Into 39 I pause & take a break
To toss these passing thoughts like
Leaves into great salad. Like life
At 30 minutes, Sophie was whisked
Into Intensive Care, my mother's
Mother died in childbirth, and Truth
Or Consequences, no I take it back,
The Price is Right, today became
The Longest-Running Half-hour in the
History of Recorded Time. I'll sit
On this, you stand around, & that's
The way it is, 12:36 am, 10 March 1987.
_________________________________________________
FUR ELIZABETH & STUART & EVERYBODY ELSE
The kids! The kids won't go to bed anymore!
& it's not the ones who are 18, sure they
Won't, & I wouldn't either when I was
Their age -- why, I wasn't even a kid at 18,
I was a man, much more of a man then than now,
If being a man means being el jerko which it seems
To in 1988: The Twilight of the Twentieth Century. No,
I'm talking about you're one year old & there's a stranger
In your room, & you're yelling and screaming at Life as it
Pulls you through & only your mother can tell you how. Now,
Now. As, meanwhile, a Cool Guy of barely turning 40 today,
Actually - Happy Birthday! like a flame in the sky, fog
Rolling over the Second Peak taking second peek at Elizabeth,
While she's not watching, one foot barely touching the ground,
The other
is nowhere to be found. For stability's sake
We have to move time zones like fragrances, or bees. That's
What we've got noses for, to keep 'em busy as bees,
Like the hive of us, here, pumping out Thought's blue sky --
Inflatable Memory, rugged Truth, no BS, all in a mesh,
Shit! What am I talking about?! I'm not a poet at the party,
It's a party -- & I'm never going to go to sleep again! Either.
_________________________________________________
ON TURNING 40 W/ A PARTY
(& A COLD)
(& WRITER'S BLOCK)
& FEET CLEAN & SHINY LIKE ASKING FOR MORE
"Madness invited you here tonight!"
Personifies a year of my life
Spent it in a mausoleum
Year one: No memories - linoleum
39 more crawling to this old cold curb
Carrying my father's body to his perch
A shot of overreaction waiting in a glass
Simple trip to corner: Future, meet Past!
Aiyiyi-alliances of Birth & Death scuttle the phone
Feet clean and shiny like asking for more
Man the manifestos! There are limits to experience
Still jumping out of windows, falling forever delirious
The breeze has a warm spot in it
The bird flies into the room
"Nothing inspires! Everything bothers!"
I'm not a poet?- who cares! Night rocks moon
_________________________________________________
A WEDDING TOAST TO JON & OSA BOROFSKY
Here in Japan, the decaf cappaccinos!
The Swedish tangos! The disco chandeliers!
Resonating rainstorms
On the darkening Swedish plain
So we gather for the photo
"The Life of the Artist is the Art of Life"
A Toast to Time! as Bride & Groom
Become Husband & Wife
_________________________________________________
for Bob Moskowitz
Two guys try to lift a rock
Their dog howls at the moon
"Is that the sun or the moon up there"
"I'd like to help you fellows, but
I'm sorry, I'm from out of town"
Red Cross (black on white)
_________________________________________________
CHANGING THE FUTURE OF US CULTURE
Just what the world needs
It's what the world needs
Another poem and no irony
Everywhere the poems are falling
Drifting to earth on windcurrents
Charted by poets who want the poems
To fall into the right hands, we want
The poets are always wanting, we want
The hands are folded & the poems slip
In and take root and begin changing the future
The future of US culture as much as TV, eyes hunger
For poem, eat poem, nourish this dream that we're awake
_________________________________________________
Here dear hold this Real
Loose and unwrap that Nice
Touch you got there Now
Brush the rush blush the Same
Skin dear it's not the Same
Hum yumma yumma
Hum yumma yumma
Throw the bucket out Out
Open the shades shout Shout
Catch shadows and laugh Hoot
Plow the walls dissolve Hot
Everything solid melt Hot
Hum yumma yumma
Hum yumma yumma
Barrel honey laps Tongue
Quicksand red spice mouths Mouth
Jumpstart volcano go Go
Uncover cover lover Agree
Come on come on, take it from Me
Hmmmmmmmmm yum yum
Hmmmmmmmmm yum yum
Hum yumma yumma
Hum yumma yumma
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
_________________________________________________
Mutual disenchantment was setting in!
As if water would dissolve love like
Paper - & what is paper, Love? What is
Under your hat. Guess the riddle which is
Never snuffed out so that it may burn
Longer: Happiness is mortal.
I want to be your girlfriend.
The Reader's egotism demands that emotion be served,
Not second helpings of wit. Already the water has begun
To lift ink from the page, turning it into weak
Ink, black water, blank page. Sure I know smelling
& thinking are the same thing, but as some brilliant
Critic once croaked, "What does it mean?" It means
Exasperation, a goat on a well searching for a fig leaf.
You can believe it in the morning
Even as you cry yourself to sleep at night.
You can write it all down
But the words are all made up
As lovers do, continually....
How sweet the jasmine in the blue evening!
Much too sweet, it is true, under this bitter moon.
Ebbtide is rushing in as we sit on the dock of the bay,
Having forgotten how to swim. We know. We know it all.
We know up, we know down, we just don't know which is
Which anymore. That is the noon whistle, I mean the fire
Engine's siren. I say, even the cicadas take a break.
Indeed, I know what love is.
It is no secret, but you must
Forget it as I have to pass it
On. She read my future in ant hills.
I wrote a novel in the ashtray. In
It the world was ashes, but the ashes
Could grow. You could burn them, they
Would turn into trees which never stop
Growing. Trees are people, too. They watch
Our every move. They have roots. They appreciate
A nice rain. . Uncomplaining. They know how to
Say goodby. When we die, trees grow
From Our hearts. Burning. Turning to ashes.
