The Return of Shredded Millions
by Claire Burch
1.
Little Mozarts saved my life.
as they got born I heard a sound
that led me back to Peaked Hill Bars
and mallomars and birds that whir
with winged warrior eyes and ears.
For a whole year I tiptoed in to hear them breathe.
Oh God I cried, if you let Mozarts stay alive
I'll give you everything I've got.
He let them live
I thank him now.
They are the music that I hear
and bountiful and question mark and more.
2.
I saw you once going to that place men go to sometimes alone
sometimes.
I saw you wandering to that spot above the you know what
sometimes.
I saw you hiding head in clouds of pine branches sometimes.
I knew you hiding in that man secret again
that Garden of Eden again.
He doing his job, mama,
flying over ghetto like sea gull lots of times.
Don't want to listen to the Go here, do this, do that,
and stand on line you know.
Those cosmic shopping centers-he don't want much of that stuff, just sound enough to go.
Maybe it starts at upturned shades of Spring you know.
A young man's fancy turns to New Canada and places last years
hippies go.
Fingers and mouth alive with reed, the flute, blues harp,
he bust his lip sometimes,
He bust his hand sometimes.
I saw you singing in that high note (where'd you go?)
Your mother she want to know, your girifriend want to know.
Sometime to places my more than colleague goes.
We clutch each other's hand, he steers, man's a man for all that where best laid plans of Mice and Men
gang aft aglay
bert had third degree burns and lived, get it? O.K.
Man . sometimes our mothers say
a job well what's a job? It all depends on-
Who's going to take out the garbage?
(as for me I like to - everyone's different)
Your notes say some do some regular like everyone
and then go flying like some white bellied gull
the flute, the strings, guitar, blues harp, and cup of tea
with sugar sometimes, if no sugar still those notes to go and
higher still.
3.
I saw you in that all alone place men (I should say people) go
when they had all they could of shoveling horse manure
Spring' s maybe this time on the way.
Last week they almost toted me away you know
Had me on stacks in libraries. Some space ships came
kept taking me to higher stacks in libraries and then two roads.
"These woods are lovely dark and deep"
but I have promises too steep you know.
4.
Joseph Heller catching hell from-
Yossarian caught a reparation-
Twenty two-will Jimmy Baldwin
ever win a Nobel Prize?
Shit-I stepped on-Catch Twenty Two, Three,
Dyad, Triad, Trinity, Four,
Catch a writer by his pecker
recall the splendor of long underwear.
Ladies rooms of the world unite.
I female am, but still Kilroy was here.
Was dog in heat
primordial hot dog?
Doggy heat was ( pass the salt.)
Fresh bread gets stale in His
Amazing Kingdom.
Everything breaks, Catch Twenty
all you can.
Catch even Heller with his
ding dong flaccid.
So it be now and since this
riff began.
Still, Mazeltov unless you
play to win.
6.
7.
and all the time we were hiding in the trees
we play no game it is raining now outside
without a name we go rolling down the days
and I went out to water.
I go but time in the endings of the ways
hello old friend we could find our way around
not so to blame it was clear right from the start
and I went out to water.
The Amen Corner all the time
a rock a stone the sand a star
John Lennon Eighty One
lost blue lantern in a nest of iron
a rock a stone the sand a star.
John Lennon man of the working class
John Lennon he went on ahead.
Ring around the rosy. All fall down.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Where have all John Lennons gone?
a rock a stone the sand a star.
Your mother is a flower still and your father is
a pure flower too
so don't be frightened anymore
there is nothing more to be frightened of.
do lord oh do lord, oh do remember me. Do remember me.
The last I heard it was raining hard outside
so sad and cold like the time I thumbed a ride
it changed agin while I held my breath and prayed
and I went out to water.
John Lennon, Lennon eighty one
lost blue lantern on a bed of thorns
that's the way the world began
8.
The last I heard we were hiding in the trees
the past true word it was hot and dry outside
a small grey bird just looking for the shade
and I went out to water
Life's so absurd it was raining hard outside
so sad and cold like the time I thumbed a ride
it changed again while I held my breath and prayed
and I went out to water.
Take me take me up to Zion
take me take me while there's time
all I want is your sweet land sweet honey
take me take me while there's time.
Eskimo pie, what happened? eskimo pie
where John Lennon and Charlie Parker are
a rock a stone the sand a star.
Your mother is a flower still and your father is
a pure flower too
so don't be frightened anymore
there is nothing more to be frightened of.
do lord oh do lord, oh do remember me. Do remember me.
10.
Open City Open Season I believe in Beulah land.
I believe Beulah Land is the best we'll ever have.
Open city take a stand I believe in Beulah land.
Furry feathers torn and pinnioned still the best we've ever had.
time to lose and time to find
we're swimming in a windstorm
and wanting to be home
frightened we must make a stand
coward take my coward's hand
(I saw it in a movie once)
Beulah land my Beulah land
dreaming of some small string band
Cold bed. Babe took off for parts unknown.
Cold bed. Time bursting in a spitfire green.
Land sighted. Come tell me when its gone.
Tall stir cry, still wooded in a pile of grass.
Lost lamb plays fire on a shred of tree
seeing a foal of feathers in a deersong.
Cold bed. Oh it's no fun when your love's gone
You can find another love but it's a long time
till it's the same.
12.
Westward the women don't put it down
Now there's nothing left to hide
sweet trolley ride
I believe in everything and
days of heaven and charades and
all the time to play
sharing a bright sunny day
I believe in lemonade and
sights of heaven and parades and
I hear Beulah Land as the promised Land
And John Lennon Plastic Ono Band.
I wanna hold your hand
Just got here. Almost jonked on the road
Felt like nothing. Remembered Ma Joad
.She got through to California.
13.
you're a baby of the golden age
it will soon be here.
Punch that time clock
thread heart's needle
While tomorrow's choice floats by
Sharing an unsunny day.
sweet heaven and the golden face
a little slower let your mind run past
after a while
it will be better on the ferris wheel ride
did you ever see a fish that flies ?
did you ever see a bird swim by?
sharing a bright sunny day.
Story retold the best is yet to come
I know one Who just came home.
14.
Little Hamlet died in his sleep
when we woke he was gone, at the foot of the bed.
he was just a kitten who had wandered in
the world is sunny and the world is wide.
put him in the earth and count to ten
the world is sunny and the world is wide.
Hamlet come to Gertrude mother of the world
sharing an unsunny day
Bird said it-we put him down
with the Adams and Eves in the Gardens of Eden
long way home. Time is mine
little one rest in a sweeter day
and I went out to water.
15.
Alameda sweetie Okay to take the Bart
No picnic of illusion Break a sweetie heart
Open city forever Forever old parade
Alameda sweetie Charge the light brigade
Alameda sweetie Dylan said it true
You have to serve somebody serve somebody
or he'll take it all away.
Alameda sweetie minutes drip like rain
Open up the glass door and sweetie you'll be gone.
have a flying vision Eat an orange lollipop
Alameda sweetie please let's not give up
Alameda baby So sleepy. Need a nap.
16.
Taxi was how we last saw them, heading towards the Upper West Side. Taxi was how we lost them, heading towards the Upper West Side. Worrying about it, but I couldn't go along on that ride.
California wine in the days of wine and roses.
Top of the line crying Holy sing his praises.
The fire next time if the chance arises.
Walking down to the store to get some beer and a nice cherry pie. Walking down to the store to get some beer and a nice cherry pie. Caught my foot in a door. I'm going back there anyway.
See I asked you to get out and I didn't mean just out of town.
Don't have much money, but enough to start over again.
Caught my foot in a door, but I'm going back home anyway.
Can't someone help me
I'm a mile outside of Lintz.
Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Pepsi. Pepsi.
Fish sandwich. Fish sandwich. O.J. O.J.
Just before closing feet hurting blues.
17.
Baby baby we've been worried
maybe time will make it better
Native son those Amen corners
Milk train's gone too long
Seasonal work. We're engaged in seasonal work.
Don't put Mae's remember feather in your secret
before we actually came to terms with something we forgot
before.
What's for lunch?
time to climb into your vintage Ford and pretty baby.
Milk trains gone too long.
Iost my classical records in some fire of the mind
what's for lunch?
So we could cat's eye upon a tattered throne.
We've been around this city too long for our own good
we've been around this city too long for our own good
we've got each other but we can't live on love.
Susie Creamcheese caught the gold ring
where's my can of beer?
sunnyside up two over lightly and a toasted English muffin
you can munch on Good and Plenties when the elevator's broken
seasonal work we're engaged in seasonal work.
