Reynolds & Midway XXXVI.

                                                                        for Kenneth (two of them)
                                                                     fromderinside & kennethamy

                                     

is the # of angels who can stand on the

head of a pin ° the number of angels 0

alienangels dancing dying on Jupiter's

methane hurricane that Richard Kenney 

utterd whilst I waterd the porcelain garden

gold golden rains how many angels/

angles right o square how many Romans

they go   you must use theee?   if it's not up

by sunrise       10 x around the palace

signs of consciousness in Pita's couplets

flickrd, misrememberd come ! Come let us

plant & build & till the earth & live 1 000

yrs this time that slippery silverfork we will

freely unheed & stand naked & w out shame

before our Father, you & I, for He loves

us much very & we will wend the wilderness

merry, man & woman proud & adore Him

Holy Holy Father Maker & mother ing

young & ancient tomorrow a million billion

yesterdays & Yes yes the music the evolution

greening blowing blooming crack & crunch

of cells atomic blood gears upon gears wheels

gears wheels motion moving Boyleing in blossom

in perpetuity & timeless pinpoint  now  non

motion unchange in chains chains wheels

gears seeds seeds seeds seeds wheels born

births GOD yes born & born & born again

cycles wheels time angels in Jupiter dying

dancing protons neutrons electrons whales arks &

archwhales chains wheels in deep sea space

absent cold hot void spiralling black points .s

mas .s & more to A point  Julian of Norwich

she the point pointed to in eloquence & Love

that all shall be well & all manner of things

shall be well in Christ Jesus Lord God Son Holy

Sun bright  bright Son   Light     The Light

and . Of GOD the sum of all       Almighty

One 1 & 0 Zero  zeroes        Omega ± Alpha

man made Maker made man & machine &

gears atoms blades stems seeds milk Mother

rest eternal black       void        void              v

° 'or' in Spanish

1.30.2014

Love (erasure poem; from William Shakespeare's "A Lover's Complaint")

From a reworded story

this double voice

fortified beauty

Time had not scythed

her levell'd eyes spheres

tied To the orbed earth

Her hair Proclaim'd pride

Hanging

she in a river weeping

applying wet to wet hands

gave the flood

silk and curious secrecy

Cried witness and damned in rage

    A reverend man

    a blusterer privileged by age

   'Father '

she says 'in me

The injury of many hath power

might spreading to myself

Love to myself

to gain grace'

That maiden made 

     him hang

    Small show of man

    his visage wavering

    without beauteous form

    falseness the sway he makes

quickly the verdict went

    his case

made not 

   his tongue did sleep

all passions in 

   his will

granted their own will

imagination in thought

labouring never touch'd

    his heart

woeful affections Reserved

Finding honour shielded

the foil

Of this jewel 

   his amorous

spoil

destined

forced

  put peril in her way

stop

rage    blood    fear

o Reason weep and cry

'This 

   man's foul

   in deceit vows defiling

   Thought and word

   bastards of his foul heart

I held

afraid

blood

Love     made not

true nor kind

shame

so much in me remains

how much reproach

my heart so much

Harm

heart wounded

Of grief

and effects of terror

but fighting

twisted weepingly

    With stone's nature hard

    Weak sickly wit made moan

    hot Of subdued desires

yield I myself

    to you

I their altar

    you

advance 

   Whose white command

   Hallow'd with sighs burning me

under you

   comes sanctified of holiest note

  Which kept cold distance and did thence remove

To spend

what is

    The thing we have not

    mastering

    Playing Playing unconstrained?'

She scars of battle

valiant her force

put out 

    Religion's eye

'How mighty you are O hear me

broken bosoms that to me belong

emptied all their fountains

I pour your ocean strong and you being strong

Must for your victory

compound love to your power

in grace

Believe when 

    they assail

All vows and consecrations giving bond 

space 

In thee    For thou art all

     wilt      inflame impediments

stand forth! Love's arms are peace

The aloe of all 

     force

Now hearts on mine depend

Feel it break with bleeding groan

    the battery

soft to that strong-bonded oath'

This said eyes were levell'd

Each cheek a river running

O how the stream gave grace

glowing

flame through water

    O father what hell

In the small tear

What rocky heart

What breast is not warm here?

    his passion

    resolved to white chastity

    Shook off he appears melting

    His poison a plenitude of

    swooning paleness

    he best

    To blush to turn white

Show nature kind

    When he most burn'd in heart

    He preach'd and praised

    concealed fiend

    cover'd

    fell.

