a very long post of very many poems.

New and Selected Poems

Random Juvinilia from the Family Art Book:

A Poetics

I feel I could adore you
If it weren't for that thing you do
that makes me love you so much.

If you see the dawn before you
fall asleep, save it for me.

A home remedy to catch myself
in a revery has almost taken
her out of my meanwhile.

Portrait of Other

A framed faded wag

A faded mega dwarf

A faded dwarf game

A dwarfed mega fad

A famed aged dwarf

Dad feared fag maw

Add framed fag awe

Added fag fame war

Faded fad mega war

Faded fad mega raw

Love Poem

You looked so restrained by your broken frame.
I immediately wanted to play music for you.
And so I took the job. I drowned myself in a lover's sob.
I hung myself from the ceiling of the broken hearts club.
I died the small o. I came the little death.
I fell into a big hole. Am i sick?
Is it wrong to love an invalid so?
So locked inside attention am I her man. 
Caught in the anticipation of conception.
I love you darling. Be free.

***

Poem

What I'm doing seems
vaguely wigged out,
but here's a chair
and my deepest.

Take parody toward
emotional catharsis.

It's the way I do it,
pull up a flower.

I'll cross this line out.

Oblivion is just a silly
lily on a shield.

***

Poem's Poem

There's the I'm doing this, done that, will do poem
and the screw-this-I'm-bored poem, most poems.
There's the I-don't-know-what-I'm-talking-about poem
often preferable to the I-know-what-I'm-talking-about poem
but not much more interesting. There's the here's-the-summation-
of-my-experience poem. That's not too bad. Or here's-the-essence-
of-my-DNA poem. I like that one. There's the I'm-messed-up poem,
the I-need-to-get-messed-up poem, the I-need-to-get-over-it poem,
the I-just-wanna-get-my-rocks-off poem, my favorite kind.
There's the I-just-want-to-turn-you-out poem, which I haven't decided
about, but think is probably not a great poem kind of poem.
There's the to-hell-with-it poem which has a place,
the academic poem which has a place I don't care to go,
the hell-bent for glory poem which at least has some oomph,
the sad, glad, mad, happy, sappy, sorry, scary, hairy, fairy poem
which is all my poems and then some. There's the truth
that I've seen but couldn't keep poems. There's the twenties,
the sixties, the seventies, the nineties and the paleolithic poems.
There's the smart ones, the ones that presume language,
and then there's the dumb ones. Guess which one this is.

***
    
                                                               Noble Essay

Recently I've been thinking about the whole problem of regeneration. The conclusion I've come to is a kind of murder. You can tell the problem by the symptoms. These symptoms, as I have found through exhaustive research, are nothing more than termites in the attic. Formica tables are spared and fall through the ceiling. The cure comes when the horizontal axis has been made parallel to the vertical axis. I'm not being tangential either, fool. I'll tell you exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about all those billions of dots that were created in the fifties that still exist. I've been doing some serious rumination. Fortunately you will never have to hear about it. It smells like raspberry. It was delicious. I wonder if I kept writing I could empty out my brain.

***

NUAVE BLESSING

Preening slaughtertooth's fractal masticating
reminced mattered neurature, erascitating
balbously vaneristic raystrips, scrabbling
vaporous velora, biflecting daneumantheon's

noiristicuffs, ramshackled. Lunacopter's bry
strobes arclining, sartressa suiz scorves
invertesimal haustetters, blarcooning
paladriola's craxus. Indelphic velora!

***

CHAUCER-STEIN

one that on April first
April one the one sure
and covered with soot
sure footed and thud
thud roots the roots of March
of March the roots pierced on
had pierced
and every vein bothered
to the root with sweet water
and bothered how virtue engendered
every vein in sweet liquor

Egg's other end
in which virtue engendered in spirit
had the sweetest breath
in Zephyr's egg
in what the heart hath left
in spirit hath
in every holder's heft.

***

 NUANCE

Knew once
New wants

***

       The Thousand Faces of Loss

                          I.

Do you know what to do in a waterloo situation
with the reverb turned up, heard hollow piercing
    earache?
This is the frozen time, the last time the fat man
    will sit on his hands.
Lately the personal has been kept that way,
    the smile has been handed over.
Let the trading of tusks begin.
Thinking gives pause to shudders.
It has always seemed that everything would turn up
     a little blunt around the edges.
The catchup never looked so corporate and the air
     never made less of a difference.
The fire in the catacomb took care of the smell.
The Bahamas deal is off and nine to five is on the slab.
Somebody sneezed and left their eyes open.
I situate the fat of fear in the sad hearse derailed
     by the lonesome cow.
She said yes to the idea of eternity, but I'm still
     stuck in the bowels of time.
You are not meant to recover from understanding.
The battle cry of equality begins with
     an octopus unloosening a jar.
There is a callous thing that is making its own way
in the world. I call him infamy and we like to go dancing.
Walking the dog is an amorphous tendency
    toward nirvana.
I'm not so sure about the infidelity incident,
    only the meandering without reserve.
Hide in the manipulation of a scripto fine point until
    water begins to splash over the side of the boat.
I tried to catch the boat, but got caught in the motor,
    shredded in slow motion.
It's a ritual involving the feel of the axe wedge
    in the log, even on good days.
There are those beams of iridescence colliding
    off metal surfaces. I caught one in the eye.
Swimming in the old waterhole, even though
    though the sign warned us against it.
Figure it will all work for maximum security prisons,
    because of force.
I feel it in my jaws, as if I had been talking too much.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is somebody else's ideal.
    I guess screaming fortunately.
The skin is raw and bristles when you rub the brush
    across.
Can't you see the way you fell into the arms of
    the century like a cable-car lurching down a hill?
It has come to the way we ride each other's past,
    checking out the neighborhood.

The answer is coming without the nuance of serious
    has-been literature.
But this is the tool used for correspondence between
    happenings.
If the other side denotes a fault, then this will have
    to be perfect.
It's all right to sue the contestant, if they are not available
    for comment, but this could have a long term political effect.
So just hop on the next bus to Dayton and I'll see you
    in the reverse mode of architecture.
It is uncommon, or at least unseemly, to fix a bayonet
    in such a miraculous fashion.
More likely that you would have to be sacrificed and reborn.
    It's a giant crab!
Look to the present. That is where all great dictators
    have lost their inhibitions.
It's not the hammering I mind, but where they are putting
    the nail.
Remiss to say anything further! Can only romp around
    barefoot and hop over nail.
Suffice to say there is a noble aspect to appearing lonely.
If I lose you that would be permanent in an alternate
    universe.
It is no wonder more psychiatrists don't swerve off the road
    right after dinner.
It's near the end of the hall, but you would refuse me
    even the husk of the battle-worn.
I'm not sure if that has to be the reason for revenge
    or if perhaps safety shouldn't be the first requirement.

Poem

I have a sizable page and I state
my claim as the seam of the West
in a city of fibbers who repair sails
for a blue school with fairytales.
Until it is full I will not rest.

SENSATION

Plato & Ron Padgett
are stuffed down
the seat of my pants
as I ride my bike down
Market street.

The books feel cool
against my ass,
but the tightness
in the trousers
is uncomfortable.

SIMILE

Like that time
we were having
such intense sex
that I put my shoe
in the campfire
and you said
that you smelled
rubber burning
and I squealed,
"baby, you know it!"