O'Neills bound east for Cardiff and Jimmy's west of Eden
which one of them was a native son?
Moon for the Misbegotten in another country
Waiting at The Amen Corner while The Iceman Cometh. What's for
lunch?
and all the circles in the square have said nobody knew his name.
Jimmy the milktrain's gone so long
maybe Giovanni's room said it.
18.
The Great God Brown's Long Voyage Home
The Emperor Jones there is no other country.
seasonal work, we're engaged in seasonal work
what's for lunch?
California wine in the days of wine and roses
top of the line. Crying holy. Sing his praises
the fire next time if the chance arises.
I stood on the corner and I looked down the street
and that was still some far out time.
19.
I've been waiting for a long time.
I've been wondering what new myth to make or break.
Not lonely.
Starting to get around a walk in space.
I've been flying in your head since ages ago.
Make believe is all we ever get to know.
See exploded cities in my face, O see exploded cities in my face.
I walk the past.
I walk the tight rope and the past I walk the past.
If magic were logic
it wouldn't have happened
but we and the planets were ready.
Carl Jung said okay we could try
it might have happened anyway
sharing a bright sunny day.
It's more than interpersonal
and less than neanderthal
revealing the ice age insight plight
that a wake's where they finally
truly and finally
let you dismount and sleep.
And if this ending doesn't make sense
the family will understand
because I'm just some country girl from New York
and he's just a grownup man
from some grownup college town tra la
from some grownup college town.
20.
Constantinople
When your body takes a plane
takes a trip
goes to Constantinople.
Rago's first Christmas on this bald mountain
toupeed by trees and houses. I'd walk a million miles
for one of your views-the past is there.
Was the past real? Wasn't it always old times?
Get moving blues-
but man you bend the landscape with your eyes.
The old good morning blues
what's happening today?
The word Rago, the word!
Lay odds that you will still prevail.
Jerry Garcia in the audience
still grateful to be tuned to you.
Which side are you on Lord?
Will Rago ride down today?
Hello hello Jay Gatsby
I really enjoy your view.
The weed is as high as a pipefitter's pay.
Will Rago ride down today?
Two roads iced oved in a Robert Frost
Which side are you on Lord?
Rago I dig your view.
Black and white is pink and blue and all us twins are green
Well I wanna be buried under the bar like Dylan Thomas was
Had a little tote half an hour ago
Winter got my heart on the dole
lost my Notes of a Native Son
Will Rago ride down today?
21.
Der rebbe hut geheisen freilach sein.
The purpose of the porpoise may be mine.
The dolphin may be closer to divine.
They got to Haight Ashbury in the wrong year.
The clinics closed and they can't get high.
"You'll never know if you don't know now."
After a while it happened and we weren't able to change it back.
Nobody swam the English channel without breathing hard.
Let's not assume that pelicans have sisters, they just don't.
Things break off easy in the human condition
and they don't grow back for all our wishing.
Which year was the real year?
Which war was the real war?
Rago got to Berkeley in the right year.
Rago traveled astral. Got out of his body in the right year.
Had a pipe dream and looked down on the town.
The milktrains gone too long.
The Amen Corner James.
"I'll get by. My little Marjie. My creole belle."
Sleigh ride. Remember Rosebud. Remember Rago.
Remember long hill, five years away. Stuck in some Robert Altman Nashville of the mind.
22.
And when true lovers spoon they still stay windowpaned.
Or rather cheek to cheek or rather tongue in cheek.
A belly wops the way it happened.
We can't be sure.
We can't be sure of having dinner two towns away
sleigh ride-remember long hill-remember Jimmy nine worlds away
tell me how long the milk train's gone those Amen corners
remember long hill
the fire next time five towns away
After a while things happen and we aren't able to change them back
nobody swam the English Channel without breathing hard
let's not assume that pelicans have sisters-they just don 't
things break off easy in the human condition
and they don't grow back for all our wishing.
Rago got to Berkeley in the right year
Rago travelled astral, got out of his body in the right year
had a pipe dream and looked down on the town
Rago Rago that's Charlie's other name
Rago Rago how shall you wander home
who is Rago?
23.
Ma, Ma, the music's more important than the word.
Wees crying because we ain't birds
See ma, life's a comedy yes, right.
Well they got it pegged that all ya can do
Is squawk and yammer and katzenyammer.
I'm the only true black and blue jew
And I'm singing the crazy folk black and blue blues
Crazy is crazy and black's a true jew
And I'm singing the crazy white black and blue blues.
Allan Ginsburg, (Cohen, my brother, all my brothers)
To Hip or not be flip, that is the question
The stereophonic bleep that jammed the john
Has burnt the topless dancers of Illium
The Trojan Horse has cloven hoof tonight.
Small matter that this funny shmaltzy karma
Shall be in immortality the thing most sought for.
Remembered with nostalgia and pink haze
As well - Joe Hill-Jose-the "good old days."
And if carefully chosen
24.
find Skyboss in the Berkeley hills.
Card carry for that pie in sky.
Which side are you on Lord'? Which side are you on.
The breaks Al, the breaks.
Sign on board American dream. It's ours. Buck Mulligan stew.
So stand still.
has anybody seen my book of Job?
I had the pages marked.
Rago and Charlie are the same man
hey babe remember Charlie's brigade
25.
Sleep through one of your mornings oh lord
sleep through a moming till the next morning oh my lord
rise in an afternoon oh lord
to your sun dance there in the sky
they call it die oh lord waiting for the day
baby on a pillow of lace oh
blown out of your ice cold morning to the middle of time
sleep through one of your mornings oh lord
till the blanket stays wam
there on the sweet cream bed o lord
while the other part of me has done and gone
love in the afternoon like a gingerbread key
sleep through one of your mornings till the next day comes.
Wait for monning by noon watch and longer still
till the noon whistle rings in a song
sleep through the second of your mornings my lord
till your last morning is gone
do it if I can oh lord if I can.
26.
Looking out of Jimi Hendrix belly button whidow _
but an old long John.
Have to know the sky is backwards baby
before they can turn it around.
Well guess who's here? Blues of the year
I've got everybody else's blues baby. Everybody else's blues.
Meeting you at the Amen Corner again
Jimmy's come back.
that's all right give it all you've got
machine la de da did you?
"I saw the best minds of my generation" la de da.
well the sun rose in the east baby
don't know where it's going next
27.
28.
Guess I'll be going to The Fire Next Time
Will Rago ride down today?
Bone weary on a shooting star
card carry for your pie in the sky
Which side are you on boys? Whice side are you on?
"I saw the best minds of my generation"
blow in one morning in the back of a truck
Amen Corner in the driver's seat
Can Jimmy climb go tell it on his mountain?
Will Rago ride down today?
Catching a concert with the Fathers of Convention
am I blue?
29.
Miss White is black
and I am white.
James Baldwin said I had back dues
Jimmy, who's back dues we choose?
Miss White, social worker to jazzman One
Catch 22's and procrastinates him off the waiting line.
He goes home, plays music
Department of Occupational Rehabilitation some other time
easier to deal pot.
Miss White wants to be what my poor landsman
clutching your people's pennies instead of their own genitals
remembering Lidice caprice
and when the Stalin Hitler pact
became inglorious end to Robeson's proud clean call-
well I forget the start to this
how Faulkner wandered back I'll never know
(something about parentheses and clauses
dear Wilbur Strunk and Elements of Style)
a rose is a rose is a rose and Malcolm Brinnin
said it was the third rose that made the difference.
My sister calls across the century.
My sister and my mother-
Trying to please each other we all quivered
forgetting our own-the kids call it trip-
far out.. It's always Saturday Night Live where we are
30.
Yis ga dol v'yis ka dash shmey rabo
be almay malthuso
I learn about a line a year. I'm a slow learner
it's the intent that counts we were always told
being good children in the drugstore so
the customers would know some Jews were good.
Here's to the reward for running. California's just
like Westward the Women said it would be.
No more soap operas for Shredded Millions no more City Lights.
John Belushi raises his eyebrows and Jane Curtin reads Weekend Update and sings the latest hit. That Carole Lombard Nose, that Ingrid Bergman mouth.
31.
Now here's a man. Now here's a man.
The babel of women's voices filled . . .
The rose doth glow. The rose doth glow.
lt's time to come to terms you know-my little sunshine.
Lost Verunia planet of our
birth to float beyond this galaxy.
Lost Verunia where we spent the
first five hundred years of our brief life.
No return we live as exiles in
land we came to when we crashed in space.
Passage back is what we pray for now.