1.16-17.14

Reynolds & Midway XXXV.

Where went the black sedan when the night closed

and winter whisperd crisp among the streetlights;
when jealous husbands cruncht on bully tires
slowly around the 'one-night cheap hotels'
where behind counters weary nite clerks dozed

& bolted televisions droned w/ smut

or local news & radiators billowd
easy heat for traveling salesmen, tight
Canadian nookie peddlars, tired tourists,
& wand'ring souls with ulcers in the gut

who read in Gideon's bible the smeard print

of thumbs that also lookd for consolation
or possible escape routes from the gaze
of God Who watchd over each motor lodge
& sent his angels in the cautious squint

of housekeepers, Who gleamd in their dark eyes,

their brown & callusd fingers; where repose
was written in the hint of areoles,
the subtle contours of the pelvic carriage,
the music of trilld speech, the clack of keys?

Hidden by smokestaind blinds the long legs stretcht

along a borrowd bed; a borrowd wife
beneath his writing arm, the flaccid bicep
hairless, harmless as a sleeping child's,
& at the wrist a fat, gold-banded watch

where time clickd like the crash of distant glass.

In one more hour, he thought, timing his thought
to each slow shift & breath of her whose sleep
was precious to them both, and I'll have come
of age. Close by, determined headlights passd.

1.16-17.14

Reynolds & Midway XXXIV

Genesis 34

When Dinah, child of Leah, went out to see

the 'daughters of the land', she was 'defiled'
by Shechem, who then cleavd to her & wisht
her for a wife. & then a bloody mess.
To my small mind, also to speak the truth,
at least the shade of it dimly aglow
in the pink & bloody meat of my simple heart:
The man's a beast who takes an innocent
by his mere muscle, by a fashiond arm,
or under threat of any kind of harm—
a beast, no more. Christ, may his balls be severd,
his name dishonord, shamed. May this petition
be thought of, Lord, by You, & God the Father,
an he wld genuflect, & mock contrition.

1.3.2013

Reynolds & Midway XXXIII.

Reading Olson, of Tartarós & Typhon

think: what do I know & what is knowledge:
How will I know that what I learn is new
knowledge, not information (data) forgotten?
Back to Ulysses, Bloom & Dedalus,
kitchen prowlings of a sudden become
cosmology, theology; going again
to vying titans in primordial soup
& down again, and yet again, again,
to microcosmospherical theoretical
Melvillian depth. Charles—like Baruch,
a choking smoker : Benedictus favord
a pipe of peace, legitimate piety;
surrenderd his inheritance to a
gaffing sister; waived a high & haughty
hoity-toity chair for quiddity,
solitude, text, joy, & Love of God—
lordly leapt. See Joyce a hunert nearly
yrs ago, prolix & cloacal, w/ his hat
& wee round spectacles, mts of books
in leaning & lopsided piles about him
notes, reference tomes, dictionary,
to build it up, & keep it going: therefor
let us continue, & keep it. Pound's
Cantos, Olson's salty Maximus Poems :
items of memory   history   Kulchur ,
external to electric head machines,
exterior & available to others:
Other, essential in beginnings, myths;
stories & tales of lore: the Field
& Knower of the Field = quantum physics;
witness alters outcomes, Watchers watch:
Enoch, Daniel, elsewhere? in Scripture,
epic struggles, forces in collision
Keats sang in his Hyperion, vast
unconscionable & mysterious incest,
Kronos, Gaia ? Erde-Mutter, Mahler's
ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott :
second symphony, Ressurection, eternal
consciousness: its beauty had us in tears
at first blush, early twenties, even then
in chune someway, somehow, a wannabe
Jew, this pale & christend merican Catholic,
unchurcht & unconfirmed, who feard the wafer
wd stick in his throat; who feared the water
atop his head; who feard to sign the cross
to Father, Son, & Holy Ghost, what ? Ghost ?
A ghost! Who feard the gentle cow, the silly
chicken; who feard the ants he dreamd
when father sd: Billy, they're in yr head,
& panic-stricken believed & wishd the ants
wld go out of his head, that never did,
but hisssd & hisssd, like swarms when sleep
was coming ¶ What is coming? geometric
notation    Regular 5-cell   regular convex
polychora  Schläfli symbol   {3,3,3} ; &.