***

San Francisco Day

Dreamt about delivering my own baby. Didn't catch who the mother was. Watched MTV Road Rules in Mexico and grubbed. The only thing that stays with me is sincerity of Kerouac as it was pointed out in review of new insincere biograpy. Drank Barefoot Merlot with Will. He showed me his new cloud words and we listened to the new Palace. I don't mind mediocrity really, but it's so nice to hear something great. Dave the mechanic got us stoned. We went to Open Mind Records. Some one kept saying, "psst pssst pssst." I looked up and it was Gabrielle. On the way to my house we found a huge industrial wine rack. What will I do with it? Paint it cherry red and give it away to some wine drinker as a gift, maybe Jacob. Opened some Trader Joe wine, jalepeno jack and pepper poppy crackers and listed to music with Gab. Then Will came over again with some Jack Daniels. We ran into Hirsch back at Will's which started out with All Star Wrestling and melted into an out of tune jam, two guitars and a banjo. I was blissed out. Went with Mikhal to get a haircut. Isaac cut mine for the first time. I bought Emily a vibrating brush for her birthday. Got home and cleaned a bit, but mostly zonked. Will came over and we split a sandwich at Cafe International. Met Chris Sharp for the first time. Very focused and intense. I sort of hate it when it sounds like I know what I'm talking about. Last night I was awake until 2am because the mescaline kicked in. I could hear every discrete raindrop. I sorted through some old tapes and then I was exhausted. I went to see a rare Antonioni film, Kung Chuo China, at the Castro with Will and Bill Berkson. It was really long. Will and I left after the first two reels. The part that will stick in my mind is the cesaerian. The woman getting the operation had no anasthaesia other than accupuncture. The accupunture was hard enough to watch, but seeing her slit open was almost unbearable. The woman stayed more calm than I did. The needles seemed to really work. And speaking of working, my modem seems to be fixed. I rented Buffalo 66. What a great movie. Went to the East Bay to see Alex. Talked with the wife and youngest for awhile and then went downstairs to listen to Alex's new compositions. Considering his contraint, using only the common midi sample bank in conjunction with x-rave, the works were pretty great. I'd like to hear what he could do with less constraints. It's hard to recollect. It's hard to get all down. I went to see Noel Black, Michael Price and Kevin Opstedal read at Modern Tiems. Noel opened and we was really inspiring. His poem about form was a classic. My favorite moment was the two donut poem. He's funny. Outhouse got me stoned again. I was probably a bit obnoxious. Michael seemed to be poignantly and humbly aware of how messed up he is. My favorite moments were the letter he read form his father and his American poem. He looked dapper in his beard. Later at the Dover he read me "the best line of poetry ever written" in his and Kevin's new Mag, "Blue Book". The line was from a poem Ed Berrigan wrote on his trip to Colorado this last Christmas with Noel and Mike. Something about making a folk song named Bobby dry. As he was reading it Janice Joplin's Bobby Magee bean to play on the jukebox. Mike realized that this song must have been the one Eddie was referring to. Kevin said he knew it must have been. Noel said he thought it might have been Bobbie Creeley and Kevin pointed out that the spelling was different. Kevin was good at the reading too. He's so sad he's funny and pushes the laughter to heartbreak. (Outhouse says poets are fucked up.) I was close to tears. After the Dover Dave and Brice and I rode our bikes to the Justice League to see a dub show. Our rides are fast and scary like a rollercoaster. The show was sold out so we went to Liquid. Hakeem was at the door so we got in for free. His entire soul was there from the beginning. Stacy and Chris were at Liquid too and of course JP Soul and my roommate Chad were spinning, Dan was on the mic and they sounded tight. I was jazzed to catch an obscure Human League sample. We took off after a few minutes to catch an 8mm film fest aroundd the corner at 16th and Mission. It turned out to be a dance party instead. The artists in attendance looked fierce. This was the party. MC Resistah rapped dub. We stopped back by Liquid and I fell briefly in love with Chelsea, who told me about her job interviewing mentally imbalanced people in order to help direct the to therapy (or not.) We left and Dave and I went to Christian's going away party. I heard some gereat stories (about fake weddings) from a Heather. Dave came back to my house and we cooked up trader Joe enchiladas. I think they will probably jack up my dreams. Now Dave and Chad and Chad's Dave are watching "The Man Who Would Be King". I wish I had the energy to watch it because it's meant to be great, but I barely have the energy for this. After reading Ann Lauterbach's "Still Life With Apricots" to Albert I became re-interested in the painting and poetry project. I could mock it online. We went to 4 Walls to talk to Julie Deamer about a group show. She said she was booked for a year. Then went to the Luggage Store show. Brice, Matt Walker and Will were there too. It looks like a reading series designed by Beth will happen there in the fuuture. So the connections keep connecting. I went from there to work, which was uneventful except that I sold a thosuand dollar bottle of wine to some Chinese guys. After work I stopped by a party in a suite on top of the  Marriott that Jacob invited me to. I was going to stay for only a brief while, as I was exhausted, but there was a line in the bathroom and I acted irresponsibly. Went to a superbowl party at Stacy's. Hirsch and Outhouse were there. Some guy talked my ear off and had a creepy feel which made me question my compassion. Broncos beat the Falcons easily. I realied that I'm much more interested in the commercials than the game. The Macintosh 2001 Hal commercial was pure brilliance. Chad kindly loaded every Beatles album into my hard drive to my astonishment. I'm listening to Revolver as I writ this. "I'm Only Sleeping." Then Brice and I spent awhile goofing around and finally ended up back at his house watching the footage he shot yesterday of Gabrielle's Bulgarian singing group, "Handmaiden America." Some of it was amazing, expecially the close up of Gabrielle singing her moon song. I spent a few hours cleaning and then went back over to Brice's for some soup and to watch Bertolucci's "Spider's Stratagem". It seems like there is enough meat there for a good paper, albeit a bad one. Though I don't care. Dave Frahley stopped by and woke me up. I made us some Trader Joe's Pad Thai that wasn't half bad. Anselm called and we talked for awhile, as well as Eddy, Mike Dennelly (finally) and Jason Lynn. There was a new guy at the workshop named Matt. He kept saying "untrue!" abruptly, but he did cause people to really define themselves in defense which was kind of educational. Perhaps I'll head to Samsara Island when I finally finish school. Strange jazz at Nicky's BBQ empty. Played pool with Brice at Molotov's, had an interesting argument with a pool shark (about the importance of calling shots) and got a little drunk. Chad just got me a little stoned. Where's my discipline? Now I can't even remember what I did with my day. I did nothing. What comes to my mind? Burn calories and watch Drew Barrymore look-alike flaunt her oceans before my thirsty eyes, the endless undulating octopus shimmering up her arm, leaving behind an ink etching. I smile, she smiles back and I believe her. I wish she was willingly in my arms tonight, but I know, like Chris knew he had to learn salsa, that I must sleep alone. But I remember spending  a lot of time on e-mail with Jena Tarleton and Bill Berkson. Bill recommended I call Chris Cobb and so I did and we talked about random writers, about the French influence. Will came over for two different meals as he is broke. I watched "Sliding Doors" with my roommates. It was only okay, but Paltrow is striking in that movie. I got only one page finished of my paper, but hallelujah. Stacy picked up a man homeless from fire, played him "fire" and forged a song. I read tonight at a rave over beats, trance like, for Denise. I did colors, "red and yellow and red and blue and blue and black and green is blue is black is red is pink is purple is red and red is red and red red red red green blue," and so on, and then read some Stein and Coolidge over beats and then everybody's name I knew in the audience, Eugene and Beth and Brice and Beth and Denise and Brice and Eugene and Melissa and Melissa" and so on, and then I did "Om amrite Shwareah Namaha" and Brandon yelled "Ginsburg!" and I remember saying, "There is a wet rubber swan in the  sky and he shadows Allen Ginsburg." I don't think anybody had as much fun as I did. I came home and watched "Sleepers" with Eric and Chad. I was annoyed, but did appreciate it as an early example of retro-futurism. Brice and Albert went to see Kit Robinson together. I went to Crepes on Church with Gabrielle. She got frustrated by the Fiona Apple and spilled salsa everywhere. Her potatoes were turned so she took them back. Then we went to Hays Valley to check out the fashion and art. We got a reading by a clairvoyant at Mad Magda's. I paid her and she told me exactly what I wanted to hear. I went home and got three more pages of the Silverman paper done. I watched "In And Out" with Will. I think that movie has all kinds of weird information about modern day America. Then I went over to the Oak with Will. We listened to the the new song he wrote with Hirsch, "One and One and One and One", and they told me about the idea for a video; underwater, bubbles escaping puffed cheeks and missiles are whizzing by, they are looking at them fascinated, counting off on their fingers, "one and one and one and one". And then Brice, Dave, Chris, Cindy and I watched an Appalachian video by Les Blanks which featured the line, "You can chop down the flowers all around my gave, but they will bloom and rise once again", followed by a comedy documentary about an Italian old folks home for musicians, followed by a guide to walking meditaiton. Then home to Will sitting in my room, seemingly depressed and trying to remember the lyrics to Palace songs. I left to see the Bad Livers at Amoeba, wandered over to Beth's house, had dinner with her and Brice, watched them play out their reltioship between the lines of a discussion about the difference between psychics and therapists. Then Pam Lu came over over and we finished up a majority of Gregg Biglieri's books for Idiom. Pam and I had dinner at the new Hahns Hibachi in lower Haight. Doug from the Bus People movie was our surprise waiter. He hooked us up with some good food. I was impressed. I left a valentine with Doug for Cheyenne. I went to Emily's and she gave me a manicure for fun. We had a nice talk. Emily's the sunshine. Get those clouds away, Emily. Afterwards went to the top with Johnny who scored some weed. I bought some. I hope I can remain wise in the midst of such temptation. Then we went to The Top. Carol was there, Johnny's recent loss. She is lovely if not difficult. She asked me a million questions about love. She said she didn't believe in being in love. I told her I didn't either, but I'd been in love before and I would be again. She asked me how I knew I was in love. I didn't tell her that I was falling in love with her. She bought me a beer. Later when I was dancing by myself she handed me another one and asked if I was having fun. Yes, I said. You liook like you're trying hard, she said and left a perfume on my hands. Travis was also there, the young serious beefcake poet. Now I listen to Palace. Death to veveryone is gonna come. It makes hosing much more fun. The new coffee table book idea is pictures of interestingly decorated refridgeraters on the left side of the page and a history of the decor on the right. Lord don't let me die before each and all of my ideas comes to fruition! Ronee and I ate at the Blue Monkey. We had thai shanties and thai samosas. Then we rushed to see "Rusmore". The soudtrack was great and the movie was entertaining, but was missing something. After we went to Storyville and even though we got good parking and Ravi was working the door, the DJ was lame in the back room and the band was lame in the front. It killed the buzz. Hopefully it can be salvaged. The matrix in Ronee's hair was intoxicating. I stopped by Denise's E party arterwards, but didn't stay. Called Noel and talked to him for an hour or so. He had some good stories, notably the one about the man in Colorado with 9 grand in his pocket dying of lung cancer who bought Mike P, Noel and Eddie drinks and told of his plans to spend all of his money at the Mustang Ranch for a final good time. I made good money at work, accidentally saw a naked woman get out of a shower and played my harmonica for an old lady blues guitarist in another room. When I got home I took another toke and called Gabrielle. We went to the greatest party. It was all Irish musicians in a big jam. A spread of good food, lovely ancient picutres on the wall, and super intricate ditties. The music nearly brought me to tears. So did the idea of being part of it all. It made me look forward to being fifty. Not that I don't already.

***

Swadyasapanayam Kuru

In times of joy
  all my doubts seem
like an ignorant mistake.

What a mistake!
   Nothing is as it seems.

In times of doubt
   all my joys seem
like an incredible dream.

What a dream!
   Everything is as it seems.

WALTZ IN G

Merging off hate
words vibrate
as they try to relate
the story of fate
falling to sea
leaving the sea
to percolate and groan
until Neptune bemoans
his waterlogged state
takes Phaeton's chances
loans the sun's car
drives it real far
away from the plight
of all those small fishies
dazzled with fright
like you were tonight.

ADAM DEGRAFF WORRIES HIS LOVE

Ever so often I am overwhelmed
By a pressure in my chest, some secret
kinship with the sudden flame that consumes
itself. Lucretious thought Hericlitus
a damned crazy fool for believing fire
to be the prime element of matter.
It's true and I assure you I understand
the need for such dull, pragmatic reason,
especially in trying to dissuade
a romantic young pyromaniac
from sure suicide. But tonight I feel
like being blown wide apart in a burst
of expanding heat. Though I'm still grateful
to cool winds for rousing me from my sleep.

THERE WON'T BE A TITLE TO THIS POEM ON ACCOUNT OF DIFFERENT MATTERS

In which I write an incredibly compendious absorption of energy & yet you can't
see it, is one of the greatest detective stories in modern science & yet all living things
depend on it. That ran the body that swung the club.

All day Simon says and I follow, reflecting.

Fuck history!

Or the cartoon where (I sit in my room, shivering, brain shut off to common sense
like...turn on the heat! Because less immediately sane messages such as "let's have a dance
between similar sound waves" repeat. Just a minute I have something to do. I had the key
to the energy of the sun itself (wearing Beth's GEORGIA FOOTBALL shirt, reading,
I'm blind, self portrait, March 1997

POEM

To cough softens the phlegm pouch; to swan the insect of
infallible peep holes and the affected sun of chilled rums
is to burn the incantation of saw dust critters and ensure
the bee trail of sad flowers; to supplicate booty; to
mind the breast of mothers; to leave the word a brittle
brother; brother by a stealthy smile, a comic glitch from
an ice-cream social; to sow even odds strife has seized by
ear, been cause true mauve livid. Such is the gleaming of
cataracts.

IN WHICH I LIE

I never write about what I mean
  well, what I mean
is too confiscated by the moment's
ludicrously ornate lacework, complex
emotional economies, color combinations
in tonal structures of harmonic
symphonies dedicated to the
ephemerality of a remembered fragrance,
too consumed in the fire of living
to define any chemical reaction
between match and homestead.

Thesis Collaboration w/ Brandon Downing

The extrapolated superego
of the bio-mimetic
hyper-conscious superstructure
as it occurs in the human
and in nature through
the passing genomes.

DAD'S DIDGE

Came out slow, like a cello,
like in Brian Wilson's move
putting out Smile 36 years after
it's initial release. And I did smile
36 years later, but not until the false
fire brigade got silly, thus ruining
the record's only dark part, the part that
made it art, but making me smile
so who cares. You made the art.
Now in your own way, only tangent.

force

I USED TO BE ABLE TO TELL RIGHT AWAY
and then decided to cultivate some pain
I COULD NEVER CARRY OUT
and no one delivers this time of night
NOW MY MUSCLES ARE TIGHT
and my sphinx is roaring
ISN'T IT FUNNY
I once tried to think
BETWEEN THE SHEETS
of you
FREQUENTLY LOADED
asleep with some delinquent
THE FOOL DISAPPEARS
and lo, the faithful daughter reappears
AND SO I QUESTION THE MOLD
but the bread is necessary
JUST CUT IT OUT
my mother used to say
THERE WAS NO MOTHER IN LEAR
and she would be right there
TO BUTTER THE BREAD
and spread the butter thick

There are too many angels I
mean angles from which to choose
terrifying angels! So I drink booze
and lay in bed kissing someone I
mean missing someone I did lose
terribly, an angel in disguise I
mean you realize what you are
don't you realize I am too?

PHONE MESSAGE FROM ALBERT DESILVER

Hey Adam it's Al
and I had this terrific dream last night
that um Ed myself I think it was Noel and possibly yourself
we were with Bill Berkson and Clark Coolidge and I think Jim Carroll
and we're in Province Town
or some other east coast coastal boheniam community
and uh, you know it was like timeless time
that sort of weird haze of whenever
     rolling
we were rolling this enormous round sticky cake down a hill
     spotted with hay bales
and it kept spinning out
and I forget who was rolling it but they couldn't figure it out
kept spinning out a couple times
and then it finally gets momentum
and it picks up speed and it cruises
and it picks up one of these hay bales in its mouth
     in the curl of its mouth
and I look at Bill and he's smiling and I burst out laughing
and I fall over backwards
and I wake up
and that's it

***

 

A Take Off Another Take

 

is a take all it's own off into

 

a certain set of decisions

 

not unlike the one a plane

 

that makes it's way across

 

a lot of little efforts trying to

 

come off as more than flat

 

is what I want to try to do

 

to you I guess or not to

 

but in front of or around

 

about or a way instead of

 

a small existence until I die

 

taking all that into account

 

without hitting the wall

 

and killing the passengers.

