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Out of some thick abyss I staggered,
Drugged and weary,
Looked up and down and around and saw
That there <was> a direction to things after all!
There <I> could tend, seeing where promise lay,
Knowing that <there> dwelt Truth and Freedom,
That I <need not> ever again be hurled
From this precipice on which I stood.
You are right:
We cannot stand here and jabber
All night.
I have the Sun to help bring up,
And you...have what you have to do.
Nevertheless I would have been a negligent fool
To fail to grab your sleeve and shout
In your ear about the marked tunnel
That leads out of this labyrinth
Into the light. These others
All speak in mysteries and riddles;
Perfect lures, all of them.
The farther you go in them, the darker it gets.
But, beyond that I would have been a greater fool
To have followed you down your
Mad cavern still shouting in your
Deaf ear until
I, too, was lost...again.
If you come to your senses some day,
You will have heard that there is a
Way out and will perhaps look for it
And find it.
I hope the Sun warms you.
You have heard, Being.
It is I, a Being,
Addressing you, a Being.
If you have ears to hear.
Heart to hope,
Attention left to perceive the
Conditions of this trap
Then venture near, letting me
As gently and as earnestly
As I am able at this point
Call your remaining attention
To this simple gate,
Behind which lies
A road
Some of us had nearly given up finding,
And which some of us forgot could exist.
Now it is found.
As we are found.
It is the road home
The road to self, to truth,
To freedom and beingness.
What a beautiful sight it is to us
Who have wandered, stumble-footed,
And known we were lost.
And what joy to see yet another
Bewildered being
Show the flash of recognition
Before Man's first true portal.
The road is plainly marked.
You come, too.
I remember her standing there six feet from the bed
Between getting up and getting dressed.
I thought she was hiding a slight discomfort at being watched.
I saw the brown-blonde hair in the middle of
Her full form. She did not look back.
I had not seen her body so far away before.
She seemed quite remote now in relation to
Our earlier tribute to the bodies.
And I had looked out the unshaded window
Wondering was someone watching
Through the window out there?
The Absinthe Drinker
The glass plunges from slack lips breaking saliva strands,
Poises drifting over a choice spot near the handy edge
Of the three foot wide circular yellow table,
And settles three and one half inches from the mark.
The slack brown lips firm themselves for a quick, but bored
Swipe from the tongue and return to their ease.
Sun draws the eyes up like a sack when the head lifts
Enough so that the broad hat brim does not intercede.
And those eyes look across a deserted street from
A dotted outdoor cafe, studying the blue wall opposite.
There is no distracting conversation. The throat spasms the
drink down.
A black pigeon marches on the low wall to the left
Stretching its unfolded wing like an overfingered hand.
A hairy hand-back, in a firm/gentle stroke
Polices the untidy area between nose and chin.
The eye of the pigeon is staring at the procedure.
The hand, now on vacation, drops, partly mastered by gravity, to the
table.
And during the foregoing, the crowded weeping organ
Cooperated in an estimate of the hope in the glass.
"Enough," the project announces. Always enough,
In the glass or in the bottle.
The shadow of the very cafe; climbs the other walls
And his fellow figures stumble across his optical shooting gallery.
Undirected, almost, the glass rides the stone hand
Steadily, accurately, to its parched target.
Variations
Evening, and the grey shawl of approaching winter
Stretches across her black bones.
Horses inoculate her and us with
The same curious indifferent look.
Morning, the subtle sky nearly speaks.
I test the puddle flakes with
The toe of my perforated oxford.
The sun is up-
The dawn hides.
_____________________________________________________
Evening; the grey shawl of winter
Stretches across her black ribs.
Horses inoculate her and us
With the same curious indifferent look.
Morning; the subtle sky nearly speaks.
I test the puddle flakes
With the toe of my perforated oxford.
The sun!...the dawn is gone.
I saw that fish eye you cast
And I was P.O.'ed brimful
At that flippant "don't give a chance,"
For it or you.
But.
I can see the courts and briars (the millions)
That still prick your arse and
How long I thought the saddles sores would speak.
