...superstitions breeding
fitful irregularities
the never-ending shagging of wonderment
with gentlyness with defiance with drollery
sticking sticky fingers into
sweet weepings
passion tides awash un upflood
to pain-point-hidden-pinks
subliminal fairy
tales,
lover projected on walls,
dreams - -
would you leave by my backdoor?
didn't I explain
death well?
weren't the lights
dim denough? Or did the beams
of headlights reveal too much
of dark?
you left before
breaks of beamlight
(that caprice of flower bells
attached by veils),
could color themselves.
Reflexion! traitor image
that fell all
the way
come back . . .
Aspen leaves and blue spruce needles dissolve
in the dusk; looking through glass panes,
you suddenly see ceiling lights, a Bolivian
textile on a wall: when what’s behind becomes
what’s in front, you wince, draw circles,
and, deepening the graphite tracks on a page,
enact a noose; then a sliver of moon
in the sky’s a sickle; a twig fire crackles
at your feet; you whistle, ache, mar, step
out of a car to find bits of shattered glass
on asphalt resemble the ends of dreams;
as you flip bottles into a recycling bin,
each glass shatters: each dream collapses
into a pile of shards; as you toss the last
glass into the bin, you step out of another
transparent confine; and, as moonlight makes
a road on water, you have no word for
this moment that rides a wave stilling all waves.
From the reiculated center of the sun
The shielded eye deflects the way
With lashes which are rayed themselves.
By the admitted channeled light
The color darkens in your dress
Diminishes brilliant scarlet there.
Excess of light, prohibited
By the double-reyaed diffusive terms
At source and sorcerer, becomes
The mystery which is scarletness
Seen in its whole, the violent red
Of quick, aerated blood, arterial
And central near the body's heart.
So if this scarlet lies in you
As the bliss of excess, then my eyes
Are burning glasses which compel
And turn the rays, direct the lask,
So that diffusion is contained.
You, as the agent of these eyes
Within your scarlet shield, remember this:
That no eye may look long into the sun.
In the library
in a book by Diane Arbus
I see myself on every page.
She collected raw pain
could see beyond the skin
her subjects like peeled grapes
hung out their bloody
laundry for her wicked eye.
I see myself; each freak is me
bloated, beaten black
murdered, eyes popped, slime
on my cheeks.
Behind the camera her eyes, razors
cut out a rumor
held it up
like a game ball.
Suicide was such
a soft release
from her agonized eyes.
Alone on the railroad track
I walked with pounding heart.
The ties were too close together
or maybe too far apart.
The scenery was impoverished:
scrub-pine and oak; beyond
its mingled gray-green foliage
I saw the little pond
where the dirty old hermit lives,
lie like an old tear
holding onto its injuries
lucidly year after year.
The hermit shot off his shot-gun
and the tree by his cabin shook.
Over the pond went a ripple
The pet hen went chook-chook.
'Love should be put into action!'
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echotried and tried to confirm it.
Your enchantment
enchains me, stretched
out there, planked
like a steak or
a shad in season.
And there, where
you flower there.
You're cool to my
touch, soon growing
warm, smooth but not
sleek. I love you –
too much? Not quite
possible. The thought
of harm from you is
far from as those
Vermont hills,en-
flamed, in October,
as I by you, in their
seasonal rush. To
go up in leaves! I
wish I could, as I
sink down beside you.
On a far night, the glinting pine needles
Accepted lettings of remorseful tears.
On a far night, the skies were frosty-white,
The lofty pine clutched the hanging noose.
Love made descent on the lofty pine,
He was suspended in the posture of prayer.
'Is thought a design of a sort, then?'
Buddha walked upon the moonlit shadows.
And asked one gentle soul.
I have a little windmill on my head
Which draws up water to my mouth and eyes
When I am hungry or moved to tears
I have a little horn full of the odour of absinth in my ears
And on my nose a green parakeet that flaps its wings
And cries 'Aux Armes'
When from the sky fall the seeds of the sun
The absence from the heart of steel
At the bottom of the boneless and stagnant realities
Is partial to crazy sea-fish
I am the captain and the alsatian at the cinema
I have in my belly a little agricultural machine
That reaps and binds electric flex
The cocoanuts thrown by the melancholy monkey
Fall like spittle into the water
Where they blossom again as petunias
I have in my stomach an ocarina and I have virginal faith
I feed my poet on the feet of a pianist
Whose teeth are even and uneven
And sad Sunday evenings
I throw my morganatic dreams
To the loving turtle-doves who laugh like hell.