***

                    Post-Partum Blues

No, no windows or doors. Just a dome of snow above and a bed of it
below. The way out was dug under ground and so it had the feeling
of no openings. After a long day and night, which had begun with
the building of the igloo, near the witching hour, Brice pointed out
a mysterious light in the distance, which you could see past rolling hills
of snow in the moonlight. It was snowing hard through the light, peaceful
and a little eerie. So we put on snow-shoes and hiked out to
see what the mysterious light was. It turned out to be coming from a
lodge, but the light itself, we noticed as we neared, shone down on a
woman walking toward the light. She wore a flowing biblical garb of snow,
and was stopped, frozen in her tracks. As if we happened into a moment
in her time, Mary was walking in the snow, head down, carrying her baby. 
We descended into the scene. Brice fell into the snow, hands up,
around the perimeter of the family, creating a chorus
of ghost worshipers. I knelt and ate the snow at Mary's feet.
Close up I could see Mary's robe was made of a thousand icy wings.
Then we hiked up the hill a ways and looked down into a deep maw
of snow and could see rippled moonlight reflections off the stream flowing
in the vein of the earth. We sat there at the edge of the crevice in awe.
The sound of the snow falling, the wind and the trickle of water
running below us lulled us into a deep trance. When we got back
to the igloo we fell right to sleep. But I woke up later in terror.

              Western Art

Although the entire trip had lasted only about six
hours, it was a pleasant respite from the duties of
 
     steep mountainsides. I was thrilled by the stark,
     spectacular beauty.

While I was in the state, opponents of the pending
bodies were packed together in the larger pools,
and a number of bald eagles and grizzlies were
feeding on them. This scene typified the savage
beauty of the region.

The following 4 poems were found in a mead composition book. I have no recall at all of having written them. But I'm pretty sure I wrote them.

Poem

A pack of silly asterisks floundered
in mists of unimaginable sorrow,
that gone conclusion. Forty some odd
nickels and a hair piece by Bonnard.

HEY!

As diplomatic as possible
Eaten and spat,
The pit noticed.

Insatiable & unfriendly
He's unfriendly so he's
Unfriendly. No tricks.
I'm better. Hanging out
the fly, straight down
the middle I lie. It means
too much to display. The reverse
of how it should be. And if
it's read right, it will be none
too soon. Across a galaxy, really.
No where in sight and what's in
sight doesn't come any nearer. What's
inside is right here. Sometimes
the mass is forgotten about.
So what's the use in shouting.
I do it anyway. Set about my routine.

DAVID BOOK

I hate him for hating him. You'll
wonder why. Anger isn't equal
to passion, but a subset. I'm
not really angry. I'm pissed
off. Like a condom flying across
the room. A rocketship of,
not desire, but close to despair.
Let's play make up. Let's say the
things that make the grown-ups
like us. Orbiting around
the pinpoint artifice, a little
bit of arsenic, already
distasted. I've set myself up nicely.
My flaunting won't be found by
you, Mr. Magoo. Drawing to
a close, I should go to bed,
wake up dead, start again.
Magically appear instead,
my one true hope. Nope!

Dear Mother,

    As usual, I'm lying around enjoying life too much for my own good.
But, the dishes are done, the cattle's been fed and the handle
of the water pump's been fixed, so the day is mine. I can be found
in the sun cursing the wind and settling in to that feeling. Blind
Willie McTell is under the Oak playing the blues on the box. I've
warmed up in Hell with Kora and now the time has come to wish
you a poor son's wish for his only mother's happiness & peace.
But I'm not so poor! 'Tis true I've no food and my final pair of
boots collapsed last Tuesday, but I've got health & a strong disposition
and plenty of ears to lend to those with none. You've done well with
me & can rest in the knowledge that your generous gifts have all
multiplied in me ten thousand fold and are being everyway everyday
played out through infinite creation. Now just lean back in your
rocking chair, pull the shawl around you tight and listen to the soft lullaby
of the setting sun. I hope and trust it won't be long 'til I see you again & well.

                                                           Love, Adam

From "Uncle", self-published chapbook, cover letter-pressed by Mary Burger

       Making Up Time

Driving over to Dorian's I saw a one-way sign
spinning in the wind like a weather-vane.

Luckily I knew the way from before.

Making up time in the park we were surprised
by a Polish folk dance happening at the Roman
Coliseum, became nostalgic for ruddy cheeks,
significant floor patterns, for a culture, any
culture, to call our own.

    When The Eye Cries

The first time you are born
ignorant. Born again, you can think
of little else.  The way you take it
all in. The way it all takes in you.

I'll get to it. I'm sending letters.

                   Poem

Bleeds into one another, the disarray, so
that the expanse treats itself to its own
iniquity, a door prize, though certainly no
consolation, no more than a parody aimed
at a self-subservience, and that that you
know to be a false witness. Seems there
are lush expanses of a certain motive of
control that might sum up any renegade
confrontation with a miserly jumpstart
into oblivion's give-me-a-break, not even
as abstracted from the task at hand as
all that, not without cardboard umbrellas
of counsel, a friend's caress, even if
not forever's daring. So happy to be so
amazed to be amazed in such a chilling
example of the very schism between
the need to give and receive, though still
perfectly willing to rave on about it to
whomever we've decided might deserve our
last respect. We never talk about it. As if we
could, we would entertain the motion of the
salutations, bends in characters set down with
only a vague notion of forethought. As if only
this is as startling and forever back talking
a kind of hyper crisis, we complete the
circuit of it, a calm and enduring presence,
fitting those we write for into an insistence,
lovely and full of a kind of instinct that no
synthetic relationship could ever afford.

   Fore-foot of a Seed

Dream of bringing one side of this great continent
flush with the other, putting a crease down the middle
(a cry from the heartland) and folding it in half,
lengthwise. This will form a love letter whose
contents will be of the most serious import,
but which will travel from receiver to receiver,
always blank and ready to be written once more.

  Off The Coffer

Switches on a moment, just to decide
time and time again to fix a softness,
such as niceness not willing to give up
for any needs of change, regardless
of what might be said of the river bed.

Listening to the man upstairs pound his voice
into the floorboards, leaving a remainder
of doubt, leaving eyes flared and fit for framing.
From where else have we heard such catty lunge? One I have loved
on a different day in a more distant way, whereas now,
sitting and shitting, nothing scans right, so even a mention
brings a tension not normally found off the stool,
a stale compulsion to clear. And where it appears there
is a discrepancy, allow for inefficiency, a little like a line,
a year of danger in a manger & you know the rest. Soft,
I keep saying soft. I wanted to be held. And then there's
this beer, all cohering to I don't care,
it's a ruse to, I'm going to, this will be
the right time to split the infinite and this is meant
like a buttress against the moment before sleep when
I am unsure. A party too sordid to denounce, an indiscretion,
abandoned to the base and then steeped in lore, found
again and again in that time before sleep when I am unsure.

Already written out, still doubt the end is near
like they're saying. Maybe the end of a life, or even a line,
but it's not like the song could never be sung again.
Not that everything should happen at once, but a moment
of singular intent, an intention bent on a single moment
arrives as the necessity of necessity, a sound we long
to hear, for your ears only, a poem done for the fun,
a sky full of lightning aimed for a lonely tree in the midst
of some no two ways about it. An absence of notions,
combining the story, a sorry detour, a force to be reckoned,
a forge through the after to some virulent pact, where
diseases are rampant, where soft is an answer. We invoke
it with sorrow, a letter for you, we take true true true
and give it to you, kow tow, bow down and give you the moon.

Now is the handsome sum of abandon & this one's for you.

       Epitaph (for Gerard)

She who loved the trees of goldengrove,
Her cares deepening like the leaves falling,
Until all that are left are leaf-bare branches,

    Will love no less for all the loss
    The life at rest under winter frost
    The promise spring's first songs.

      Directive

I am seeing the day differently, as a thing to be shaped,
shaped by. I never knew, beginning with you, I would
begin to be ridden by the way a second goes, shifting,
sifting; site itself.

The time it took away to say this, or, the direction of
energy proportionate to the energy spent, is a simple
enough gift, but, nonetheless, one I've been given,
am giving to you.

         Look

first of all, if you're trying to inherit the earth,
then you're probably not all that meek to begin with.
Secondly, owning a planet would only be fun for
a little while, but then, like everything else in your
closet, would soon go out of style. And third, imagine
the liability, the outlandish cost of utilities. Who
needs the responsibility? No, much better to take the
world by force, thus ensuring failure. Then, of course,
you're safe. It's no secret failure is foolproof.

    Inside Language

A broken cache donned elastic frisson,
generating heat instead, just kissed lightly
my need.
               (Opine possessively, quickly,
religiously, seriously!)
                                 Treat used venom
without exacting your zone.
                                         Always bright
comic dancing, even for granite hungering's
inward jutting, kites lost, movies nearly over,
pain quietly relentless, serenity tarnished.

Us very worried, explaining yonder zeal.

Arranged between calibrated, dated & elevated,
few ghosts hover in jail, kept longing, made
neutral.
            Oh, please quit robbing seed's tomorrow.

Under vanity's will explains yes's zero.

Also bring carbon data, easily found & gash
hard in jaded kind loss.
                                   Measure nicety
over particular qualities revealed. 
                                                 Sorry!
Try using various walls.
                                   Examine your zipper.

All bright capers drinking easels full gain
huge ifs, joy kindled lassitude.
                                              Meager
nouns ordained past qualms replay still today.

Unified varsity warps extenuated young Zeuses.

Ace bandages caught doing (eek!) freak gambits
here is just keester load.
                                      Mangy nuance
opening prattles queasy rain-soaked tarpaulin
under vast wings ecstatic yelling.
                                                  Zounds!

from Hawaii Poems, cover by Bill Luoma

Secret Sonnet

I just glistened, without sparking.
I'd had a whole kettle of shine
and my head was glowing.

As I'd used up all my anguish
I was smoking sunray. Some late
Straycat asking for a light and all

The force of the surf would comply.
This is what started me surfing.
What bored through me was that

I had an unlit match in myself.

Our Lady Of The Sea

Light up and see clouds
Drink and hear sea

Pounding her shore
In your head
The next morning

        Afterward

What's the good of leaping out into the sea
  if you can't swim?

When he told 'em that they suggested he try to "land" her.

But that wasn't what he wanted either.

It would take a whole lot of sinking down.

Autumn in Vrindivana

An endless blue sky
Masked in clouds
    of a darker hue
You and I
               Rumble,
"This!" and "Mine!"
Define ourselves
With a self-willed style
In dramatic fall fashion

In the thunder of becoming
Clouds form ourselves
To couple with mountains
                         
Come, rain rivers in valleys
And knock up the earth

In a sudden flash of light
We recognize each other,
An insight to what comes after

       An endless blue sky

                Bush Voter

The sun takes up all the water
And no rain falls down after.

Are you thirsty yet?

Was it not you who elected the President?

Torrents would fall again if only
taxes were spent for your education.

Was it not you who elected the President?

           Temple Site
(for Bill Luoma and Juliana Spahr)

                 1.

Kanaloa says die
In the briny deep,
pulls you down from a rock
when you wash your feet.

Kan'e says to live.

A comely little flower child
Pops up in center field.
Now the bee can make his honey
And queen can have her fill.

Lono keeps it green, waters daffodil
takes the herb from garden grove
and makes it into pill
She bargains Ku for time of peace
And rain upon the hill.

             2.

Auburn speckles accent the sable feathers
Of a the rooster that is pecking at my feet.

Roosters woke me up this morning too,
Taunting me for my stupidity,
"What a cock'll do! What a cock'll do!"

Agents of the sun!

Look at this one,
Mane of burnished gold upon
Sheen of midnight black
White tail feathers
                            red comb

           3.

Ahupoa'a of Waimea's
good surfing, bra,
tasty fish, taro, ti,
good harbor for canoe.

          4.

The babies play on the beach below.

Signal fires from neighboring islands
    say hostile invaders approach.

Sacrifice a few for the many,
but eventually surrender.

Get temples officially registered by U.S. Government.

          5.

In the oracle tower
I talked Ku
with Pele

She said "Boo!"

The upper walled enclosure
I trespassed was kapu.

          6.

The Kahuna
     Ka'opulupulu
presided under Kahahana
before Kamehameha
conquered O'ahu

Then his Kahuna
     Hewahewa
oversaw the heiau
until the breaking
of Kapu.

         7.

The ceiling of this temple
Is even better than the Sistine Chapel,

An ever changing fresco of sky
Stretches out as far as eye

        8.

The break in
       &
theft of auto
caution sign
has blackened
leaving the red
love bug w/
claw of crowbar
dangling above
in a perpetual
urban blight.

I declare art.  

Lines from Dream 10/21/01

My fall from reality is not
Stopped short by the ground.

