Amando Tu Aparición

para la mujer que mora en su propia campiña

Amando tu aparición,
Tus manos de sombra,
Tu cuchicheo:
Respiración sin aliento.

Abrazando tu fantasma,
Olor de la tierra en su cabello,
Vórtice de su pupila…
Donde está el amor y donde está la muerte?

I, Too, Am A Fly, Chanting Recollections, Waiting To Be Shocked Into The Next World By The Strong Blue Light Above

So how can I get close to that rebellious creation force? If there be madness, may it go unswatted. Container of spoiled cottage cheese green and tough at the edges and I have my ambrosia. Riveting. Waste smell: a desperate inspiration. Cherish these pearlish wings, they bring travel freedom for mites and viral fevers. Artists move from illness to gloried striving: rare to find much food in their bins. They have no voice, but I thank myself for them. Racing over can continents and steaming dung islands, I lay eggs in everything, my posterior insuring I have left something to posterity.

Notebook

by Patti Smith

I keep trying to figure out what it means
to be american. When I look in myself
I see arabia, venus, nineteenth-century
french but I can't recognize what
makes me american. I think about
Robert Frank's photographs -- broke down
jukeboxes in gallup, new mexico...
swaying hips and spurs...ponytails and
syphilitic cowpokes. I think about a
red, white and blue rag I wrap around
my pillow. Maybe it's nothing material
maybe it's just being free.

Freedom is a waterfall, is pacing
linoleum till dawn, is the right to
write the wrong words, and I done
plenty of that...

april 1971

The Hungriest Day Is Devoured

I start myself with a question: Simplicity in me? Whoa, I don’t know. Bouncing bell horses smuggle what’s blue, playing like a room. Shh, I told myself, myths abound in forests, waiting to be counted, counting on weight, rolling under steam.

Only change can come from the gong, open the way all sound opens, ritmo under span of buses, bridges, tunnels and plains. Notions glimmer a moment, even some of all of them. Not afraid to be completely skull, skeleton and other masses rippling. In rubbings, ministers show winning numbers, a marina for twisted ships, tumbling in the grip of flanged abandon.

We hunker out in corpse of ocean and waist deep in my marrow find a meadow of cool place. There is swerving silence; bonjour swerving silence, brushing worthy building-tops, from whence have you come? Coarse walkers crash the planet, scene in time. Jellolujah, sing the kids, up-ended in angles of light.

Here is we, filling dense mystery with fuel from swollen mornings, faces cleansed by total eclipse. Haul down the skipper picture, our new captain ate the sea.

Anecdote Of The Bear

Breaking bread with a grizzly, a chronic allergy sufferer sneezed mucus onto the bear’s shoulder. The grizzly pulled off the fellow’s hands and wore them for a whole winter, keeping them on as he slept through the cold and snow. He kept the dismembered allergy sufferer in an insulated barrel at the back of his cave. In the spring, still wearing the hands, the bear went out and used them to pick berries and scoop honey into his mouth. He found them much more useful than his own awkward paws. Nevertheless, the compassionate bear hauled the emaciated allergy sufferer out of the barrel, reattached the hands, and taught him to forage for his meals. When he was plump and healthy again, the thankful fellow embraced the huge grizzly, shook his paw, and went on his way in the world, never to sneeze again. Lonely once more, and unable to keep a diary without opposable thumbs, the bear returned to the city of his birth. Eventually, he married a beautiful Spanish hedge fund manager. In the small but wealthy circles of society he and his wife frequented, he became rather well known for his soft fur, kind strength, and wise investment strategies.

All One And Alone

stunned
my voiceworld
will be my helmet
my protection
in sullen places
a dog makes his way
simply dissolves
a lonely pony
like a leader of granite men
I wantonly scramble
through infusions of tea
bearing ritual objects
through fire
down chameleon-eyed walls
with weird friends
I get out of the shower
with weird friends
down chameleon-eyed walls
through fire
bearing ritual objects
through infusions of tea
I wantonly scramble
like a leader of granite men
a lonely pony
simply dissolves
a dog makes his way
in sullen places
my protection
will be my helmet
my voiceworld
stunned

Exploding Heads

Men used to be able to make their heads explode. Some could do it by staring at the sun for a long time. Some could do it by snorting a few grains of rice up into one of their nostrils. Still others could do it just by watching another man’s head explode. Most of the men who used to be able to do it aren’t around anymore to teach the upcoming generations. If they were here, would they share their art with others, or would keeping it a secret be a matter of pride?

