a deeper blackness.
Perhaps he thinks that God will look him over,
forgive him for his selfish impurities
with a shrug of mammoth shoulders and a forgetting,
forgetting that God does not forget nor fail
to pay attention to any particle.
                         
Remember I said before it is not fear
I feel toward God, but reverence and awe?
We need to say that over, and admit
to a rational fear: a fear necessitated
by God's immensity and grandeur, His
immeasurable magnitude and power.
It were unwise to go about the world
in fearless pleasure, not to mind His presence,
in moral abandon, unaligned to reason.

It were an affront to Nature, and to those
who came before us, by whose industry
and stamina we have a safer world,
and break less sweat upon our wider brows,
whose names we carry down, and proudly wear
as emblems, honoring their lives and work.

Of course we owe our relative ease to science
and to the men of inventive mind, on this
there is no argument; but still I remind
all those who scan the skies with telescopes
and name, like modern Adams, sundry stars,
galaxies, beating pulsars, nebulas,
comets, planets, various cosmic bodies,
if they can find no God, no shred of Heaven
or wings of angels, that it is the same
for myriads of microbes in their bodies,
the living mass that make of them a home
and can not see a being in their host
but mere material, a habitat.

When asked if he believed in God, Einstein
answered, I believe in the God of Spinoza.
Go to Spinoza, open up his works.
This is the age when we will see the marriage
of reason and religion, the chaff sifted,
the wheat turned gold; when the heart and mind
can join at last in sweetest alchemy
envisioned by our ancestors, a genuine
consummation of love and intellect.

When I grew tired of moving furniture
in that small house without a roof, I moved
back across the ravine. Under the sagebrush
I lay on my side again, and tried to sleep.
The other thoughts occurred, of course: a snake
could come and take me unawares and make
my dying easy. I did not think of the pain
of dying, only the dying, the fading away
to black and deeper blackness; but the sun
was high enough that all I saw was red,
a vivid, candid red divorced from blackness,
and far from death. Come take me now, my Lord,
I uttered, while I heard the wings of flies
and bees beating close to my head, my hat
pulled farther over my ears. Come take me now.
I want to see you, Lord. My heart triphammered,
part drug, part dehydration, part pure hope.
But God said no. My heartbeat would go on.
I asked to die. God said, you will continue.

Sleep would not come, perhaps kept off by bees
and flies, perhaps by thoughts of scorpions
I could not see, those stealthy little dragons;
more likely stemmed by that vivacious red
I saw in my eyelids. Indeed, the day grew hot
as the sun crawled slowly, brightly, up the sky.

I said, alright then, Bill, we have a mother
and father that love us, and our two young sons,
a brother, sister, nephews, whom we love
as life itself, and more than life. Get up.
Let's go. And so I gathered all my strength
and got to my feet. I stood for quite some time,
and held on to the top of that sagebrush
as if my knees had given up the ghost
when I could not. It was the drug full bore,
which meant that walking would be difficult.

But I walked. I got out of the ravine,
my hat and coat now rolled under my arm,
and tended leftward, along the railroad tracks,
then headed back to where I had parked my car.
In the distance I could see the visitor center.
A train came by, and by its sound and force
I stood stock still. It was going the other way.

My hand to God I saw a dollar bill
flutter out of the front car. A gentle soul
had seen me, standing still, in mid-step,
and threw to me a value which, perhaps,
she needed for herself, or perhaps not.
I looked for it, my eyes scanning the rock
and sagebrush covered ground, but it was lost.

I hope that someone else will find it. I'm
happy I didn't find it. Another soul
will come across it, sure enough. The Lord
provides. I kept a slow but steady pace
and placed my feet upon the boards that went
outside and under the rails. For a moment
I wallowed in self pity, and said aloud
I wish someone would call my name: Hey Bill,
Bill! they would cry, waving from the road
that I saw off to my left, a loved one who
had come to rescue me. I heard Pop's voice,
saw his arm waving, the cap on his sacred head;
I saw my precious mother, waving her hand
at one of her 'cubs'; my sister, my 'gift'; and Kurt,
my older brother, my hero who had come
to save his brother, come Hell or high-water.

And then I saw my sons, my two young men,
grown tall and strong. I knew I had no time
or means for self-pity then. I raised my head,
thanked God for my sons, their mother, all the love
that had been given to me all through my life,
and said, Keep going. I have no time to die.
I only have enough time left to live.


6.22 - 6.29. 2013

Bedtime Story

Of you I sing, my sons, in whose veins life
runs quick and vital, in this antique measure
which years ago had fastened me in chains,
a willed constraint, and constant tick and tock.
Let us look back to when that water broke
on the twenty second of June, in 'ninety-seven:
out poked an ear, an ear I knew from youth,
a hearing thing, formed Baurlean, curled
and pinkish-lobed, then blackish follicles
when you had crowned, before the doctor came,
who donned a mask as one who works in metal;
who sat him down to catch the bouncing babe
and then declared, "a boy!" When out he went,
when you were dry, and all that slimy stuff
you came out covered with was cleaned away,
I held you, my firstborn, whose ear I saw;
but now, behold! I saw that you had two,
one on the left side of your head, and one
there on the other side, a pair of ears!
two tiny seashells, blue-veined, lucent whorls.
You also had a nose, with dual-nostrils;
a mouth; two lips; a chin, and two big eyes
that flushed my heart with pure and powerful love.

They said that you had gas, but I said, no,
he smiled at me! They said, it's only gas.
No, no! I said, and smiled right back at you.
How did they know for certain it was gas?
Could it have been your Mom had eaten beans
the night before, and therefore you had gas?
Could be, I thought, but no! It was a smile.

And then I stepped away from all the rest
to make good on a promise I had made
to my own self long years before, if ever
I passed my father's seed on to another:
I spoke these precious words into your ear:
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time;
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
the first four lines of Keats's famous Ode,
nothing to do with you, but which were deep
engraved upon my heart, I whispered soft,
because I knew you, claimed you, for my own,
my baby, chip right off the block of me,
my baby, mine! my precious little boy.

Now, Muse, let us leap forward, not just one
but four years on from that auspicious birth,
but to the same month, that which rimes with moon,
thou knowest which, and to the fourteenth day,
me four years older, and the same for Zoila,
who lay upon the cold white hospital bed
in Havasu Regional, the second time
her midden would push forth a brand new life.
Her mood was happier on this occasion
whereas four years ago, when Jared sprang,
she seemed to sweet affection disinclined
as is the case post-partum for some moms,
and seemed indifferent, but of course relieved
to have the squirming rugrat out at last.
Now she was eager both to have it finished,
and to behold her second born. She smiled
when out you slid; to me you seemed dark-hued,
more fortunately complected, like your Mom,
until they cleaned you off and I could see
you were as pallid as the skin of me.

She cried, hello! and took you to her breast
with such maternal love and glowing smile
my eyelids brimmed with tears. I stood beside
the bed and gandered at my newest son,
and beamed with pride again, my breast enflamed
with love and swelling with a father's joy.

But you were fast asleep, your tiny eyes
closed tight, and when I held you, still you slept,
and as I tallied up your toes and fingers
you kept your silence. Serious and wise
your visage looked to me. I thought, perhaps
you'd be a sage philosopher, perhaps
a scientist! I smiled down at your face
not knowing then that I would have to wait
a month of whiles to see that smile returned.
No matter: folks are different, vastly varied,
and unpredictable, even as sleeping babes.

You cleaved more to your Mama than did he
who four years prior made his wet escape
from that maternal prison-house, the womb;
and that initial bond proved adamant,
for as the days, then weeks and months, passed by,
I longed in pride to see that flash, that gleam
of recognition in your eyes, that you
could see that here was one of great import,
this pale, unhandsome visage that appeared
almost as frequently as her whose eyes
were big and dark and beautiful, whose face
was love and joy and happiness wrapped up
in one sweet package. Jordan you were called,
the same name as that river in the Bible,
a name of great austerity and fame.