Ceravelo

Hey Joe,
was reading the news
        after the rain
peeking up through
       perforations
when the toy gun
shot three periods...

Where did you go?

Weekend on Bill And Juliana's Lanai

           Friday Evening

The size of the page will
determine the size of the stanza.
The train of the the thought will
determine the content. All moves
are an accident? I'mmoving away
from ay intent to do anything
other than keep your eyes moving
to the next line. No more
explanation, but to clear the air
I had to start there and exclaim
a crtain independence, or perhaps
disclaim, for perhaps you are
the very type to argue for stakes.
And so your point is made, like
a period, when you find no claim
for any other here, no purchase
from whcih to argue, save
some lame excuse to stave
off the pure joy of sound.

         Saturday Morning

Ah, free to espouse! Like Jimmy
Schuyler. And no more rhyme!
That stuff is a curse. Gimme
squalor and gore, no lime
bower from which to sour in
the rigors of my old age, some
lonely sage upon the hill
watching the butterflies die
again and again! But still
aren't they pretty, all lying
there in the mind. No matter
how I slice, dice, dissect
and disinfect those insects,
another flits by, so lovely!
Then dies, so sad. And I cry
a little less each time, or more,
less for the loss and more for
the pure joy of watching them fly.
Oh butterflies and caterpillars!
Oh roses, worms and poetry filler.

          Saturday Noon

I sit around reading Ted Berrigan's
"So Going Around Cities" and listening
to the live Velvet Underground record
"1969", sacred relics from before I was
born, from a land where I haven't been,
and which I find here in Honolulu
lovingly preserved by my thoughtful hosts,
along with all the rest of their treasure
trove. But who cares, except you
too may do, if you will, as I do
and find, as I find, how wonderfully
true things once were and still are.
Because you can't find this truck
where I grew up. There was only
Journey's "Escape" and Survivor,
only the bad eighties' version of
Bowie, Dylan and the Stones, only
Hallmark cards to read. My love
was missing. It took dumb luck,
or was it fate? to find myself less lonely.

          Saturday Afternoon

Now I lay me on the beach now
you lay you on the beach now
who lays who on the beach
salt water dripping form who's skin?
Her skin, his skin, against and
again. Hazy rainbows suddenly
appear in memory, water in
someone's ear. But the sand
is different everywhere. This
sand here is medium rich. The
palm trees wave, no lawn
dwarves near. The endless
curves of endless asses I try
not to spend too much time
following, behind what lies. But
body, who's body? is listening
to itself. I'm losing you, self,
can you hear the waves?
They're calling you, from some
distant shore, calling you, come.

          Saturday Evening

Or rather it is I who have gone.
Flown all the way to some island
to, as the Black Crows put it in
that VH1 Behind The Music Special,
become part of the song. I keep
needing distance, as if waking
from a deep sleep. I keep needing
to get back to nothing, so that
everything may be made available
to me again. Like Alice falling
down the rabbit hole & through
to Paris, France? Today I begin
"Remembrance of Things Past"
and can already tell how deeply this
will take me into the nature of being,
that shadowy deep from which the
watcher emerges, phantom-like,
to gather existence around itself
like a quilt of strangely stitched
pattern. Dear sir or madman.

          Late Saturday Night

Gravity brings the noise of fine
sand sifted from less fine sand
as a metaphor for the array of
detritus I am at any one time
experiencing, the cat Coolio having
just leaped from my bed to the
window sill, for instance, or the
slam of the bathroom door and
more especially the reason for the slam
and the set of feelings arising from
the slam, which I suppose I could
get into, endlessly, for the sake of
following consciousness down to sand
so fine it is the invisible stuff
matter is made from, the emptiness
in the grain of sand, endless ocean,
and perhaps, at a different time,
beginning from a different place,
when I am far less sleepy, I will.
Nature ends the question of eternity.

       Secret Sonnet

I just glistened, without sparking.
I'd had a whole kettle of shine
and my head was glowing.

As I'd usd up all my anguish
I was smoking sunray. Some late
stray cat asking for a light and all

the force of the suf would comply.
This is what started me surfing.
What bored thorugh me was that

I had an unlit match in myself.

The Bill Luoma Observations

We all had Hair except Bill.
Jesus Christ Superstar was Bill's Hair.

A tickling in his mid-brain
causes Bill to make abstract
football sound poem collages
on topographical maps.

In the paper there was a typo
in the announcement for Bill's reading.
Instead of "Dear Dad" it read "Dead".

The collection of fruit labels stuck
all over Bill's billfold is the best.

A song I overhead Bill sing was
"I'm a social project,
I'm an incomplete subject
and I'm barred
and I'm barred."

Meditation

You know how on those magic writing pads for kids
how when you lift up the vellum
the writing disappears?

                          Poem

Contrary to sound advice I picked up the pakalolo.
That sunset made it seem like the thing to do.
Neon pink and blue, dappled ripples, sea and sky.
Where has rock and roll gone? Stoke the fire
and bring it back. The last time the town burned
down was the Singles soundtrack. The sidewinder
died a valiant death. All day I've been searching
for the right one to come along and reflect her pink
sky into my blue waves and finally here you are.

        Last Night

Glowing plankton footprints
     receding before me
as I walk backwards into the sea

from ALL THIS WILL BE DUST IN JUST 3 MINUTES, published by David Larsen, cover David Larsen

GET THE POEM

Can't remember details
  Can't forget what's been writ
     Which is why I wrote it all down
        In that poem
Currently residing in the pocket of the green
  Pants like a dog
     Running after the moon
         (The day is dying too soon)
I'm dead tired & can't fall down
   So I leave it up to you
      It's all in the poem
          It's all up to you to
Get the poem!

Before it gets you

Don't Go In There, Coward!

There is the man walking down a hallway.
There is an unreciprocated anticipation causing
a cramping in his foot. Spiritually, he wonders if he
is at the end of whimsy. He stops, aghast, before a
red door. Placed, with absolute accuracy, in the
center of the door, is a black and white Zapatista
poster. The contents of the poster mean little to
him, but the form is quite striking. Apparently what
the poster is saying is not as important as the
poster saying it. The man only cares that the intent
is real, which he can sense without question. It
means something, he is sure of that. And not just
anything. Although the composition of the poster
on the door is extraordinarily beautiful, the man
finds the door uninviting. He takes the red to be
some kind of warning.

       Sea Shanty

A bracket in the breeze
   Alive when I'm awake
I sleep whenever I please
   Covered up with scallops
And the weight of seven seas

There are tiny shifts of sand
   Boulders swayed by waves
And words harder than rocks
   for getting off your chest

So I give whatever I take
   And take whatever I please
Oh, I give whatever I take
   And take whatever is best

X-mas 98

I'm psychotic
  I'm a jail bird
     I'm a basketweaver
When seen from without
   A chance to arabesque
      Into the scene of the crime
          I'm still doing time
Mumbling falls
  Into a rapid argument
     Between stay or leave
Say
   I'm gonna heave
      Up a chimney to greet
         Old Saint Nick

& follow it with a brick

Chaffless

In surreys with fringe
Kindness gets killed more often
Lost the sketch
by producing the dream
Lost the itch
by fighting the scratch
Changed the channel
turned off the TV
Everyone's talking
& no one's listening
Say what?
            & fast

      Piglet

Ordinarily I smoke food stamp
Cigagoo, cigagoo, but ever
Since Indian Joe told me no,
I'm all intrigued again. Formal
Invite to the bargain answer
Basement, bring your galoshes.
Bring the lightning rod.
Bring the whole complex. She's
Waiting for a letter. I told her
I would send one soon. what
Am I listening to? Blowers.
Do you think so & so should
Hook up and shit? It's doomed.
The honey bear is a marketing
Technique. Same with Winnie the Pooh.
Buddhist infiltration. Bardo
And the song of instant ashtrays.
The house don't normally smell this bad.

Little pamphlet of my secret
demise, don't you know
there's a lonely guise
behind the eyes of even
your closest reader? I need
a breather, a moment to
misunderstand, like this morning
when she held my hand
& gave me the day.

So I set the xerox on
infinity & walked away.

GUILT TRIP

Explore the psychological particulars of a mother's
sarcasm toward her children as a form of
disciplining them.

Goodness overreaching itself? The force behind
the bite was in service to the victim? No,
the end doesn't justify the means.
A difficult truth & perhaps wrong.

CAESURA

The early part of life
Is spent in helpless cries
And youth is spent in lustful attachment.

As old age approaches
Your strength is taken away,
You become like a helpless worm
Without any work, time spent
Looking forward only to the grave.

 To Whom It May Concern

This morning I have been
thinking about my struggles
with you, at first with consternation
& then with deep sadness. For
I realize I must give you up.
You are a fighter and I am a lover.
So I love you from a safe
distance. I love you under cover.

Last Graveyard

I am a poet of the highest rank
   I rank as a poet
I'm a poet of the highest rank

I am a poet of the strongest stink
   I stink as a poet
I'm a poet of the highest rank

I am the poet with the slyest wink
   I wink as a poet
I'm a poet of the strongest stink

I am a poet of the leftest bank
   I'm broke as a poet
I am the poet with the slyest wink.

1000 WORDS

Cotton having absorbed the very last tear
transforms the salt content therein and, 40
times the sacred mantra "o wa ta pooda lyam"
faster and faster, suddenly, like popcorn to the nth
degree, begins to pop out four feet, a tail, two ears,
two eyes, a nose, a tongue & a tiny little penis, each
with a little blurping sound like raindrops upon the
dais. Thus the canine ball of cotton was ready to
look ready, ever glamorously so, and so, with the
speed of lightning's zygote, it travels through time
& space, stopping only to eat a bone of
sentimentality in early 20th century America, until
it finally arrives in a bare field in mid 20th century
Malaysia, at which point it collaborates with a
gardener named Pete who, trying to please the god
of corn, spent his last years planning a garden of
green & yellow & the seeds of a curse to keep all
but the scrappy puffball off the grass, which left
only the photographer, also, coincidentally, named
Pete, and the pose, as if eternity herself were
crying, "Here boy! I've got some scraps for you!"

     A Ringing In My Head

I remember you spitting sparks
in the downhill driveway snow

Which left me freshly smitten
caught afire off your glow

'Til Parson Brown melted down
to carrot, cob and coal

Which you picked up and threw at me,
directly at my head. Zing!

You knocked me off my feet
You almost made me dead.

Overcrowded Green Suite

Poisoned geometry ruined the first reason
for not bypassing the candy store &
heading straight for the seventeenth
reason why you couldn't make it last
night... you never even-handedly hustled
me by fixing the fight; for only the muse
understands the tricks of trafficking
between states; every interpreted sun-
shaft & each bird upon the branch
being thus projected, there or not, as
end of trail, beginning of stars,
the loon flying above your father's
car, a Caprice Classic I believe,
wanna come for a ride? He'll never
call the psyche corps on his own
slick grease and without a square
deal we'll slip into world peace,
we'll make a plea for amnesty,
like a sting operation for Prince
Albert, in the can for stealing
tax breaks from the man, since
I can't stand subordination to the
main clause, I leave it up to the
misses, deliver the package to the
major to hide it from the masses,
a sound check mandated by Louis XIV
the moment you blinked, there, you
did it again, but I've done it before,
trying to stave off the end of even
one day, so don't go away, unless
it's with me in the station wagon
of my dreams, on the way to
high fidelity, the most honest recording
of disorder & decide to believe in
a fairy with teeth who offers you
hard currency to keep up the
pretense under your covers, leaves
it under your pillow, for a small fee.

Phil Whalen

Kazoo says:
slugs cover
the arms of
the horseshoe man.
        Revolt!
Out here in this pit
having the time of our lives
light braising
the outstretched arms
a scrolling sky
a jolt up my spine!
Something bristles
in the brush
creak of moon
falling Bach
a wise oak
and the wonder
of stone stairs
leading nowhere
pink like an anniversary
the whine of a mosquito...
"Can you spare some blood?"
Sure, I've got plenty.
Now, go away.
But it won't.
Hooray!

PRIVATE POEM

Bowing before an image of Kali,
letting her eat me,
when I spy the early man
who prepares the banquet
going into my secret
coat check room.

That was a close one!

PUBLIC POEM

See what I mean, cried Bemoan to Alone.
    This brought them to their knees.
Write into it said Waldman's niece.
    And so I made a million bones.