In a room, an oiled and shiny head spins on the end of a stick. Swiftly back and forth, the eyes maintain a crucial rhythm. Sounds are shut out, the mouth is opened wide but remains silent. Eager young men file into the room, laying their cash on the floor and trying to catch diamond engagement rings that fly from the spinning head’s ears, one to a customer. As each man exits the room, his head explodes.

Three skilled pilots flying three separate airplanes crash-land in the same mountain range. After wandering for a while, they happen upon each other. One has water, one has food, one has matches. They build a rainproof hut out of leafy green branches and diligently tend to a large signal fire. One day they see a plane flying overhead. They shout wildly and wave their arms at it. They watch it crash into a nearby mountain. Before the plane explodes, their heads explode.

An Inuit Song

And I thought over again
My small adventures
As with a shore-wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And thought I was in danger,

My fears,
Those small ones
That Ithought so big
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach.

And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing;
To live to see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

America Is One Dog

Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

So Many Damned War Pigs

For Your Listening Rage:

The Black Sabbath Version

The Cake Version

The Doormouse Version

The Freakwater Version

The Hayseed Dixie Version

The Government Mule Version

Back in college,

In 1991
when the Gulf War
had just started
it was close to exam time for me &
I remember
I had this sociology final
& the class
was dead boring

I could barely drag my ass into the room

where the professor would drone away
all the football goons staring at our T.A.
a tall blond grad student I was afraid to talk to
but I used to go to class anyway
’cause there was this gorgeous and feisty girl
I was dating who was MAJORING in sociology
& she was the only thing that kept me there

I couldn’t study a bit

not even when the final came
I stayed up for two (maybe three) nights in a row
thinking about I dunno what
staring into space thinking

shit

here’s spoiled notstudying me in college
& guys my age are gonna go DIE
in the desert & I’m gonna sit here
mooning myself & messing around with women

crap

& when I had to take the final
on 2 days with no sleep
I fell asleep during the test
& dreamed I was in tan fatigues
a soldier in the Gulf
so I finished my stupid multiple choice test
took a bus downtown to the

Marine Recruiting Office

& asked to speak with a hangdog-jowled officer
who sat me down & said

“The Marines will teach you about life
and how to be a man
and take care of yourself!”

& I, in my frenzy
of insomniac lucidity
asked a billion questions
about every detail

like

what do you do eat
what do you do talk about with the other MEN
when the shooting and bombing is over for the day
& what is the pay like
& other stuff

after a while

the guy looked at me
sadfaced, beaten
(& beaten) said

“Kid,

in the end,
The Marines is just like any other 9 to 5 job...”

but I finished the thought
in my head with

“except you have to kill
people
and maybe get killed.”

So I shook hands & walked out as 2 young kids
in heavy metal T-shirts were standing in front of another grayfaced
officer taking the Marine Oath

and I went back to college
to sleep.

Letter From An Angry Soldier

From the best of Craigslist, a letter from an angry soldier.

We Will Have Our Little Lives

May it be delightful my house,
From my head may it be delightful,
To my feet may it be delightful,
Where I lie may it be delightful,
All above me may it be delightful,
All around me may it be delightful.
--Navajo Chant

I wish you delight. When you wake up, when you sleep. When I am there or not there. Yes, we will live our little lives. I've got potatoes in the oven and a steak defrosting on the counter. You have your beer and chat in your little piso Boliviano. I watch TV on my computer, after the day of writing and teaching is done. You watch it in a room I can’t imagine, though I try...stocking it with random Germans whose faces and voices I do not know. We live our little lives. With clear eyes and full hearts, we can’t lose. Almost four full moons between us now. I’ve had one haircut and I’ll have another. I’ll grow a beard between now and when I see you again. And I feel so small and big in the in-between. In between seeing you. In between poems. In between the sound of your voice and the sound of your voice. And we each have our day’s little insanities. The company projects that you dropped down into from another continent and made your own. My lecture on Godzilla, his death and disintegration. Yeah, we live our little lives. Drink from the Lethe each night and begin again each day. Each morning I wake up without you, here in my little life. I told you to name your apartment. Though I have yet to name mine. I will name it in this poem. Right now it feels like it wants to be called the apartment that misses you. Are we a team? Do you know what it’s like to be a team? No, this is not the poem to talk about teams. That’s for a time when we have more than hope and waiting. We do our lines and have our days. With clear eyes and full hearts. And I feel a little empty inside, it’s an emptiness that fills me. I take it like a pill when I wake up and remember; it gets me through the day, this little empty feeling. And you are young. And I am young, too, in my way. And we don’t know yet just how we will love each other. Will we take our little lives and make them one big life? That’s what I’m calling this place, “The little apartment of big life.” It wants to hold you, with every arm I have. It wants to see what we can make together.