Morning trickles over the bruised vegetables
like a drop of sweat over the lines of my hand
I crawl over the ground
with stem and wrinkled mouth
the sun swells into the canals of monstrous leaves
which recover cemeteries harbours houses
with the same sticky green zeal
then with disturbing intensity there passes through my mind
the absurdity of human groupings
in these lines of closely packed houses
like the pores of the skin
in the poignant void of terrestrial space
I hear the crying of birds of whom it used to be said
that they sang and implacable resembled stones
I see flocks of houses munching the pith of the air
factories which sing as birds once sang
roads which lose themselves in harvests of salt
pieces of sky which become dry on verdigris moss
a pulley's creaking tells us that a bucket rises in a well
it is full of limpid blood
which evaporates in the sun
nothing else will trouble this circuit on the ground
until evening
which trembles under the form of an immense pinned butterfly
at the entrance of a motionless station.
*
in secret
be quiet say nothing
except the street be full of stars
and the prisoners eat doves
and the doves eat cheese
and the cheese eats words
and the words eat bridges
and the bridges eat looks
and the looks eat cups full of kisses in the orchata
that hides all with its wings
the butterfly the night
in a cafe last summer
in Barcelona
The feet of morning the feet of noon and the feet of evening
walk ceaselessly round pickled buttocks
on the other hand the feet of midnight remain motionless
in their echo-woven baskets
consequently the lion is a diamond
on the sofas made of bread
are seated the dressed and the undressed
the undressed hold leaden swallows between their toes
the dressed hold leaden nests between their fingers
at all hours the undressed get dressed again
and the dressed get undressed
and exchange the leaden swallows .for the leaden nests
consequently the tail is an umbrella
a mouth opens within another mouth
and within this mouth another mouth
and within this mouth another mouth
and so on without end
it is a sad perspective
which adds an I-don't-know-what
to another I-don't-know-what
consequently the grasshopper is a column
the pianos with heads and tails
place pianos with heads and tails
on their heads and their tails
consequently the tongue is a chair
the biological
and dynastic phenomenon
which constitutes the cubism
of
Picasso
has been
the first great imaginative cannibalism
surpassing the experimental ambitions
of modern mathematical physics.
* * *
The life of Picasso
will form the polemic basis
as yet misunderstood
according to which
physical psychology
will open up anew
a niche of living flesh
and of darkness
for philosophy.
* * *
For because
of the materialist
anarchic
and systematic thought
of
Picasso
we shall be able to know physically
experimentally
and without need
of the new psychological 'problematics'
of kantian savour
of the gestaltists
all the misery
of
localized and comfortable
objects of consciousness
with their lazy atoms
sensations infinite
and
diplomatic.
* * *
For the hyper-materialist thought
of Picasso
proves
that the cannibalism of the race
devours
'the intellectual species'
that the regional wine
already moistens
the family trouser-flap
of the phenomenologist mathematics
of
the future
that there exist extra-psychological
'strict appearances'
intermediary betweenimaginative grease
and
monetary idealisms
between
passed-over arithmetics
and sanguinary mathematics
between the 'structural' entity
of an 'obsessing sole'
and the conduct of living things
in contact with the 'obsessing sole'
for the sole in question
remains
totally exterior
to the comprehension
of
the
gestalt-theory
this theory of the strict
appearance
and of the structure
does not possess
physical means
permitting
analysis
or even
the registration
of human behaviour
vis-à-vis
with structures
and appearances
presenting themselves objectively
as
physically delirious
for
there does not exist
in our time
as far as I know
a physics
of psycho-pathology
a physics of paranoia
which can only be considered
as
the experimental basis
of the coming philosophy
of
psycho-pathology
of the coming
philosophy of 'paranoiac-critical' activity
which one day
I shall try to envisage polemically
if I have the time
and the inclination.
Not a star will remain in the night.
The night itself will not remain.
I will die and with me the sum
Of the intolerable universe.
I’ll erase the pyramids, the coins,
The continents and all the faces.
I’ll erase the accumulated past.
I’ll make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I gaze at the last sunset.
I am listening to the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no-one.
Cyclones
of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl
crusaders
from hallucinatory citadels
of shattered glass
into evacuate craters
A flock of dreams
browse on Necropolis
From the shores
of oval oceans
in the oxidized Orient
Onyx-eyed Odalisques
and ornithologists
observe the flight
of Eros obsolete
And "Immortality"
mildews
in the museums of the moon
I’ll push your shit in and stuff your face--
Aurelius, you cocksucker; Furius, you little bitch--
since you think that my little poems
have gone soft and I must not be too upright!