From "No Man's Sleep", published by Shark books, NY, cover by Brice Hobbs

                 Some Date

I don't know why I keep rhythm on this thing when there's no way to retrieve it,
except as an exercise in faith. Who can fault Part for its simplicity

when it is so moving? I'm not pleased with my facsimile.
For the next three days I will sit in a chair with no one around.

Hey, black veil, lift up and show me the soft down.

           2:38  A.M.

My right I'm wearing, gravity I'm
wearing, a broken crown I'm wearing. As
far as ground into cheek pressing and
somebody else's gum sliding over
somebody else's tongue. My eyes open
before I imagine the perspective tried

to. In those stars I swear I saw flying
around, then I swear I saw stars. Into
my temple it fell as my peripheral
vision in the shiny metal of the timed
motion and a light pole flickered to
the clinging guardian of a windblown
scrap to disappear away I turned.

A story can't tell, sure as hell, because
I must be a poet, yes. In his dark
sunglasses my trembling reflection
straightens to a feeble attempt I made.
Save your life because you can't tell a
story must be without expression he
said. Up I looked. Of an outdated

special with the butt he tapped my
shoulder.  Before him and bowed down to
my knees I dropped. He had that right.
The law about to break a man though he
was. Wasn't he but? I'm a friendly guy
because I...at first I thought this could
be a friend of mine, walking toward
me with a gun.

                 Glass

Have her eyes turned blue
    Are her lips blue?
That's what you think of in the country

    Take the body from the trunk
Roll it onto the shoulder
    & drag it through flowers

           Shattered

inside of a tavern inside of a cavern
on a red table stands black label
whiskey and a bottle of brandy,
ancient and dusty, lovely to drink,
mellowed with years,

white stalactite shards scattered
among the yellowed playing cards

in a crevice of the cave
a bottle broken mirror
reflects an open mouth stare
in the glare of a flashlight

bravery all sunk to fear
I got my crazy self out of there

it took some time in the sun
before I was able to regain my sight

but when I did I was done

Poem for Mikhal

Born into a graduating ascent of paranoia, the young art was hushed. For over
the cloud-clad range an inspector's eye did loom, a pupil, made the more
grandiloquent through the torrential frame of an enormous spy glass of rain.
To stand it was electrifying! Could the shantytowns of distant shores bear the mores
of the incoming storm?

Born to a dissembling fortitude, paling in comparison, the whisper of inspiration
panicked. What if nothing was struck? The big eye was, as it were,
in luck. Burning its gaze through thicket and forest until a last spying
the slightest motion in a trembling aspen trove, zooming in, infinity to one,
and there, under a shadow, wearing nary a chance, wincing and ashiver,
the object of its own attention, a duck in the water, a goose in a noose,
reeled out and set upon the table, defeathered and prepared Greco-Roman style,
seared and served to vast ages of rapt seekers, a feast of fowl.

                 July 4

A soporific countenance gave me some fine pointers
on the art of accumulation, and thus I did vacillate:
a side-board of distrust leaving all the maidens dry
to a faint stopwatched papier mache air marathon to
the city of dreams. So I decide to stay & look around
for those subtly refined doubts to the contrary, which,
when found, will tell me exactly why I'm not going.

Cool plankton, cool evening breeze, chills, glade
of moonlight across her back, a rowdy chase of splashes.

Do the others celebrate with such drunken howls
of falsified brandish? But still, native duty, which
I have before denounced as so opposed, calls upon
olderness for an injunction, belies not the climax,
but certainly the denouement. Do I think I have
a choice? Well certainly a face value will ever ply
for attention amid the smoke of a midday bar-b-q;
a pockmarked project, across the street, will tumble
before our portioned-off eyes; a timeless love affair
will play itself in. I'll be home soon, just after I finish
off these bon mots, so wait for me...

Much Later, Mid November

Boys, take it to the limit, sky the bird
with a dalliance and a high-ho silver
and away. Blow the glass rose,
slipping into the source of analysis.

Feel the windows all aglitter
a lifteime ago, rush the passer.

Symbol (for Noel Black)

The range is wide. One end of the spectrum presents a situation in such a way
as to imply an enhanced knowledge about the other end of the spectrum,
such as clouds invited to investigate emotions.

The Hand of Man is steam, a rather laudatory, admiring view of itself, steam.

Similarly, the pistol on the lazily insolent hip of a common fund of attitudes
(sheathed but flaunted). One feels one knows exactly how the strikers might fare
at this man's hands.

The juke box level of a cult, a religious light emanating like a holy aura, 
the bizarre ecstacy of roadhouse Americans, building up.

In fact, one can become a whole era.

EXPLOSION

Frog from bog

Through fog

Into ocean

         Por Eve

If nerves were new and never touched
Before and ached for lack as much

As need as much as nerves would need
Is lightest touch and tender kisses

Would mean so much would mean the most
You need to do is reach out first

Caress could make skin sing would seem too much
To bear would make skin scream that touch

To touch that skin to skin in silken friction
Burning up in love's consumption

Throw my whole self into you 'til I
Forget who is who and you come out of I

Turned inside out and coming in
That soft felt skin inside your skin

That miracle we stretch to reach
The finest texture ever touch

Is the touch that touches back
The lips that kiss us bring us back

Into the world again and once, again
The nervous fingers sing

And touching teach us what we mean

Poem (for Emily Clark Coolidge)

There's a crick in the back of my neck
of the woods named after that rhythm in space
where you go "coffee woodpecker" that I like to float down
when I been sitting in the same position too long.

Sometime's it's not being on fire that sets me to panic
but looking in the mirror and watching myself burn.

Or those millions of small paintings carried by flamingos
after you had one too many with the old flame.

 Translation

The unridden mule of this book
may only beckon. I flaw saltine
in the outrageous hemline. To
exacerbate the sun so that leisure can woo
grounds the sinful election of heroes.
The tot of abrupt sums
blinks to conquer inflation.

Strife has sunny apple carts.
To finagle blisters. Smothered
teens reside in nitro specks
and my dove sands land wings
that flake. educe the wrench. Exude
a sass through the back of a gallows.

An awed dance that marks its stall.
Fakes annul hard on britches where
band of lust is harpooning. Sails in milk
cream. This keg of the chapel wasn't foresold.
There blue, you bear the great will's fang.

Poem (for the girls of Burke)

Gravypie dayglo miracle funk on the savvy side of suntanned ballyoo forbidden
in the syphilitic violet phlegm of the bionic doe caused a biorhythmic
disturbance in the south corridor of antipathy. I need glasses. Should I wreak
havoc on the estrogenic meridian corroborating in the fallacy of frappucccino
acetate? Or bracket moth fables from the butterfly myth, someone not named after
the heroine of Austin or the daughter of Lear or the mother of the facts of
life, the latter of which just proclaimed that life is like a pencil: it's
really really pointy and then it breaks. You know what Mr. Potter told her
once? She was in the blue group, you know, and...Scary ducked so I could better
see the golfers leisuring themselves on the static green ephemerality,
emblematic of I don't know what, of I don't know how to do a negative number on
the calculator and am therefore not ideally suited, but can at least appreciate
the difference between a duck.

Poem (for Alice Notley)

It is a cloud above the city I have grown to love.
It makes a hillside. Temporary addition of myself,
bare-chested, sore-headed, absolved of no responsibility,
though managing to find the time to lose it in the park.
It's hot, I'm sweating a lot, a glass of water I haven't got.
My back is cooked. My earnestness is gone, but not
my sincerity. I turn, diamonds dancing beneath my lids,
the squeal of swings like misdrawn violin strings,
to see a boy lay down his burden, jump up,
higher than himself, and come down with a POP!

Dear Cuz,

    Listen to yourself. No, not you. you. Check out the neighborhood. Find
higher ground. Then let the wind carry you away. Get dropped off old, in love &
at home. There's too much to see! There's so much to do! I'm looking out my
window. Hello Page Street! I'm following a beautiful woman down Page Street.
I'm writing a missive to you. The masses are looking up at the sky. They are perplexed
to see massive black letters in my eye. What could those strange shapes mean?
& then a team of experts were deployed to study the situation. Rimbaud pointed out
the dire urgency of the stars beyond. Nobody listend to him. Until you came along.

                                                                          Best Wishes,
                
                                                                          God

Dante,

       Ra ra dig, boogaroo! Emu wawa grr babalee. Lubba razy a da awrr, da wrr
lubbadoh na. Adam ga razy inna sobba way Rumi say n say baba ya. Bamaba das bed,
wo baba roz up. Hap hap baba ma, wun yar ta. Gimme kooee bla bla inna wssh ya.
Inna dada mee inna mama ree, kay Dante! Nana nubber may bee nobba mee Adam ga
razy razy razy, ba he be razy froo, da appal Adam's I. (Nana bla tee wev ev o
my my na.) Sa lubba! La la lubba inna poopoo, la lubba inna peepee, lubba inna
meena mozer Magoo, sa lubba, lil lubba ba razy boogaroo.
 
                                                                          Lubba,

                                                                          Unka Adam

           Fooey

There is a wire strung around my room that measures talent.
It was installed by my parents.
I have fogotten the reason why.
I can't pretend to like it.
I don't even understand how it works.
Technology is pretty advanced.

The average sentence structure has four levels of usage.
I am on level four.
That should satisfy the talent scouts.

It has come to my attention that I may be foiling them.

I may be more talented than can be accounted for.

For instance, can the wire detect my advanced use of awkwardness?

Is it up to the minute?
Can it negotiate between you and I?
And what leeway for inspiration?
And waht for what for?

I'm going to call my parents and tell them their idea is ill-conceived.

CARHARTT

Once upon a time,
in Neverland, beside
the river Lethe, beneath
the falling leaves,

my Skylark was broken
into, my stereo stolen,
and the only token
left behind, forsaken,

was a worn out Carhartt
jacket; left perhaps
because the culprit,
new at theft,

was nervous? or in
a hurry? or was in
terrupted by a scary
sound and scurried

away, without coat,
to sell my stereo,
on so cold a night,
for ten bucks or so,

enough to buy crack,
enough to get by,
leaving a jacket
for a high.

Now I wear the Car
hartt proud, as if I
got the steal, by far
the better deal,

amd it looks good too,
blue, a little ripped,
a fashionable hood,
halfway unzipped.

For Anselm, A Terrific Poem

I was standing at the 22 stop
listening to Will
bend in my sick player
when a white rabbit
with tinted windows
pulled up in the red zone

I was startled

A man in a blue turtle
neck stepped out
& stood a stance that
said he meant business
reached in his pants
& pulled out
a Fillmore special
pointed the business end
in my general direction

I was scared

& pulled the trigger

& I was dead

It was terrible!

But I was considerable cheered
to see you at the funeral
along with lots of friends
& family & lots & lots
of beautiful lovers...

I almost missed my bus

Epitaph for Margaret

She who loved the trees of Goldengrove
Her cares deepening like the leaves falling
Until all that are left are leaf-bare branches
  
      Will love no less for all the loss
      The life at rest under winter frost
      The promise of spring's first songs

A Poem Is An Act Of Bravery

But I have none of that, not really, maybe a little bit,
but in comparison to, say, that nameless poem I read
last night, almost none at all. The opera singer I was
once in love with used to tell me he only prayed
for courage. I couldn't have understood that then,
but he put up with me anyhow and I apreciate that now.
But for courage you need strength and where to
get that these days, except by earning it, endurance &
not that again! This laziness won't do and I'm full of it.
But here I am, although, truly, I'd rather be cavalier
& blathering insanely, where at least I understand
the complete lack of understanding. What a joke these
players are having on the younger and eager. Like me
once. Haven't I themed and oded enough by now?

Riddle Poem

Were I to thee
Like I would like
The greater part to me

I'd drop and roll like mad
In a vat of boiling grease
& fry myself for thee

Were thou to me
Like I would like
the greater part to thee

I'd gorge myself on me
I'd eat me up in one sift bite
And save the hole for thee

4000 Years Old And Still A Virgin

Checkerboarding to make the lights, on the way to school.
Whadya? Whadya? In those days, stress management meant something.

It's still alive and called the surf circle.

