I.
– bent stick in the path, ridging
the dust
where the sun
has been beating down
ten thousand hours
since last it rained
if you were a snake
I’d know
what to do
with you
tip my hat
wish you good hunting.
II.
First a red
tailed hawk
juking from
treetrunk
to tall grass
under the dark canopy
and next I, emerging, see
coyotes
flashing against the sky.
I don’t understand this world
anymore.
I spoke a wish into the dark,
as if I dropped a fish into a well,
then paused for a returning sound to tell
if water caught it, not dry stone,
not dead coins only. Not a sound came back:
That wish went its own way, and left no track.
The night is long. Where may a wish not go,
when every word’s alive, and each is true?
In such a span of time, what can’t it do?
Under the hood:
the month of april
which is poetry month
is insupportable and ill timed
it’s still nearly winter when
words didn’t help us get by
it’s still nearly winter now
there was a season that made sense
that stoppered life that held us to
one single obligation just to last
to ride it out and not to
burrow so deep that there was
no coming back
to the surface again
that was wisdom that was
really a better idea than this
I never trusted spring
this coinflip season
spring with its rotten
ice and its seepage
spring with its alarming growths
winter was better better
to hide out better to live small
to listen to the wind
and the rain passing better
to be a clever animal
better to wait out the cold
better to forgo what sunlight was given
easier to survive then
than to live
now:
Dear reader, I’m curious: of the versions below, which do you prefer (if either), and why?
I.
They built a grand monument to the dead
And the place where the stone was quarried
Soon filled up with rainwater
And the young couples would meet there.
II.
Built to commemorate the dead
This palace stands, untenanted.
By the still pool in the quarry pit
The lovers sometimes come to sit.
Consider the alternative:
The sun glinted off the waves. It was midnight.
The moon was up. Everything was still.
The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking.
-Damn, said the Walrus.
-Yeah.
They walked for a while.
-It’s a lot of sand, the Walrus said.
-Nothing anybody can do about it, said the Carpenter.
After a while they met up with some oysters.
-Why don’t you boys come with us, the Walrus said.
The oldest one shook his head No but the young ones came along.
They walked for a while then stopped by a rock.
The Walrus wanted to talk but the oysters wanted to catch their breath first.
-Sure, said the Carpenter.
-Time for a snack anyway, said the Walrus.
-But not on us! said the oysters.
And the Walrus:
-Nice night, isn’t it?
And the Carpenter:
-Pass the bread.
-Kind of tough on the oysters, don’t you think? said the Walrus.
-It’s tough, said the Carpenter.
-Hard times, said the Walrus.
He pretended to wipe away a tear but he was really hiding the biggest oysters behind the handkerchief for himself so he could eat them.
-All right, said the Carpenter.
-Ready to head back?
By that time they had eaten all the oysters and it was still again.
The end.
1.
Between the gray sky and gray
earth the darkling crowds
of those who
don’t and won’t look up
swell the concrete streets but
no cement can hold back time
no built thing can support the sky and
the earth holds me, but
I hold nothing:
holding nothing
back, again,
still.
2.
I can’t even
get lost just once, I
got lost then
right away
did it again. Later
that place I was headed for
changed into another, so
I never found it.
3.
Hip hooray for the Brooklyn Bridge!
A comic book for the Bowery Kids!
Nobody’s lost, nobody jumps,
We all stand up & take our lumps.
From here to Brooklyn, never back!
And into the great wide world at last!
4.
Never can remember
the endings of movies
quite right and then
I’m afraid to watch them
a second time
since what if the whole world
could come undone
just like
that?
5.
I used to love rocks and
talk about them. Now I don’t
remember why
I thought I knew so much, why
I thought the world was all
about the rocks.
Kids, huh?
6.
If the bay froze – right now, right away –
I bet those sharp gray
waves would fetch a pretty penny
you could cut up the bay, not have any
thing left but sunken wrecks and fish
skeletons, and everyone would wish
they’d bought a piece while they could
yeah, you best believe it would be a good
deal while it lasted, buddy
7.
I have this friend
let’s call her Chris I
haven’t seen her in
a while and I
forget if I owe her
a call or if
she owes me so
anyhow it’s pretty
late now
maybe in a day or two
I’ll remember
again
8.
She got her world from
Headlines, so was always in
Despair, or shopping.
9.
That creek meandering through
the grass doesn’t want
a thing and moves
always. That bird poised like
death on the bank
wants what it can
get; it doesn’t move
but once.
10.
This morning she was up
before me, who used to be
my slug-a-bed, my slow waker.
This morning she has
opinions, who used to
wait and see what things
would be like.
This morning as
I reached for my
coffee cup I realized
wait
this is no dream
this thing is real.
And let it go. No poet nor no painter you;
Yet that was something only you could do,
Let go and yet not lose,
And sniffing shuffle on on quiet feet
To go and shovel out the ashes from the stove
And put the whistling-kettle on for tea.
Around this time, Ginsberg also had what he referred to as his “Blake vision,” an auditory hallucination of William Blake reading his poems “Ah Sunflower,” “The Sick Rose,” and “Little Girl Lost.”
So tell me this one thing,
Old poet, mad saint,
What will it take to make the world strike me with its great magic?
Rilke believed in making
continual poetry but
I think he never spent
much time here.
To say
That you could never disappoint me
Is just to say you haven’t yet
And then extrapolate.
Of course you could.
Oh, when I think of all the ways you could
Undo me! It almost makes me weep
From the sheer foolish love of what you are so far,
My true love, my millstone.
Bag of Anything 