I gave you as your middle name the name
Kade (and by now we tire of the word 'name').
Your elder brother's name, as we have dropped
a few lines back, was Jared; Jared being
also an ancient and auspicious name
(Note: that's twice I've used the word 'auspicious')
selected by your Mama, as was your name
(And there's that word again, alas!). At first
you would be Julian, that being my choice,
but it was poo-pooh'd as too feminine;
and second, Giovanni you'd be clept,
until my best friend Michael prophecied
that if we named you thus you would be gay,
and by that term he did not connote 'happy',
but meant: a homosexual. Good Lord!
what cared I how your door would later swing?

Nathless my second choice for name was trumped
and Jordan you became. At least my wish
was granted for the middle (type I shant
that word again). Now Jared's middle was
the same as mine was: Anthony it was,
a goodly middle, sacred and ancestral.
And now with that, let us be done with names.

Onward, thou muse of silly poetry,
let us endeavor, like those bards of olde,
to tell with grandeur many a glorious scene
of fatherhood and childhood; what we know
of both, our knowledge from experience
and not guessed at from ignorance, as some
pretentious folk dare do, who deign to speak
authoritatively on that of which
they know not, but from rumor and hearsay.

Let us wax both poetic and heroic
and prate of daily ordinariness
as if it were stuffed pregnant with great omens,
as if a bib were like a shining shield,
a baby spoon a sword, and him a king
who in his high-chair sate as on a throne;
tell tales of how you swam the living room
in baby-clothes, Jared, because the crib
you hated, tiny hands upon the bars,
as if it were a jail and you a thief
thrown in and locked up tight, your open mouth
a loud pink O of horror and oppression;
your tears like rivers running from your eyes;
hot streams of snot downpouring from your nose;
which broke your father's heart. And so I clasped
your miniature body by the armpits
and hauled you from that cavern of perdition,
that evil crib, that dark and dreary gulf
to which each night you were condemned to stay,
to sleep, perchance to dream, but wither trod
our tired parental feet eve after eve
to free that little prisoner from his cell
who stood there wailing louder than a klaxon,
knuckles white upon the wooden bars
that kept him from his precious Liberty.

I say you swam the living room, for oft
when you had finally nodded into dreamland
your mom and I would build a makeshift bed
with blankets, pillows, battery-operated
Pluto and Elmo, rattles, teething rings,
a talking Cookie Monster and telletubby,
and place you gently in it, then slip off
to bed on silent, prancing feet, to sleep,
perchance to...hardly! Before an hour was spent
I'd rise to pee or pop a Benadryl
and find you'd rolled your somnolent little self
ten feet across the carpet, having knocked
the walls of your porta-crib completely down,
Pluto and Elmo fallen kattywampus,
the giant telletubby scaled, the blankets
and pillows scattered willy-nilly, and you,
sprawled face-down by the front door, your limbs
akimbo, lost in sleep. I'd pick you up,
hating myself for sleeping while you tossed,
a mini Ulysses, on the deep-piled rug.

And so I placed you back inside the crib,
and hoped that Morpheus would keep you still
for at least a few more hours, but knowing well
that once your dreaming mind became aware
of your incarceration you would rise
and yawp once more in Shelleyan indignation.

Now, when your little brother came along
it wasn't the same: Jordan, you could slumber
soundly through an air-raid, even a bombing,
or the passing of a herd of velociraptors.
One afternoon we took you out to see
the people at my workplace; I remember
you by my knee in the carrier as I walked,
your body covered up with baby-clothes
and over that a blanket, so that only
your closed-up face was showing, eyes and lips
sealed-fast, with nary a quiver to your chin.

We went inside and everyone gathered round
to look into the portable bassinet,
And Sofy said, he looks just like you, Bill,
which at that time I had not recognized.
We tried to wake you, shook your little shoulder,
perhaps we pinched a toe, a trick we learned
when your big brother was born; but not a squirm
got we, nor flutter of eyelid. Your small face
was pinched and bunched up tight, your soul was deep
in dreamy realms, those wordless places where
an infant's mind goes wandering with God
who speaks an infant's language and who makes
up simple stories babies understand.
No, you would not awaken, so we waited,
spoke idly of a number of trivial things,
looked down at you and smiled, and finally laughed,
to see you so determined in your sleep.

But time flies on, as every poet declaims
as if he were some oracle or prophet,
as if he knew of grand mysterious secrets
gleaned from the pages of some dusty tome,
albeit it isn't what the brain can learn
or what the eye can see, or tongue can taste,
or even what the bodily nerves can sense,
that makes a man a poet; but what he hears
is what compels him; not just any noise
but that which human tongues articulate:
the genuine alchemy that changes sounds
to recognition, and to understanding.

Man spoke them first, without a sign or symbol
in correspondence, gave an iteration
to every referent, made them familiar
by repetition, using memory
to formalize and systematize his speech.
Later he made his letters, and made words
live independent of the air or mind,
turned them from mere vibrations into objects
fashioned in matter, made them substantive,
and thereby saved them from oblivion.

These are the poet's provinces: the shapes
and sounds of language, written, spoken words.
He finds he loves them early on and knows
no greater love. So in the bath we sat,
my sons and I, and on the soapy wall
we placed the sticky letters in their rows
and sounded out the words. Jared, at eight
months old said 'cracker', pointing his finger
at boxes of them on the market shelf.

Jordan spoke later, keeping to himself
a private lexicon no doubt, patient
and unconcerned with haste. His older brother
would climb up in his father's lap to see
what drew such rapt attention. Jared, you'd sit
beside me on the couch and gaze with wonder
upon those signs, those curly squiggles of ink,
and know they were important. So we bought
dozens of children's books, and long we'd sit,
your mother and I, turning each thick page
and pointing to the colorful figures: "bird",
and to the set of marks that corresponded
to the sound "bird" made. In time your finger went
from picture to mark, and you would say the words.
You knew the stories but you never tired
of hearing them. Sometimes I think that now,
many years later, you would come and sit
and watch the tale of Big Bird re-unfold
as down the road he walked to visit the farm
and learn of farming from the boy and girl.

In time your interest grew, my little Jordan,
and you began to show your inner spark.
Quieter, and more mild of spirit, like
your father, also second born, but no
less bright; patient, but no less eager to learn.
You both absorbed the world around you, helped
along by television, the computer,
films and books; but all along encouraged
by parents who would not teach you things by force,
nor let your motivation come from fear.
You both excelled in school, both took to it
without complaint or worry, unlike me
whose schooldays were enshrouded in anxiety,
especially later on, in high-school, when
each day brought newer worries, harsher fears.

Gym-class was hell, and most days I would stand
apart from all the rest, a paperback
edition of Keats or Shelley in my hand,
my head bowed down, eyes hidden in girlish hair
but roving hungrily across the lines
that, as the poet Simon said, were shield
and armor. On the English iambs went:
da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum
that ancient declaration of "I am";
that raw announcement of undaunted ego;
that spark of consciousness endowed by God
to man, to be a being, and to know it:
the germ and genesis of every poet.

It gladdens me to know that you, my sons,
were spared that needless suffering, that you
will stride with chin up, proud to be alive,
and bold, to testify with bone and flesh
your individuality, your ego,
though there are some for whom that word is trash,
a mental fabrication, obsolete,
a quaint reminder of an ignorant age
when men believed that they were eminent,
the best and brightest on this speck of dust.

Man is a fighter first, and nature's plan
is what it is. A man may be refined,
but Man will be what he has always been,
a good, a bad, and an ugly creature, thrown
into the bright, cold world, fished from the dark
and warmer sanctitude of mother night
where all was given, nothing earned; where peace
and silence lapped him in their gentle waters.