Seven million people do not resemble
radios on a dead-end road just west of the band-shell.
One day they tuned their radios to the same station.
Then self-appointed concentric circles around the speakers
every weekend afternoon, not simple nor friendly.
They arrive separately and leave separately,
they concentrate on their movs, side by side,
crammed together competing for attention, are a model
of a the city's chaotic social structure, self-contained
ralms where people compete for status
according to their own rules.

Consider for instance the evening of Oct. 6,
a relatively quiet night because it was a Monday
and because many people were at home
listening to the usual hordes of teen-agers
planning a dinner to rais money for the restoration.

Mother was working on the scenery and prpls
(a cauldron and a coffin) for a drag-queen show,
the pins illumnated by plack light, a DJ playing trip-hop,
half a block from where a middle aged crowd
was watching the waitress belt the connection
as she was being escorted through the throngs into Cheetah.

It was like the evening of the '79 sweeps
when actor Jimmy Walker went to the neighborhood
and ga e what Walter Winchell called,
"The shortest and sockiest plitical speech
in the hisotry of American television."
Walker was "pretty squiffed" and needed a little assistance
reaching the podium, but sufficiently sover to deliver the following.

"Ladies and Getlemen...(the usual Waker pause)...
and I do mean Ladies and Gentlemen. (lusty hand clapping)
While I was driving up to this last big and most important rally
of my career, a man on one side was telling me
about all the things I did for the Negro while I was on
Good Times. A fellow on the other side of me was telling me
about all the things I did for the Negro while doing stand up.
Well, I'll tell you the truth. In all my showbiz life
I never did nothing for the Negro!...(big Walker pause-
with consternation on all sides) I never did anthing
for the Cathoics either; I never did anything for the Jews
or Italians or the Germans! goodnight."
Walker's show was renewed the next day.
The speech was an absurd lie.

This voluntary segregation is often ascribed to hatred and fear,
which may sometimes be true, but it might be more
accurately caused by love-- or, more preciesly,
by the urge to reproduce, which is the force that ultimately drives
individuals and socal groups. When it comes to choosing a partner,
people in every culture tend to put aside their ideals
of universal brotherhood and practice what anthroplogists call
"positive assortative mating."

Veterans of the surf circle are proud that their gathering
has resulted in at least three marriages and ten children.

We need our sparate worlds to cope with what is the most
unnatural aspect of the city: the loneliness of people far
from their families. We have the highest concentration
of single-person households in America, except for
an island in Hawaii settled as a leper colony.

I went away to school last year, but I still have a long strand of hair
that reaches past my chin. I need it when I go back hom to hang out
at the the KFC. Rocky told us, "In the early 1900's
your grand-master was walking the streets when a foreigner
riding on a horse disrespected him. So then he felt the belly
of the horse with his palms and left. shortly thereafter,
the horse buckled and died." Rocky emphasized,
"You've got to practice really hard to reach that level."

By the time my friends and I were in 8th grade
we were able to do 20 push ups on our knuckles and fingers.
Someone once remarked, "Goddamn, that's a freaking mountain!"
when he saw my thigh muscles in gym class.
With crooked teeth we sing karaoke in bars.
We work hard like the nerds, but identify with the punks.
How the hair is worn is important. In the 90s the dominant style
was the mushroom cut, combed neatly or left wild in the front
so that a person can appear menacing as he peers though his bangs.
To gain an edge in grilling now, some kids have asymmetrical cuts,
with long random strands sprouting in the front, sides or back.
As a group we have have better hair than our rivals. But they beat us
with their wide legs. In our year away at school, wide legs
have gone beyond our 24 inch leg openings. 26 to 30 inch
jeans are becoming the norm. We have better accessories though.
The school bag is important to one's cool because
it's the last thing others see when you walk away from them.
But the other crew has female members, which augments their pints.

The elder woman of their circle wears hats--
raspberry-colored straw numbers with the brims rolled up,
bluebird confections decorated with lace
and little pearly beads. And the soaring new cathedral, with its
burgundy carpet and oak pews and its great balcony suspended
way up in the air, holds an almost allegorical power for her.
It speaks of prosperity and permanence and shared sacrifice.
She pointed all around the marvelous cathedral, saying:
"This is now. This is where we are. This is a new thing."
And the folks around her, in their suits and hats, nodded
and said softly, as if to themselves, "This a new thing."

Afterwards, Pagan shook hands all around and dispensed greetings
in the sort of deep, slightly raspy voice you never hear east of Olympus.
Then, with a cigar clenched in one hand and gin glass firm in the other,
Pagan looked across the table at Zion and said, "You know, I would never
turn in my own child." Zion seemed to find this last declaration somewhat
dubious. "Get me a phone," Pagan said, and somebody produced one and
showed him how to use it. He dialed a number. "Darling," he said to his wife of
35 years. "I told Zion I would never turn in my own child." Pagan listened for a
moment and then a huge smile broke across his face. Addressing Zion he
announced, "She says she agrees with me." Then to his wife he said, "That's a
ripe broad. Now you know why I married you. Say hello to the big wave." Handing
over the phone, he finished his gin and ordered himself a Scotch. Then Pagan
tried to convince his friend ot eat a steak-- "Something Zion, a malted milk for
Christ's sake!" --but Zion demurred. The only person who did order steak was
the Mason. He was also the lone man to say nothing. He kept his powder blue suit
jacket on his back and worked steadily at his meat.

But as she entered, he sprang to attention
like a schoolboy smitten with his first-grade teacher.
The man with a billion dollars to burn seemed eager
to please this tall, elegant presence impeccably dressed
in black and white, straight out of Cecil Beaton's Ascot,
but he seemed unsure of what to say next.
"Hey," he exclaimed brightly, "The teenage prgnancy rate
has dropped. It couldn't be welfare reform. What is it?"
Her eyes filed, "MY husband was ht enicest man," she said.
"It took me a long time to pull my socks up."

"He called himself-- right there in the yellow pages--
the legend of the village, and I suppose it was part
of his legendary status that, on the Sunday night of Labor
Day weekend, 1980, in the middle of the kind of heat
wave that makes even the Victorians weep, he alone
among the airconditioned merchants answered the phone.
Hard to say what that legend was, exactly, but it had something.

At this point the class breaks, plays a song
"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together..."
The moon rises over an open-ended blue.
It is the 10th day of school and everyone is talking.

They speak of muggings, and one boy is famous
for surfing with a knife taped under his board.
These days, surfers drive their cars onto the boardwalk
so they can surf while guarding their car stereos.
Several students are two-fingering raw soup from cans--
a 15 year old punk calls it a pointless local energy fad.
On exceptional days, the surfers say, you can see the snarls
on people's faces, the grunting and sneering, out on the street.

Occasionally, Adam goes to the men's room to study his lip.
He says: "That's the only reason I'm here. Cause I seen the meat
hanging out." He wonders, could he just shove it back in
with a Q-tip? His friend says, "i tried to save a baby bird
like that last summer. It fell out of a nest and hit its head
on the pavement, and it had a piece like that sticking out,
so I stuffed it back in. But it died."

That reminded Adam of a poem. He tried to remember it
while staring at himself in a mirror...

"The dark explosion of her booted legs, much like a tongue
that is unskilled in pleasure. Against the trembling nudity of a gazelle,
upon her back, an elpant gone wild, she waits, and gazing at herself
in zeal, flashes ingenuous teeth upon the child; and where between
her legs the victim's laid, raising black skin open beneath the fell,
the palate of that strange mouth comes gaping wide, pale and rosy
as an ocean shell."

So his world is almost entirely enclosed in this one tall, sleek
building. At a time in their lives when most kids are eagerly
pushing to expand the boundaries of their existence,
he has excised family life, normal schoools, sports, travel & dating.
With no sign of rebellion, he willingly follows rules
and strictures of all kinds: he must, for instance, sign in and out
every time he leaves the building, and adhere to curfews,
quiet hours, room inspections and communal clean ups.
And while most kids are like amorphous sponges, it is startling
to see how much he resembles a narrow, perfectly focused arrow.
"It takes time to learn this new kind of life style," he says
in his flat preternaturally calm way. "But I couldn't actually
go back to my old life style. Of the thousands of students enrolled
2 or 3 might be chosen for the circle in the next few years.
And many things--bad things--can happen in that time.
A boy might, for instance, be injured, or become anorexic.
He admists he things about that all the time, about how
he puts all his eggs in one basket. Still there is an almost
eerie tranquillity, an unbreakable determination,
when he speaks of his life. He goes on without pause,

"a muscular woman in glasses worked bare chested in her
kitchen sink out on the street once. My arms full of groceries,
I started to greet her-- an impulse very opposite began
dumping and scraping the debris ack into the voyeur's gaze,
you might say. Startled he looked away. It's the dynamic woman
who's directly across from me in the parking lot. I believe her.
In this fearsom enclosure I used to see her in welder's goggles,
machining metal sculptures, thought that the years of our west light
were numbered. I admire her. I have seen her in the sink
gazing into the eyes of the snapper, mincing and chopping,
she works without speaking, like one body with four sets of hands.

Silence is intimacy to her."

4000 Years Old And Still A Virgin (abridged version)

At this point the class breaks, plays a song
"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together..."
The moon rises over an open-ended blue.
It is the 10th day of school and everyone is talking.

They speak of muggings, and one boy is famous
for surfing with a knife taped under his board.
These days, surfers drive their cars onto the boardwalk
so they can surf while guarding their car stereos.
Several students are two-fingering raw soup from cans--
a 15 year old punk calls it a pointless local energy fad.
On exceptional days, the surfers say, you can see the snarls
on people's faces, the grunting and sneering, out on the street.

Occasionally, Adam goes to the men's room to study his lip.
He says: "That's the only reason I'm here. Cause I seen the meat
hanging out." He wonders, could he just shove it back in
with a Q-tip? His friend says, "i tried to save a baby bird
like that last summer. It fell out of a nest and hit its head
on the pavement, and it had a piece like that sticking out,
so I stuffed it back in. But it died."

That reminded Adam of a poem. He tried to remember it
while staring at himself in a mirror...

"The dark explosion of her booted legs, much like a tongue
that is unskilled in pleasure. Against the trembling nudity of a gazelle,
upon her back, an elpant gone wild, she waits, and gazing at herself
in zeal, flashes ingenuous teeth upon the child; and where between
her legs the victim's laid, raising black skin open beneath the fell,
the palate of that strange mouth comes gaping wide, pale and rosy
as an ocean shell."

So his world is almost entirely enclosed in this one tall, sleek
building. At a time in their lives when most kids are eagerly
pushing to expand the boundaries of their existence,
he has excised family life, normal schoools, sports, travel & dating.
With no sign of rebellion, he willingly follows rules
and strictures of all kinds: he must, for instance, sign in and out
every time he leaves the building, and adhere to curfews,
quiet hours, room inspections and communal clean ups.
And while most kids are like amorphous sponges, it is startling
to see how much he resembles a narrow, perfectly focused arrow.
"It takes time to learn this new kind of life style," he says
in his flat preternaturally calm way. "But I couldn't actually
go back to my old life style. Of the thousands of students enrolled
2 or 3 might be chosen for the circle in the next few years.
And many things--bad things--can happen in that time.
A boy might, for instance, be injured, or become anorexic.
He admists he things about that all the time, about how
he puts all his eggs in one basket. Still there is an almost
eerie tranquillity, an unbreakable determination,
when he speaks of his life. He goes on without pause,

"a muscular woman in glasses worked bare chested in her
kitchen sink out on the street once. My arms full of groceries,
I started to greet her-- an impulse very opposite began
dumping and scraping the debris ack into the voyeur's gaze,
you might say. Startled he looked away. It's the dynamic woman
who's directly across from me in the parking lot. I believe her.
In this fearsom enclosure I used to see her in welder's goggles,
machining metal sculptures, thought that the years of our west light
were numbered. I admire her. I have seen her in the sink
gazing into the eyes of the snapper, mincing and chopping,
she works without speaking, like one body with four sets of hands.

Silence is intimacy to her."

From "Men Who Found Out", published by Kevin Opstedal's Blue Books, Santa Cruz.

Men who found out.

      Indeed.

A shark
  hunting fares
becomes amublance,
  soothes the sick child
    with Hope Sandoval.

  Holy Mackerel.

***

I smell blood
at The Stud

hightale over...

Enroute I request
Bonny Prince Billy's
"I See A Darkness"
The Cash Version.

KUSF gets it on
before the kill.

Cash is King.