Birth to float beyond this frozen place.
Vody oh do. I'll get by.
Lost Verunia planet of our
birth to float beyond this galaxy.
32.
I ape your style a while
just sitting by your smile.
I'd walk a million bales for one of your tales
my Al Jolson's Mammy's son.
Clear set Mr. Tab is the instrument I play
been doing it a long, time and sort of know the way.
Those stringed instruments are fine for folks as do know how
but I've got my own way of touchin and ga doozen doozen doo.
Well maybe I can't, is how it might stack up.
If it turn out so, if it turn out so,
if it turn out so from my Western whatcha know-
can I still be your partner on your all night whistle stop gigs?
Where the dudes don't even show
the towns too little O
nobody knowing we are coming
and the coffee warmed so long
it frizzed your toothpick going in and your stomach
going down.
Can I can I can I can I can 1?
Yes you may.
33.
"I woke up in one morning
there was no food on the table to eat."
-Traditional
Once a classic ago in Lassie Come home days
an inventor with a small heart said "sweet ocean, go."
take the whimpers and be prepared
never to give or receive into a pebblestone, allowing force to show.
dampen the cloth to find a sweet sleep
home free, running around like small potatoes in time to come home.
Twice in a tattered tassle of a window box
we could build a wren's nest in a tree.
Open the fright heart and let byegones be byegones.
The third time we are invisible.
All the time. All the time. Falling asleep in yogurt and a tree.
Forgetting to stand or make a sound.
Commanded to silence we sit. Anti convulsants mask
the shiver that was needed once
to touch the keys and sound the sound inside.
La de da de la de de da
and that was how they brought us back
all day soon the silver song
goes sliding down the monkey's back
Your heart gets broke and you fall awake
and that is how your life began
all those tears dont bring it back
start again. It will be grand
all day long the silver song
goes sliding down the monkey's back.
all night long the little flag
beats like a birdwing at the shore
all those tears won't bring it back
start again. It will be grand.
34.
well I meant to roll in your haystack friend
before I left your town
only hey there was so much else to do
that the time it just went down
well I carried that haystack home on my arm
and I'm rolling around in it now
plenty of time to roll in the hay
and play that the fun's not gone
.
and all I am is a pleasure dome
ringing about some rain
needed it then to green my field
and wash away the stain
I meant to roll in your haystack friend
and its not like its now too late
it comes right back when I need it bad
and that's every day and night
and who's to say that the meadowland
that my heart walks through to the end
is one bit changed from the picnic in hell
you find when you look behind?
which isn't to say you should look ahead
since out of the side of your eye
you can still see heaven in an achetype bed
made of oats please beans and memory please
myth dreams please and Artfully please
like some short order Man on Rye.
35.
Lord's got my brain in an Amen Corner, Sky Boss,
and won't let it out till I open my mind.
Not really that easy to open your mind.
Love and cliches for sale in some piano bar.
I was singing in the wrong key.
It was probably the wrong year.
And the wrong war also.
The Fire Next Time James.
The Milk Train's gone too long.
And you have to be deaf, dumb and blind.
I wanted to go but suddenly didn't know how.
I wanted to stay but suddenly didn't know why.
And you wanted to be what you were and you still are
The long day's iceman cameth but he's gone.
Rolling down and falibig over it's a Coney Island ride.
There was no way.
Hold the mayo, the waitress said.
If the light still shines on all my sugar cane
I'll have to ask a question of you.
Well it's almost time.
Birthday was your name. Have to find an answer for you.
In your space awhile
Find it fire and wine
Think it should work out
Daisies and la de da.
If you want to fly to Christmas get your ticket now.
They have a fire sale going in the sky.
Don't sign my checks until I'm gone.
Lord's got my brain in an Amen Corner, Sky Boss,
And won't let it out till I open my mind.
Not really that easy to open your mind.
36.
Shma yisroel adoinoy eloihanu adonoy echod.
Baruch shame kevode malchuso layolum vaw ed. Boray puree
hagorfen.
You were so mean to me in the good old days.
You were so good to me in the bad old days.
All those furry monkeys at the Bronx Zoo.
Where is Prospect Park now that we need her.
They promised us. Too late the phalaropes.
Woody Allen's back again
and out the firescape.
Therefore George Gershwin
discovered to his horror
that the prince was the lady in disguise.
(Not really that easy to open your eyes.)
Three fairy tale pigeons on a Mr. Lucky.
Friends got my brain in a spaghetti factory.
sunshine helps you see.
Bird said it. Bird said it.
All the ripoffs really said it.
Love for sale in a seedy piano bar.
The milk trains gone too long.
The Amen Corner James.
You can't get to heaven in a devil T Shirt.
37.
It's a tossup Mae is the long, and the short of it.
Unbelievable choices Mae.
The family's breaking up.
l see what you meant Mae.
You have been in another country James.
.Which year was the real year?
Which war was the real war?
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto.
Like Dylan Thomas arriving at a ball game,
or the construction workers sandwiches that always smell better than
your own.
Westward the women don't put it down
Heroes past and heroes present
dream of lemon pie and angels
don't put it down don't put it down.
Friends got my brain in an Amen Corner, Skyboss,
and won't let it out till I open my mind.
Not really that easy to open your mind.
Remember me when winter dogsled Rosebud.
Remember me when all the foodstamps are gone.
Don't sign my checks until I'm gone.
Remember me, I was the Alamo.
if I - please pass the ketchup.
Rain turned to Eastman Kodak, doesn't everyone?
And you have to be deaf, dumb and blind.
Rolling up and falling under it's a Coney Island ride.
There was no way.
Hold the mayo the waitress said.
38.
sleigh ride-remember long hill-remember Jimmy nine worlds away
tell me how long the milk train's gone those Amen corners
you have been in another country james sleigh ride, remember rosebud, remember long hill
the fire next time five towns away
After a while things happen and we aren't able to change them back nobody swam the English Channel without breathing hard
let's not assume that pelicans have sisters-they just don't
things break off easy in the human condition
and they don't grow back for all our wishing.
(Am I blue? A tisket a tasket I bought a yellow basket
waiting the skinny dipper or grim reaper.)
Blues for Mr. Charlie again. Someone's got Jimmy's l.D.
I said Blues for Mr. Charlie again. It made me and my girifriend cry.
Card carry for that pie in sky.
Which side are you on Lord. Which side are you on?
which year was the real year which year was the real
old songs are but old songs old sighs are but old sighs
milk trains gone too long Giavanni's room notes of a native son
Go tell it on the Amen corner
milk trains gone too long.
milk trains gone too long you've been in another country James
Giavanni's room gone
Go tell it on the Amen corner nobody knows your name
all my life baby to mime a dime what does that mean?
some lucid dream
Everybody's young or Joni Mitchell it's still the same
there will be time
la la la la la la la still in the game.
39.
Life has a way
of beating down
those that want
to be beaten down.
It takes their dash and their sap and juice.
Makes their hearts tight
and their bowels loose.
But those who
decide to stand up and fight
have a stockpile
of happiness and fantasy.
Is it reality?
Is it delusion.
They think it's equality.
Dine on confusion.
Serve themselves some
every morning and night
and ride down the road
in a solid gold illusion.
Gone is dear nobody.
And greatly to be praised.
In a high rise half uptown
with her taxi meter still clicking.
Beautiful on enterprises.
Floating face side up on earth.
Spent her life
as survivor of state.
Did she exist at all?
Nearer my god to thee. Ain't we got fun.
Even though it be a cross. Baruch hatoi.
Still all my songs shall be. Ain't we got fun.
Nearer my god to thee. Ain't we got fun.
40.
The place of the books is the father land,
peopled by uncles and girls, girls and uncles.
Oh oh, the hair of the bindings is showing
the wet press steaming and the new sheet unrolling.
All the pages are showing their ages
furtive, under folders, rejecting their elders.
The files of the wilder nascent young sages
are arranged as to salvage
by scholars and builders.
Magician Magician
born in the dark
makes, finds, sells books from his own deer park
and the ink sweet smell of the truth of the trade
makes it honorable work to be done with Care, Diligence, Precision, Patience, and Pride.
So up in the morning to Bookery on Thames
where the type flies quiet and the questions burn
and the wine of the dream from the paper on the tables
goes to bring people closer to the seers and their fables.
The books go down in the cracked bell city
but power to rise is the Case with the Type
Keep it together, try not to hurry.
Fish can spoil, but books can keep.
There go the books from the river to the schoolroom
in the time of Autumn in the Kitchen of Vision.