- 12.26.13

Reynolds & Midway XXXII.

December 14 1996

85 pounds the lot of her, soaking wet,
they told her, put rocks in your pockets lest
the wind steal you away, I scoopd her up
& o'er the thing we went, was that the limen?
No, threshold it was, but there it didn't fit.
& so began a battle: my querulous throat
dealt deathblows to whatever wifely feeling
she workd to fashion for the likes of me.
This is the truth of it: God had sent
a wife straight to my door, a pearl befor swine,
a creature of such soft, dark comeliness
that never should these hands have touchd her skin,
never a hair upon her sacred head—
unless the grace of God had made it so.

 

 

12.22.13

Reynolds & Midway XXXI.

Radials grip & crunch on powdery snow
outside, and the nite deepens in St. John,
the clink of tulip glasses, acrid scents
of Gaulois Bleus, a fresh pack, muffled titters
of Nova Scotian fangirls out of the know,
and him, whose lanky fingers flutter pages
& scrawl the coveted autograph to names
rememberd for a minute. New Year's Eve.
Carols & Christmas songs & hymns mumble
in faraway chorus faint thru frosted windows:
Silent, Holy Night, & Rudolph's nose:
Bob May's grieving creation put to song
by Johnny Marks, also a Jew, and May's
brother-in-law, no less: remarkable story
of Jewish suffering & Jewish resilience,
in celebration of the toughest Jew
& mildest Rabbi in the world of men.
Thus Midway's eyes reflected, Yule-log flame
flickering inside the umber iris,
dilated pupil, moist, the eggwhite stitcht
with deltaed red; the tear rolld, pendulous,
breast-shapen. Was it sd that Helen's breast
was used to make a chalice? Marie Antoinette's
perfect pair a set of 4 porcelain cups?
I have no doubt, sd Reynolds, & held his hand
as if to cradle gently in his palm
the tear-shaped bowl of fat. Then Midway cried
O Monika's kleine bechern; my beloved's
¡delicados pequeños cálices!
but those he had not known, yet did Cassandra's
cuppas: white as almond blossoms, tippt
with areolæ pink as bloomd pink roses|
Midway blinkd, and Robert rose, Pierre
Cardin white chinos catching at a shoelace,
& glided thru the 'smoky music': Duncan's
capture| [A name] I love you. I want to kiss you
on the mouth & on the neck. I want to hold
you in my arms & feel your breasts against me ;
I want to make love to you ; to know your body
as I know my own body ; to smell you, taste you,
touch you, forever. I love you, I love you, forever.
These words came forth from my lips, we spoke
in whispers in the darkness, to them that we love,
in true love & in covetousness, in the Ear of God
our words were true & dangerous, & spoken in sin.
Later we slept, & our dreams passd w/o memory.
Laid on our side, we ran our hands on our body,
naked in the dark, in the Light of Christ, w/o shame,
and in the name of Love, we whisperd| ¶ Eyes
followd þhe man, þhe eyes of wickéd women,
& wickéd men, who lookd wiþ envious lust
& lecheróus desire ; & he knew
the pressure of þeir eyes, þe clingy, webby
tendrils of interest dragging, only to break
at last when time & distance broke þe þreads
of þeir attention. Out into þe chilly
wind of St. John, þhe penny loafers trod,
&, in a black sedan, he went.

- 12.17-19.13

Reynolds & Midway XXX.