Is it a wonder that an infant wails
when pulled from such tranquility, held up,
naked, suddenly forced to breathe and feel
the chill and sterile air, to make his first
barbaric yawp with all the power he can?
And does it give us any food for thought
that when the boy becomes a man he spends
a certain part of his time and strength in longing
to go back to that natal cave and curl
to sleep, safe from responsibility;
devoid of care, of sorrow and despondence;
eyes closed to that fierce, frigid light, the din
of human voices, judgments, and opinions?

I have no daughters, unlike he whose poem,
'Paradise Lost', was written in the mind,
then spoken to his daughters; so I forgo
politically correct 'he-or-she' pronouns.
I hope and trust that none will take offense,
for this is a man to man: de hombre a hombre,
in Zoila's language. I have said my home,
where you live on weekends, is like a cave,
dirty with dust, cold, bleak, and mostly empty
of feminine charm: a place where I can hide
and curl up in the constant chrysalis
of my anxiety, the windows covered,
garage and front door closed and locked, to keep
the light and any intruders out. Inside
this cave is still another cave: my room,
sequestered by another door and lock,
my hole within a hole. Here in this haven
of nervous privacy I've spoken to you,
lectured at length to one or both, my tongue
yattering pressured speech, rapid-firing
my own idea of the world that lies before you.

It's been my fortune that you both have listened
to my pontifications with keen attention,
your eyes affixed to mine, your faces showing
true interest and regard. Now, whether that
will be your fortune also? That's the question,
and it's a good one. Only time will tell
how Daddy's prolix uploads will pan out.

I trust, my sons, that you will do as I
would have you do: not take a word of mine
on faith, but doubt the truth of what I say:
be skeptical, but always with respect,
be independent, but with reverence.
Assume your elders are more wise than you.
If it happens they are full of shit, you'll know it;
but if you question them or call them out
on what you know to be an error, do it
with moderate speech and action: lower yourself
to them, and give a cogent argument.

It often will be the case that silence is best,
with one whose mind has run so far afield
that reason cannot reach it. You will know,
and simply smile and nod along. Remember
that in such instances silence does not
equal consent, just common decency,
and common sense. Now there's another term
that modern thinkers wish would go the way
of the dodo bird. Not just the modern thinker:
In fact philosophers have had a bead
on those two words for centuries, albeit
there have been men of studious intellect
who have defended common sense against
popular attack, and Thomas Reid was one.
I'd have you think of him with reverence
and not forget. Time has a way of sweeping
good men and women into irrelevance,
or undo neglect; not Time alone, but aided
by history alloyed by politics,
historians driven more by bias than fact;
religious faith; ideological fervor;
the latter by far the worst destroyer of truth.

But let's stop there, before this poem becomes,
albeit begun with love, a diatribe:
the very thing it wishes not to be.
I'd rather go back and erase each line
than let this be a vehicle of hate.
I'd rather chop my fingers off than use
this primal, sacred measure as a sling
to sling abuse, and be myself a slinger
of shit. I'd rather be a simple singer,
a poet, a 'maker', in the ancient tongue,
to do as God would have me do: to take
what He's created for me, and to make
a thing that wasn't there before, a thing
of my design, that I brought into being.
There is but One Creator. I create
by taking what I see and changing it;
therefore, when I create, I merely change,
or, to be more specific, rearrange
what was already there, what has been there
and will be there when I have come and gone.

Eternity, infinity, these words
are not for man to comprehend. We know
their definitions, via other words,
but understanding doesn't come from that,
at least not that alone, and cannot come
at all for certain aspects of reality:
the magnitude of space, the multitude
of bodies in the cosmos. Man assigns
his numbers, fabulous and erudite,
but cannot grasp that which the numbers mean,
the vast enormity they represent.

Math takes the universe and brings it down
to Man's capacity, just as do words.
As an example: The word God is a token,
a human utterance, and bears no true
resemblance or relation to the thing
we wish it to indicate. "God is dead",
a tiny iteration, has no power
to reach or to offend the Power its words
refer to. Such a phrase can only speak
to the human heart, and has no other effect.
The same for "God loves you", or "God is love."

Speaking of God, it is a thing deep-set
in the human mind, from priest to atheist.
In every nation, and in every epoch,
our ancient forbears formed ideas of gods,
of unseen power and authority
beyond the reach of our five senses, beings
superior to man. For some societies
they were creators of the visible world,
for others they were stewards of great forces
manifest in nature: wind and rain,
the formidable ocean, moon, and sun.
As time went on these gods became one god
for certain people, one, and only One.

In my view, gentlemen, the primary cause
of any and all religion is reverence,
not fear of death, or greed, or lust for power,
albeit those are causes. Reverence
is fading in the world, and you may mark
its absence in your daily lives. Mankind
has lived and learned; the acute eye of Science
has cleared the way for clearer thought; and yet
remember, knowledge does not equal wisdom.
Think for yourselves, always; never give
another mind a power above your own.

You've heard all this before, boys, and no doubt
you will again. You'll have to pardon the old man
whose short-term memory is on the fritz,
who loses more and more each passing day,
who struggles with phone numbers, people's names,
with what was said to me a moment before.
In time I won't have very much to say,
and what I do say might be gibberish;
and bear in mind I know that some will say
that what I've written here is gibberish.
But let that pass. The word itself is hateful,
not worth the syllables it takes to say it.

Now, just as a poet writes to make a thing
that was not there before, a testament
to his few blinks of consciousness, so a man
passes himself into another body,
if not himself in toto, at least a part
of who and what he is, and in this way
raises a fist to bleak oblivion,
declares "I am", and by such means continues,
despite the nothingness that man is heir to,
despite the countless years he will be naught
again, the way he was before his birth.
But that is foolishness. Before our birth
we are not this or that, not even nothing,
but what cannot be spoken of or thought.

What did I care when Egypt's Pharoahs wrought
their giant monuments, that I was not
alive to see them raised? the question has
no satisfactory answer, balks at reason,
and wastes the moment's effort it takes to ask it.

Death cannot harm us; grief is for the living;
but when I pass, I would not have you spend
your energy in grief, thinking of me
suspended in some black and vacant realm,
asleep but void of dreams, never to waken.
Think of me rather as you think of yourselves
before you were born. Is that even possible ?
Jared, were you impatient as the years,
the centuries, before your birth, rolled by?
Were you distressed, and did you feel alone?
Jordan, did any fear or trouble beset you
when T-Rex walked the earth, or billions of years
before that, when the planet was forming? No?
Of course not. To the nonexistent, time
is nonexistent. Dead for eternity means
Dead for a millisecond, there is no difference.

You are alive and well, consider that
a miracle in itself; and never disdain
or take for granted this precious gift of life.
That I took part in giving you your lives,
and that you both are kind and conscientious,
that you can both see past the tips of your noses,
gives me a sense of pride I cannot tell
in word or gesture. But I will not worry.
I know you'll understand this bedtime story.

On Spring Break at Lake Havasu

Of legs and girls I sing, and may my lines
not prate of heroes, but laud concubines;
for I will sing of sloth and drunkenness,
the bay complexion, and the bleach-blond tress;
cheap shades that hide the windows of the soul;
florid tattooes, and such-like folderol;
the sandy flapping-flop of sandaled feet;
the hand-held signs, scrawled large and indiscreet:
Show us your tits!; the mayhem on the lake
where boats rip by with jet-skis in their wake;
where smells of suntan oil and ganja mix
with hot wings, tepid beer, and incense sticks.

In droves they come, when March is midway spent,
to waylay men who stare in wonderment,
stopped dead and ogling near-stark-naked imps
instead of settling for a passing glimpse.
No shirt, no shoes, no service, warn the doors
of restaurants, and big-rigs reading Coors
tangle with pickup trucks in traffic knots
where clutches of inebriated tots
pump fists and holler in the open beds;
where hammered hotties, flaunting beads and dreds,
flash townies, and where startled motorists,
naive to throngs of exhibitionists,
surrender sanity and crane their necks
to spy the bare skin of the fairer sex;
stunned at the wheel, bereft of self-control,
all for a naked female areole.