While the Father smiled worry, Swami ate his salami
and lunched on True Good Works, Folders
of Convincers, Boxes of Convert Carriers,
Cases of Castles in Spain, shipments of Cases
of Cosmoses.
41.
Good morning pa. How do you want your eggs?
I'll dance a Jungian jig
on the grave of a thug
during one of those milk-train-town whistle-stop gigs.
see whenever
recover
begins to dig deep
the bats in her bell
fry some fish on the rug
of the archetintypes
in her raggety pieces
scraps, leftover laces
in her under wear outable shibboleth
Robert D. Browning Last Duchess's bag.
To Elizabeth Barrett
is to sometimes be a gunner
in a gun turret.
she therefore and therefore and hertofore and wisely
respectfully declines
to be teacher or muse
to the man in the Zeus colored suit.
For his jeans dont disguise
his monachaval ways
that brought her to Crete
with her foot in her mouth
and done in an hour what could have been taking
the rest of her livey life life.
43.
My gal Sal met a catcher in the rye
never wanted to
can't help it
give my regards to motzi lechem min haoretz
can't help it.
Jack and Francine we sat
during the brief reign of King Sidarther
chattered of nothings in some restaurant
the Inca I guess and picked at pickled fish.
If you could have those other moments again Francine and Jack
what wish what moment led you from that West Village third floor
and why (two troubedours beneath it all)
you paused to turn and stare?*
what nightsight burnt the corners of your eyes
in some judgemental ways
that turned from Custer's Last Stand to finally coin
a cocktail party phrase
and stifle yawns at cleversewn repnse.
Strindberg to piece of string to remember-what?
we cross boxcars so fleeting going in opposite ways
pile apple pip on pip until the cores dry out
Ten Cents a Dance once optioned but you frowned
Joe had taken a nip too much at our meeting
and proofrocks piled above us and we drowned.
then weep no more my lady-he's just my Bill.
tell all the folks at forty second street
that we will soon be there
whisper of how I'm yearning to mingle with the old time throng
give my regards to-smile your off Broadway smile
yawn your off Broadway yawn tilll the waves
wash over us and Eliot and the hounds
of darkness bellow "come back come back"-our lives-
good fences make good neighbors, some spaced out dude
high on the honied suckle that is Earth
once said.
44.
list for tomorrow get halftones of Grandma and Grandpa's
Golden anniversary adversity adversary city it's all the same they stuck together, right? yes right.
there must have been something to it? right?
yes right.
some unsalted butter and some speaker wire
eggs and onions and a roll of stamps
shoo fly pie and pumpernickel stew. Him's the one I'm falling for
falling in love again never wanted to. What is Shredded Millions to
do?
can't help it.
inka dinka dink a dinka dink a dinka doo. You knew her when she
was golden.
Man suddenly she turned silver
That's how it goes right in the middle of
prose of some sort she turned silver
and melted during some unprogrammed phase.
Fluttering we skurtle across windy cities.
Okay now I'm going to say it like our mothers can understand.
Drawing six circles, hoping for grace.
I hold my tongue as in some honored place.
45.
ln reading the New York times about the life of Raymond Chandler
and crib deaths
you think: since it has been moist and foggy for five days
you should put in three quarters of the nasturtium seed on the sandy
spots
and the morning glory seeds in the spot near the fence where the sun
hits first.
You do your best and hope babies will live and talented mystery
story writers will prosper.
sometimes
due to unforseen circumstances
not much clearer now than one of those December thirty firsts
babies have apnea and meningitis and their breathing stops
nasturtiums get chewed by rabbits
morning glory seeds are scouted by birds before rooting
mystery writers are taken seriously long after their
self depreciations are psychically sorted out
time marches newsreel to newsreel on
and you accept maybe
and in a way that no amount of subsequent red cross courses
in mouth to mouth resusication
or professional advice on the care and feeding of north american
annuals
can change that somebody has to be the fall guy for
if seeds don't grow or in the case of crib deaths
everybody blames everybody.
Meadowbrook State Highway
Long Island Memorials.
46.
Crow music on some rain.
"Jane Jane, the morning sun creaks down again."
I see your face in every gust of wine.
Laugh five string banjo tunes and stay alive
in every corridor her no matter how far
I dream you splay winged and I dream you near.
Hey man, far out and splendid as it were.
Kite clouds sip coffee in a racing car,
precious and prince mid palaces and pleasures.
There's no place like show business
no business like home.
My band and me (two and a half decades
of a baroque clarinetto and fluto arrangement -
three minutes of blues irnproviconversation
are gonna hit the road at any station
(gotta learn to tap dance, right? was going to 606 dream)
precious to never forglow those smoking morning.
Cobblebone windings and Percussion tappings
Goodnight goodnight place named July that flight
where haunched inside my learning you went skinny dipping
bruising my calves to cows whereon that Milk, eventually dried.
No things ain't as the (footnote seeth no seem).
No things ain't as they (now see footnote, semen).
Well then so wouldn't have known
Dont, fleecewool kiss, be gone.
Alive, alive who basketed the melon.
"Babe, thy beauty is to me" you said
and butt my body to thine horizon line
(then bust your smile to my horizon line).
47.
how broken
Hoboken
how broken
is thee
Paterson's mother
wanted Hobokson
but Hoboken's son
didn't want her.
so Hobokus
New Jerseley
asked all choking (being broke at the time)
to move over
and Paterson's grandmother
asked Hoken's lover
for Hobukus's
phone number.
happy birthday
Paterson' grandmother and
grandma Bessie's old lover.
So Hoboken
if you ask for
your wishawish
remember
Grab your life and wet your pants
leave your culture on your father
as for me
I'm a rover
crossed over.
Grab your year and name your time
park your history in Hoboken.
Should auld traumatics be forgot
and myths of Freud's
paralyzing cog nettle scratch
judeocryptiantic based
inexistant
nonexistant
not to mustic
time?
48.
The men of Wales are closet in their pain.
No talk of animal shuffles, even of
Woman to Man or Sheep to bleating Sheep
(one's own dear nature from which there is by day
No fire or water escape).
I asked my little daughter
and her answer was a grimace
Am I a stoned Cassandra seer
or a simple horse's ass?
Is mamma a tragic figure or "a gas"?
Ultimately the ferry refugees
look for an itinerary in every shooting star,
but "I am scarred all over
and you cannot burn a scar".
Your move-chance-the players move down.
and the thrust into vagina, that once had
seemed a city, now seems a small town.
By accident (the way we all were born)
I Carnal Knowledged late my station and due.
Nothing to wail about knowing it might not last
hoping it might until the onions crow
and roosters walk in weightless space ship snow.
Celebrate your desire of my succulents
heart marrow ligament and leg's sweet split
torn joyful in a way I never knew
I also serve who only stand in fright.
49.
Vision without hallucigen
History without hello again
Land mescalled in this straight
warm whiskied Guiness place.
We found a crew of "bonkers" in a pub
played Abbey theater until the daft crew left.
The King good natured as always,
no surprise
No rapier slice to cutting edge of mind
Bone marrow fleshed. No chill of windsown in me.
I grow gold I grow gold
I wear the trousers of my farmers rolled
I do not think they will much sting me.
What incest security of need of yesses
that I typecast my vintage holiday
and leave that flight for shelter in some safety,
smothered in other, missing creaking cardboard
of danger sliced blood thin.
50.
I owe my rent again.
It's the time of month when certain realities based on
Mondays, creep into the consciousness.
I owe my month again. It's the time of rent when certain
Mondays based on realities creep into the consciousness.
I owe again. It's the time of went so certain realities
based on consciousness creep into the Mondays.
I go but when. It's the dime of worth when certain
bases conched on duality weep into the Mondays.
I grow Monday again. It's the crime of birth when
certain simplicities based on unrealities, weep into the
Mass Unconscious.
I do not owe my rent.
It is Tuesday, and Monday was the last time Reality
existed.
Conned by the Conscience of Consciousness
I once thought I owed my rent
unaware of how really much
my rent owed me.
51.
Meantime the replacement father figure, gentle also,
dined on Paris croissant, couscous, Cote Du Rhone
and dear too, sometimes-(in another way)
flew, buzzed the Air France plane of whirring worry.
They book passage to lreland now
the 606 made by another, last to sailing,
Well timed to circle with our celestial freighters.
Mother smiles melon lipped, she is the lamb of Wales
come from the chaos in the bone spur's breath.
She telephoned Jesus
and Moses wasn't there
asked Mohammed for a tip on the daily double
he said Jehovah's here.
Is God a consenting adult
or a bloody child molester?