Matthew 26:15
Matthew 27:3
Exodus 21:32
Zechariah 11:12


He in penny-loafers, one leg crosst
over the other, reclining in the chair,
clipboard, pen, and Dunhill swirling white
to hearken to a something, not the smoke
in Rome, but of a substance we ought not
express, to put a finer point, to say
it straight, if harder matter wld be pearls.
you sd express, & Reynolds adolescently
chortled: is that the word we want, it sounds
like Charlie's twin brother, younger Chortle,
Chuck & Chortle, talking heads? No, turtles.
That's rime-driven, we agreed, & broke the
sing-song, only to go back, soon, but for now
let us enjoy the laxity, we acquiesced &
Reynolds: there's Chortle & Chucky,
& Prudence, dear Prudence, Charity,
Chastity & Hope, Bob Hope, who playd
to men in uniform & sd he'd play
if but one man was serving, he wld play,
a good man: 1 in a million we wld guess,
then Midway: he wld stretch his legs & say
a line from Langland, Chaucer, Spenser, Douglas,
Blake, Berryman, Duncan; then Ginsberg
bringing up the rear, incanting aums ,
clapping, yawping mantras, chanting hymns,
but lest we go too far & lose the premise
which was to tell of him, the lengthy calves
w/o an hair, a smoooth man, whereas Esau
was an hairy man, to mind us of
Albion's harlequins, tall & leggy men,
let us continue, it is of this man
that phantasies unsightly & ungodly
come: images that stir the blood & frighten
the mind, like those that Iudas saw:
the rotted beast aswarm w/ flies, the demon
in sudden terror, & in innocent faces
of sneering children, in Gibson's vision,
for 30 pieces of silver, thirty shekels?
He hung himself, or hangd, we say hangd
not hung, which is for objects, not for men,
but better we avoid this, ' bury me not Bunko
damn Catholic I pray you in Egypt. ' : Galway,
whose boychild crieth: Fergus, who went w/ wand'ring
& dishevelld stars, we'll get to him, his longpoem
Rodman snipt in his anthology
[Selden dead, 2002, age 93],
The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ
Into the New World , we have quoted there,
& pray we avoid this, let me echoe heere
this Greco-Roman love, for shame, it blushd
its purple head & then became an olive,
O oil of the fruit     of the tree   in the garden
I sang befor, in ballad sing-song, saying
my mouth is open, & I am waiting, like
that waif La Belle Dam sans Merci—
who mindeth me of Opeth & a bridge,
dark water: ways & wells, & fluting fountains,
arches, under wich go folk forlorn
in misty loss, as in Lothlorien
where Beren went & barefoot Luthien,
in mirky woodes by melancholy meres—
who tarryeth long & no birds sing.

- 12.17-18.13

Reynolds & Midway XXIX.

But everybody wants to be that guy,

you know, w/ snappy comebacks, pithy quips.
His 'glasses don't go flying across the floor',
when slapt by starlets. Reynolds & me, we
shuffld out of the theatre, he with a half-
tossd bottle of NyQuil, for a dex-enrichd
attention span, twenty-nine yrs ago,
upstate New York. One day we went spelunking|
Come, say it straight: we spiderd thru some cavey
tunnels in Minnewaska, climbd the lemon-
squeeze, he calld it. On a skinny ladder
I held white knuckld; above, the light pourd
trickling, hence the appellation. Once
topside again, & out of the Blyan darkness ,
Midway became a hero: Elbows outward,
dry hands spannd astride his flaccid beltloops,
he, confident again on Terra Firma ,
waxd poetic: Mts come out of the sky
[hand extended like a Grecian statue's]
about us & we stand there , range across—
80s campfire girls in soggy swimwear
toggle the switch from apogee to nadir,
raise the temperature a fair °,
& alter orator to /chatterbox,
whilst Reynolds, who cld pass for Frampton's
sexier younger brother: loosely springy-
bronzy curls in radiant array,
his teeth rectangled as piano keys
for soft hamfisted bungled melodies
I sketchd one morning. In the afternoon
we journeyd 'round the edge of Newburgh, bent
on misadventure. I was homeward bound
and he my city guide, now Northplank Tavern
occurs to me: another early evening—
Reynolds morphs from Thomas into James,
a Scot or Irishman to Englishman,
and in that fuddlehole, the polishd bar
of heavy wood, we bowd our monkish heads
and askd the tapster, he in natty togs,
despite the absence of the nodding off
& frequent gents & warmers of the barstools'
chinny wives or one-night flirting skirts,
if he wld tell us tales behind the labels:
monastic men brewd this one, sediment
settled at the bottom, potent as wine.
My eyes took in the mirrors, oaken beams
across the high, archd ceiling; then the floor,
buffd smooth enough to cast reflections, stood
straight up & struck me, & I slept. True heroes
never went down like that, the rough & tumble
sluggers in Key Largo, Casablanca,
hard-assd on celluloid; those black & white
packers of small revolvers stood upright
& stood for something, somewhere. Play it again,
                                                                                 Sam.