But should we trespass on their innocence?
Dilute their beauty and concupiscence
with talk of prudence and sobriety,
the sacred tenets of society?
Force bland proscription on their happy lots
with moralistic lists of thou shalt nots?
Alloy their juvenescent joy with cant,
because their wits are dulled, their clothing scant?

No, let us leave them to their raucous sport,
and may their lithe and lissome limbs cavort
in vivid sunshine that can do no wrong,
unless it be to bring to light a thong
entrenched in cloves of flesh that give distress
(plus a faint memory of manliness)
to leering Aqualungs who lurk by palms
and take such visions as a kind of alms;
who, fourty years before, would not be shy
to breathe a compliment, or wink an eye.
And let the hearts of lasses swell the more
when, blue-haired ladies fled, they take the floor;
and may we bent and stodgy bulls harrumph
our bitter envy, when young bucks galumph.

3.16.2013

Reynolds & Midway I - XV

I.
Out in the wilderness, you & I
on silent stubbled open fields
edges of woods in all directions
deciduous, stands of white birch
catch eyes, caws of crow, grackle,
slow-gliding hawk, flutter of grouse
or pheasant sudden in chill wind
bangs like fists on red ears
cuffs of ski hats pulled down
padded parkas zipped to lowered chins
white breath like smoke from a pipe
we may imagine words that take
familiar shapes like train cars
from lips that now are vast holes
in hills drilled & excavated
stone & earth, amount of work required
requires arithmetic, capacious faculty
to apprehend magnitude, whistle, shriek
lights electric motion power forward
flattens pennies, nickels, balanced on rails
in childhood arms outward watching shoes
cautious on silver metal onward
around the bend, around the mountain
forever parallel lines go forward
never meet & never end & each board
along the track a start, again, a new
first step after the last thousand steps
until we get to the wooden town's
silent houses' casement windows,
white-painted, flaked, curved fine gray
of Irish lace in corners, sills dusted
twice per annum, curtains tied apart
no faces at the glass reflecting eyes,
staring at housefronts, gaspumps long
out of order, we in flannel get cigarettes
or licorice among cans with dusty tops
shadows, cats slowed in the yellow yawn
of time stretched in light like lemon
outside the telephone booth
its hanging book of endless names
no-one speaks, cold bluster of wind; we close
the folding glass door to warm
in the narrow stillness, here we smoke
a Tarryton Newport Pall Mall
or Winston, fine white of new paper
burning & white smoke then cherry
red, kick at the back of the throat
best felt with a full moon hung in bare
branches Northeast USA Southeast NY
winter woods, with tapped keg, a six
chilled in frigid stream water, gloved
hands nervous among mittened girls
who didn't go out for cheerleader, Iron
Maiden tees, badly blued made-up eyes
surprising breasts discovered with cold
hands finding areolae beneath stars
among quiet deer whose heads lifted
in open grass under the viaduct, cornfields
vast across acres in early spring now
remember the first robins or do you
more soft sucking mud by shallow creeks
yellowjackets, japanese beatles green
like flies like clover under the hickory tree
we searched for four leaves over the hill
the open fields and one afternoon cows
from the neighboring farm out walking
dogs yapping behind fences later on
toast with honey in the sunlit kitchen
talk over a newspaper parents gone
visiting then down the dank basement
grokking heavy oily machines
Yessongs dribbling tinny, a radio
cassette player alto voices sang
of far planets, strange amphibious craft
in pale blue oceans, floating islands
in the corner the good dog elderly
daintily took bites from gentle hands
Reagan in the folded paper you spoke
of Mayflower blood at the joining of two
country roads a small church years past
a schoolhouse, at the corner of the eye
the iron trestle stretching inexorably
across green & brown rolling acres
and farther westward the water tower
gleaming in sunset, toward its gray
metal let us head out as we did not then
this time and rather than reach into
wells of memory to cull images
create a new world & walk through it
you and I; come, before the night falls


II.
Frisbee best if level, a line spinning
floating white, yellow or green,
plastic, thrown, consider the eye
& accuracy, across distance
consider deftness of hands lifted
alert & motion stopped, object retards
object, subject speaks to subject
also an object, consider sun &
magnitude, then attempt multitude
consider distance so,  so distant 
there is no understanding
we must make do with symbols
summaries, ideas, & impressions
only think of this as in infancy
against colossal truth we can not
countenance but timid, astonished
cry for joy, for place, for this, this
habitat, you are eternal, consider
God, close your eyes, the room dark
no moon, no starlight, no sound,
but space in front of you
(Shakti the field & me the knower
of the field, what will we make there
silently think & wait, all darkness
is pregnant, O Mary, O before the before
the begin my Lord i love You close
eyes furled like petals red purple
glad closed awaiting You, the heart
thumps, knocks in her bone cage O
Lord i love You the lips move am I
the mover ? the tongue moves up to
palate, lower lip & bottom teeth
touch to pronounce Love silently
the word Love the Word my Lord)
but that was me I cannot write
touch or speak for you, good friend
who typed Spinoza beautiful across
3 thousand miles Nature God God
Nature, yes, but there is more, more! I
see him, his face, his soup, his pipe
alone & happiest man on earth, Christ's
best gospel in patient benevolence
finest, best teacher, no, 2nd best, Christ's
left tenant, no, next, subsequent,
think hierarchy, clarify authority: GOD
then downward, not turtles all the way
no elephants, no infinite regress, no
endless reduction reducing to still more
reduction, no, not such nonsense, not
that godless absurdity, but cosmos: as in
order lawful with perfect balance re
: harmony & melody, simultaneous
& linear top to bottom & all around O
see: zero & all, naught & aught, equations,
relations, angles & angels no & yes, yes


III.
He said you said Reynolds had said
my poem about a tree you drew in pencil
could not speak of that tree, and there
were worlds in dewdrops, I showed him
under the grass blade inside a drop
of dew a lighthouse & a stretch of shoal
a slight declension narrow to the white
surf, soft pushes upward then back again
a sleeve of salt continue forward, come
along, Omeros has come now, he said lace
like lace the white roll of the waves
not Omeros but Walcott nobody no-one
go fuck with his poetry again & either
he is a man or a nation O Maria
Concepcion I've no right to this tongue
quiet now ahora my wife my imthe
Soyla soy la I am the Will I am iamb
two feet second son second William
born July second, older brother Kurt
born 1 July the year before alpha beta
shorter, plain & dull, thus, poetry:
to live by proxy, by estimation,
to see, experience, with eyes closed
moving in silently out of sight
not my words those, but Waters',
water: a pond or puddle a splash on
linoleum, sink counter level, Waters
as well my mother's mother's maiden
name, and so return to the lighthouse
in that globe of morning water, micro
world under a curved blade of grass
in the spiral notebook, high school
study hall first period cafeteria, older
women with hairnets, old maids, old
retired wives weathered hands in plastic
gloves, eyes of no color, no beauty, no
beauty's echo or at least no memory
only the startling fulminant dark eyed
beauty of girls at other tables, flash
of contact, tiny flashes, evanecent black
pupils under lashes in umber in egg
white, find me here, I am here, too
I breathe the air that made those words
you spoke there beyond my hearing
words you found inside and said were
in my ear and mouth before, or after


