Solitary divergence on a point
of physical law
is nothing on which to found
a theory of liberty
but maybe it is
not all experiments
know they are experiments:
some of them think
they are the happening itself
and furthermore
that it's a success
and good for them!
go, little swerve
sail on, silver bear
I can’t hear Chet Baker in Tokyo
(whose deathward drift
by ‘Funny Valentine’
is well underway)
over Francesca’s
helium-voiced europop
whose rabid cheer
opens a wound in my braine
from which billows out
a literary night
to cover the earth
contaminate the whole horizon
or else coagulate a gulf
wheels of confusion
are all in motion
no airbrake’s got a purchase
on that
a contagion of letters
in an access of decay
a scun
of sunshine
chucked in the window
tied to a rock
a swivet
a stab
of retrograde caution
against a mob of communicants
you should know by now, professor:
you can’t fight Francesca’s europop
with Chet
that
is an errand
for Sabbath.
OK we’ve got problems
politics problems
hardware problems
software problems
GARBAGE
problems
and water
problems
vocabulary
problems
dream problems
and waking
problems: massacres
and genocides
we’ve got
murder
problems all right
and problems we can only forget
with stacks of comics
and satan movies
all night long
which themselves
also have problems
also problems
bone-pencil
summers-day
imperial
psychic
overload
plus in the university
administrative oFermŌd
but…
these are practically our
ONLY problems!
Elderly demons always seem
slightly taller than you
and it takes them forever to leave
they talk so much
since they have a surplus of heads
(however many is too many, says I)
it is people like that
rudely congregating
always talking, belaboring the obvious
that leave you standing
on the brink of dope
The secret poetry of everyday life
is not undone by indifference
to its total continuity
and infinitely suspended punchline
in expectation whereof
we toil dividedly but I digress
!
the secret poetry of everyday life
bears its odds and ends
lightly
look
some of your own stuff is going by
there it goes
Don’t be so impatient to get home.
Everything you remember
is waiting to destroy you
the moment you return
that’s why you need a really
killer boat-song:
like ‘The Sea-Farer’ or
Columba’s Rhine-poem
or the Bunnymen: 'Ocean Rain'
(But not like Caesar’s
lost (thank god) poem ‘Iter.’)
Because whatever it is
you think you remember,
the magic is different now.
Don’t be in such a hurry to check your
messages
either.
where does this strange new vomit
come from?
deeper than stomach
deeper than bowels
it rises up
from more abysmal depths
than body
can possess
it comes from hell
no!
it comes from space
as if on purpose
to eat your face
poetry books filled with slime
pages of this year’s books
full of damp
covers of paperbacks curl upwards
what was the problem?
not enough rigor
no motivation
or a crowd of lesser, but easily got, satisfactions
blunting the will
and spelling the death of hustle
not enough witches
not enough wolves in the throne room
not enough darkness on the throne
perhaps there was never enough geometry
to begin with
I sure as hell neglected
mine
LASS UNS LEBEN
scream the German elephants
which if I had the imagination
I would totally do
why does my cellaphone smell
like meat
why does my plasama screen
smell like alcohol and mold?
why do all creatures run away from me
how far in that direction am I
allowed
to travel?
The doctor said,
‘the pure products of America
go crazy’
you would know that better than most
if you weren’t so damn crazy
but I’ll say this for you
you are robust in your naked criminality
your lust and puerile prodigality
your disease
whatever it is
is having a good ride
but there is no Asclepius with a cure
for your sovereign sickness
the doctor's got no ℞ on his pad
for the thing that ails
your slowly boiling self
you’ll just have to lobster it out
with a deep-crimson nosebleed
i started the day
i raised my flag
days of rice and beans
days of rice and beans and blood
afternoons of loneliness and tears
recordings assist
in bringing to life
the wailing of the children
beyond
and well within
and all along
the borderline
anti-psychotics
for children in tears
banners for nosebleeds
hollowed-out retail space
for concentrating
small inconsolable captives
here is my prophecy:
when this all flips
you will die
most horribly
O CHILDREN
of old from the Kadmean line
what brings you even here
strewing the porches of the shrine
with laurel branches
wound with wool
and assuming the contorted postures
of supplication
?
The city's air is choked with incense
and heavy with groans
and the murmur of prayer: therefore
I must know
from you
what is up!
*
...such was, and is, a good thing
for a king to ask
his suffering people
even if the answer
will ruin his house
and cause him to tear out his eyes
and send him forever
alone
to his shrivelly place
If you don't remind me I'll forget
to send you that bibliographical source
to read your poem so full of beauty and force
as I already know that it is
alas the brain
is lousy with concepts and appointments
whose purpose the soul cannot fathom
so please remind me
that everything except
• poetry
• bibliography
• and sex
is completely useless
please please you freak
whoever you are please
remind me in case i forget
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."
Always at the daunting beginning of something
you can see these hot-red formations
feel their new positions
close to the heart.
The Song of the Cathar Wars:
'bels chanz, mala crozada':
too many brains and jawbones
on blood-soaked fields.
Too many noble ladies thrown into the fire
or down a well.
Too many kitchenboys and mercenaries
entitled to pillage and rape,
too many meetings
with bishops and abbots and legates
that drag on forever!
And the many siege engines groaning
mangonels, cats and bitches;
to say nothing of the Weasel.
But it was fun to watch Simon de Montfort
coming unglued
at the siege of Toulouse:
his speeches are increasingly insane
and so thick with flourishes that it's a mercy
when he is finally brained
by a little stone
launched from within.
That was a stone
right close to the heart.
the problem was (is)
that it all started
too close to the end
life-destroying diagrams
interruptions which fail to suspend the narrative
or prevailing force-space dialectic...
our junk is everywhere now.
Now it appears
holes in the narrative are filled with worms
(insect and worm protein is the fucking future!
grubs!)
Biden’s unconditional support of Israel
is all swirled up in the looks I get
on the streets of Cairo.
The ¼ sleeping pill Molly gave me
has me wide awake,
and I complain about it like a prince.
(O cursed spite!)
If you’re not careful, your charmed life
will keep you up all night.
Amy's insects are crawling
singing softly by night
chattering by day
what in their wisdom
are these ancient ones
trying to say?
Much effort it takes to listen.
But the sense at last appears:
"Thomas!" they say (for now it is
perfectly clear)
"A. You don't have a soul--
but, B. That's OK:
You don't really need one!
So don't freak out."
MY BARGE is large but I forget
what people, items squat in cargo hull.
The brains are inaccessible, the skull
is poorly pitched against the salt and wet.
There are oars, and sails on sails, and yet
sans oranges, the
crew is dull.
Drums, and the requisite seagull,
anchor them in music of regret.
The whole assembly’s now in danger:
cords creak, timbers bend, joints leak.
Weird hindrances. Signs impossible to read.
No captain I am to all stars a stranger.
The whole ship now begins to gibber and squeak.
