Pure psychic automatism
Renewing my poetic license
in the year of Our Lord 2016
Into the Maelstrom
Mare tenebarum
desolate panorama
ramparts of the world
howling and shrieking
forever
black-looking island
wilderness of surge
cluster of black rocks
world of crags
At this age
everyone has ceased having
the least bit of sympathy for you
Only Jesus and Dracula
know what it's like
to wake up everyday
And in both cases
someone else is telling
the story
Dialing past talk radio
snippet intercept,
mean Southern woman's voice:
mean Southern woman's voice:
"How do you put a value on a mullah?"
(Kept dialing because
I didn't want what she was talking about
to spoil the humorous effect)
(Kept dialing because
I didn't want what she was talking about
to spoil the humorous effect)
do you have children?
no I'm an old roguish enigma
a prime number
a formula abolished
like an apocryphal saint
Footsteps become people
under streetlamps
loneliness hidden behind
every tree
leafless fibrillations
frangible inquiries
into the Mystery
the clock falls back
after Hallowe'en
Drudge my whole life
to call myself middle-class?
think I'll take a pass
in a secret realm
behind my mind
I saw the truth
of space and time
I called myself a saint
and sank deeper into sin
if life becomes pain
should one remain?
I try to avoid
letting reality
drag me down
to its level
The cops can see in my window
and I'm not even paranoid
at all hours blinds up balls out
an old Apache
an old Apache
smoking hashish
by the lamp
by the lamp
I'm saving up for velvet cuffs
to fasten over my shackles
One day it came about
Sister Woman never came back
from the sorghum mill
We never saw her again
never knew what happened
All that Winter we lived
on sorghum alone
Nourished by the memory
of our six foot sister
TRiUMPh
of the WILL
(Notes in English after A.R.:
2 en face pages of a dictionary
opened at random)
TV was ghosting
as a gift token
gerrymandering was ghoulish
gestapo gerontology, graveyards
the ghastly gigalo
overrun by gibbons
ghetto geegaws and gibbets
gigahertz of gibberish
germ warfare
gestures cast in gesso
ghostlier giants a-giggle
a gilded gibe
giddy bankers getaway
Thanksgiving
Indians in my family tree
Sun going down at eleven AM
suddenly KALX comes in
with the rainy season
I may have lost my ears for it
Way out on the landing
a coot red leaf floating
a commorant comes
and goes below
No ferry today
very few people
brisk business at
the liquor supermarket
Vast slow motion flag
train passes by in reverse
Cranes are up decorating
the incredible tree
Cut down to stand there
for a month
to cry out
for commerce and cheer
Last year demonstrators
attacked the tree
reveling in seasonal
malice and spite
At rooftop sunset
seagulls row across the sky
into magenta
Salt Water Taffy
Madam Sozaska
opens her tent
she'll spill some sawdust
for a sawbuck
Tawdry business
in sunlight and shadows
used to come here
in years gone by
When you drop the coins
the tank fills
with salt water
as the couples dance on
I find myself inside
the old puppet theater
unfamiliar faces
emanate social angst
The psycho pathology
of every-day side-show
a game of chance
in a miniature world
Made nightmarish
by time and death
I accept the frailty
and woe of old age
as the price I must pay
for the carefree
gaiety of my youth
A ferocious animal
reared up
and bit me on the ass
my bad temper
To what yellowing precepts
to you subscribe?