I know the eternal "Oh, no, not again!"
Quick-jumping to the fore.
After the Lord promised chocolate fudge
Ninety-six billion times, each time
Delivering genuine shit cut in squares
Who, pray, wants (what did they used to call it?) fudge anymore?
For me to say "there really is some," after THE LORD
Has failed you is really laughable:
That's the point: to laugh again
And reach and eat and why stop(?)
Yes, this time not maybe.
No, not lost a taste for fudge,
But a taste for tastes.
The May dove, in mourning,
Is singly escorting me home.
Through breach in crumbling fog
I wander homeward to hearth.
Warmth and crisp fire await me
In my den of color and touch.
My eye eyes me up and down
In search of some flaw or perfection.
Prone in my flat bed I pass once more
The dark blank disappearance
(Always emerging unscathed and whole).
Morning breakfast bowl tells of loving habit
And I sometimes mind much
The seeming indifferent days
At which each I blink uncertainly, but knowing.
But steady, steady, my attention is on the major flows.
I unheed the skittering flicks of chance.
My attention mine.
Freed puppet in me.
Do you know what tomorrow was?
And yesterday will be?
They are stray dogs from today,
Lost from their masters
Who once held the leashes which
They drag through the dust,
Broken teacups, yellow headlines,
Tattered sleeves and mindful garbage.
All day I see these weary masters
Snatching at the terribly swift
Former "best friends",
Peering, reaching, whining
(Sometimes prying a board loose even)
Through the sturdy fence of time.
The light in my room is staring at me.
The walls tell me where I am
But not where it is.
I know from the jar on the table
That I like sweet pickles.
Paintings about the room let me know
I am a painter.
There hangs a denim jacket on a hook.
I also am a working man or farmer.
Are those hippie boots on the floor?
No, they are French-Canadian dress shoes.
But any hippie could wear them.
The green chair waits for me to sit.
Mostly I place on it my clothes.
The clock nearly shows me what part
Of the day it is, but not what day.
There is dust in most corners and under the bed
Because the broom has disappeared that was outside the door.
Now that Fall is here I warm the room
With the gas hotplate.
My guitar needs new strings
But it still plays well enough for me.
The bed is good and I sleep well in it.
I will make a poem.
Shall I write first of a breast?
Breast, breast, breast....
It does echo in my mind
And is reflected in my hand.
In her front garden she cultivates
Two healthy specimens, sure and whole.
The ground on which she walks
Writhes at attempted worship.
I do not love the paradoxes that some of my friends love and insist
upon.
The uncovered secret is no longer a secret.
The mystery unfathomable (if it exists) does not interest me.
I wish to explore what I don't, but can, know.
I can be the center at which I have squinted for eons
And make time and events;
Sweep remote ancient deserts as a gale unheard;
Beat upon home's firm shore, shattered again, again;
Be the vast atomic stillness;
Hold the void in my hand, questioning its answers;
Live and last, first and last.
Poem of Finding
"Somewhere there is
Fuji, longing to be climbed," they said.
Her snowed peak is nestled in clouds of understanding.
There lies the
Source of Life, Happiness and Beauty."
Yet I met no one who had ever been there
Or who had even met
someone who had.
I knew this Mountain of mountains must exist,
Even if all the
reports and radiant descriptions were false.
No one had so much as a map or a signpost.
Some said that it
took great effort, others said that it was necessary
To get there by not going.
Still others said
that when one arrived there was nothing there.
Some said help was needed from those who had
Made the journey,
and others called it a self-deed.
None had a method of either doing or not-doing.
I concluded that
they could not show me the way,
But only that there <was> one.
One day I was
overjoyed to discover some people
Who offered <actual pictures> of this very mountain!
They were the most
incredibly beautiful pictures I had,
So it seemed, ever seen. I was nearly fooled by them.
Pictures, it soon
becomes obvious, are not the real thing.
I had given up the active search
When I stumbled onto
a road well marked with signs.
"This way to Fuji," they said, with pointing arrows.
And every traveler I
met on this road said,
"Yes, certainly this is the way. Come along."
