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Notes
on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: Selected
Poems 1965 - 2000
Excerpt
The
Low Black Square
for
Josephine Clare
is
a table
once
upon a time
its
legs were longer
but
I sawed them off
I
sawed and sawed
one
of them always shorter
than
the other three and so
it
got a little too low
in
the end
kind
visitors breathed
“ah,
Japanese”
and
on the black square
the
tile-red cylinder
is
a pitcher we found in Venice
there
are flowers
they
are flowers
they’re
just some flowers
We
Are Having It Again and
Without
Sorrow
molecular
vessel named I Am December
gesticulates
its way through mind maze
looking
for some opaque you
archy old
&
after reading les surréalistes some more
now mental spin to winding woods
in ancient jars brain slowly happened
words come in spurts drool dream at dawn
history from a tooth
night grottoes of the blesséd matter
in sleepwalk time no present face
rainy
street no stars equals my language
now
let us end
with a discreet representation
of a real lightbulb
still
doing its connotations
in a city of transparent sepulchers
off
to ride
last waltz railroad in November
sun
Big
Dog
I
bring you
this
head,
full
of breath-
takingly
beautiful
images
of yourself
and
put it in
your
lap.
Now
I breathe
more
quietly.
Now
you pat me.
Now
I sigh.
In
a moment or two
I’ll
get up and
be
a man again.
Any
News from Alpha Centauri
I
the
dog suddenly punched the back of his knee with its snout
short
snap of teeth he stopped shouted hey your dog bit me
in
the dark street the other man swayed and will go on
swaying
thick
weed in the sea of remembered nights
an event of no consequence
but
for the small marks on his skin in two days they faded
not
as persistent as cigarette burns on his hand and arm
the
previous summer he’d stayed so drunk he believed himself
Orpheus
many
a man before him delusions of a like nature
well
dogs never gave him
no trouble did Cerberus know the good dead
by
their smell was he blind as most of them are did cat
people ever
enter
Hades
a little of that goes a long way he thought
walking
on in the frosty night with the stars as stately
as
ever up there any news from Alpha Centauri
they
have their own scene there pretty small pretty quiet
a
fortnightly newsletter printed on green gas
II
laughing
all over her face her body swung
into
it too she was telling him something
she
was such a joy he didn’t know where to look the cat
came
in he looked at the cat but it did not enter this moment
how
years had changed them how they had taken his memory
sometimes
he thought his mind away
every
instant of waking a new start often so slow
he
made many mistakes per hour
the
cat lay down in front of the fire
and
she had already turned into another
lovesong
worksong
dark soon in the winter
there
was hardly any time to stay
awake
to think out a sentence like that
one
movement
she gathered all objects in out of
the light
where
they hung in the room about him
how
“years” stood in the air in his place a dumb idol misnamed
III
in
the bar there was a photo of Albert Einstein
a
photo of Franz Kafka in the rented room
Louisiana
Man by Bobbie Gentry in the bar
Mozart
and The Mothers in the rented room
eyes
and voices screens of solitude
he
remembered the touch of a pair of hands
IV
walk
in the house of light it said in the Indian legend
walk
in the house of light and it walks with you around you
wherever
you go
there
is only one can give it to you
only
she can give it to you
she
smiles it stops raining the world will not drown
you
walk in the house of light
V
it
moves across the big water through many dawns
it
goes uphill it stops near the crest of the hill and
opens
all
its doors
No
Complaints
`
for Robert Grenier
HIGH
PLAINS DRIFTING
on
the high plains
when
we meet
the
inspector
we
say “buenas tardes, inspectór”
ON
THE PHONE
“when
do you go to bed?”
she
asked me.
“when
do you go to Tibet?”
was
what I heard.
“never,”
was my reply. “I’ve never
felt
like going there.”
good
to do the little
physical
things
in
the lonely place
sung
by
the ancients
we swim to meet
too
little and too late
too
brittle and too fated
we
are but rabbits that pass at dusk
parenthesis
the
part in her hair had a little bend
at the end
See
You Later
Ascending
mountain path
in
good company: Ted Berrigan
seen
here the Wrst time after his death —
Duncan
McNaughton, still alive in the world I’m adream in,
many others
wearing
sturdy United Beloved Nations overcoats, blue-black,
scarves,
gloves, goodly shoes
though
there is one fellow with snazzy hat:
turned-up
collar prevents me from seeing face
—
Tinker Greene perhaps?
Well anyway,
here we go
in
bright blue day,
mountain
to our right,
sheer
drop to miles-away valleys
on
our left — the path
beautifully
paved, with pale gray almost square chunks of stone
the
width of it
a
person and a half
so
we tread lightly and with care
while
typically smoking this or that
(doing
this in waking life
we’d
be gasping, stumbling, quite easily gone)
Ted
says, “Wouldn’t you know it?”
apropos
of what? There’s also a strong wind
and
I am worrying about the emerald abyss
to
my left
yet confident we’ll all make it
to
wherever we’re going that seemed
just
around the corner
and
now is, quite possibly, not merely
atop
a mountain
but inside the mountain,
only
to be reached
by
an equal number of strides
down: on the inside:
no shortcuts.
Hair,
beards, coats, scarves flapping
in
the emphatic wind
glasses
reflecting pale brightness,
we’re
walking, bullshitting along, just as in
real
life. Hey, here’s George Kimball iii
with
a bottle: thanks, man: who or what “won?”
But
careful now, one slip and we won’t
feel
so great anymore. On we go
Ted
our guide, friend, beloved raconteur . . .
Aeons
later, someone, Duncan I think, says “You know
we’re
going to give it back to them”
and
I think oh no, what’s this? We’re not just proceeding
to
the most remote tavern of the universe?
And
Ted says “Yes, yes — we’re going to
where
the pounding of acceptance
meets
the pummeling of negation — no, no”
drags
on Chesterfield King
“which
is utter benighted bullshit, of course”
Now
there is sleet, even small hail in the wind
and
I remember the waking lifetime we strode
through
blizzards in Minnesota, early Iowa morning rain
and
youthful demons on Lower East Side
and
I think, there has to be a trick, to end this dream
the
way there are tricks to end a poem
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