If He who made William Blake made thee
why does the lamb beat faster?
She bellied near a Kubla Kahn
to get it on with him.
Oh when to her potatoed toys
the cock a doodled dee
She mimsied in the borogrove
To get it on with hee.
And if his terrored single eye
to leaping bosom flies
She's whir and rumble as before
to get it on or try.
52.
And the
sheep in the pasture have left their lambs
well the lambs are all down in the dreaming
well the lambs of our grandmas have left their sheep
and the grandmas are mowing the driveway.
"Well the driveway has pebbles" the Bobby says
and the fuzz and the gendarmes repeat it
and the moon in the milkman is drinking the morning
and spitting it out in the evening.
Therefore
grill the sardine that grows on the plate
the corn roasts itself on the thruway
while all the old songs of our leprechaun life
beat a path through the bush of the journey.
So gallup the stirrup and roll in the hay
you can linger a bit at the door
don't ask for a rasberry late in October
you'll get it when needed
like you always did before
Time
perfect time
we're in perfect time.
Is the two headed swami wiser because he's younger?
Since we were born with perfect fish knowledge, perfect
egg knowledge and begin to lose it as we "grow up"?
He, "You have no idea how many towns I rode through."
She, "Glad I was your destination."
53.
Good morning pa. How do you want your eggs?
I'll dance a Jungian jig
on the grave of a thug
during one of those milk-train-town whistle-stop gigs.
see whenever
Recover
begins to dig deep
the bats in her bell
fry some fish on the rug
of the archetintypes
in her raggety pieces
scraps, leftover laces
in her underwear outable shibboleth
Robert D. Browning Last Duchess's bag.
To Elizabeth Barrett
is to sometimes be a gunner
in a gun turret.
she therefore and therefore and heretofore and wisely
respectfully declines
to be teacher or muse
to the man in the Zeus colored suit.
For his jeans dont disguise
his monarchival ways
that brought her to Crete
with her foot in her mouth
and did in an hour what could have been taking
the rest of her livey life life.
54.
I never wrote on your page
if I dwell in your age
will I teacup your heart?
I wait on your art.
If I start will you finish
when I finish will you start?
And then start again
while the moon in the man
decides you to rise
maybe late, not in time
to some dumb astral praise
but the endgame of Zeus
with his shoes on his knees.
See always and always
and all ways and wise
as the child of your age
(which is more than my years)
plays the whys and whereforeskins of prophet and sage
of all of those open heart surgery sighs,
I ginger snap hug you, you tickle my toes
those were the good old Rrosie OSelavy days.
55.
Sitting on a stoop
waiting for a concierge.
Gwine to get a bit of
luncherie muncherie
charcuterie boucherie
foru frou ra ra ra
I have no name.
I am but two Blakeian days.
Why is my name,
while all those Rockabye beaches of our almost,
break rectal wind upon our native shores.
The brain that revives a mummy
bangs a whore
and Open City's closed account of War.
Bandade the orangeade of Aunt Remindher.
Oh Henry you are rotten to the core.
A memory of mammary
is hanging on a pillory
to public gaping view.
Waiting to be cut down down down
to go where the best breasts go go go
to grow where the last lost go.
56.
I telephoned my sugar
and my sugar (south of Maine in Arles)
said give me your ear for a minute
and I'll tell you a story
you never heard belore.
I telephoned my sugar
606-1234
and my sugar wasn't content with my ear
and wanted more and more.
Van Gogh was the lessee, not the lessor
and I am thin and pure
so I telephonepoled my other sugar
and I'll tell you the end of the story
if you care.
Mama, tripping to that Six o Six again.
Mama, running to that sick o sick again.
Mama, going to that seek or find again.
How we gonna make it till we grown?
I telephoned Jesu
and Moses wasn't there
asked Mohammed for a tip on the Daily Double
he said Jehovah's here.
Risotto riz rice curry flavor, cough
spit no blood upon my tetrazzinni
The rides of steeplechase were flaky painted.
Oh lift thy lamp beside the burning bush
bring me your jaded, your aspire-depleted,
your huddled genitals yearning to be free.
I lift my skirt to ease your Poverty.
(Six o six, bedding down for the night,
dreams of tobacco and dry boots and pasta.)
57.
Well tried to help
some things don't work sometimes
though once was Able to your Sugar Cain.
The Gays of Wales are closet to their pain
loin cloth to cloth or man to bleating sheep
Seven Wonders of Nature
on some fire escape.
I telephoned my sugar
and my sugar wasn't there
you can't hear the end of my story
if you too cut off your ear.
No end to this or other Series.
Went to the PTA meeting in the clearing.
Parked my babies in a pram outside the five and dime.
When I came out with the Noxzema and the Masking Tape and fly
swatter
my babies weren't there.
58.
If a wire breaks
or a fuse is blown
who will remember how I sang flowers to
all our children when we didn't go to funerals anymore because we
couldn't
even do what Grandma could still do.
Wasn't it that they said-putting her to rest hurriedly
so as not to attract attention while they were getting
through to California or Joshua fit the battle of
Jericho or whatever it was in grapes without wrath tonight-
"wherefore is this night different from all other nights.?"
Wherefore was Ma Joad different from Grandma Cohen?
In no way, unless you're into politics like Steinbeck once-
what?
See. I forgot again.
It's hard to keep a word or anything
in mind when only notes come now
because they scurtle up hollows
more distant than mountains
See? It fades again.
Imagine scurtling up a hollow
when usually or all our lives
or maybe once sometime
when we were fixed for
parties in our knee socks and
strong white shoes
we scurtled down hollows
like regular people.
When the sisters and grandpa visited less than a month ago
Uncle Abe said,
"Sisters I would like to go to a doctor but my wife says
as my bowels are regular and I am eighty-three
I am only looking for attention."
59.
Sure sure everybody has somebody everbody has somebody.
Somebody ain't much. I mean sometimes the somebodies that people
have
you could fill a long MacDonald's griddle with assembly line
somebodies
octopus occupied American dreams of tentacled unisex
fluff dried matched towels.
moosies, it's fading again.
We have lived catch as catch can
out of those in the family chunk style tunafish cans
so long that when the Verdict
as it sometimes is
a fuse is blown.
We can't go this time to see Uncle Abe in his kindly pine box
downing on ropes to where all those world wars ago
his nineteen year old son Bernie who was editor of
freshman paper at Columbia (the neck the neck see the lump on the neck)
was placed down first.
I saw Allan Ginsberg's Kaddish at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn without kleenex my whole long skirt was soaked it was the first
time video was magnified with Projectavision Sondra was
always calling the police too because boarders were plotting against
her baruch hatoi adenoi. We grew up show Jews in an
Italian Scandinavian neighborhood sometimes they paid the old man
in lasagna or bracciole.
So I covered the mirror
and rent a little tear in my shirt out of respect.
These days
if you can call these days-
more like nights I rememberthough it's true nights didn't have
much sun in them
everything is like the radio that only played when I put it on my
stomach.
60.
Charles would say hyperbole again oops that's a big word for-
exageration maybe
but I swear on God and Lassie that it is the truth this time.
Actually it wasn't a very good radio to begin with
though tor a month it played on a table or stuck next to you
on the bed like regular ones.
Gradually-on account of cheap non union help proabably or some
Trotsky conspiracy opposite S. Kleins on the Square, it needed
human warmth to make it receive.
Once, floating it on my belly dreaming of courses in the
School of Visual Arts
I tuned in Blind Lemon Jefferson and it wasn't even FM.
Uncle Abe's frst grandchild
is still in Willowbrook having to be fed and everybody has
something like that yes well it's awfully cold for May actually
at least you have your health.
How come since I was eighteen the world has always sent me
its orthodonture bill?
Uncle Abe said that when he did the printing they always counted
on him to correct the spelling.
All those fancy writers couldn't spell he always said
See? It fades again.
Seen one funeral you've seen them all.
If two men atone together they shall both say this three times
If two women atone for themselves together they shall say this
If one atones for another man he shall say this three times
If one atones for another woman she shall say this three times
If a pregnant woman atones for herself she shall say this-
At age twelve when I read the dictionary I stopped.
P is for the million pins I stick in
I is for the me that is a virgin
G is for the glory that was Rome and-
61.
Can a nice Jewish girl live on grants and snapshots?
Where have all the blue sofas gone long time passing?
My sister still knows the people who wrote the book about the Rosenberg case.
Once I met Judish Coplon at a party in Brooklyn Heights.
Mother I never polished the children's white shoes as regularly as I should have.