- 12.14-15.13

Reynolds & Midway XXVIII.

       Namath's triumph came in probably the most significant game in the history of Roman numerals." - Larry Schwartz

Began the evening badly, out of line,

& off the path the Lord has set us on,

deliberately, without excuse, the blood

hot in the veins, coursing with speed, corrupt,

avoiding the prophet, having switchd to 1st

Samuel, then back to Isaiah, having read

Daniel, Ezekiel, & Jeremiah,

these iterations: poems ? following whither

the Lord shd take us, or that slithy serpent

Christ trod, killing in Gethsemane,

His gallant heel on the sibilant beast, His face

resolved, in Gibson's flame-blue Passion: Jim's

masculine muscle & incisive eyes,

profoundly penetrative, beautiful—

Does that go in accord? We do not know.

The Shroud of Turin: Yeshua's face razor-

edged, thinly signatured, imprinted.

Dark complected ? He the Lion of Judah,

more wise than Solomon, Scion of David,

more rich in splendor—tho' that king amassd

his brazen wealth & gatherd hordes of wives,

dime paramours—kinglier than all kings

& emperors of the earth, Who rode an ass

into Jerusalem | Now to return

to our confession: Certes, we've begun

tonite in lust & lechery, Midway

& I, whose digits poke these symbols out,

that other : One behind whose mask "I hide

my self inside the shadows of shahame",

in megalomania: Walter Mitty's

dreamy abandon, a tale I have not read

but lived, my idiot cranium plumbly stuck

in soil & cloud. Let us remember a day

In 'sixty-nine, & me a welterweight,

a sprout as high as Pop's benevolent belt.

We watchd a box wherein were black & white

talking heads, & on that day the Jets

united (contra Unitas). Separate bands

of men, two leagues: alpha entrencht,

& beta brash, a fresh confederation

of little Davies, Namath at the conn,

who wore his locks as one Eyeless in Gaza,

gayly effeminate, the number twelve

emblazond on the jersey, front & back,

prophetic numerals: the cardinals

one & two, the sum of which is three:

The whole is greater than—you know the rest,

James Haig explaind, but few rememberd: Mind,

Matter, & Language; Time, Space, & Number.

With that we're off & running, like those cleated

bunches of eleven who huddle, hut ,

& hike on numberd grass, helmeted men

shoulder to shoulder, nose to nose, who "gallop

terribly against each other's bodies." :

Another James: "I croon my tears at fifty

cents a line." And on that day Joe Willie's

guarantee was granted, shut the traps

of mockers everywhere & put in motion

a new convergence of the twain, a first

& latter joind in one far greater whole.

His index aimd to God, his word kept,

Namath quit the field. But Reynolds scoffd,

the game is cockamamie, greening galoots

colliding, tussling like a pack of brutes,

& what eccentric counting? Six strokes

instead of one, a single, booted extra,

or two w/o the shoe? The world plays futbol

and we this, this—but Midway interjected:

7 + 7 to save the world, the fourteen

Stations of the Cross, Veronica, Simon,

the Via Dolorosa—Reynolds stalked

off, & hissd, across the limen.

12.11-13.13

Reynolds & Midway XXVII.