IV.
Four, for, for all of us, ancient & new
of the matrix, mother, madre, O Mary
thee, before the before, to suckle God
to be place, to be the field, for the only
thing I know is, i know nothing, am one
in a void, a part, an attribute, a mode
to be and return, living life nothing less
than that desire, to become & belong
at rest, eternal, to unclasp at the wrist
& the neck, the signals of property I
belong to You only & You alone, Lord
if You leave me & fly nonetheless I am
Yours, hear me speak in the dark that
they can not touch me, fillip of a finger
they run afraid to the four corners
assemble & clawed hang in impotence
in the dark where with closed eyes I
dream & wander anointed & saved
and ask how can I take from You
a portion of agony, a splinter, a fire
in a nerve, for You, & complain in ease
with freedom of movement, limber
of limb & thought extended outward
I asked for a vision of You and once
it came, I, stricken with fear, a dead man
withering, crooked over my straight body
and green of decay, wind, desolate
gone as quick as it came but stamped
eternal, be cautious God said, be afraid
you cannot feel but only wonder & pray
nor see nor know but by parable, myth
& magic to open the blind eye & turn
inward for all darkness is pregnant
even in death the dark's capitol, fecund
womb & nursery of dreams, Reynolds
will you walk with me in these caves
and hear the patter of deep waters
come, I said, like blind fish let us fathom
with black scales, the first fathers, far
behind & also far, far forward, how
however to explain this, Benedictus
my beloved & benevolent master my
teacher, I believe this: Our Father drew me
to you, Baruch, my beloved, & is at this
moment drawing & in ancient epochs
did also, I have one tongue, one only
my master, my place, my peace is here
is always, eternal, a promise, a valley


V.
5 for five, iiiii, V, Keats said this living
hand, O to have taken his gentle hand
& at Hampstead Heath to have gambold
where I have not gone, whence he went
before me always, before, they go before
& die, the five fathers, William & Samuel
Percy, John, & George, but no, go back
get William, who had in his garden
Pentecost, & blessing & angels, a good
wife, & England's green & pleasant land
O give me my arrows, he calld for his
bowl and his fiddlers & spear, to shake
the mountains & valleys of desire, halves
of ten, these bunches of five, & thumbs
opposable, great fortune, fortunate hands
now build, now make, like your Father
you cannot create, yet you can make, so
make, and you made well, your tools
to make & fix, to build, and persevere
with flint & fire, with stone, iron & heat
& sweat, force of sinew, muscle, bone
men, men, who with club, blade & fist
pummeld, with power, forward, outward
hoe & shovel, ox & horse, in husbandry
these men & husbands, on acres wet &
wild and fecund, sun & moon - mantled
broad shoulderd, Adam bearded black &
brown and gold, & barrell chested, brave
& stalwart, hie thee, hie thee, June or Ivy
Irene & Ellen, now milkwhite, snowwhite
tender other, Reynolds, come, go round
the maypole, here are fickle freckled
faces, breasts flint-tipped, or embonpoint
red knees, red faces, cherry ripe, cry cherry
ripe, sing heigh, hey ho the berry O
behind or under the greenwood tree
for five is fifty is jubilee, & Mr Brewster
is crossing the sea & William & Mary
In deep wood now, & deep dark russet
clusterd, leavd & rich earth,  fertile 
the forest, the moss, the moving water
gray green stones & purling stream, white
like pearl, can you see the girl by the water
come!  can you, a finger, her finger's
reflection, & straight and pointing, a point
made (from the mouths of babes) the whole
point, truth, purpose, intent & meaning


VI.
Six of one, half dozen the other, half
a league, half an inch, onward, me &
Reynolds in windy furrows, hard snow
driven in muddy ridges, by the lone tree
where stone walls joined, farmer's land
we turn up our collars & tuck away
the flask drained of its crimson wonder
& wander in other havens & kingdoms
tincast knights without Rocinantes, sans
Sanchos or saddles, but pins & needles
of enterprise in mirky sunlight, poet
& painter in wreaths of gray that swirld
& vanished by deadfalls, among scant
leaved birch whose white wood pealed
that leaned & slanted like haughty girls
when all the world was a whisper, when air
was a sigh with sibillant secrets & seethed
far from our diffident ears, when trees
held Dryads & Pan was Lord of the Woode
& satyrs found rounded, wet, red mouths
& slippery hands among hedgerows, tongues
aflutter like butterflies, moths, then life
was a rife & daylong midnight, made right
for poets whose au pair hands made dainty
& milky bland love in rimes no-one noticed
& silky sweet oaths, who pitched langorous
woo along level blue lines in notebooks
scarred in their heads at each failure, each
halfassed suit, flunked, botched, not made
can you see them, Reynolds, can you see
me ? who was not made for sportive tricks
nor to court the etcetera, curved spine &
bad skin, the other one, leftover, yes, from
the left, sinister, sawed-off & runty, big
nosed shifty-eyed, one in the middle there
can you, and is it really alright & okay
as they say, alright but my eye is what I
say, come,  look in this is my mirror, how
can I tell you that, what I see is not what
you see, there on the picture of me, & that
what I see is abhorrent & foreign, exotic
alien, gray complected, morose & ancient
choppers in halves & pieces in front
jagged, ruined portcullis no castle for
kisses, wait ! who is the monster to whom
is tendered a trinket for passage, yes,
a basilisk, yes, I see it squat & in color
pied, a bit toady, come, Reynolds, give me
a grand & dragonny beastie, w/ gator's
mouth, reptilian, chameleon, no,  no
nor shapeshifting changeling, nothing
transcendent, and, yet, preternaturally
compelling, complex, make its name
start with X or end with an X, or an ex
as in Tyrannosaurus Rex, or brekekekex
& shall we wing him then ? make him make 
chevrons, or ems, in the sky as he flies
or forget him, & cast your flame blue
eyes on the roundedness around us as
we weave among lasses of lower classes
paid to make passes at men w/ glasses &
boddices plumpt, good cracks & creases
for sex, like sexton (Anne), sestet: six 
lines, la volta, the turning, the turning
point, the point being GOD, Julian of
Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, yes
yes, i love You Lord, i love You, i love my
Lord Jesus Christ, my King, my Lord, i
love You, i love You, & all manner of things
shall be well, yes yes yes yes yes yes


VII.
I have never taken to sucking stones, no
but if I were to suck stones I would keep
one in the pocket & one in the mouth
& so heading out this time from the sea's
edge. Stop. here and wait for Reynolds
whose hand to forehead like a visor cuts
the cloud-filtered light as into the sky
lady Liberty's flame is held extinguishd
and she to the midden truncated, lost &
looking out to sea where the sweep of oars
was a vague impression & galleys cleavd
salt, white, to a thunderous beat of some
brute with a helmet among lashed men as if
keeping time, and divers pictures stored &
categorized in each of the hemispheres where
our present number, stood back against its
subsequent which, tipped on its side, is
infinity, are you holding up, you are, but
why bother ? because I insist, you come along
I said, because, there is intent, and we do
sludge forward & the meaning is coming &
is present, for those who choose to see it,
who have buried the body of the old man
and walk in a new body, by Christ anointed
I do understand, it is difficult, & at times
absurd, infants born, joined at the skull
balks at design, & cries no at the idea of order
slaughter of innocents, naked, babes in arms
barefoot at edges of mass graves, demons
with pistols black, forged in the stink of
Hell's machinery, abaddon, gehenna, where
I'll walk, or crawl, blind, cold & bleed
if there is balance or justice, Christ my
jailor, my filthy fingers nails claw His hem
& wail, recall my comforts, & smell
His blood, starving, freezing & burning,
deaf, tongueless, yattering, caterwauling
Christ, my Piper, come along willy, come
& you too, you, my other, who over my
shoulder & down my arm watches, instructs
& educates, dictates, there are, how many
seven continents, how many Romans ? No
how many seas, seven w/ extra point
a child I squirmed and, Mercury heeled, sped
adown the greensward accruing distance
closing in, and snagged the spiralling pigskin
screamed in my blinded phobic panic
pulling the jersey over my head & numberd
stood & mugged at the ancient camera
that first innacurate, awkward moment