All My Pain I Ask How

Light gets in the way. Whatever me there is,
feels sensation, senses feeling.
Out at the edges, emptiness, gog and m’god...
Somewhere, the dark,,,

I love the dark.

The obscure side of love:
I run at it like voodoo.
People ride in cars,
my world is only dust.
An undead dog, eating the cities,
trying not to hate so much. Pain of sex.
togetherness a glimpse of the good life?
Chance to see what cleanliness might be? Not me.

A trapped rat, tooth and wings of hardship.
Rasping,
all the masses
colliding with earth
and magic death of earth.

Before the dirt I would do one right thing.

Human, human, human.
I seek the human.
God am I human.

masks
isolation

Beings unravel.

I see messiah hordes
rubbing their eyes.

Think:

Should we tie ourselves to...

the people...

we love...

?...

no more otherness...please...

In Stumbleville, A Pack Of Worldlings

A pack of infantile worldings runs across visionary lobster traps. Crucifying nothing, incandescence leaves their fingers. Feet barely touch. A bound fool runs behind, blunders a candle, goes out with ritual gesture.

Facts keep everyone’s heads cool when dead folks crowd the mayor’s house. Leaders emerge from the breakfast nook, colossal haircuts in waves of comic shots. Downtown is full of honchos.

Before elections, municipal leaders switched with men in the service industry. Now old janitors drink all day soda-pop, digging for clams at the mud flats.

A quick dog runs up and down every aspect of local life.

Men are steamrolled by area rug saleswomen. Your floors are too slippery, they say. Do you want your poor child, or worse, your poor wife, to break her delicate bones? A tramp, convinced he is king, keeps an eye on himself.

From the pudding factory comes the sound of loudly whirring blades. Not as sharp as we could hope, but some consolation after the abuse the town received in the radio exposé.

We feel alone in this world.

At the pub, an insect wing descends from the boring ceiling, cheered on by beer mugs. A poster of Yip Man, Bruce Lee’s teacher, hangs on the wall outside the high school. Students must bow low before entering. The county is endothermic.

Villagers could something if they weren’t at a loss. They’ve documented this shamanistic hodge-podge before, but it’s penned in the attic at the old movie house.

It Was Okay.

Your madness was something we couldn’t get around.
In the end, it was all light,
plus a few simmering stars and roadmaps.

Close To The Way The Freaks Lie Down

Moving generals of a minister land
Mild ponds cramp most fully with ore
Humble suits skin warbled skin
Most wasn’t waste
Moments for finding strain
What nights could break under slalom grooves
Earned sure to be away
Flight of mangled trains
Cover who’s to be
Verbs made vines grow
Nothing else for that

Advance To Primal

Me at 10 or 12,
forest roaming,
treehouse building,
salamanders, big beetles.

13 & 14, science fiction,
slingshots, BB guns, all sorts of targets:
cans, bottles, squirrels,
sadly, birds.

One day some moment
moved thoughts
to thinking
and made girls happen.

15, serious for girls,
to have them
and have them
have me.

Front seat of 1st girl’s car,
dashboard light so green,
clock going aroundaround,
my house across the street alldark...

Every minute a hundred-
year eyeblink and long.
Leaning over lost
in swimming head,

thinking—
Someone I love?
Leaves on trees. Wind.
Planes in air. Water. My face. Death—

Waiting
in moment before kiss,
I escape,
fleeing to girl...

And lips touch, conceive
the perfect firebrand
I sought, would seek
again and forever.

Godzilla, 1956

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