Yahafta I tellya yahafta I need I need

& so it began againe of a starry midnight,
but Midway, he had ither things in mind:
for instance: in the mirror, the what he calld
'palimpsest' in a sonete, the finest booty.
In Murphy & Sullivan's Beowulf
the word was monstrous, and it made us
giggle like a gurl, for our legs were bald
as the smooth pates of monks in Tibet, our T
at low ebb, wich is fine with us @ time t
for in sleep we wake &, on our sides, like Ezekiel,
pass our hands over the coconut-milk
quhite cloves, & wonder how and wherefore this
sea-change, now, as unto our Jubilee
we nigh | but yesternight I heard the Great
Ninth of Schubert, at wich commencement
there is no sadder, more magnificent music:
I mean the sweeping strings a moment in,
how many bars, who knows, I don't. & this
thocht us of Ludwig & of Antonin,
& that mysterious cardinal: that 9
that cannot be surpassd, or cld not by
a few elect, which brings us to our Lord,
Yeshua's Father, Abba, that reigneth in Heaven,
Who holdeth us, the greatest marionette
& timeless puppeteer, the Lord G-d;
Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, Primum Mobile;
that Unmoved Mover, Makar
& Shaker of erde & water, H²0,
ритуал. символ. образ
Ritual. Symbol. Image
stampt in the mind of man, made in His Image,
Who came to me this morning in a dream
where I saw verses in the Guid Buik
& His eternal guidance, guiding me
to make a poweem, adding up the number,
& further things of which I did not ken,
of compound parts. Dos Passos made compounds,
his favorite, 'redfaced' : The 42^nd Parallel ,
U.S.A. : too many redfaced personæ,
but who am I to fault him? No-man, which
sd Odysseus to that oneeyed Cyclops
who like Colossus trampt & ate manflesh,
to which those Orcs were snuffling in the wind
for Saruman, Maiar, that lost the Way
& tore the earth assunder w great engines
of sore destruction, &, like Aulë, wrought
him creatures of his own rude make, cruel
abominations, hideous mercenaries,
guttural slayers, fetid filth of breath
not breathd by God, inspirited to ruin
& ruination, rampant beastiall death,
destroyers of instruction, virtue, vice's
vicious & rotten, meaty fournisseurs
of  venery & violatión—
Which is not thus to speak of that Mahal's
Seven Fathers, who did finer work
& wrought in mts hallowd & wide halls,
whose smithy blades did strike in Middle-Earth.
& now that we've forgotten Midway's back
let us forfend such mention, & again
heed God, whose prophet Yeshayahu speaks:

12.11.13

Reynolds & Midway XXVI.

Dazed, & maybe a jot confused,

we woke from our dreamless sleep of an hour's
duration, having been undisturbd by wasp,
or locust. Push it , the androgynous Plant
waild, against the fly the guessd-at rod
of alpha male not spared for twenty-five ,
he croond, where in New York
those horsed policemen cruisd for long-haird youth,
around the Garden on the East when Bron-yr-Aur  went
belling, like golden water in a flute,
pads squeaking up the fretted wood, the four
faces mild w drink & wonder: having
the world a relish on a half shell. We
abandond hate & loosd our tongues againe
to tempt the wrath of Yahweh that raind down
havoc of rain & fire, & burnd with fire—
But what of Robert, queried Reynolds. Midway's
eyes went glazèd o'er, & thocht of Robert
whose Celtic chest, nor not that Robert neither,
he sd, & put his palm out like those kings
of Gondor, he of whom we lately spoke.
Tell us the story, the other elbowd, winkd,
& shut his hole, whereat the poet lourd
& hesitated, ruminating ruins
& pomegranates, pillars, caterpillers,
chapiters: the wrath of the Lord of Hosts,
& Zedekiah blinded, bound in chains
for whom we wept but yesternight, & Paul
who wreckd but left no handsome corpse,
the need 4 speed too hot in him. We wept
& wet the pillow for the dead, the millions
dying in pain, slaughterd in war, pusht
in shallow graves alive in Nanking, frozen
to death, butcherd in Auschwitz: tears
that Mengele shd live, children gassd,
the old stript naked, bulldozed into piles.
We wept, but questiond not the ways of God,
nor do we question here. In shuddering love
we wept, & swallowd Reason, taking hold
of SØren's despair in blinded faith,
for having made the leap & past all doubt,
nor wanting courage in our hearts to wake
from viewless slumber, barren of image,
& live another day without question,
without rebellion, Lord. O gaunt Christ,
my Lord, Thy narrow body, by whose wounds
I am refresht, awakend, by whose stripes
I am reminded of my deep corruption,
my turning away, my scarlet shame. O Lord,
Who will not come down from the Tree
to walk again on Galilee
for all my mental fight, but nine-inch-naild
remaineth, scourgd & bloody. When You thirst
I lift the sponge, & when You die I thrust
the blade into Your side, again, again,
& stand upon Your shoulders, & I laugh
& roll the dice, & gambol lyke a lambe
on greene hills in a swelling empire, easy-
peasy, Lord, in surety & safety,
leastways for now, remindeth Emmet, whom
I tolt of in a story; but the time
cometh: The words of Jeremiah blast & blare
worldwide & wheresoever eyes are open
& ears shall hear. Mine eyes are open, Lord,
mine ears shall hear.