Some five hundred and five years after 606 took a
message, a Myth flew into a dish of cabbage borscht.
stuck in the sour cream of History it floppled a little
and then lay still.
IF GOD WANTED US TO BE SANE
HE
IN HIS INFINITE WISDOM
WOULD HAVE MADE US SO
I'll take you home again Bertrand Russell
across a Shiva and Shantari
befriendly the child with the ferryboat eyes
while the storm goes on.
Aunt Rae and Cousin Harold
Joan of Arc, Grandma Blowfish
plus there are names I can't say
doesn't pay to say them-let them come up nastutiums instead.
right Charles?
Pray for us now and at the zoo story or death of Bessie Smith.
If a wire breaks or a fuse is blown
See? It fades again.
So ends the saga of Uncle Abe.
62.
we laugh and miss our train.
we do not laugh and catch our train
waiting at our destination
for seven thousand years
till our guitars (we are rock stars tomorrowday)
pink ash to petrified wood and our brand new
cheap yamahama mini PA system
make small bird sounds
and water rises around us and we stand
on soaked honeybees ready to cross pollinate flowers
dining on plankton smiling in the sun.
so what if never
to sing at Carnegie Hall for our
mothers and our fathers
Carnegie Hall on the day of atonement
with a sound crew of seventy three Union soundmen
amps as big as department of Sanitation trucks?
end with Tamborine Man by Bob Zimmerman
and the opening melody line of Beethoven's Ninth
63.
Father I write to you now half frozen like us when Mrs. Moresco
our old landlady in which one of all those two family houses?
and how when the telegram came
we could only sit and cry and knock downstairs
please give us some heat he's missing I still remember the words
wounded in action Normandy eleven November missing if further news you will be notified
Witsell acting adjuctant general
and then the postman came on Sunday with the letter
he wasn't working just had gone back to the post office
to see if there was anything because he knew us and well was sorry and so there he had this letter the red cross doughout girl
had written for him saying it wasn't that serious
just shrapnel here and there and some they never got out
so he got thirty six dollars a month for it for the rest of his life and he always said
it didn't hurt like earning that thirty six each month would have
but that was his joke and father he didn't joke enough
and I gave up after a very a truly long while
because try as he could and me too there wasn't ever pleasing his mama
except for her poor thing to have the card
that had his name and company's name embossed on it
for her to show the salesmen when she came with me
to buy the baby's Buster Browns and get them checked and measured.
So father
in many ways its better now with me and all I miss
is he used to sing "paper doll I could call my own" and your" its time to Ida iolize them
eyes" and hear you eddie leonard soft shoe dance "over yonder over yonder
they all went over and they missed the huns
he shot him dead" he said forget how it ends
stays with me now past Achievements and Events
64.
How goes it Doc?
some weather tonight. We're due for a spell of - how many cough Pre scriptions you
filled that winter
when the hurricane blew down the wires
and he came home that last time before they sent him to Newport News
and then right over to Normandy beachead after he won the pass
fighting the Round hoping only to lose since overnight pass would be
granted to Win or Lose they said. back to Eugene
O'Neill
or everybody maybe, they did exist
for sure, I know one trembles sometimes though so tall and strong
my head just clears the raisins in his chest
well the babies write from all over the world now, the last
sending up melodies to wrench the breath
but funny words like l'm not a fetus anymore.
Anyhow say again this time St. Vincents Distributing Clinic
I'll right it on the whiteboard ten times and this time do it
time to get the lamp rewired a bit especially
since the light comes prettier than it used to-
connect and disconnect the overcharges
will be on blank blank other party's bill
after they are gone his thoughts return and his back stiffens. Sunlight.
hey Colleen what's the difference, have a Pink Lady!
on Vivien Leigh and put it on Sir Lawrence's
(he should have stayed with you) bar tab in immortality tra la tra la
65.
Hello Sue the problem was
we cross boxcars so speeding going opposite ways
baruch hatoi adonoi eluhaynu melach gesundheit
let's retry french fry with a daisy chain
the calla daisies are in bloom again what a strange flower
each to our priorities realities
after the explosion that blew us all into the Prince not Bill Mishkin world
undemeath still henclucking worrying for our children
but they're not in us any more. they know. It's different from when they were in.
My prayer was to something with you (how we carried on about the man -
there was always one - )
in a sky which was blue
avant guard books are now cliches right
in the galaxy of haolum boray puri hagorfen where due to present fragmented
existance Miss (or is it Ms?)
states that people need simple stories they'll identify with right? right.
"over yonder over yonder
see them whities they on parade
they all went over and they slashed the huns
Sam slashed him first he said he oughtta be dead
Sam said hun just try your knife and you'll see
give me the next tune tried out by U. S. cons (and feds)
that's all."
if I could update proustian madeleines in love and pity love and pity
explain the escalator from which I waved goodbye - Susie I have to learn scales I have to -
66.
Who blames the atom smash for cherry soda?
who is the president of Lost Verunia?
these engineers of angel syrup
can addle middles of some horny visions.
Our Dr. Frankenstein's experiment
has stained the unclewear of anterooms
and all the tunafish smile in their cans
and all the tunaftsh smile in their cans.
Eugene O'Neill's Long Voyage home
has frayed the wires of our friends mind.
his long day's journey into space
puts pimples on our interface.
Jose Quintero gave young James Tyrone
two aspirins to ease his pain.
Alameda archetypes have rooms to rent
for Dr. Frankenstein's experiment
and all the circles in the square
have scribbled that Kilroy was here.
Who ate the apple and began man's inhumanity to man?
All seminars take place in caves, tonight.
67.
why Paul Oliviero's sister is in a coma
for eight weeks now is clear Father she has a case
of what young doctor kildare and ben casey calls
"lack of the will to live" and they were right as all great heroes
of channel nine or seven (I forget)
are right, father.
well kinaherra I guess I have the flu
tonight again. Let's call it that this time.
Grandma Anna used to look at our garbage and say kinaherra
signs of prosperity, indeed, and I have TDK wrappers
and Scotch low noise high input cellophane wrappers
right in there among the potato peelings
well
Mina's husband Yitzak (she had to go to Israel
to have her first guilt free fuck father, being from Second avenue and
unmarried
a nurse at Beth Israel Hospital and shane madele)
that when in concentration camp en route
the train stopped and Yitzak's father mixed a bit of saccharine he had saved
with the snow blown in
Yitzak spoke of that bit of sweet dessert
So here here survivors, come out of coma sister,
father Iet's douse ourselves with baum ben gay
and sing the old best old ones and follow up with
Mozart's - oops - forget the best version I'll ask
professor 606 or question mark again
or discophile at dawn along the ocean.
68.
It's said Jose Quintero gave young James Tyrone (Eugene O'Neilled a while)
two aspirin to ease his-what is pain?
orgasm music handclasp and someday
over the rainbow Paul's sister's prince will come
and wake the sleeping beauty from her coma
they call it that perhaps it's just another
Karma and all a question of phonetics -
Father I write to you again. Am I the landlady
this time? and who's to give thee, us, the, him and all the progeny, heat?
if only we knew our roles we'd make it through the play-right Jose?
Mr. Quintero, Theatrical Advisor, and Nick,
when really (what's really? Oh, it's a contract among consenting cultures) is needed...
As it is father I feel a strange presentiment present? that both of us
may choose this time to well before intermission as it were in that's the least awkward
(since if the truth be known we're tired oddly
at the same moment in space and time a walk in space a walk in time
as Faulkner noticed some paragraphs ago).
father, what's ago? what's anything?
you taught us all you know but being from her as well as you
(Ceres Demeter our mother who art on earth) who strong also nevertheless
blew her eye out when the tension rose too far
you later your eyes. well anyhow
bound also to her in amniotic sacral baby carriage
I had to follow both roads and where they diverged
I couldn't even follow Robert Frost you know
but stubborn as a hoe
stood there and still stand shivering with quills and bows and fevers of
in rageous fortune Belsened and Armageddoned
while to one side Jose Quintero (this is a tribute to him and my old man Doc Cohen)
stood
brown smiles undimpled in brown faces, reflective.
If this be
you said and he said or so they said you said
the life of mind they claim it be then where's
the climate for a truth just one
to ring unprettied from the proscenium?
69.
We each will stumble on that string of time
Laing knotted for us in some boyscout loop
when loss rings shrill and minutes flake and crumble
like razor dreams. None of us can keep
everything, some hardly anything, people die, go away,
Alice through the looking glass becomes the real
Alice transfommed, and words, pictures, dance, song,
or home baked pie
retum all those loved exiles to our great festival
that grail of laughter in an empty ashcan.
