Saturday, February 11, 2012

(older poems #3)

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J,     you     are     dust.


(pirated copies of Mirabai,
or somebody equally obscure
in this dark city of 
half-polluted translations)


". . .I could have pulled off your dress
with a single threadbare glance
from the terrace. . ."

". . .something like gravity waits for us. . ."

". . .disappear into the granite again, 
you wandering single-cell organisms. . ."


we have to paw our way 
thru many layers
for a chance 
at even 
the 
most 
rudimentary 
contact point:

is this architecture or nature or 
animal-music or ether?

no quick answer forthcoming,
but still, breath comes short 
when I'm with you, 
J,
do you realize that?

dust? 
did you say that?
double dust?
did you call me that?

cup and saucer of slick 
postmodern ash-bindings 
quickly unfolded, 
delivered, 
ignored, 
and then, 
outside the city walls,
hacked to pieces-


     "were we children, J? 

          avatars?

     beholden. . . 

only to. . . 

something. . .

     resembling. . .

 (dare I even suggest it?)

             mere      dust?"


 (    and almost immediately
              the answer comes 
                     flying back:

                         
                    yes.    )


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(we skipped our own party)


1.
I remember our poorly +imed ou+ing 
+o +he +rainyard las+ Oc+ober.
Dusk and dus+, homelessness, 
+he +ao +e ching, chocola+e milk,
rabid nothingness, yellow scythes 
at my throat, violins, Kafka's diaries
indica+e +ha+ +his adver+isemen+  
has already s+re+ched ou+ way +oo far;
i+ will no+ be recovered, in no ci+y or bedroom
will +hese crayon por+rai+s ever really be ours again-

a blanket draped over just as the discreet music
was finally ending. . .

beads of rain wait and watch 
from the compact discs 
left out overnight 
by the window. . .

"Only thru this particular 'somebody else'
at this particular 'location' and 'moment'
do I feel my own particular 'life' to have 
any particular 'meaning,' 
thinly but evenly spread out
over this particular 'surface.'"

Verbatim.

The hay-bale crumbles to pieces
out in the further-back trackless fields
because our combined weight isn't enough
to keep the art world's glance for more than
maybe 5 or 6 seconds total-

"But hey- that's at least a start, maybe... something. . .

. . .don't we also have our own
        special people and items to covet?"

Judy and I cultivate a taste for
curatorial-minded oblivion
and it starts to show up in our
secret/everyday lives:

canned goods, plain speaking, rust, 
second-hand clothing outdated, 
patched, re-patched, patched again,
and increasingly cherished.

Coffee shards slowly ground by a hob-nailed boot,
little tapers and echo-streams carried back
in our folds from the training,
in our skin, mussed and stricken
we come across Hobo Jim in his car-
may have been there all day,
may have had almost nothing to eat
except roadkill, so far removed
from the mad streets of
[insert your proud city's name here.]

Whatever it was that was holding us back,
keeping our filthy mouths shut and locked,
desolate, entire art eras passing away 
along with the up-and-out-scaled 
aes+he+ic and cri+ical dis+ance. . .
. . .much needed.

Shivering, we walk back to town,
not discussing the "time scale" 
we've adhered to thus far;
but sensing, uncomfortably,
that old accounts might be looked into
after the latest opening/extravaganza 
is finally nailed shut and forgotten.


2.
Because of you there is space again;
an echo that sounds a little bit like
an old and outdated willingness;
a half moon;
a hovel;
beauty 
has 
once 
again
been 
pared 
down
to 
mere
solitude.

This red crust of silence not explored
as it implored us once desperately,
so out on the front porch and/or
public cum communuity gallery
counterfeits sleep thru their own
invitation to come inside
for refreshment and a free fuck 
with nothingness thrown in
for absolutely no extra charge!

This game was a mis+ery
way way before it was "coveted"-
my bedroom studio becomes too familiar
so I simply invest in a blindfold-
I can make out the inlines now
where before there were only 
grinning and oiled-up faces-


Judy, because of you 
there are gentler places


+o be con+inued.



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nostalgia


1.
on rainy late autumn mornings I will often
come out here to my parents' garage 
to have a look at my grade school art class 
mobiles, sculptures, dioramas, and watercolors.

mere splashes of red, wire, blue, green, 
construction paper, staples, cartoon decals,
and mercury.

broken fingers and slow arches 
we child geniuses awkwardly planted
so that there might be something flower-like
to dig up later on down inside the dystopia.

in those early days the teachers sometimes talked
about hammering us, nailing us, sanding us,
fixing us, sending us. . .

and guess what, doc-   

we listened.


2.
someone up there has fallen
and another down here 
appears to be crippled-

(nothing a little elmer's and duct tape
can't fix and return to the fray.)

there is always 
a simple method
and then the method 
we so like 
to imagine.

pages fall from the mouthpiece
yet the numbers and melt from the typeface
suggest an entirely new and dangerous realm
of creative anti-activity.


3.
masterworks live on the far end
of dollar-store harpoons dipped in vapor.
these adult toys merely slivers 
of the schoolchild's old artistic fantasia.

sparks and symbols have hibernated
only to come back as blood pulsing mazes-
unadulterated by all the time lost in
raw and non-regenerate gazes.


4.
my scythe loves me!
I have learned to take such tender care
of its peculiar handle-task and 
wicked cutting-edge apparatus.

underneath nameless images, 
willing to follow something all the way back,
spinning another wide-eyed little innocent 
out from the deep red
and into the black.


rhymes are fun!


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