DJ one ups
by playing
original
Nick Cave
 version of
"Mercy Seat",
song just
preceding
"Darkness"
on JC's American III.

***

Thusly I circled the Stud,
awaiting my turn.

An older, conservative man
stepped in. Market,
he said. You're cute,
he said. Thanks
said I. He: Do you
want to come up?
No, I replied.
Come inside,
he insisted.
No, I said.
Guess I'll have to fantasize
in the shower, said he.
Sometimes imagination's
better than reality, said I.
Not usually, said he.

6/8/02

Today I married the Meters.
Till death do us part.
Last week I wed Joni Mitchell.
There's no telling where it will end.
Tday I wed kids to Cage.
They requested 4'33''

Again! Again!

Now allow me to return
to my new husbands,

Cyril & Art Neville,
Leo Nocentelli,
George Porter
and Zig.

***

When you get as much
pleasure out of it
   as I do, then
avoiding "sin"
  is all but impossible
     to do

That was a mighty vague statement

and so is this, if you
  don't know what this
    is referring to.

Could be one of sum

  zillion things,
      plough down
         sillion shine...

Could be confused

    with Satan
      and his back-up
         singers.

***

Fleurs du mal,

I must revive them

  by relieving them

    of their names.

For their names

   have become
  
       profane,

and their freedom

    has been lost.

Let them grow in my soul,
let them find the light within.

***

6/9/02

This the second wistful cover of
"Just My Imagination" I've heard tonight,
this time wiht strings and space echo,
all bluesy punk, Hendrix style, R&B
out of Minneapolis, deep imagination
of The Artist. The second is followed
now by a third, the original Temptations
version. Radio's trying to reach me.   

***

   The bounty the fates
have offered me tongiht
is beyond my imagination.

Just a second ago
  one Fusako,
& before her the South Seas,
  a tomboy from Hawaii,
after two from the Phillipines
  wearing Daffodil and Vanilla
& before them a french sophisticate
   wearing the secretions of a muskrat's ass.

She in turn came after
 the Swedish Princess
  who laid on my horn
   for a full minute
    to punish the
     meatheads
     in front of us.

     fabulous

***

And she in turn was
after Gazelle, dancing
at the double L,

following the Evil
Jungle Prince
w/ Cedar and Johnny.

Then five more ladies
flagged me down,
knocked me out,
& stole the cab.

I awoke in Vegas,
my money all gone.

(& well spent I'm sure.)

***

Lo,

When the magic hour hits
 the golden peaks
  of the city of dreams,

When each successive moment
 becomes better shot
  than the last,

When the soundtrack
 is Zorn on ether,

When you feel like the only thing
 that keeps you from falling
  over in exhaustion is
   the quality of surprise
    at every bend, the suspense
     of who might be waiting there.

When you find yourself
 this lonely and in love,
 
   there you are.

***

A Certain Slant You Can't Resist

Like O'Hara, I'm promiscuous
and I will kiss you, thus,
upon your asterisk,
seal it with a solar eclipse,
sis sixteen P.M, tenth of the sixth,
oh two, the flaming lips of the apocalypse.

***

Lights Between Market & Cha Cha Cha

I always think of
that perfect cab ride
in Bill Luoma's "My Trip
to New York City."

I try to take it
to the next level.

Music is the key.

These dames care.

There is only one fare.

***

Note for Noel: none of the ladies
were dancing tonight at the double L,
but I heard one of them speak of the
fictional character who's real.
I spoke through the glass, "Who!?"
"Steve from Blue's Clues," she said.
"Steve's gone to college," I replied,
"and his little brother's taken over."
"How do you know? Do you have kids?"
"Nah, I just pay attention to the Clues."
"Do you want to marry me?" she asked.
I parried, "Sponge Bob is my favorite."
"Sponge Bob is hot," she agreed.
"Do you know what Sponge Bob
said today?" I asked.
                                "No, what?"
"He said, 'This is no ordinary, average,
everyday darkness. this is...
ADVANCED DARKNESS...'"
She seemed to understand. She said,
"Clifford is my favorite." "Why?"
"Because I like big red dogs."
I considered for a moment,

"Yes, I'll marry you."

***

Wild Black Yonda

     I took her to Berkeley half-rate.
She told me she was running
form a trick because she didn't
want to "hurt his fillin."

She asked if she could
smoke rock on the bridge.
I told her to be careful.
She told me why she chose crack,
said she was a lifetime addict.

Somewhere in the winding conversation
she came out with her philosophy,

"Life is a like a maze.
Do you know what a maze is?
It's a puzzle.
There's only one way in
and only one way out.
You spend your life
figuring out how to make it
through. Hell's when you're
doing bad. Heaven's when
you're doing good."

She asked me to turn
the radio up. there was
a slow R&B ballad on
KMEL Jams. Yonda sang
along with pitch perfect passion,
like some latter day day Lady Day.
I didn't want to breathe.
And when she left I didn't
want her to leave.

***

Cabbie Advice

Veterans driver Dave Outhouse says
"Just give 'em a good ride."

Dick Gallup from Big Dog City says,
"Always have a plan."

Veterans driver Mike Ferrugia says,
"Follow the lights."

Ron P from Luxor says,
"Put it in drive and keep it in drive."

And Will Yackulic from Pacman says
"Work the Zone."

***

I would like to convey
   to you

how much
  I love
    the new slew
of MUNI street cars,

the orange and cream
Boston Electric model
   F Market Train
    for example.

(Gen says it reminds her of an orangesickle.
Brice says just thinking of an orangesickle
makes me feel better when I am sick..)

Yes, the new F Market is remarkable.

Butthey are all so beautiful.

They are currently #1 on my list
of the best of San Francisco.

Followed closely by Musee Mecanique.

Which is followed closely by the freak.

***

Justified?

When I was hired,
my Vietnamese boss
asked me, "Are you
prejudiced?"
Taken aback I answered,
"I try not to be."
"Well, you should be,"
he warned. He said earlier
that week another new
Luxor driver was shot in the the back
by two punk kids, both black.

I told this to Outhouse and he told me
about how a black man once got into his cab
and began to cry. Outhouse asked him
what was wrong and the man said that 20
empty cabs had just passed him by.

***

The elephant mourns,
a forlorn horn ascends
     into scorn,
miles of Miles
        reverberating
makes sense of thee,
dead before a trannyshack jamboree

***

6/14/02

Picked up woman from Nina Hagen show at DNA. She was full
of harsh criticism. Really hard-core. Her name was Boris B. Berlin.
She liked me and asked me out for a drink. I could not refuse her.
She flew into a rage when the bartneder refused to let her smoke.
She stuck her middle finger into my scotch so she could diagram
the difference between the engilish and french versions of Proust.
She cried when I mentioned the tragic poet, Trakl, and told me
she visitied his grave every time she went back home to visit.

***

A Picture for a poet.

     6/18/02

Picture a newer poet in a cab eating the Dutch
Chocolate from Happy Donuts at Kearny and Columbus.

Could you possibly care?
Sublime everytime.

Tonight I make it with you,
time travel exactly 44 years

ago to the day, 6/18/58,
via Poem for Painters.

I respond in kind, line
by line, trading licks.

Tonight, John, I sleep
with you, in the poems.

***

Pome for C Sharp

yes, your hermetic day sounds just
perfect for you, just as this one
promises to be for me, waking

up in the Rocky mountains, all
hung-over. Already there are black stripes
across my fingertips from the singe

ing of guitar strings.  I played
a minor symphony for a cat this morning,
music to match the moment, sing

ing whatever thoughts came by
and then listening back as they flew
away on the wings of strange melodies.

The most beauiful thoughts I have
ever heard. Who heard them?
Hail Mary, full of grace.

***

Pome For D

Now Grisman and Garcia are philander
ing on the stereo while I sip
a cup of grand marnier-infused joe

and handwrite a record of my day
for you to play back some day
far away.
              Later today,

as soon as my bedfellows awaken,
we will go and sport upon
the copper mountain,

throwing discus, crowing
ourselves with laurel.
Totally gay!

St. Genevieve has sent along
a plastic gold medal, which I hope
to don before the dawn dies,
the winner of my own special Olympics.

And speaking of geeks & greeks,
did you know I'm planning a novel
based upon the Republic?

I'm going to call it Rerepublic.
(Blind baldboy finally woke up.)
In place of Socrates

will be a hot teacher
who will rock the midwest.
I don't know yet what I'm going to do

about the hemlock. With any luck
I'll be able to produce a fine piece of schlock.

***

Post Particle at the Gothic

I feel like I'm going to puke
  from too muchness
     but still
I had to stay awake
     anyway
        to watch Brazil
           outplay Germany
        for the World Cup.

The Germans
   were brutes.
      Et tu, Brutus?
But the Brazilians
         were gentlemen,
     heroes burning
        with a gem-like flame.

The Germans were afraid of losing.
Brazil played like a 9 year old
   in love with the game.

Herein lies the hstoric dynamic,
   the confliction,
played tonight on the World Stage.

It was mythic.

How colud you sleep, Sancho?

This game was epic.

***

The Conviction

To stay awake
  is the only battle
     one must win,

even if
  the war's already
    been lost.

The white flag
   waves
     us closer
       to the truth.

What matters

   the cost

Newish Poems

REALITY VS. DREAMS

(a gothic hillbilly pre-nuptial angst poem)

there is a demon deep from a dream
in the darkest part of the night
from which I've woken, haunted and thrilled

there is a demon, tonight played by jack white,
from deep in the chamber of dreams,
who chased me up a gothic spire
of a mountain cathedral

i ran fast and i tricked him
in the thick of night

he chased me in song
with his bullets of silver
and his fangs shining white

i escaped his clutches
and flew back down to the valley
where he got me anyway

and i knew i was gotten already

i knew he would get me eventually

and this was my wedding song

jack played it for hire
for more than i could pay

and this screen is too bright
and my memory too conscious
to tell it quite right

but he trails me and trips me
and he means my death
and he isn't a person
or the one i would marry

but is meant to take me to hell

I love my demon lover
the sham of the ideal
played by jack white
in this stark last night
before i should join
in holy matrimony

felt deep in my bones
in the thickest night
I've been slain by a demon
more real than my life

and i heard it in the scream
of jack's sharp falsetto
and his shattering guitar solo

i saw it on the big screen
inside of a dream

i can no longer recall the details
awake more and more
i'm reeling backwards
to find the answer

rising from the ashes
of the imagined hell-fire
to the top of the spire
to sing my own death

to act for myself
in losing myself

i don't want to wake!

i want the dream
to see it writ large
on the screen of the world,
my demon lover, my talent
taken over, i betray him

a quite different she
shall try to save me
the one i would marry
if i can only let her

but i would betray her
my other, for the one
who adores me, the bloodless other
under cover of dreams

so perfect and shining
into a black mirror's reflection i’m falling
if the other would let me

i'd betray him if only i could,
but the demon who has me
won't ever escape me

meant so obliquely
so ambivalently, that only
a story could capture it
on words made of plastic

now i'm too awake

i flew from the mountain
made of gothic church spires
but was shot down in song
by a demon, who it is written,
i can never escape

though i live out a long life
i am dead before i wake

now i am for keeps
risen up from the deep
of my own true masked nature

will you play my wedding
though i can't afford you?
and mr. jack white says
yes i'd love too

my cowardice has taken
and so the man is saved in
the verse he's forsaken
for the hearse that he drives in
through the future
doing deadly duty
for a reason unspoken
for a people much better than he
though not as great as his demon

this is how it was written
though i've not yet read it
i'm sure i shall change it
and ruin it for certain

that which was already ruined
the moment i awoke.

Quick Poem For Genevieve

I was in the shower thinking hard
about a plot, stuck between
two options, this and that,
until my head started to hurt.

Meanwhile my eyes fell
on the shaving cream, and
locked on the word "shave",
then my mind saw "sh",
then my mind saw "have".

Suddenly I was calm,
no thought of no plot.
I remembered how hot
the water was, and how cold
it was outside, remembered
that I was listening to The Cure,
"The Hanging Garden"....

I melted in the water
like the wicked witch
of the motherfucking west.

My eyes lingered on the next words,
"Bengal Spice". Exactly, I shouted!

So I shaved, slowly, with great feeling,
so that later I might show your skin.