It’s true; the devoted poet should stand erect
in his values, but not necessarily in his little
poems, which are truly witty and charming
when they're a little soft, and not too stiff,
but can still cause a little tingling--
I don't just mean for youth, but for hairy men
who can't make their own loins stand upright!
You! You read about my 'many kisses'
and doubt I'm fully a man?
I’ll push your shit in and stuff your face.
i was sitting in mcsorley's. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.
Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless
creases of screaming warmth chuck pillows are noise funnily swallows
swallowing revolvingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or
a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings
intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath,upsoarings the
break on ceiling-flatness
the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warmlyish
wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush
of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-of-drops she says I ploc spittle
what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he's a
palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple
together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who's
a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly foot-steps
every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller
belch the chap hie summore eh chuckles skulch….
and i was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale,which never
lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was
punctuated by the always retchings of a worthless lamp.
when With a minute terrif iceffort one dirty squeal of soiling light
yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established
It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle
the filth of a collar hung gently.
(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless
nondescript genie of trunk trickled firmly in to one exactly-mutilated
ghost of a chair,
a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoulders,sprouted the extraordinary arms
through an angle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an unclean table,and,whose
distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug
gone Darkness it was so near to me,i ask of shadow won't you have a drink?
(the eternal perpetual question)
Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley's It,did not answer.
outside.(it was New York and beautifully,snowing
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
and all day the black ants climb over them,
boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away
to their dark, underground cities ---
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?
The known-unknown-bottomed gossamer waves of the field
arc coloured by the travelling shadows of the lonely,
orphaned meadow lark;
At shadeless noon, sunful-eyed,—the crazy, one-inch butterfly
(dethroned angel?) roams about, her embodied shadow
on the secret-chattering hay-tops, in the sabre-light.
The Universe, too, has somewhere its shadow;—but what
about my songs?
An there be no shadow, no echoing to the end,—my broken-
throated flute will never again be made whole!
The toy
become the aesthetic archetype
As if
some patient peasant God
had rubbed and rubbed
the Alpha and Omega
of Form
into a lump of metal
A naked orientation
unwinged unplumed
—the ultimate rhythm
has lopped the extremities
of crest and claw
from
the nucleus of flight
The absolute act
of art
conformed
to continent sculpture
—bare as the brow of Osiris—
this breast of revelation
an incandescent curve
licked by chromatic flames
in labyrinths of reflections
This gong
of polished hyperaesthesia
shrills with brass
as the aggressive light
strikes
its significance
The immaculate
conception
of the inaudible bird
occurs
in gorgeous reticence . . .
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed
her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn
as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.
Before she did the thing, she went over her life.
She started at the beginning and recalled everything—
all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.
This took her a long time into the night
and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—
until sleep captured her and bore her down.
She dreamed of a green pasture and a green oak tree.
She dreamed of cows. She dreamed she stood
under the tree and the brown and white cows
came slowly up from the pond and stood near her.
Some butted her gently and they licked her bare arms
with their great coarse drooling tongues. Their eyes, wet as
shining water, regarded her. They came closer and began to
press their warm flanks against her, and as they pressed
an almost unendurable joy came over her and
lifted her like a warm wind and she could fly.
She flew over the tree and she flew over the field and
she flew with the cows.
When the woman woke, she rose and went to the mirror.
She looked a long time at her living self.
Then she went down to the kitchen which the sun had made all
yellow, and she made tea. She drank it at the table, slowly,
all the while touching her arms where the cows had licked.
I remember the king passed massive amounts
of inarticulate feeling into law.
I envied all the beautiful things.
Sometimes I called my own name.
I have cursed myself why do I have
so many strange questions. I tried to cram myself
with the gentler things so as to release
some suppressed inclination. My name is
Woodtangle. I remember my mother
when she wore yellow was beautiful
like a finch and then she died. I remember
thinking my father was mean but knowing he
was kind. I remember thinking my father was
kind but knowing he was mean. I remember thinking
all things are made of themselves examples of the
same thing. And Everyman the next day would follow.
I remember thinking the world ended a long time ago
but no one noticed. I remember every dinner
at Vespaio with Tomaz and the Saturday night
the antique cars paraded by for an hour
and I couldn’t breathe for the fumes and I was happy.
I remember thinking the sexual signficance of
everything seemed absurd because we are made of
time and air (who cares) and then I remembered
the day the king passed massive amounts of inarticulate
feeling into law he threw a cherry bomb into the crowd
and I thought it was fruit and I ate it.