Symbols, cymbols, sound, statues outlast and transform
our terror tattered revery he dared to eat a peach
then heard an angel choir beyond his reach
but did not think that they would sing to him.
It's a very high place where the music is
it's a no loss place where the music is
everything's there where the music is
it's a long day's dream where the music is
and it's taking us away.
70.
grab your year and name your time
leave your screen memories on your family
somewhere over the trestle Ida, sweet as apple apple brown betty
will be waiting secure in her biological buttered role of
"I'll get by as long as I have you
though there be rain and darkness too
I'll not complain I'll se it through
what can I say? I'll get by"
as long as I have Dr. Frankenstein, Eugene O'Neill, Jose Quintero,
penny candy
goodnight darling don't cry
see you gave me a lily pad locket a trinket and a purple pocket,
a junket without a ticket orange marmalade ate an apple hidden in a cherry
caught a space ship for foreign episodes
hand special delivered in a paisley packet.
I dream you splaywinged and I dream you near.
71.
yes it is fortitude of faking that's so wierd.
love is a word so used and ill used well it's lost its-
no never loses meaning in the sense of if we remember
how Robert Burns in Scottish burr said, "well
a man's a man for all that" and best laid plans
of John Steinbeck's mice and men gang oft agley-
please listen mother, you always said how you were
too just plain high school girl for understanding poetry
yet it was you who read me "when I was six
and lay abed I had two pillows at my head
and all my toys around me lay
to keep me happy all the day. I was the giant great and still
that marched upon the pillow hill
while all about me dale and plain"-
the pleasant land of Robert Louis-
the other Robert Lewis is in Oxford now, studying.
remember him that came the month of Christmas and said
poems that sounded like
your old customer , Mrs. Napolitano?
72.
Thass a fiore theese ees swami
sort of phonetically but actually it was spelled different I'm sure
since it was Caedmon's Hymn in Middle English
and meant, that passed over, this will too.
Back to last Christmas-why is it so numb
on the left side and then all's well again?
you wrote mother love letters poems without quotes right.
I knew it was my last duchess painted on the wall
and this time would have to fight for her and Dukes and
Thumbalinas
clear cut to win the battle against wall to wall carpeUng
from Cosmic Chrome Push Button Shopping Centers
once and for all)
in the last Hundred Year War of the Roses to End all Wars
so, father, mother, brothers, sister and my umbilical
far flung connections (they're not rich but they're pretty)
again I have to say the loss of half your colon, father
and Mary Frank's daughter and Susan Green's left side
leaves such a hollow in my gut tonight
we'll have to question you
to tell us Catch 22 tall tales from the Treasury
of Jewish jokes and Lenny Bruce a bit
over baruchas and memories of former schnappes and smoke of it
were legal
and all the other glories that were Greece
the Beauty that was Rome..
73.
My mind to me a swiggle is
Such visavisions in each rind
That it grapefruits Aly Khans.
So Allan Ginsburg lowered his pants in print,
Exposed his white and hairy ass,
And gained a generation's true respect.
Those temporal lobes that twang our string
Occipital to vision in.
The Hayward fault exploded here.
Gesundheit.
One stroke of the magic wand
One stroke, one vascular accident, one perfect mind.
74.
Dear Professor Baer
well hell hello gone far again. Not that we ever said good
by since you and he have got to be some kind of magic man.
see we loved you then it didn't-
and are with him now he's
beautiful and there was a detour and
well Shredded Millions tangled in a way
and saw tomorrow and supposed as she'd been told
to do something about it and got scared
you would abandon her first, so she went other place
(poor King Sid Arthur's Almanac. )
So in the middle of that a firefly or firelie
brought her to him and she is with only him.
Fish fowl far flame foe none to blame
fain farflung fenced not sure
falling remember broke the fall after the Fall no one to
blame old Bertrand Russell claiming it was accident that
feast fish fleet
and didn't ever
think of tomorrow that way.
Personal footnote: next time will be with no one in that way.
quoth the raven no next time I will be much alone
and will turn the serpent into bougainville vines above my door.
well our five years flew
feast fish flame fell
the children grew (thank you for that) you stopped stuttering
(passage or presage of time) I live mostly in inner space now
speak less
I could not go from this to any man
you understand
quoth the raven clearly I will decide on my aloneness then
and will turn the serpent into ivy and indica
above my door.
75.
fist faced no more flame flow so eagled past the void to More
done seen the rock (of ages?) that Moses stood
oh Mary don't you weep don't you mourn.
well triangle like kindergarten mountain drawing and its got
deep scratched egyptian etruscan spanish shivering siberian
cossacks gay chimeras and centaurs and great winged
fish fleets forests feet pharoahs phonecian pilgrims
camels with so many humps
an army could ride one
and does
76.
In every way
In every Coue way
In every Charcot Bleuler way
Things are getting better and better
Thus was it when the world begat
So is it now, (unquote) the rest of it.
.In every Coue way, hot dogs, one poet's lost spaghetti
is getting fonder. Yes yes in every way-it's getting better and better.
family interactions and orange milkshakes.
In the nineteenth century Coue, (this sort of shrink or hypnotist
Said the whole thing was in the head
Life, business worries, busted arteries, diuretics, art)
77.
Doctors could send notes from hospital to hospital like
the patient Feodor Dostoevsky is a classic epileptic and he shits
literature. Hurrah. Zeldas to Scott Fitzgeralds again, we find some rest.
Burp, dream catastrophe. Again the Heywood Fault errupts, Sky Lab
falls.
(Little Red Hen
The sky is falling. Okay Ma, Gottcha.
The Berkeley Monthly will take care of it.
Aquarian age but the faucet leaks. Jesus!)
Each day in every way it's getting better.
Bound leech to leech in natural piety
Each day in every way, Coue, Charcot, without a second's delay.
Speak up man, cat got your glottis like me?
Well, let's get moving, such wanton disarray.
Pinned to the mast again. Oh boy, hurrah.
Don't have that much time, baby.
In every way Coue its getting better
Urinate in a bottle of chablis at an opening of Magrittes ,baby
(He was an interesting painter, mother.)
78.
Enclosed is a three cent stamp
in that as you asked for something worth a penny
and two days ago I wasn't flying any more
I said gently to ostrich my plume, "Ostrich,
what if three cents on account of inflation is needed to chasten the
past
that by the time Barton receives sunburnt offerings of cheery postage
lickings
we will be new minted in another Karma.
Far out. Some city planner's here. Says he's got authority to increase the value of a gift of stamp now worth a solitary penny by today's standards.
"Hey God, if three cents is now worth one, then what is one worth?"
"Money can't buy ya love."
79.
how do I love thee?
let me name the ways.
How do I love thee?
Let me weigh the names.
God bless the children, Crandma, Grandpa, Agonbite of Inwit, magician, sister, brother, 606 in all ways then and now
forgive forgotten, love and pity
Professor Baer that he alived us again after
friend's song to put the savage heart to rest.
There was a detour. Then the magician came.
the magician, dear deer
Inquiry into the soul. Also to hold and be warm.
In all ways fresh start in double time valentine.
In all ways darl, thee is my valentine.
How do I brave thee?
I forego the games.
Now and still more and always more
and always some tomorrow heart of glass
melody sandwiched between two chords, probably ninths.
How do I love thee? Gold leaf picture frames
Obies and Emmys and Oscars, peace and quiet
Milk and cookie time
warm penis under blanket.
all hearts be wounded now and then
Good mornmg. Was it egg round or sun round?
It was sun round.
Hello love I am City Lights blind flowergirl
abandoned in an alley.
Magician raised me. I am his
baby or he is my great grandpa Valenstone.
Punk tunes rock out around us. Even the beat has changed.
Never mind. Charlie Chaplin is alive and well
and auditioning for Tom Snyder.
what's the anatomy of melancholy if- (oh boy)
it's not the dark space that they make it out?-
So long as she can breathe and he can fly
that long they cleave and love as cap to gown.
80.
Glass beads on the necklace
time out of mind
Water and fresh horses.
John Wayne winks and says
(Shredded Millions sees no wrong in it) "in olden days
our patients often brewed roots, wore a camphor ball."
Therapeuticus suggesticus: learn to cushion your fall.
81.
Shredded Millions
eats magician pie and studies his style,
smokes a lot of coffee and drinks an unfiltered Camel or nine.
The Rolling Nine Stones-was it in those days we baptized angels?
A rabbi arises somewhere and starts his chores.
Never mind. Collision of Giilda Radner. Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars might wash old Wilbur Smallparts to the sea.