VIII.
Henry, my father's middle name, & Henry
Miller's Tropic of Cancer, cathartic to my
wambles in prose, never did find Capricorn
my father's sign, mine Cancer, moonchild
all a bunch of bollocks anyway, so he said
though her sister wrote my chart, which was
false all the way through, & Byron's octaves
in the second bathroom, I write the words
& you the meaning, and if you don't like it
forget it, it's easy, you make of the book a
tent and catch mice inside & it's in the john
you can wipe your ass with it, I could have
said arse, after Beckett, who goes nowhere
and gives you nothing: a lunatic with a
hard-on for a boy, wandering in the woodes
planets now that Pluto has been forgotten
relegated to outer space, among comets, &
nothing, albeit if it is cold, it is not nothing
and if it takes time to get through it, then
again, that is a term without a referent, like
this poem that refers to nothing and wastes
your time, and your eye, which could be
among daffodils, or in Plato's cave where
or elsewhere, any cave, or Salisbury, or
Egypt among ornate graves, and colossal
markers, runways for the surprise of the
sky-children, come, Reynolds,  back to
another place, and this time, you go first &
I will follow, sun is high, yet, and the ground
holds treasure, piece of eight, and in four hrs
midnight, go on, I haven't forgotten you
take to the water, the open grave of brave
men, whaleroad, the wine-dark sea,  O
drowning now in the violent storm, below
white flecked froth, out of the sea-wind,
further down to black & crooked backed
Leviathan, small among mind's monstrous
gigantic creatures, aswim in the miles below
prows that split the ocean's back, her breast
bare against the cold foam, name her, I do
not know, name her, I do not know her name
Did he say it, no, did he say where, no, did he
say it, no. Nevermind, let's not go that way,
but keep forward, onward, Reynolds, the day
is over and darkness, out of the pitch of the sea
now to Pavilions of Eden, & Tudor horsemen's
trumpets, blaring of horns & clarinets, lutes
with white fingers, and lace at the wristbones
knuckle before the forearm, gold down on the
upper portion, hidden, crack of the breasts,
and lower creases, one only has to make use
of the eye that never closes, howbeit it blinks
in sleep, where God makes lanternslides on
the eyelids, you have to pay attention & they
will appear, do not doubt, do not lose faith,
should you lose your thumbs, you still possess
enough fingers to count, to continue, to pray


IX.
Reynolds & I were in the forest, when all
of a suddenly came upon Rip Van Winkle
& had many things to ask him, & Midway
complaind: I have lost a finger, the smallest
of the left hand, an accident with an ax, no
a hatchet, I remember, for if it were an ax
there would be no trees in New York, where
so many yrs ago, among fallen leaves of many
colors, we fished in creeks and steppd over
stones & with sodden shoes climbd steep
embankments, where trees shot horizontal
& there were bridges where the stream
widend, and worms, with hooks through their
cumberbunds, writhd o'er the sunlit water
for hours on a Saturday, & one of the things
we put to him was: of a game of ninepins
or was it a different tale, I don't think so
in any case, he had no answer, but fell asleep
and we heard, among churchbells & cowbells
stories of Mayflower puritans, and wars
for which purpose did anyone know, the
generals high on their horses, Napoleon
& were scalpings fatal, these fell on deaf
ears anyway, as I mentiond, or was it
Midway, who still does not understand &
which is to stand under, deep in woodes
we walkd, at the very least, on the surface
and awake, safe from the fearsome beasts
of the underworld, all of us with Christ
willingly, and with love will go, meanwhile
Reynolds called on the Muses, whose names
it makes no difference, only to rattle them
by rote, no, for I have forgotten, and would
need to seek them out, to search, but I
won't, you cannot force me to, you cannot
not when my fists are clenched, and red
- knuckled, I make a claim to manhood &
stamp my boot on the earth, erect, a man
with straight spine, wife, & good cooking
at least I could pretend, and make a story
: a man awakens after a dream of twenty yrs
to find himself, not himself, among lights
& pale blue others, from other stars & Sol
a pipsqueak, a spark, a quintillion miles
& there to learn of genuine benevolence
among silent engines & small engines of
silicon ? and what of it, immense gulfs of
space, vast, wide, but if unconscious of
distance, do those spaces exist, perhaps this
is how we cross time, no, not time: space
fold, threading headfirst, a black loophole
eye of a needle, lasso, question mark, arc
or curve, come along Midway, where is
that sly fox, clusters of dogs & horses evil
full bums saddled, bastards, fattend eyesores
on velvety green across acres, hornblowers
live ! O fox & die ye wallowing horsemen
jodhpurd, booted, murdering blackguards
cowards in stirrups, in scarlet for shame, for
raising of buttocks o'er hedges galumphing
gallop, equestrienne, broaden the fantail, fast
on cloppd sod, her sodden fathers & uncles
by hearths, & broken guns, and toddies when
did she say when, no, did you give her the
works, yes, and I have asked myself to switch
off, no, you won't believe me, I understand, 
sometimes His longing, His anger, or lack
of patience, because it is hard to believe, to
have faith, even in one's self, let alone in Him
in Whom we wonder, & wait,  for an answer


X.
Alright Reynolds, he said, but what if we
went another way, to which Midway, as was
his wont, asseverated, & then I complaind
I said, why not just say agreed, why make a
mess of it, a mistake, but they were now two
now four, steps ahead of me, reminds me when
you are counting time, you count by six, not
by ten which, believe it or not, threw certain
higher ups for a loop, or, it could have been 
I phrased it, being new to that, having come
from below, where I felt more comfortable
in the clack & wet, mash of water & white
plates, where pureed meat & vegetable smeard
as I said, I had come from the bottom, up, now
I was not up to it, I assured them, but they paid
me anyway, ten USD per hour, it seemed ok to
one who was used to the spray of water, & dried
food, egg, endless gravy, O is there anything
not hidden in yellow, or brown, thickened meh
coverlet for embarrassing food, but time is by
twelve not ten, someone said, at my shoulder
no, I argued, there are sixty minutes per hour
sixty seconds per minute, only the clock goes
by twelve then why, or wherefore, to make it
difficult, we have ten fingers, you may as well
suggested Reynolds inquire as to why we've
button nipples & pink areolae, besides
which, it would be ridiculous without them
a blank slate, so said Locke, which is absurd
one absurdity after another, take Hume &
Berkeley, or not, I would seriously suggest
Reid, and much further on, Haig, who had
grappld with Triunity & come up swinging
and won, damme, as they say in this Forsyte
Saga, or was it Beckett, certainly not Dickens
could be James, his being quite pish-posh &
multisyllabic statements & interlocutions
referring to buildings as edifices, & suchlike
only to overwhelm the tongue, in the mind
which is not to say, a man speaks in his head
only hears, in a certain sense, but that is not
hearing, still is a form of listening, of being
attentive, attention & intention equal life, or
living, beyond mere consciousness, which
in its purity is all our Nirvanas & Quiddities
Valhallas & Heavens, if we were only to, should
we only to, come together, to cleave in union
among one another, amid, & in astonishment
fall forward, in reverence and let us take
mockery now and forever, throw it into the
flames and forget it, as if it never was, for
it never was, it was too easy, & without love


