records from the dustbin,
7-11 sign screams throughout the night,
thinking of saving rolling stones for you,
then going to sleep for a minute i might,
when there is nothing left to choose.
the sign screams 24 hours, voodoo.
wining ice box melted, melting.
nice box melted, melting melting.
dripping generator, purring purring.
freezing up to fly right, whirring.
into the blasted 7-11 sign. stop.
thinking of getting blinds. stop.
how unkind the sign,
how undignified,
and tacky
the young Russian woman will be,
when she learns the local rules,
playing the game gracelessly.
my world is a world of 45's;
tough to keep a dream alive,
when i have to be stopping,
every three minutes.
it is a life with nothing to it,
surviving inner grooves.
my day is a day of 45's;
45 minutes for immigrants,
a lesson plan for every one.
does not amount to anything,
doing what must be done,
reclaiming another daughter or son.
my attention span is 45 minutes long.
knowing i will be doing this
when i am 45,
when the accomplishment is
kids' growing lives while mine dies;
someone hand me a knife.
my life spins around like 45's,
not slow like 33's,
or fast like 78's,
not so happy, not so great.
the day i die i will be glad,
to replay the life i await.
i wish i were a fifth of whisky,
a dime of smoke, or tab of LSD.
wish i could dream of jumping a bungee,
crashing a race car into a wall,
or finishing a hot blues set,
to the crowd's call.
wish i could break every window,
in every public school.
unwind every cassette tape,
fling every CD
at every window in every public school;
that would be cool
give me something useful to do
besides wasting away my life,
without ecstasy or strife,
of bullshit things to do,
for no reason at all,
like a dog licking its balls.
from Practicing My Chops
new york city
may 16-17, 1992
frozen pool in stiff blank vastness,
white noise sizzles through the ears.
beat a dust-soaked mattress for hours,
to see itch-less blind particles in the sun shaft.
pastel vision to vanishing point,
with multi-million ink marks near,
not colorful enough to dream about,
but it cannot be denied what seems to be here.
lonesome Friday after spray-canned week,
not days, nor hours, nor minutes recollected,
but a light, floaty, cloud-week at sea.
pungent fish odors drift from a mind's kitchen,
ringing a buoy floating over the head.
fishy milk spray flows through the gills,
an ocean floor one flipper away from
Saturday's dawn, hue same as a sunset.
nothing to say, to hear, or do,
thinking of t.v., six-packs, and you.
beer buds bitter through the vacuum tube,
bringing every tomorrow closer to now.
not hemp, nor lover, nor excited tongue,
all taste like plaster lime stew.
could religious death-hooker get it up,
not friend nor foe wake or make me sleep.
peace or revolution not cause a reaction,
character stroked, or corporation brand my eyes.
what could a call from a distant friend do,
but disrupt this hum until it starts again.
and what could a call to a seven-digit do,
but leave blips and fuzz to stare through.
unable to die, and unwilling to live,
nothing to sigh for, and nothing to give.
i have not in the foggiest any idea,
a fog that engulfs me through sunny or starry streets.
yet if by some chance i do feel a nudging pinch,
i howl a moment later and soon forget.
though feet may be falling from nearby window,
and crab-net line slipping into the sea.
though head hair ignited on lighted-match poet,
i stare through scattered three a.m. patterns.
stuck in a transporting powdered dream,
asleep or awake; all the same to me.
unknowingly missing luxury and disaster,
i drift like a black hole without a care,
and snare shooting stars from out of the air.
absently receiving and unconsciously gone,
i glance at the calendar to see what day,
and am promptly on-time to the appointed slave.
here in tight-wall, cracked-room gritty,
documented, smokehouse, newspaper city,
population lovers o'er the gates of gold,
diamond-eared boys and girls flirting apart.
processed creativity, these bronze-nipped buds,
invisibly lacquered like wax on shiny apples.
tasteless preservation of goal aspiration,
Blake's precious worm-glory, crushed.
un-poetic music through butt-fucked KMEL
boogie-less snot pawners of guitar television Tenderloin,
blue heaven will not fall for these loveless.
pack up their cares and woes in vacuum box images,
find a lover, dosey-doe... bye bye oil slicked blackbird.
"sing softly, exuberant cats,
crazy if you want the song to stop."
it is a pretty tune; i know i know,
just does not remind me of ones i have heard from heaven.
i may be lost in timeless ages past,
but are you caught in the digital lullaby future?
poor relations with a superstructure?
narcissistic narcotic empty street of onlookers?
hooked debris on lost crab line rising?
gravitational push and pull of blind solar system?
melancholy dark oil shaft of pistons pumping?
tea-leaf scattered and mystery mouth puckered?
kush-on nuclear holy ground excavation.
it is not our fault when we slip beside Beijing,
nor cause for lumps in predigested gravy-lava,
nor need for new seeds, numbered and controlled
by corporate mouth-foam in dog houses, barking,
courteously forgetting our every mistaken correction,
built to specification from popular delegation.
have no regrets, for this was where we were planted.
time marches on, as sure as there is time;
touch a dozen buttons and find the time purchased,
for to wake us up and lay us down,
by and by, we love and leave longer as
stronger satanic mills beat our flesh to a pulp,
and we gulp the hemp-mist in prescribed timelessness,
wheeze the steam of city morning thunder,
up through the tubes a-smokin' down under.
has God waved man's hand to freeze-dry this dew?
below the frozen river rushes warm water.
below is warm water, cooler, consistent.
tides never reach these depths,
and stones remain untouched and peaceful,
through the brightest of days, gone unseen,
to sharp, nocturnal eyes they gleam,
where subterranean cold mountains rise,
and thin air lingers at peaks and depths, causing
slow changes in man's mind, but here is where we forget
the-mock-you-see is no joke to me.
i read cracks in walls like tortoise shells,
when the-calmer-wrist leaves it shaken,
but even then it is temporally taken,
for years and days are tedious to my pulse,
which beats without a clock to measure.
break it once, break it twice;
i have not been counting, so dupe me again,
it is shown to you from different angles, but always outward.
ringing ears will never mask jack hammers.
sickly me in a wasteland of streetlight neon.
eyes blurred in time to save my vision,
yet clear to distinguish the eagles from pigeons,
for i am a bard-bird transcending the heights,
and i must bathe often to remove the dust and oil,
swooping through heavenly gases of a long rainbow,
holding my breath through perfumed air and poison.
eighty-one lines at a buck a row,
like a mouse at a bread box who for family gnaws.
surprising the tracks how so silently grow,
as the paper is exchanged for food and wine,
whichever denomination, the mock is one kind,
gives me the ink when your name is by mind.
there is no other outlet but the old cold hole,
not enough sexual innuendo for thumping disco,
and not enough peace to these eyes for to sleep.
transcend the end and the apocalypse blaze
these curtains are stained with subtle red threads
i am crying for love; don't you hear? don't you care?
no questions? no answers? so carry-on, hop-along.
archaeologists will find my fingers bunched in eternity
they will wonder: was it a pen or a match he held to the page?
those who remain ungraced will brand me that day,
and children's guides will recall how endangered it all was.
1979
1979