Who's Wilbur? He'll be turning up regularly like your new hero.
What's he like? Well there's really nothing to see.
Strange that he should have figured so prominently in the
National Network of Samurai belihops.
(what Chevy chsed an oldsmobile through Alsace-Lorraine)
Why did Cardinal Newman go to the john? Be Lucy in the sky okay?
Cold in his garret, Morris implores the president
to let the armed forces wear long underwear.
Never mind. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.
Now go to find-what, write without my glasses?
The words blur like fur.
Shredded Millions uses the wrong towel. "His" instead of "Hers."
Leper come and join us, they said to blacks in the fifties.
Leper come and sit with us in our timing.
Years later (or earlier) James Baldwin made a speech about it. Then
we made a film about it and ran his speech
over some people trapped on 19th street in Oakland.
82.
when the upper case is sick
the lower case is well
sickness therefore becomes upper
well lower
at the bottom of the well
live the sickest of us all
its june in january cause l'm in love
is it permission you need then? Meditate on a muddle
A vest a bowl a gnostic kosher knish
make a wish, patch a shooting car,
give the medicaides one dozen roses
put your heart in the foreground
and break all the rules you know.
83.
Bar Mitsvah isn't glandular young King Sidarthur.
Don't expect
whiskers atter speeches.
Direct or indirect
all ceremony teaches
that we like our brothers can expect
certain things at certain times
among others that at thirteen
we give up childish things.
But being grownup is only learning
which marble to always carry in your pocket.
Which boxtop premium ring
is really from outer space.
The proper place
to hide your comic book. Which baseball ticket
is for the best game meaning the one where
smiling at someone you just met
you watch your home team lose.
Bar mitzvah tends to make a boy suppose
the adult world is bare of kites and jacks.
But a chemistry set you once chose
will do you all your life.
Hang on to it though they Bar Mitzvah you.
The pocket knife they give you will always
cut nothing will ever be better
for trimming fishline. Later
when disbelief
sets up its weights and measures
remember how you emptied your pockets and
where you put your treasures.
84.
Once we knew that we couldn't now we know that we can't
After a moment of apple brown betty we got the idea
But by then we became almost decent
After it happened we regretted Yes we have no bananas today
And in a little while life ended
But we continued to be
As actually it had begun in expectation
And as tum it around and make it a button undone.
There was no way it could have been different
Trying to please each other as I'd mentioned before we all floundered
And said no word to grace the living embrace.
That's a hug, right? Its the best we ever did for each other.
85.
Pinteresque
we pace each other across a past so great
down halls so deep they loom through columned snow.
Echo on echo since he threw the dice
I hear your legs get longer as they grow
Depth width and breadth you make me feel his Rolly
Vaudvillian Bolly eyes and beg for chances
new Karmas where the frog prince doesn't care
and absent lovers when their hair's on fire
Daughters of Percy Byshe Shelley unite
(women wash clothes at clogged and condemned rivers
wordless they opened at sword spurt, ciaimed as bait
the little fishes that he goldened spurt.
One love, one purple cow, one telephone call
from 877 Bay Ridge Avenue
Mother it's true. You said in our blue heaven
you'll never know what it's like to be a mother (father, sister,
brother)
until you're a mother, father, sister, brother yourself.
Judy Collins lurks downstairs in her room watching Westward the Women
M's at a Jungian seminar (har de har har)
they say a young man's fancy turns to Archetypes-tintypes-
Guadaloupe is so far. One said
that the other one might be coming home
Remember how she burped for A Theater Tribute
to Jose Quintero, and used her mackeral voice?
Fly speedsafe sail,
I as before say ink a dinka dink a dinka doo
and end undone, still looking for rubber cement.
the stapler's busted but the moon is full
the stapler's busted but the moon is full.
86.
This being another chance then.
Minutes could have spent smiling at Agon Bite of Inwit
him smiling back
Not maybe have lost a century of minutes
Minutes no tape recorder won't ever-
no camera ever-
no typewriter ever-
not melody even (and this the highest) ever-
just hanging out-
just bumming around with them-
from Peaked hill to Kitchen in the Forest-
to California and more-
in six days maybe
Since on the seventh day (six hundred and six months later)
Six O Six rested for the first time.
87.
Wornbaby has a friend
baker studabaker sings in his bath
pilgrimage Macedonia to find a distant past
Uncle Don with a group of old time thugs.
It's in the Jewish Center in San Francisco. I'm supposed to play all the music.
It's pretty easy. It's just like filling in all the roots of their chords.
Snowman snowman harvest moon right in the sky.
Shine on harvest moon.
Shredded Millions and Wormbaby find upside down and set up housekeeping.
Worrnbaby I love you true
here's a hug from me to you
you're the fine and really dandy
I would hug you and hug you if it were handy.
Moishe Chaya Yerushalimsky rearrives.
Shredded Millions becomes Miss Motor Vehicle Bureau.
Wormbaby's friends are shoo flyd, freed and frode
and riding the increment of Incas, arrive
at Yerushalimsky where the harmonic minor dwells.
88.
Wonmbaby, a book by Mark.
Mark Mark, meet you in the park. My mark was lower than your last mark.
If incense was stronger, baby would ride.
Over beyond the frosty pasture
they're going out to clear the little plow
that's standing on your shoulders. It's so low
I won't be wanton. You come too.
Two hundred and sixty dollars should last a long time.
Wormbaby decides to get a thirty dollar shoe.
Who will be resultant?
a print out a print out a cello lesson
a returned informant a returned informant
a cello lesson
are words Wormbaby said in his book.
The house I lived in put limits on control
Gertrude the cat remains to oil the stew
everything starts over.
89.
Mel's a flower by now for sure, like your father and little brother.
That's how it goes, baby.
Yis ga dal v'yis ga dash
sort of the first line of Kaddish, no not Allen Ginsburg's,
the God from Brooklyn's.
They gave him too much stuff you know. People get confused.
That's why planting stuff from seeds makes sense. They either sprout or not
There's not much middle ground like with everything else.
Mel's a flower now. Take my word for it I know what I know.
Double pinks keep the weeds down. Some I never planted came up
this year so that must be Mel
three thousand miles is nothing to a growing thing. The wind baby
the wind.
90.
I was on my feet
in the city of brotherly love
I was young and life was sweet
and that was like some far out time
I was on my feet
when life came by too fast.
I was young and life was sweet
but that was like
some nightmare time.
Dear Muriel I keep meaning to cail you and call everybody and call again
but well the days hardscrabble in some
how the bills pile and someone in the scene on the projector now
always going up or coming down in arc of ring around the
rosy while we on a wing and a prayer my prayer is to something in white
at the end of the day in a dream that's divine my prayer
count surgical dressings on the dressing down gown
authority (daffy) ate a dilly
sitting on a goal direction
caught a steamer to Lundy's sea food at Sheepshead Bay
and along with Muriel never made it back to
that suburb where basemented I hid so long emerging with you
the children needing fresh air Muriel what are children?
those parties where Sodom got a shot for -
flu - nobody had Gonnoreah there just Adding Machines and Conflict
How was it when dashing to adult education centers
later paint splattered from our abstract express ionist nursery pleasures
fishing for quarters to make the baby sitters
overtime pay exact we turned to wave
goodbye till the next class and crashed in so many
umbilical supermarkets half home without the
soilax and ajax and pental pens and butter we'd run in for.
and see you through smudged corner of left eye
Middle Neck Roading till the roof blew off.
Abe? what of Abe?
he'll be down to getcha in a taxi baby oh baby don't be late
a line of sunburnt children cross the bar
give my regards to Muriel by and by
canvased to stretcher again we'll finally fly
he's a real nowhere man sitting on his
don't cry kiddo don't cry
Well some time has passed
Part of me's changed
in a way I never wanted
but my mind's the same
through this waiting game.
91.
Spare in some sparse already gutted fish
grabbed by white gull plummeting
(those memory spit thin guitar strings.)
Watch those soap opera laughings
Grandma and Grandpa's sweatshirts say
Dotty loves Al and Al loves Dottie. I
No more shellfish mollusk yearnings.
Where is the shell so convoluted
that its folds can hide the child?
Zip up the fly of heaven's night guard
and send a winter flight into the sky to consort with other birds.
That pelican stayed in the winter
nobody had even to suggest flying south.
Grandma and Grandpa had so much on their minds already when we were little
Scared too (their realities) Who got the wings? Is there another drumstick?
Now, like the child, eating vegetables and tofu
dreams sometimes of their great potroast.