XI.
Eleven is pregnant, reminds us of elven
& elephant, elf, Oliphaunt, Eve & Eden
in Eld, Eldar, olden times x Elder, older
Noldor & Feanor, Fingolfin & Finarfin
one after, & one before twelve, there it is
again, elve, elves & delving dwarves & were
there dwarf women, dwarf girls, dwarven
dwirven? golden & beardless, braided &
axworthy, did they ride sidesaddle, did they
ride at all or walk, or run, but then why
should they, let us make them domestic
little dwirven, deep in hills, deep harrowd
at cooking & cleaning let us suppose, &
axless, wide-hippd & thorn-bosomd, whose
poem was it spoke of thorny, Kunitz it was
God bless him, lived past a hundred, a
century of consciousness! alarms the
consciousness, howbeit there are those who
argue contra consciousness, & I say here
is a phallic finger, for up yer fundament
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, 'science reduces man to 
machine' my eye, that's yer wet dream &
yer so-calld humanist dogma, malignant
hateful & hatful of shit, if you ask me, which
you haven't & that's fine also, Delgado's
disciples abound, are fitting humanity for
final enslavement, if we forget the past
we are doomd to repeat & this time, save
Christ's intervention, it will be worldwide &
rabid, vehement, ungrateful, spiteful for man
wishes to hate his Creator, yes, eleven x yes
this does seem to be the case, does it not, yes
and the thing is not obvious, for there are
wordspoilers the land, that is not land but
otherwhere, over, the world over, they are
& to destroy the Word, remember Haig,
the Word, subject object word, Triunity,
reflects the Godhead, Trinity, God the Father
the Son, and Holy Spirit, this our axiom, this
our only truth, and they are here to bring but
ruination, but you must let them, or they can
not, you must prepare the place, and your
selves, unselvd, if you allow it only, stand up
& with sword, or with pistol, stand and be
counted ! It is not for nothing that films cry
freedom, cry it, or lose it & it ought to be
obvious & would be, were it not for word
-spoilers, and you would make of your mouth
an O and cry out & cry hard, freiheit, freiheit
Sophie cried, you must hear that cry & cry it
for science does not reduce man to machine
and the truth will destroy the man to whom
that falsehood is fair and worthy, and to shame
bring him, and that is justice, and that is fair
else nothing is, which is absurd, though we
traffic in absurdity, revel & swill like swine
in it, swineherds too, to their elbows in it


XII.
Going back to Milton, I'm compelld to undo
a lifelong prejudice, said Midway, as his eyes
raised, or lowerd, not loured, ie: Shakespeare
I mean from the monitor, where all is white
& empty, plain, vanilla they call it, but going
back to Milton, who did it as well as Avon's
William, and if we go line by line, we may be
forced to accept the inversion of our axiom
which was ever: Shakespeare was not equald
like 2 plus 3 is 5, but if we look at Milton, I
mean, really, take only the first book, the 1st
two pages, this is grandeur, this is Scripture
if scribbling ever was, every line assembled
perfect, sonorous, authoritative, that is if
one can hear it, there are those who cannot,
and how they live, or find value in living, I
find it hard to fathom, and I imagine they
also find it difficult to grasp, how did fathom
get there ? me. One thinks of oceans, depths
down, down, to the dark, darker, where black
starts, & widens enormous, a whale,  Archwhale
of blackness incarnate, royal, & airbreathing
subaquatic Regent, Potentate & Autarch, or
Emperor of sea, Ocean & rivulet, streamlet, river
brooklet, going back to Wordsworth, imagine
a poet hight Wordsworth without GOD, a clear
impossibility, name Lampman for his poem on
Sleep, save many, so many went, in taverns, in
parish that or this, in shabby attire, Darley !
who scratcht left to right & dipt a feather was it
for a pen, or quill, right or left-handed
were any left-handed ? I never knew one
honest injun, here I'm near fifty & can't
I've known left-handed cooks & sportsmen, by
the bundle, but not the iterators, sayers of
things & songs rememberd, off-centerd layers
of lines, lays & fables. Reynolds also sprach: then
let us at last in this, our twelfth chapter, wend
to pastures new, as we said we would, to woodes
fresh to the woodesman's ax, to glen or glade
wold or Weir, let us pull pegs & travel, men !
over the hills & far away, but Midway halts &
over the serried ranks of immortal damnd casts
inward his eyes and dreams of standing still
afraid of the dark & judgment, albeit judgment
hath passd, convince him of that, good luck &
thanks 4 the twelve days of Christmas, for 
those leaping lords & partidges, particularly
for leaping lords, who, at the very least
bring smiles to us all & most likely, leotards
like that, Heaven help us, scion of U.S. topstock
David: blond, bare-chested, drunk, Los Angeles
beautiful alpha male, in striped & clinging
spandex or lycra, (two Greco-Roman lovers out
cavorting twobackd beastwise, by ilexes &
olives), him a leaping lord with cock & balls
and well-bred hindquarters, who squalld &
croakd in mics, cacophanous, beery innuendo
badly, but enough of those leaping lords, let
us have ladies pink at elbows & daintily deckd
for handfast Jacks with rapier & sultry looks
for lacy boddice cracks, who get them smacks
or assignations, by backyard porch, gazebo, or
verandah, where in the distance float flotillas
of white sailboats on water too still to get moving
for all must be home before the clock        strikes


XIII.
Stevens had his thirteen ways of looking at a
blackbird, and now I've come to my thirteenth
part of this, not threnody, nor thanatoptic ode
or hymn, you're being silly now, no, I always
have been, have you been paying attention, I
said to Reynolds, nevermind the yoga-panted
booted girl at the coffee counter, they are too
young these days, he said, careering our cart
toward a sprinkld velvet cake & bakery odor
a hard salami, white-rinded, salty goodness.
We might now call Radcliffe from his dreams
his reveries among gothic arches & flowers
but odds are he will not bring the thing along
but stand stultified in 'derelict ennui', eyes
rolled up toward high turret windows where
blonde virgins lean & beckon with cleavage
their wandering heroes, lost in wanderlust
: Childe Harolds, who, galloping on horseback
glitter in epics, like the brassy hue of horns
and limp along to each padded alexandrine
drunk with championship & iambic valor
climbing convent walls, or not, & who gives
a modern hoot since all we want are facile
tales of lawyers or sexy bloodsuckers, gods
& goddesses of tooth & ravenous claw, I
should have said talon which reminds me of
Tennyson's eagle who, with crooked hands
clasped the, hands, he said, but the poem is
eternal, like Keats' Cortez who was not Cortez
or a sonnet of 13 lines that Midway scribbld
once for his tall & German love who seemd
surprised by his devout expression & tears
who held her darker hand & thumbd the ring
who gave not up on love nonetheless & turnd
his heart again to the chopping block, benign
and hopeless, maiden-handed & fawn-eyed
victim of wanhope, fuck it, says Reynolds, &
smiles, let us turn now to newer worlds, one
equal temper of heroic hearts, then bellows
with hideous laughter & Midway behind him
follows, down through springy hills & hollows
where tromp blithe Bombadils, Jacks in the
Green, Hooded Crows & Robin Hoods who
take from the rich to make them poor & the
poor richer, where handsome highwaymen
wave pistols and ravish elite & lusty wives 
with seductive abandon, lawless eyes & raw
primitive power, no, ! Reynolds scolded from
a hill, waving his index finger backwards, no
! not here, but elsewhere, think of something
exotic for the love of Pete, we're still stuck
in this twig-thick baroque canvas, attended by
flutes no doubt & clarinets, let's have Marshall
stacks & haywire! He yawpd and flailed his
air guitar and the grass & daisies at his feet
were changed to aluminum cans & cigarette
butts, lipstick tippd, the backseat of a Camero
& girls with caked-on eye shadow, tattooes
& belly jewels,  but Midway stoppt on a dime
again & refused to go forward, disinclined
to use his willy for something other than
albeit he wished to, and, with all of his nuts
quietly envied him who took the imaginary
wheel & went noisily from the lugubrious woode.