_________________________________________________
Talking about coffee over coffee
after coffee
This is morning, you forgot
How memories can steam
in a hot quiet cloud
A blue line falls across love's
face, as if the diagonal were
a new direction
The only direction we'll ever need
Is up, as in get up
Out, as in get out of bed
For now, it's a cup
with two handles
Horizontally yours,
Wish you were here and you are
_________________________________________________
How kind to allow tongue to caress ear!
Enchanted, I am sure. Of course - wipe it
With this cloth, I am sure. Provided for just
This purpose. Causing flesh to pink,
Create new skin of smear.
The torch of physicality - Burn! phosphoric Presence! -
These restless words bind to your ear,
Not only to hear and be heard, but bear
And be born, as in "bear with me," as
In "bare our souls as we twin" as in
"Katy, bar the door." One thing does
And does not lead to another. If
You could only hear what I see, what a world
It would be. Not only beat-up and dented,
Pocked, dimpled and splattered, but plowed
And furrowed, with little green things growing
Across the mossy plain - that is your forehead,
My tablet, and clearing now, a clearing, a place
To sit and think, quiet now, hush ear.
_________________________________________________
for Joanne & Chip,
Landfall, 7/27/88
The Magic of Life! is that it isn't
Magic at all, but Implacable Inexorability
Leaves plenty of room for us to invent
Grand dreams of the Fantastical Paradisiacal
Our minds make up to be Real Deal, that is,
Our Lady of the Kimonos & Our Daddy Who Art
Not Anywhere in Particular, even as the waves
Bring ripples with them, fortunately, & meanwhile
At our toes, it is up to us to interpret this
Lapping, a task required not by the Sea, but by
Ourselves, reinventing the World as Paradise
Humanized, possessed by us, even as we know
That it is we ourselves who are possessed,
Not by Magic, as we'd guessed, but by the World
Itself: at one with it, just as we sleep,
Becalmed, as in Love, where the Beloved's
Secret is to be the Lover, even as the Waves
Continue rippling still in the deep arms of Night.
_________________________________________________
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVAVA!
from Sophia Murray Holman
You make up a word
Then you say, "Evava,
I love you!" So the word
Is blue, very blue.
Now what? Do we say
"Green? Very green?"
What color does green and red make?
Does blue and red make?
This is a question for you, Evava.
Your papa is a poet
Just like mine
Your mama is a painter
Just like mine
What color does green and red make?
What color does blue and red make?
This is a question for you, Evava.
Happy birthday, Evava!
_________________________________________________
Have I come to you, nor from trying
To appease the habit of touch. This
Is not just to say, or talk myself over
A cliff, step step. Once I loved you
I couldn't be stopped, slapping the breakfast
Onto the floor & then kick it out the door
Down the stair out on the street. Just following
The little scrambled egg scraps washing downstream.
_________________________________________________
To sleep in - tick-tock. I can't set the alarm for your next emergency,
It will emerge in a going of blush some hot o'clock when Love is finally
Unrationed and joins her cousin Irrational. We must go and pull out the poison
Ivy, friend, hand by hand. Then we will walk across fire, save the icon in the pine
Forest, pluck hot ouzo bottle from charred bucket, and douse our sponge (head)
In song. The simple life: sky as hat. Earning our daily bread by swimming the old
Mill stream, stirring up water so the big wheel keeps on turning as the grist
Grinds itself. The doctor nods so patiently, wearily, expectantly, nervously, and
Delivers an "Is that so?" so delicately that you know it is just so, that you hadn't
Realized just how so it was. That old so-and-so, he was just so-so. Sheesh, if
I were you I'd resign effective immediately and get a day job of some sort, a
Carhop, or a surveyor. Part II. It is very important to forget an occasional meal,
To allow that officious Team of Socializers to betray themselves. Ach! The wine-
Dark sea was never winier, he cracked, but I heard "whinier" as the Aegean begged
To list his complaints. A typo? On and on it went, a curvy trail up Mt. Olympus.
What happened was they needed the top! Part III. In the blink of a wink she had
Wrapped me in a sheet, but I did not know if I were a shrouded corpse, a toga-ed
God, or a sauna-toweled tool. I was completely in her hands, beautifully
calloused,
Exquisitely veined. In the Land of the statues, they sculpted the living, and she was
The Ideal. Such subtlety in the mouth, an abstract kiss, possessing a spirit so
Generous - I was stopped altogether. No recourse. The language couldn't contain
Us, hopelessly sentiment-filled as it was. Iron filings burst into bloom. As for
You who want more words: Keep still. Observe. And memorize "Clouds on
the Hill."
_________________________________________________
- for Spring '88 Babies:
Reiko Lily Hannan,
Francesca Bochner,
& Daniel Alan Cook
This morning you know
Gray & lush, like you
New guys with raw eyes
How I love you so
To think of you and laugh
At your silly parents rushing
Around scrambling Life's eggs
While you dwell on meaning or
Perhaps not meaning, gently
In your Coat of Secrets - so
Sleep and I will change you
Sky Diapers, anything you say
_________________________________________________
Here -- you drink,
I'll write.
The sun's gone down. We won't
be needing it anymore,
So let's tape these blossoms
back on this tree.
The branches waving
their naked arms: "Help! Help!"
Hey, hold the ladder steady, you!
"Help! Help!"
_________________________________________________
I talk like this but I don't stop
The way this does
Sometimes
Language arches direct
These words held so tight
We'd be kissing
But I'm too busy talking
There is that element of my speech
That it tends to go on