I've dumped them all
good-bye, good-bye
Hey
Lord Foster Wallace
of Amherst
Now that's one
supposedly fun
thing you'll never
do again
November Dreams
In a nightclub with unknown others
Watching a black and white film
from long ago a group playing
a jaunty jazz number
The bassist briefly featured
cut to a close-up
Young white man
smiling a familiar smile
playing a double-bass
The coin drops and it dawns
that it is JFK in his prime
guesting with a Count Basie-style band
A demonic mythical half-man
pushes me onto a chair
rips open my clothes
frontal exposure
unpleasant erotic
ambiguity
I look closely at its head
adorned with horns
twisting live serpents
carved hair writhing
primitive decorative elements
as if made of play-dough
in Boschean multicolor
his intentions his mind
unknowable
A poor young black man
on a local bus with me
Some unpleasantness
in inaudible words he exchanges
with the bus driver
who is also black and
wearing his dreads in a rasta hat
the exchange continues
from the sidewalk
where the first man is now joined
by a poor young black woman
the driver shows him
he has a handgun
Great Whites slip off
to a desert café
on the bottom of
the deepest sea bottom
Honeymoon bungalows
shaped like castle ruins
the brides of Frankenstein
waggle off to secret nursery caves
shark cage basinets
the songbirds of the islands
go out one by one
butterfly steals nectar
from an ant mandible
at Frankie's fish locker
the bottom fell out
so many eels it was surreal
neon signage
spells something out
last act
new docks built
on crumbling old piers
first the tide rushes in
One day it came about
Sister Woman never came back
from the sorghum mill
We never saw her again
never knew what happened
All that Winter we lived
on sorghum alone
Nourished by the memory
of our six foot sister
TRiUMPh
of the WILL
(Notes in English after A.R.:
2 en face pages of a dictionary
opened at random)
TV was ghosting
as a gift token
gerrymandering was ghoulish
gestapo gerontology, graveyards
the ghastly gigalo
overrun by gibbons
ghetto geegaws and gibbets
gigahertz of gibberish
germ warfare
gestures cast in gesso
ghostlier giants a-giggle
a gilded gibe
giddy bankers getaway
Thanksgiving
Indians in my family tree
Sun going down at eleven AM
suddenly KALX comes in
with the rainy season
I may have lost my ears for it
Way out on the landing
a coot red leaf floating
a commorant comes
and goes below
No ferry today
very few people
brisk business at
the liquor supermarket
Vast slow motion flag
train passes by in reverse
Cranes are up decorating
the incredible tree
Cut down to stand there
for a month
to cry out
for commerce and cheer
Last year demonstrators
attacked the tree
reveling in seasonal
malice and spite
At rooftop sunset
seagulls row across the sky
into magenta
Salt Water Taffy
Madam Sozaska
opens her tent
she'll spill some sawdust
for a sawbuck
Tawdry business
in sunlight and shadows
used to come here
in years gone by
When you drop the coins
the tank fills
with salt water
as the couples dance on
I find myself inside
the old puppet theater
unfamiliar faces
emanate social angst
The psycho pathology
of every-day side-show
a game of chance
in a miniature world
Made nightmarish
by time and death
I accept the frailty
and woe of old age
as the price I must pay
for the carefree
gaiety of my youth
A ferocious animal
reared up
and bit me on the ass
my bad temper
To what yellowing precepts
to you subscribe?
I've dumped them all
good-bye, good-bye
Hey
Lord Foster Wallace
of Amherst
Now that's one
supposedly fun
thing you'll never
do again
November Dreams
In a nightclub with unknown others
Watching a black and white film
from long ago a group playing
a jaunty jazz number
The bassist briefly featured
cut to a close-up
Young white man
smiling a familiar smile
playing a double-bass
The coin drops and it dawns
that it is JFK in his prime
guesting with a Count Basie-style band
A demonic mythical half-man
pushes me onto a chair
rips open my clothes
frontal exposure
unpleasant erotic
ambiguity
I look closely at its head
adorned with horns
twisting live serpents
carved hair writhing
primitive decorative elements
as if made of play-dough
in Boschean multicolor
his intentions his mind
unknowable
A poor young black man
on a local bus with me
Some unpleasantness
in inaudible words he exchanges
with the bus driver
who is also black and
wearing his dreads in a rasta hat
the exchange continues
from the sidewalk
where the first man is now joined
by a poor young black woman
the driver shows him
he has a handgun
Great Whites slip off
to a desert café
on the bottom of
the deepest sea bottom
Honeymoon bungalows
shaped like castle ruins
the brides of Frankenstein
waggle off to secret nursery caves
shark cage basinets
the songbirds of the islands
go out one by one
butterfly steals nectar
from an ant mandible
at Frankie's fish locker
the bottom fell out
so many eels it was surreal
neon signage
spells something out
last act
new docks built
on crumbling old piers
first the tide rushes in
October-November 2016