XIV.
The symmetry of the universe, yes &
what of it, and is it that, or balance, which
is not symmetry, but why argue, because
that's what we're here for, watch your
contractions, thank you, also asymmetry
as in the sonnet, 8 to 6, octave to sestet
that's Petrarchan, or Italian, no kidding
and in the Shakesperian, 4 4 4 & 2, it
works by golly, by gum, why not say God
because my neck hurts & and I'm flailing
at God right now, like Michael in that
beautiful work, Losing My Religion, he
flailed well & I don't believe God minds our
flails, He is strong & can handle it & so can
Christ, you ever had 9 inch nails pounded
into your hands ? Of course not, then obey
Him. When are you going to get around to
mentioning that the sonnet contains how
many lines, I don't wish to steal your 15
minutes, Midway, says Reynolds, it is
implied, I told him, and you ought to have
left the 15 minutes bit for the next poem
but anyway, this is how it goes with us as
we imitate our Maker, we argue & rail &
rant and watch your ampersands, you
don't want too many, they remind me of
those I love, I retort, Blake, frinstance &
Duncan & Berryman & Ginsberg, tho as I
type I'm not watch your contractions I
am not sure Allen used it a lot, but the .
is it's pretty, prettier than the word 'and', it
looks like a violin or a girl ! Yes, a girl, which
led to the shape of the violin & one who could
master the violin was in a better position to
get the girl, or at least, o the Spanish for 'or' is
better & shorter but, pero, let's not get carried
away, it should put one in a better position
to get the girl but sadly unless you look like
Steve Vai or Paganini it won't help, really, it
won't, go ahead and try it, you need the face
like a god, like Adam Ant, say, o Johnny Depp
in order for the violin to have the desired
affect o effect, if you were better @ grammar
Midway you would not have so many head-
aches & better at vocab & better at comp it
'd be a might easier for us, when we last left
off Reynolds you were tearing off in a Camero
with some hot chix, now will you kindly tell
Donovan was just wild about fourteen he sd
us of your journey ? At least the next 2 o 3 hrs
after you sped away, flinging, flailing dust in
my mug, my phiz, my phizzog, which, sadly
hath too big of a smeller to draw the skirts
& too much shine on the forehead, plus too
much forehead alone, even without the glare
so what happend ? Did you get any, and can
you share it with me, of course, he did,   you
say & comb your mop, & yes, it will continue


XV.
Whilst waiting for their 15 minutes, those
happy-go-lucky rogues, those zany madcaps 
made, at last, their way to Ocquonoctua
: planet of earthlike properties, 20K light
years from the far edge of Andromeda, in
a rocket they went, a fiery conflagration
that's redundant, a loud & face-contorting
zoom ! In a phallic burst of masculine power
spaceward, and fast. There they encounterd
creatures of strange configuration & color
, digital tomes of ancient poetry, epics by
the millions, in daunting signs & symbols
or not, it's up to you, and I will not insist
any further in this, but I've had revelations
I said, said Midway, who closed his eyes &
thought & thought, in sedentary meditation
Ballocks, cried the other, his penis as yet
still wet, who didn't recognize the new view
from the right-arm window, nor the fact
that he wore a sparkly suit & helmet of fine
design, a skeptic by nature, and therefore
terribly unperceptive, but enough of this
! he railed unclasping the seatbelts, which
at that point, zipped into invisibility, or
didn't exist at all, he was no doubt correct
but Midway persevered: here we have odd
flora, behold, his hand sweeping, like a god's
as down the ladder he backwards climbd
in heavy boots that made a springy squish
in what was pink and blue, Reynolds stayd
aboardship & decided to sleep it off, where
has he got us now, the neurotic nincompoop
& poppd a clonidine capsule, but off went
Midway, removing his helmet, taking the 1st
deep breath of the newer world, who then
collapsd & lay unconscious for several hrs
& woke with a monstrous headache, on a 
lumpy flophouse mattress, hungover, &
disappointed, & with a hard-on, and the
need to piss, what did I tell you, pardner,
we never get anywhere, not San Juan, not
Baltimore, we are simply lost, let's face it
and you need to get laid, stop thinking so
much, your body has other organs, etcetera
but I'll admit, you almost had me this time
said Reynolds, it was the silly suit that let
the cat outta the bag, and the word behold
which doesn't suit you, you oughta have sd
look, but you decided instead be grandiose
and cocksure, which reminds me, I said
is there a brothel nearby, or a loose girl
Hell, if there were, we're flat broke, or
have you, back to sleep he goes, forgotten
besides, you're too afraid to catch something
and, even barring that, you can't use your
johnthomas in such a manner, we know this
or have you, but sometimes dammit, it hurts
I know, I've got one too, I'm just prettier




WAB  2012 – 2013

To the Woman I Love

How many years I've loved you, who cannot return
my love, how many tears have wet my broken bed,
like seeds sown in the darkness, where no stem is born,
but where the breath that speaks of love says love is dead,
and sounds like silence, and like depth, and solitude,
that faintly go and then as faintly come around
again, like silent blackbirds in a winter wood,
like violins and voices stilled and void of sound,

until there's no more counting, no more new amount
or number, and we just let go the hem of time
that shrinks and shrivels in the pitch it was made of,
and heart and mind forget what it had meant to count,
and can't conceive the point of meter or of rhyme,
and do not understand at all a word like love.

12.12.2012

Reading Walcott

For Andrew Mandelbaum


When this man writes white almonds, I pretend I'm blind
as a bat that's lying dreaming on a book of Homer,
so I can go on reading, in my head a number
of voices ricocheting, a deliquescent grind
of genuine island lilts and one that's less refined:
my landlocked cracker mimick. No. We must remember
the almonds. White, he said. Alright. I see a comber
Curling in, on top a watermelon rind-

white froth of foam that seems to want to settle down
upon an arc of shoreline where I see together
a woman and a man in daylight sharp as a diamond.
Her hair is dark and flying loose, skin cinnamon-brown,
half-naked, and him the same; they laugh and love the weather.
They wave me over to them, toss me a sweet white almond.

Ballad of Morning Star

I got up sick this morning, Lord,
  it always starts that way,
and found that my old lady
  and my hound dog ran away.
My landlord said, "boy, pony up
  for two months now, or split."
O Lord, you know just what I got,
  but I'm not sayin' it.

I took a bus on into town,
  to find a paying job,
a hard-ass boss just up and said
  I was a no-good slob;
I almost wrung his scrawny throat,
  so angry I could spit,
O Lord you know just what I got,
  but I'm not sayin' it.

I thought about an old guitar
  that I had put away.
I bought it as a strapping lad,
  but could not hardly play.
I'd pluck and strum all night but still
  I'd turn a song to shit,
O Lord, you know just what I got,
  but I'm not sayin' it.

So in a filthy bar I sat down
  with a glass of scotch
to sum up all my good and bad
  and wound up with a botch.
My Daddy said in days long past
  a good man would not quit,
But Lord you know what I still got,
  though I'm not sayin' it.

A sharp young man was sitting tall,
  just down that sticky bar,
who drank out of a shot glass
  with a hand as black as tar;
and with a grin that shadow-man
  shook up my soul a bit:
(O Lord, that man knows what I got,
  though I'm not sayin' it.)

"I'm known as Morning Star," that man said,
  with a frightful hiss,
"though I'm as dark as night and cold
  as any warlock's piss."
His words slid out as chill as mist
  from an unholy pit.
O Lord I saw him plain as day,
  but would not own to it!

"Up in your room, dirty with dust,
  you stow an old guitar,
go find it now and brush up on
  your chops", said Morning Star,
"Tonight is inspiration;
  and tomorrow, bang, a hit!"
O Lord, I saw him through and through,
  but did not own to it!

Tonight I took that old guitar and,
  good Lord, how it rang!
what chords my hands could fashion now,
  how gloriously I sang!
But, Lord, I took that old guitar
  and, in a pious fit,
I cast it down and with an oath said,
  "I'm not playin' it!"

My room got hot, a ghostly moonlight
  through a window sash
lit up that old guitar which now
  was but a mound of ash;
and, nigh but out of sight, old Morning Star
  spat, "I admit,
Your will is strong, your soul is God's,
  and I'm not touching it."

And soon a stormy wind struck up that,
  blowing hard and fast,
wild as a pack of jackals braying
  with a furious blast,
took up that ash and had it spinning
  quick as a hot drill bit...
  ...Still got an old harmonica,
        but I ain't too fond of it.


2004