Funny, I’m not young anymore -
Young young I mean, little and small,
Yet still I recall little conversations,
Funny things we all said
That we all remember
From when we were small and
Funny and close and alive and
A family created by memories and
Built after time by
Funny recollections
We only recall when we’re no longer young.
I drove through fog in the Wet Green Mountains,
America unspooling itself from the ether,
Silos and steeples and such, such as it were.
(Who knew it was so close to home? That is to say, nearby?)
And at the top of the mountain, cleared fields.
A cloud had touched down, no other way to describe it –
(“The wet thumbprint of God the Almighty Motherfucker”)
And threatened to asphyxiate the whole picturesque shebang
With its still and violent breath.
But the whiteness! There is the beauty
And the inevitability of death -
Restores my faith. I will vote again in November!
Past silo and porch I sail into America’s very heart,
Opaque and inexhaustible – the two of us dying,
Leadfoot Daydreamer versus the Gossamer Speed Demon.
So much is waiting
And emptiness
Before the thing comes
As if to prove itself
It must first be disproven, negated
Obliterated even – Impossible odds
A shot in the dark but then from the dark
It comes.
Sun over the mountains – God
Saying there you go.
Then it is here
And it is everything.
It is every reason for being whatever it is
And it is all you will ever need.
Feels good
While it lasts
But its gotta go you know
Because you can’t,
Despite how successful you think you have been
In overcoming the cruel duality of the human condition,
Hold your breath forever.
Now to write because I can’t read.
The minds I have,
One attracts one repels,
Yet each seems a real response to a situation.
Keeping up the pace, that’s where the skill lies
Or the luck maybe or maybe both.
Sometimes in writing there is so much waiting
And sometimes reading is work.
Everyday I ask for only one thing.
To be left alone with my two minds
And my many others
And to let them find the goat’s path home.
There is a wall. Thin perhaps, clear even
Between any one person and another.
Sometimes it is very sexy.
You go through that wall
It dissolves around you and you are inside
Then there is the other person
Surprised like you are
And everything is funny, tastes funny smells funny
But it is so sexy
And you are surprised to be so turned on,
Your tastes, or perhaps your immediate attentions
As always are too easily believed -
And the dark, sharp, flinty form
At the far end of the car
Is exuberantly separated
The humid wood broached
The roots wetted
And the union!
Powerful because it is
A lust beyond an I. No self of ours
Can absorb all that bliss.
It is Making that rings in you
It is time demanding to be played out
Through you and anything that comes out of you.
The sky is slate tonight
And the buildings but mist before it -
Fiery mist
Burning with Industry.
This is Brooklyn then.
This is the what is coming and the now.
From bed it seems a remarkable thing
And in the mind’s eye it is a fearsome dream.
Remember childhood
The warning goes -
All things lead to moments like this
But to be prepared – impossible.
The sky is slate tonight
And by day is lapis streaked with promise.
See it – its dominion over the harbor
Its cloud the clear bell of consciousness -
Of conscience.
This is history now
This is home and this is the gong of motion
The turning of the world -
Industry and its conscience.
I have known no one who has harvested slate
But many have burned in dreams and promise
Many have warned against childhood -
It is too remarkable a thing, they say
But I am too afraid to know better.
Ach,
I’m so worked up with all this relaxing,
Don’t lay all this unwinding on me just yet.
I barely unpacked my bags
My mind will have to wait.
No seriously, I need a minute - But the birdsong!
Now there’s a pushy bunch
Nattering, chattering, endless phatic “here I am”.
(Okay okay I get it
We’re ALL here, that’s the point, ahem, yes.)
Can’t I just sleep? I ask.
To be honest this Bambi shit makes me drowsy.
“No! Do! Be! Explode into being! Rush into dying!”
Fuck, it’s all over the place, I suppose.
Before you know it I’m done for
Swinging in the hammock, barefoot and totally stupid.
I have forgotten my body
Two maybe three months,
(Four but who’s counting?)
And now I find it lying all over the place.
Ah laziness
What is the cure for beautiful you?
I love you I hate you I love you
Write me a romance novel -
The shelves are filled of you
Ah laziness I,
I forget.
Pay attention now. Closely! Closer still.
There! Nothing at all.
I have forgotten my body.
What is the way back then?
Coffee, tea or me?
No smoking in the rear?
If I do say so myself!
The reassuring black shadow –
It moves faster than anything.
It is the end of things,
It is their end and their negation.
But it is nothing without the sun
Nothing but the sun’s little errand boy,
Its letter from the auditor
Reminding us of what is owed
And what is granted.
The reassuring black shadow –
The land means nothing to it.
All things bow to shade
Just as all things worship light.
Light, maker of loneliness
Light, revealer of the ugly-broken-hearted.
A brutal calculus with which to figure the world -
Minus/mine is in the red.
Hail Mary full of spaghetti sauce
Don’t think I have forgotten you
Don’t forget how I had gotten you
You came with a giftcard
And a coupon for a matching pen.
Out father whose aunt’s in heaven
It’s weird how different you look close up -
Like a bug with a moustache,
Quite dashing really,
And rather a good conversationalist.
Say, how’s your pal the whole wheat ghost?
The hi-fiber host?
Thiamin, niacin? Still on the liberal west coast?
You know I built a brick church on a crowded street for you.
Blow me you big bad sexy wolf,
No one gets off that easy!
Come on, draw your avenging sword
Cut archangel figure eights in my tofu loaf -
(Serves a family of four, more if you add water or wine)
Jesus H. Fucking Kike!
Who do you have to bleep to get borned around here?
Ah, miracles.
On the eighth day he created something to do between the commercials.