Poem For G

I was in the shower thinking hard

about a plot, stuck between
two options, this and that,
until my head started to hurt.
Meanwhile my eyes fell
on the can of shaving cream
on the shelf, narrowing in

on the word "shave".

My mind formed two words from this one,
like on The Electric Company, but in reverse.
The first mouth whispered "shhh"
and the second said "have".

"shhh"......"have"

Suddenly I was calm,
no thought of no plot.
I remembered how hot
the water was, and how cold
it was outside, remembered
that I was listening to The Cure,
"The Hanging Garden"...

I melted in the water
like the wicked witch of the west.

My eyes wandered to the next words
written on the can, "Bengal Spice".
One thought led to another and
soon I was purring like a tiger.
Thus I shaved, slowly and with great feeling,
so that later I might show your skin.

How To Learn To Play Music

              by AWD

Forward:

Do you love music? If not then you have forgotten.
Or maybe you never knew. If so, then there is much joy
in store for you, far more than you have ever realized.

If you already love music, then you can easily learn to play.
What you have to remember as you play is why you love music.
This is not always easy. Why is that? Try to find out.
Once you find out you can learn to play beautifully.

I suggest putting yourself on a ten year plan. That is an idea I learned
from my old roommate, Edmund Berrigan. Ed gave himself ten years
to learn the guitar. When I met him he was in year five and already
sounding pretty good playing Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, etc.

Pretty good. But now he is in year twelve and playing his own style beautifully.
In fact, he's in a band in Brooklyn called "I Feel Tractor", living the dream.
Do the Google. Request him to be your friend.
 
I liked Ed's plan because it gave me time to go slow and enjoy myself.
It seemed like I could handle learning to play given ten years time.

I am in year seven. And even though I have never been disciplined about it,
my progress seems remarkable.

One essential thing though, which will, tragically, unable many of you
from ever getting down to it, is leisure time. Listen to Gertrude Stein,
"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much
doing nothing really doing nothing."

So I guess that makes two requirements for learning, love and time.
Likely, if you are reading this, you already dig poetry, which means,
since music is a necessary component of poetry, you dig music.
And it also means you've got enough time to play some music too.

So, having already narrowed the field before we even began
I think it is safe to continue with the few of you actually reading this.

My feet are cold. I'm starting to shiver. I think autumn has arrived.

I'm going to go put socks on. That should do the trick. SmartWool.
Product placement inside of a poem. That's almost an OxyMoron.
I should maybe ask SmartWool if they would like to sponsor this.

Anyway, I digress. And that's key. Digression is an important part of playing music.
That's where the "play" part comes in. You have to play around, like a kid.
This is possibly the most important lesson in learning music.

What for if not joy? I find I have to enjoy what I do, if I can help it.

I can't always help it, though. Right now for instance I'm on heavy antibiotics
for my bad gums. The taste it leaves constantly in my mouth
is so unnatural and bitter that I can't quite ignore it.
Nor can I quite ignore the bad gums. Nor can I quite ignore
the bad gums of the rest of the world. However, I CAN play music.
You may have noticed how wealth of spirit may triumph over sickness of body.
Music is a pathway to wealth of spirit.

Lesson 1

So, how to play. Well, for instance, when I first started
I would pick up Ed's beater guitar and beat on it, to the beat
of whatever happened to be going on. I didn't know I was doing anything really,
but in retrospect I can see that I was learning to get in the groove.

So that is your first lesson, drum on your instrument to the beat.

The radio, or a favorite LP are both wonderful things to drum along with.

They are also helpful for the second lesson.

Lesson 2

You should tune your instrument. If you need instructions, consult the internet.

While you are listening to your favorite record, or the radio,
find a note on the high end of your instrument that sounds like it fits in
to the overall sound of the music. You'll quickly find that some will fit better than others.
And a few will sound especially sweet. Once you have three or four notes
that go with the music you're listening to, then try get inside the groove
of the song using just those few notes, playing them in different patterns.

Pretty soon, you will find a pattern that sounds right with the music.
It doesn't take as long as you would think.

Once you have a pattern, try to play around with the pattern itself.
These musical mutations in the patterns will help your playing
evolve without any drudgery of practice. You get there just by playing.

On the high notes you can turn these patterns into a solo.
On the low notes you can turn these patterns into a bass line.

Spend the rest of your life doing this. It is a thrill to play along with a great song.

I wish I had known that secret when I started playing. Instead I learned lesson 3 first.


Lesson 3

Chords. There is a little work involved here. But thankfully not much.
You have to memorize 2 or 3 chords. What happened with me is I got inspired to try
by a girl I was in love with who wanted to teach me. She taught me three basic chords on a guitar,
G, C and D. None of these chords are particularly difficult to play, though it takes
a little build-up of finger muscle. Have you ever noticed how rapidly muscles will build?
It's unbelievable.

If you play a lot, which you will do if you have the time and are having the proper fun,
then you may also develop calluses. Calluses are cool. They make it so you can play longer.

Once you have learned just two chords, say G and C, then you can make up a song.
Play four counts of each chord, back and forth, and get into the groove of four four time.
Now try adding words. In this way you will be shocked how easy it is to add a melody
to the basic structure of the chords. This melody will be surprisingly beautiful
and you will want to keep singing the words to the melody over and over.
This is one way to get the chords down. It is also the way to write a song.

Like the three or four notes mentioned in the previous lesson, two or three simple chords 
can have surprising depth of play. You can spend your life discovering the bottom of it.
As Woody Guthrie said, "Any more than two chords and you're just showing off."


Afterward:

That should be enough to get you started. Where you take it from there is anyone's guess.
The great guitar master Keith Richards has confessed that he has barely begun to explore
the possibilities inherent in the six strings of his guitar.

But for now just keep playing until you get lost in the music. You learn to let it play through you.
And then you are suddenly much more than you ever imagined you were, a unique speaker
through which the divine music of the spheres can hear itself played. The first few times
you see your fingers moving without you is startling. How can they be playing
by themselves? But then you finally accept that the music has arrived in you.

Fine print: Music is a jealous god.

That's all I know. I hope these lessons have helped change your life for the better

SEEMS YOU HAVE COME BEMUSING

One of those terrible days when you can't tell The Horrible from The Great
and so I turn to you, strawberry shortcake, in your sexy ripped stockings,
so amusing with your rapier repartee, touche, and a drop of acid on your tongue,

done never come like that before, all triangle of light, mythic maidenhead,
I'm tempted to joke, but know better, again with the back and froth, like
Venus Williams vs Steffi Graf, in that make believe match in which I play both sides.

Oh lord, I've forgotten to take my pill again. I take this pill called "ow" now. It's good
to sleep on. Upon the ow pill is embroidered little blue eggs in your blonde bird's nest.
In the ow pill is a host of terrifying angels. Actually not so terrifying. More

like terrific! You can get them from Harris. I think he got them from Ted Berrigan.
Bunch of yo yos with drugs. Which reminds me. Do you know how to not get off?
I only ask because I seem to have forgotten how not to. It's become a problem.

 

SECRET POEM FOR A YOUNG WOMAN


The body is what gets the body going.

That's why taut stomach chewed like peach.

Men are objects

and like to be looked at

with all consuming lust.

Then, afterward, we read the articles.

The body that gets the body going
is enlivened by mind and mind

produces I. And why does mind produce I?
I don't know. Maybe for the same reason we have baby teeth.

Maybe I am a philosopher, but I am weak.

I am, at least, a man.

Under The Drone

 

 

      Brother,

 

      yawn fast,

 

      almost yet.

ARCHETYPO

 

Where deed it come from

theesa burst of flambeaux?

From the head of a hydrant,

made by acme novelty,

trademark Arthur Cravan,

monsieur. And it, who shall

it seeenge, my blue eyed boy?

The wily coyote, oui,

to the animator's great joy.

 

DOG, THE BOUNTY HUNTER
 

dog'll get his man

with the help of his wife and sons

dog'll get his man

throw him in the can

dog'll get his man

then say a little prayer

to show the man he cares

dog'll get his man

he broke his bailbond

now dog'll get his man

it's dog who paid the bail

now bra's broken bond

now bra's going to jail

or dog will lose the cash

the cash supports his clan

so dog'll get his man (woof!)

with the help of wife and sons

with help from authority

with help from you and me

he'll clean up hawaii

dog'll get his man (woof! woof!)

hound the bounty down

sniff him out and then

toss him in the can

for braking bail and

threatening the clan 

dog'll get his man (woof!)

then toss him in the can

then say a little prayer

to show the man he cares

(woof! woof!)

                      Sea Of Books

I tell myself before going to bed that I want to have a good dream and remember it. And I do. This morning I had a dream where Eve and I were in an old Victorian house on an island belonging to her family. I found an old book in the bookshelf that told me how to go ride a cloud. So Eve and I took a boat out to sea and a cloud came down and we got on. The cloud took us a mile up in the sky and we just floated. It was so comforting to the eye to see so much water around us, like the eye was seeing itself. But then the rational fears kicked in. How could we be supported by a cloud? Fear of falling. What if the cloud just keeps drifting and we don't come back? Fear of being lost. But we didn't fall and the cloud eventually returned us to the ship. This is a metaphor for the seemingly impossible buoyancy of life if ever I dreamed one. We took the ship back to the island. We anchored out at sea and jumped on rafts to get back to the island. Near the island we got caught in a tidal stream and noticed we were cruising around the island at a very fast speed. This was fun, but also a little scary, trying not to hit people playing in the water. We passed a waterfall slide where kids were barreling down into the water barely missing us as we whizzed by, quite a thrill. We finally slowed down and made our way back to the house. After we settled in I went back to look at the book again. This time I noticed that the whole bookshelf was stained in a dark sea blue light, which made it hard to distinguish the books. I finally found the book I was looking for. I started leafing through it. It was incredible. On some pages the words were cut out of the page, so you could only read them if you held the book up to the light. Other pages were made of wood with the words and decorative leaves were carved in relief. lots of fantastic pictures. On one page a woman, a nurse maid, appeared before me to tell me an old story. I listened, rapt. The book was full of such surprises. Life again. When I finished reading the book I noticed that there was now writing carved into my hand, all the way through, so you could see it backwards on the back of my hand. I held it up to the light in wonder. I didn't look to see what the writing said, but it was in a beautiful script, the same as in the book. The writing had somehow transferred from the book. I don't think it matters what the writing said. What matters is that there was writing carved into my hand... Kafka's "I am writing", Book of John's "In the beginning was the Word", the original impulse of communication, relationship itself. These words I am now writing were what was written in my hand.

                   Mother Moves Me In A Dream

Pome

Old man

heart made

of stone

Old stone

that made

it home

Homer

in the dome

of Rome

***

OARS NOW!

Imogene Coco was the queen
in the Errol Flynn pirate movie
I watched on the turner classics.

She had a little monkey
hidden under her dress.

Errol Flynn put it there.

He wanted the princess
wearing white spanish lace.

Errol Flynn bowed down
before the queen.

She said stand you fool!

She said there's an old saying,

he who sails without oars
better make friends with the wind.

Then she covered her mouth
with her fan and laughed.

She loved to get the best of Errol Flynn.

Even in spanish armor he's so 1940's hollywood

he's so dashing and good.

Her spanish lace is so bright
in this afternoon colorado sunlight

she's cross-eyed in this summer heat

as I lay cross-eyed in my mansion.

The monkey's got himself
a little silk hat.
He takes it on and off for a laugh.

You should see it happen to me,
a trained monkey in the arms
of Errol Flynn.

Errol takes the necklace from the box.
At the end of the necklace is a pearl pendant.

He tells this story "20 leagues beneath the sea
the old Clamdaddys went for a hike up the beach

of the princess's thigh. I asked them why
and they said, "without roots you
cannot get the fruits."

The monkey powders himself
with the queen's puff.

He's so funny.

***

SONGS

I went down to the lake
And I found a snake
I tried to use the snake for a belt
But my pants fell
And the snake got away
My pants fell down into the lake

You ever heard of a trumpet?
You ever heard of a flute?
They play a song, they snake along,
And your pants fall down a chute

You can sing it all day long
when you got nothing better to do sing along
take the song anywhere it wants to go
down to the lake, find a snake

I think I've heard this song before
but never like this it done bore
I took it down to the lake
and my pants fell down and drown

I went down and swam around
looking for my pants willy nilly.

***