 

 

12.9.13

Reynolds & Midway XXV.

Walking side by side w death, the d'evil

does he? It has been sd, to speak of the d'evil
brings him, & may be true, as of an evening
I lay & made a breathèd challenge, cocky
& sure in the armor of Christ, when on the cusp—
I saw a face of horror: the wrappt phizzog
that seemd a mummy in a dapper suit,
a hotel lobby, at the desk, casual,
but for a flash: on the top of Lovecraft's
wispy stairs where madness rides the starwind,
close to the sound of consciousness abeyant,
the hisss, or buzz—of sleep. I mutterd, mocking,
then cried aloud, torn to the waking world.
My heart triphammerd: it was only Penny,
who leapt up on the bed, her black body
poisd in cat-alarm, her yellow eyes
big, her gray-streakt fur up, all á prickle.
Don't ask for trouble, keep yr head down, sidle
as one intent on giving no offense;
keep yr elbows in, & mind yr manners;
bid g'day & be polite to sheilas:
tip yr hat & never scry the tower
whereon the 2nd hand makes monstrous° tocks
as riot cometh on its terrible feet
wich jangle at the ankles, jewelld bellies
sinuous & swiveling, O dark,
O lovely Salome, come dance for me,
for us, come naked-middenlye & hair
long, black & flying, you of the forkt & sibilant
tongue that markest lust, duplicity,
the ancient clam'ring & reptilian voice
against the small and still; come shake,
come sway & shimmy, move thy money-maker,
bringer of joy & death, thou pigeon-toed
& nimble footed user of thighs that make
a perfect ass of themselves, that valentine heart
inverted, stinky harbinger of fun
and desolation, odoriferous moone
that fawning poets ode & on which hinges
life & death: birth y basura organs
placed nigh, a pair, to make a mess of things
for all most fain to look: the leering
onanist, the caught red-handed apes,
like Midway, who was of a sudden quiet
when Reynolds up & spoke, his small cigar
waning between his fingers: let us heap
our loud collective guilt upon these faire
& slinky lovelies; let us rain our hate
in public & in private, lest our young
be also dismayd, also connivd, trickt
of their senses & their money. Let us give
no quarter, never, once & for Chrissake
all: the little quivery moppets let us
hate with perfect hate unspoilt by Reason,
w chiseld hate, and salted with contempt
bound up w hate, like pharoahs dried in Egypt.
«Then shall we dig them up, unbury them,
unwrap them, and take careful note
of our undoing? For we're desecrators
at heart, & to a man: of graves & churches,
idols & icons, ruins & remains
of all our botherd and unresting dead
who make fit bullseyes 4 the slings & arrows
of man's complete corruption: For their lips
are seald, they cannot speak; their tongues
are lockd away, & they cannot defend.
Thus Midway, w his dull & heavy manhole
of a flapper, answerd himself.
And so the story goes: brother kills brother,
or at the least is at his neck
& on his back forever, in condign
concordia et chaos, ad infinitum;
in internecine strife & bloody battle
'neath hoode & robe, w cloak & ‡s'
pearly handles slipt in harborcoats;
w Janus-faces in the looking glass;
Narcissi | stuff it, now.
Lord, make me silent.


12.7.13


° I was not aware when I wrote this of the existence of a thing called a 'monstrance clock'. I was actually envisioning a Star Trek episode where the people on an earthlike planet go haywire, festival and medieval style, when the big public clock strikes a certain hour. The band Ghost has a cool song called "Monstrance Clock", but I'm askeert to listen to that amazingly talented band, since they are admittedly satanic, albeit I think they mean that term loosely, to refer to all things dark, rebellious, etc. Nonetheless, it is tricksy and quite risky business, in my opinion, praising that pussy satan and his creepy minions to millions of impressionable fans throughout the world. - William A Baurle 6.19.14