A Meditation

A Meditation

 

How does one tell time? Why do we tell, rather than read or decipher or measure, time? What does time give away? What if a crystal should survive the humanly measurable universe in order to keep on ticking, in imitation of a human heartbeat, with attracting and repelling protons and neutrons, long after there is no one left to smile, no one left to care about measuring the duration of mere duration. It would appear that its length is the same by any measure.

"Don’t you dare quench my insatiable boredom"

 

Don’t you dare quench my insatiable boredom

in yr breathtaking clothes, that mask you wear

on the back of yr head—bang

that tambourine, Dick! Evolution

makes you taller. Tempting terrain

of pissed-on boots, aquiline noses

and the return of knickers,

boxers, and big-bra biddies

moving off towards the powder

keg in the backroom where the tap is

always dripping.

Mustache man falters with the cigarette

bit, bumble nose boy weaves

,not looking, past his mascara

lips lubing the slick beer stem,

spittle warming the cool glass knob.

Face powder becomes your holy-

cost, hologram, hot-toddy thump

of the mechanical bass on the lower breast

bone.

Touch

            and go, porno sonorous gaydar

has released all of our mysteries to the wheel

but for the odor. Rawer meat

and standing water. Heat comes down

a fool to her weight, pats herself off

to it. Aglow, I spy Ms. dreamy beneath the telephone

light, before the piss-pots. Having

been groomed by the doorman, shy abdicates

my face to the wall: flower pot

caught in the hoar-frost. Hep hep me

realign ‘er, get her offa that harp, ‘at ship

of our ingenuity sailing to some higher service

out of a blinding night as white as this

to that great, golden

fuck up in the sky.

6/16/1992

San Francisco

(Kennel Club, née VIS, now Independent)

‘AT OLDE TRAIN IN VAIN (House Hunting II)

The 97^th street gate, portals to the scraping underbelly of the beast. We’re just fleas, sittin’ up at the counter, sittin’ up at the bar, ready to eat. Gateway to out of control, Grand Central, the zoo you can’t look at but only see to. “Yo, whas up? Whas up?” She can’t hardly perch on them heels down skeleton row on her way to 110^th Street, crackling commuter trestles, tombs, an end to torment. (That other junkie crying: her black-eyed boyfriend ex-Hell’s Angel puts a silver bullet in her handbag and stomps away in slow motion. Not getting’ whatever it was ‘at she was pleading to get she calls him back with, “Hey! Fuckface!”)

 

 I’m beginning to feel awkwardly alone all these transitory days long. The waiter hates me writing on his counter, pushes coffee, confused pancakes in my direction. Back o’ the border, falling off a’ their fork before reaching my mouth. Nodding on the platform. “Do you know what time it is?” Stares. “Do you?” Salsa, soul, salsa, soul.

Anyway, she was teetering up by the playground through the George Washington houses. He let her go like a stage mother shoves her little girl out in front of a blind audience, pushing her into that spotlight, the sun, in 95˚ humidity, as if shorts were really the answer to those legs with barely enough fat on ‘em to keep the bruises blue. De rigueur to ask for clean silverware here. Obligatory map of Greece. No second cup a’ coffee unless yas ask.

In comes a white “HOLLYWOOD” visor. You don’t even know where she’s goin’. “Yo.” There comes another. “Whas up? Whas up?” A rolled up newspaper cradle. Then a scuffed-up bike accident loser slumps on a stool too. Her boyfriend? “Gone,” she says—pregnant pause—“long gone.”

Walkin’ in circles. It all stops if there’s a cop stationed on the corner. “You can’t touch this.” Sleeping so huddled up for it, can only go with a nod, like last Christmas and the icicles pointing down from under the trestles at what used to be Park Ave. like the subway’s frozen teeth—commuter train—they all correct me. Seriously too cold to get mugged. Ye olde el.

Whatever it is that’s your mission you go on, you don’t just lie down and die, do ya? You put on your makeup and sway off across the borough, the bird that kept on fallin’ off a’ the wire and getting’ back up on it. You listen to so many stupid conversations about the same damn bullshit you get a little too eager to speak your mind. You left off the bra, got out the tank top, climbed up on them shoes and did what you had to do.