I have one of the best penises of my generation
Being as it is representative of all the optimism and fortitude
The age requires yet lacking none of the pragmatic rectitude
Necessary to create a new world -
A world of tolerance
A world receptive to brave new ideas
No matter how scary or unorthodox they might appear
At first glance.
Ah, the hopefulness -
Even this far along,
Even here in the long thick middle of my life.
Mind you I am not a young soldier,
The eager, loyal, idealistic infantryman
Marching among thousands (thousands thousands!) of others
Towards that common if violent dream.
Instead I, my penis and I,
Iconic, symbolic, avuncular,
Because I am a nice guy whom everyone knows and wants to meet.
I am the lion.
The roar rises in me
Mostly when I am alone
And let it happen-
No, let myself feel it
For when is it not happening?
When I am good? Quiet?
When I am the child?
Nope, neither, none.
For no one roars like the child,
And no one fears like the man.
Now, I know fear because I know death and the end of things
And now I know the lion
As the lion would finally know himself
In the mirror
And say that
You, too, Fearsome Thing, must die.
And I was him, crawling under the coffee table.
We have both grown up to be different men.
I think how tired he must get doing his thing.
I only want a little bit of Jesus in my life
There is only so much that I can fit in me.
I know I know, a little goes a long way
But if it’s one thing I learned - shit costs.
Maybe some day he will explain it himself.
“Ah, Matty you know it’s all just a bunch of whatever.”
No doubt it would be interesting,
I bet he likes to cook.
Or maybe at the museum:
“I’m all over the place lately!”
Then taking it down a notch he would say
“Dude, seriously, we gotta hang more often.”
But there are tons of folks I haven’t seen for an age.
What makes you so special?
Aww he’d grin that million dollar grin,
The Pantydropper, the Mama’s Darlin’,
“Nothing, Brother, nothin’ at all.”
And wink and I’d know I was right
All along.
I have lost my good black pen
And am left with nothing to say.
The chances of finding it
Are slim, but there is no reason
To lose hope. Nor any
To grow sad too soon.
Here's a list of things to do, maybe to get you started:
Sing.
Kill.
Fuck.
Worry.
Walk.
Cry.
Stare at the sun.
Lift your arms up.
Urinate.
Sneer.
Hit someone.
Go up a flight of stairs.
Kick in a door.
Light something on fire.
Take something.
Ruin something that belongs to someone else.
Lie.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Kill.
Abandon something.
Break something.
Try flying.
Throw something at something else.
Perform.
Pervert somebody.
Take advantage of someone's trust.
Cause harm to a body.
Caress.
Examine yourself.
Make waste.
Cause an obstruction.
Free something.
Make a list.
Shiver.
Laugh at someone's unfortunate predicament.
Study history.
Pills.
Draw with ink.
Lie.
Sleep.
Put a foreign object in you.
Cut yourself.
Berate your neighbors.
Bemoan your own condition.
Scrawl.
Shit.
Expose your genitalia.
Make false prayers in church.
Break appointments.
Tidy up.
Lift something heavy.
Touch something dirty.
Flatter.
Fart.
Murmur.
Reject love.
Send messages.
Open your self up.
Preach.
Crush something small with your foot.
Endure something boring.
Poison.
Taste the roof of your mouth.
Feel your fingers.
Wait.
Worry.
Spend money you don't have.
Write something spectacular.
Quit working.
Split.
Eat sugar straight from the carton.
Bleed.
Push someone near you.
Stare at someone you don't know.
Show off.
Sweat a bit.
Grow weak in the sun.
Therapy.
Give everything away.
Go bald.
Walk for days.
Invent yourself.
Satisfy your most immediate need.
Nurture.
Laugh at your parents.
Scorn.
Spurn God.
Make something confusing.
Frighten a pet.
Leave someone alone for once.
Let something rot.
That afternoon we had finally seen a bear,
I had walked naked in the woods, finally,
looked for Old Graybeard, felt the hair on my bottom,
felt it as I had never had, as it always was.
I could see my color in the bark
and the wind moved branches I thought were other men, naked too,
superannuated Eakins reclining on Goshen stone,
their color in the bark, their skins and bottoms feeling,
I am sure, as it always was.
Back at the house I had a role to do,
the place making me an actor too, my voice voicing.
Commit, I was told during the earlier rehearsals.
I could commit but I wanted cues.
I was answered I didn't need any. Need any?
I followed the path, the thousand paths in the woods,
saw my bear, played the painting in my skin,
brushed whiskers with Old Graybeard.
Someone here said they know someone who has his cane.
The very staff that poked the earth! I committed.
Promise me I will be secret
my poem says to me before it
reaches the front of my head
and ultimately my hand.
Promise me I will be a secret
or I won't come out at all.
It's a shy thing my poem,
shy things my poem and me.
We must grow a bit in hiding,
try on our wardrobe of revisions.
Soon it will be perfect, I say.
Soon I will be everything
That you will be.
In junior high we were all neuter.
We were neuter beyond our sex.
We were plain and rubbed smooth in all we did.
Differences began to grow on us
only
like the first gentle pimples
and whispers of moustache.
Now, though, on subways and sometimes passing by
on the old streets here I see what we've all become.
We have forked and split like the hydra we studied.
Big boys now, women waisted and married,
angry career homosexuals, or fallen into sales and smarminess,
gone crazy or to California,
been addicted, diagnosed, driving, playing the game,
meeting the man, stooped with shame.
Then I think it's not the X caps,
the tattoos, china patterns, prescriptions,
the muscles, the nicotine patch,
the three hundred dollar shoes or the virus.
It's just the size.
And we were never neuter, always lugging the tiny germ with us,
the difference between and or or.
