October Poem Tome

 

October Poem Tome

 

 

 

 

Ad Astra

 

God sent a self-driving car for me

Its destination was encrypted

I got in I had no choice

I went along for the ride

hazy day no horizon

I whistled a sad air

the limo went past the graveyard

and kept on it didn't stop

I passed by granite cathedrals

outdoor stations-of-the-cross

The vehicle knew where

I did not
 

The sky resembled a frozen lake

Nightfall and the misty stars

The stars said I was headed north

We never stopped--Water

 apricots nuts cheese and flatbread

had been laid in

The landscape at night was white

Mountainous silhouettes rose and fell

 

The limo came to a halt

I got out without stopping

Lastly a vast green bar in space

growing larger enveloping the full moon

throwing tentacles of astral color

to all horizons of a trembling earth

Darkness gave way to utter splendor

irrational astonishment

Mind heading heavenward 

on its journey to the stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Apples of Tibet

 

I conceived of a new planetary system

that revolved around me

a police car gum machine panache

No one would have to know

I'd exist only to those

in my perceptual spectrum

And walk around undersea cities

and forests ablaze

Still stopping at red lights

wearing clothes and passing

for normative

Comets and mystic moons

mine alone to behold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 seagulls at dusk

harass a strange bird roosting

on the dark tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

100 crows cross

7th street in Chinatown

flocks of October

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hares go forth after dark

except in mating season

happening naturally in march

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tate in 85

I went deep into Blake's light

quiet few people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When a broke grifter in a cheap hotel

notices the Gideon's bible

he sees his next career move

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if there is

anyone pervy enough to really dig

my deformity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Punk: Not a mode of music or dress but permanent revolution

a dialectic between mindless positivism

and the great negativistic hand

 

 

 

 

 

 

Urban Nighttime Soundscape

 

Sirens at bed time

get so you no longer notice

Trains like old memories

fading as they go

Street sleepers may argue

usually just before dark

Weaponized motorcycles

a moving gun show parade

Some with ultra loud music

hostile militarized radio

All audio phenomena embedded

in the highway's toxic whisper

 

 

 

 

Yacht Club Bench Point

 

barefoot in clover

marine cloud blankets the coast

bridges at high points only

jeep pulls up with bullhorn

boat anchored fishing

in the marina channel

get lost

other side of the breakwater

saltwater expanse like manifest mind

existence in cleavage in the trees

refracted in all ways

congeals bright fungus like

berkeley cops roll by

 the outskirts on the bay

past the edge of town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In search of the lost papyrus

on which my first poem was read

Nothing to do with Osiris

Nothing to do with the dead

 

 

I saw a ship behind the sun

Coming my way

Couldn't make it out in the brilliance

Then behind it three ships

Then another row of five

then nine an armada

fanning out behind

The lead ship of the sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

Against my will

I started to become a monster

I was in farmland a lot

terrible animal husbandry

The old Onanist

who wore out his balls

Hitler gave anti-Semitism

a bad name

I found the backdoor to Hell

Not to get in but to get out

I wrote a long letter to God

to ask for forgiveness again

His métier after all

Imagine the worst person in the world

having the most military might

Would a guillotine be too much?

Special rendition to a secret prison?

Plea bargain for waterboarding at Gitmo

the Art of the Deal
Fate's inexplicable arrow

 

 

 

 

Haunted by the eccentric

eschatologist

who sleeps in a mummy bag

inside an Egyptic sarcophagus

now afloat in a flooded basement

sand and seawater

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 The world to be seen and unseen
so much seen once and not seen again
the finite unspooling of subjective perception
water in a infinite glacial state
all perception exists as one mind
outside of time dreaming in
dreaming the world of time
birth death incidents along the road
mainly monotonous tarmac
some tar pits some mere mirage
Epiphanous amnesties
mild neuronic action out of doors
Tuning forks wind down
Mo more asphalt no more
gas stations no more cows
Wind and weather
scrub the crime scene
sand in the hourglass
cease to add up
the ambiguous incalculable





 

 

 

 

Great Ohlone rock

cresting the sunlit ridge top

alone not for long

Over three clear nights

never saw the Hunter's moon

cold breeze from the Gate





Devil's Wind

Leaves and debris flags and bags
hurdy gurdy in the wild breeze
the first sun seems wan
The lacuna of the universe
the black hole at the galactic center
indeed a worm hole may be
Life comes back fast
after great extinction events
new aggressive spiders

 

 

The Past Thundered Past
 Old Amherst Mass

(memoir of grimoire)

Emily's for Halloween
One more empty haunted edifice
On Pleasant Street was it?
Call it Pleasant Street
The busy little liquor store
The dismal City Hall
restroom open at night
A fountain a church
Sidewalks rolled up and stored
for morning with glad rags strewn
The former Folklore Center
A rustic store for country food in bulk
 a freaked-out peaceful life
Fahey LPs esoteric books
for a conjectural world view
Borderland conjuring
Log's bar eagerly entered
easily forgotten nights
when Sticky Fingers was new
Ramshackle topiary hut out back
Smoke lodge for a fleeting house

The cemetery a stone's throw away
Austere Dickinson plot
Legend hidden by a wrought iron fence
Stars roll upward from burial mounds
The Dickinson estate behind a row of trees
Its garden I spectered alone
on gelatinous nights set in  moonlight
Slept in a drowsy meadow
just down the railroad tracks
Through the Pioneer Valley chilly night
light still on up late
Had a crummy place here one year
How gleeful it was to live
Somewhat poor and young
copious hashish and laughter
Throwing open the bathroom window
in wee wee hours
to watched the train thunder
just below


Mad face paintings a blue guru
white-washed skull mask
Nosferatu skull cap
Bonfire at Erik the Rat's
in feral Belchertown
Sunken eyes and a ruffled shirt
blonde succubus on either arm
New England rocked the cradle
on All Hallow's Eve






Head of the Estuary



1.
Squadron of sea birds
hover high over--shadows
on distant high-rise



2.
The church foyer lit
sunlight on a baptism font
ineffable organ chord



3.
World reassembling
the Cleveland Cascade respite
as the world cascades



4.
So quiet the peace
seven silent geese passed
water turns the page










Three ravens keep
a open eye
waiting for me
to pass by
 

 

 

 

October

2019