POETIC FRAGMENTS COMPOSED ON IPHONE, 2020

 

 

afraid for what is coming afraid for what has come afraid for what we will do afraid for what has never been done afraid of my own shade afraid of the improper glade afraid of The Spain rate afraid of the state of our wretched state afraid to go to stay afraid to game the stain of play or end this only way.

 

i try to feel more than feeling can / think over what thinking scans / the wave has wings of water in its mouth / Venice sinks to ask for lurid truth / this is the all too much of days / spanning cankers too sore to praise / the supreme lie God is art to love us whole / in an age of artless hatreds  Homer full / throw down vain bows, try to endure / in toppled Troy devoid of tragic cure.

 

impossible not to be thankful as me this year of worst outcomes for so many; i am alive gratefully; as are others i know; virus of knowledge we learn from your spread; learn a distant thanksgiving, ironic; no, sincere how i want to draw near to a flame i can’t survive; thankful fewer than possible are currently dead, knowing burning will arrive also, maybe. Yes.

 

A poem can do anything but one thing it should try to do is be the poem that comes after all the earlier ones, with that full weight and that full permission in that rich understanding. It should be a good listener and a better speaker and a better Jazz player and it should if it wants to play off all the other beats and notes and echoes and day-trips and blind alleys and byways and highways and passions of all of poetry from the start of the world. It should blow its horn in the proud company of greats, in humble companionship and generous accompaniment.

 

 

Between nothing and something

I’ll take either. Sleep or heaven;

hell is too complicated, seems

overkill.

 

Only a hoarder wants to outlast Kondo; letting go of all the mind clutter, ego files is what owning a PC prepares us for - junking folders; sad not to do more; but only gluttons eat four desserts which is like living much longer.

 

It’s a concert, it ends, you exit.

 

Even Elvis left the building. Even the big lady has to sing. It won’t not happen, like tomorrow, rain.

 

At least everyone gets the same

ultra-blank or eternity-surprise,

and unlike birth it has no pain.

Try to avoid it long as you can -

live as if the best to hope for

is unending (until sun-ends) fame.

 

the young are different finally than the old, they have they think more time to use, but also less world each day to lose; they worry slowly, move with reckless care; their angers are infinite, their patience rare; they hate more, more often than i recall at their stage; age is a moving target; all slip along like a pickpocket hoping not to be caught; feel September on my tongue; a cold shiver sliding between careful bones; this worst year no longer young, each shoulders their share of an adding burden, understands the weight unseen.

 

consider the new met lovers waiting for a vaccine to kiss as if 2021 was their wedding horizon on which to sail a hopeful bed meanwhile aching for lips to find what Keats knew never happens on an ideal ancient vase except by human flaws: time delays even as it flows to impale desire on a true law of things - beauty rarely stays like an army burning as it goes, taking needfully i am not in the book the book ker-chug ker-chug that all the young ladies and gentle-cads love they love ker-puff ker-puff so my bankbooks are rough so rough dear boys oh dear so my diary is dreary in fear oh fear no not in their books their books my dear for fear I’d be spotted like the best lost glove at last so best so loved!

 

I have been telling you I am a genius for so long now even I am tired of the ruckus but I know since my soul is neatly folded between the pages of German poets who owned passionate revolvers and were sickly; my aches are not comical but actual and only in English is meaning chafed so by irony it is impossible to sing with august pain do a little less each day dip into the abyss of gentle resignation including no sweets or bread so you grow tiny and eventually are 19th century in size miniature but still vitally important to a few historians but mind you don’t get over your head in disputes since war is the next station

 

I am the man in the garden who carries his black indoors six kilogram four year old best friend cat with him back and forth every evening lifting his chap into low leaves and close to roses so his soft versatile associate can sniff what is above his usual reach except when leaping and yes we are so happy very within our own lodgings    called appreciation in these slightest motions

 

We are all tired of washing our hands in this sectioned world and by we, I mean everybody; speaking globally is now within my radius. This power is So, my futile gesture of an us when I am now less even than a me. Halved by distance I come across this divisive space to see my own face masked in the mirror that was your kiss. Narcissus herself would shiver at the mess. It’s tiredness, this tiring endless distress masquerading as medical calamity. To be plain, we all want out into what comes next.

 

when they called

to say she’d felt faint

and gone to lie down

at Leslie’s next door then

the ambulance came and she

was taken to the local

hospital for tests with numbness

all the feelings came up

you know like the butterflies

before you tell someone

you really really like them but

with this reverse emotional

confusion you feel sick worse

is to come not big betterings;

and you are being told the news.

 

This has nothing to do with me

which is why it does;

like in a prison the bars make

prisoners, but there’s more;

nothing I do or say seems

to alter the problem when

what I do or say is the problem;

if the house is rotten tear down

the house then; stepping aside

is not going to cut it; got to cut in

to the skin and tear away

 

that mark that marks what dreams get made to stay; not going to be easy but hard tries though trying’s not enough now; you’re the field or the plough.

 

time lately has gone in all directions like a mirror against a mirror in a rainstorm so sliding is the very weather of the day I’ve come to miss my own life like it was a glove i dropped in a cinema during a fire i want to kiss strangers during a red plane crashing; dream of sleep jolt out of reality screaming for her/him/me the first man on the maroon isle of cats.

 

does anyone else

crave an outlet

past the sea door,

through the cobalt straits,

under the limestone gowns,

across the bridge of lies,

over the cornfed moon,

via the granite statues,

burning the taboo gates,

to finally arrive at the Nile

of whatever you want to do,

the sea red as lips,

burning with all Cleopatra’s

useless ships on balmy nights.

 

I entered her lair, held slim

hips to engender allusion

in the elusive revelry of lust.

my ivory cities have blunted

their force against civilities

of trust; the sands appear

like courtiers to tie my truss;

Caligula, Don Juan, Byron,

I fear mouth watering fuss

is always folly in daylight;

freedom is what we die for

when Greece demands we fight.

life is almost always

unbearable because

you have what you want

or almost have what you want

or don’t have what you want

and unbearable because

what you want is unacceptable

or almost unacceptable

or so acceptable you say so what;

 

or you want something beyond

some thing, beyond wants,

even beyond becauses;

and that too is unbearable

because then you want God

or else you want the obverse

of what wanting God is -

and evil and good both ache

to attain levels above aching.