She might even climb up that steep slope just for the pleasure of being stared at, to say that she had done it once outside of the subway—anyhow it always ends in a fight, getting’ yourself thrown out, like you like it like that. While I go racin’ up outta that tunnel and into the blue December-light smear of the hazy day over Harlem. I go up like a shot light bulb, browned out in a power surge to a blazing new home. I call, but ain’t got no.

Never even saw 111th street; is that fair?

Feelin’ so alone to be jes doin’ all these things I done so many other times before.

9/30/1992

NYC

My Act

An invisible clown on a garbage can

attempts to move robotically

to the sound of a delicate calliope

falling through all of that traffic,

like the November excuse for sunlight:

poor. An echo (già) of Palermitan voices.

Paris: Les Deux Magots, fashion prostitutes

at 40—an endless school excursion

for refined young women. It must have been

an unconcern for expense that drove them

out into this puny negation

of the night to come.

However, the clown, eyeing my

writerly act (Sitting before Les Deux Magots)

and not receiving any coins just the same,

feigns indignation—and a woman with Dante’s

profile (ti giuro, spaccato!) who also

would not smile—refuses to invite change.

Thus the world goes on

                             the same.

          11/27/1991

          Paris

The Siege of San Marco

The event staves off its message / each picture begetting another on down the isle / a day’s work / done the humble meal / a fire at night / no doubt, in winter / Savonarola’s tears / on the pulpit to come  //  Staves off the decision / marks down the outlines / on down the isle / images that return / “The same damn saint,” says the American turning away  //  They won’t be able to blame us for bullets / resting assured of some king of kings / for whom they have voted / and all that judgment crap  //  They hire / executioners all day long / up against these walls / each one with a paintbrush / and then to sleep / in the simple cell  //  The making and the undoing of the day and the night / stacked out by the outhouse / grinding glass for the red (bloodpaint) / soaking in the sin / to contain the sight, the stare / looking into the sun / or hugging a cross / with blind faith  //

6/26/1990

Florence

CATHOLIC WILL: A Perfect Roman Poem

Roman Fortune (innately
Mannerist) smites a curb-
    side tournament, its turn-
    stiles timed to mimic
land mines, whilst tragic
fame, mitred in disguise,
prizes suicidal maidens and
allows demijohns decisions—
                                  to decant tanks, for favor,
                                  to take arms against
                                                  a sea of turbines,

                                    which
by all rights should have been
shed by Fortinbras' cat,
                                    whilst
hopping over Roman bric-a-brac.

                           However,
                           tout court, our tongue
had strangled all our firm intent
and lent its charge to chance
    (said Cheshire to the waif)
of interactions all, both small and large.
Therefore, onward friction's
shoulders!      Bearing the boss
across the bridge of bad
humor (angels!)      to Papal precipices
'n' grumbling, placated
    Tritons & Britons
in the rain, we trod on.

And just like that!
A spat!
Between perfect strangers.



1/6/2010
Rome-Florence, in transit

"Velvet wet precaution..."

Velvet wet precaution, a savior

salivating over dampened greens and golds

and soggy grey, grounded olives past

passengers far, far away in hopeful

sleep.

            Those ravines dividing Tuscan sun

From Latian solarity, the revelation

that there is no particular one, no center,

despite Peter’s rock and/or Orpheus’ egg.

The circular line of expiational time

expands, mocking clocks, drenching benches

and presiding over all—‘though there are no—

second chances. The gist of arable fields,

fallow shoals soaking up the thunder

of another era, a Roman sojourn

                                                 surrenders

to the thought that becomes this velvet

wet precaution: that you might get caught

in the rain.

                        8/29/2012

                        Florence-Rome

"The Heart..."

 

     The heart deep-sixed this dark again

    as my whole weight tilts through

    the spider web you spin around the frame

    of the door that holds us in. You stake your claim,

    summer ushers it in, for hearsay’s plans

    and your private plane tips me over;

    my guts fall out, overboard

    with all of the other failures

                                5/9/1994

                                NYC