Looking back, I saw
that I had been searching in the forest.
Now I am walking along this road.
Far ahead in the
mists I see a shadowy form
Which is unmistakable, even without pictures.
Who would not
recognize home?
Now I see it far ahead, now I know where it is and how to get there.
My eyes never leave
it, except to place my feet along the path.
First see my pointing finger, and then that at which I point.
To The Bank
Long ages ago
I invented a marvelous machine
Which served me well.
One long day I wearied
And took my sleep.
When I awoke
My wondrous machine
No longer served me
But was my master.
Now the long nap is ending.
No longer will I serve you
Like a gawking fool.
I serve notice now
That you are to be dismantled! Amen.
Dec. 24, 1967
And do not be amazed to see
My smiling face looking out
From the porcelain shiny cup.
The two books are closed upon my table.
The fire makes its spastic quivers,
While white elephants stalk us
In the closet of memory.
Our fancied soup has been overseasoned
By some conspiratorial hand
We will not admit to knowing.
And the fire in its new fatigue
Lies low between the logs,
Spying on us now and then.
The calendar is about to strike
A new earthen minute, paper loud.
The city lies low, respecting custom,
The world still waits, or misunderstands,
The opulent birth of its saving-son.
The fire ending in its trap,
Thinks it is dead.
So it is.
My one-line landscape
And leaden canticle are ever levers
To fortune city, emerald shimmering
Round the curve of earth;
My one-eye vision of heralding morrows
Stirs in the bones of a million
Carcass drivers. Who is asking
The help and turning it away again and again?
Drizzling down on the upstaring
Blind eyes whose heads only know down
Is the clean-washing rain of no bomb.
Aging heart-source only laughs
At devilish heaven and living death,
Winks at the game-shift.
Purest bananas of purple profusion
Willingly become a monkey's left hand.
Circle the cliffs not black marble,
Staircase of easeability faintly hidden
By oceanous voids of space and of time.
Powerful Truth with a flick of the wrist paints
My one-line landscape.
A the first letter, end of beginnings.
Failed poems grind on over some misty MEST
Throbbing just backwards near the best power-stagger
WOW!ing the peanut gallery
I solemnly pronounce and pontificate
On every subject on which I am endlessly informed.
Therefore, lest I begin at the nether end
And continue passively,
Let me say right off that I am here to----
How shall I put it--- Something like:
"Mock up signposts."
Another night some guy or other
Tried to fix my old attention
On the past crud that had dropped away.
Did this unintentionally, as I might add,
And best of it was, unsuccessfully.
What a laugh to expect me to go back and
Try to redo those finished gestures
Whether "good" or "bad".
There they are just what they are.
I have looked out this window
For a million years.
Still I hear the wind blow on the glass.
This window follows my eyes closely
And very soon there will be a summation
Of all I have seen, of desert flowers
Gleaming in full array on sinister banisters
Hung out to dry. Feeble old women
Tugging at veils peer in at me
Like new-born babies.
The longer I look the brighter and clearer
Gets the long toothed truth of it.
In the seeing is the being, my being.
Fellow presidents, Kings, gods! Let me
Explain your fate: you trail feebly
Behind what you see.
You pull your own tail.
We are Norsemen come for new greetings
In this land of rippling sand.
Our time is short. Please excuse that our
Time machine is so technologically primitive.
I see that you no longer grow flowers
And that your bodies are thinly hungry.
What are you not healthy from?
The coldest fire is in the stars
Because they are so distant.
Do you remember that your belly
Was always full?
We have survived your little games
With atoms far better than you.
We will carry on until you
Come to your senses.
As long as it is there to be done,
We will keep at the job.
Our sole mission was to leave this message.
We must get back to work. Goodbye.
When I come down the stairs I want to see the
Table brimming with love. Open the garden
Where funny fruits grow.
The book is open, I can see the truth now.
Horses and pigeons are waiting for a ride.
The long line ahead moves too slowly for them.
But they will wait or sneak in line.
Sawbones said to me: "you've not long to live."
Just you wait and see, I'll never give.
Enter the wig of evening, singing of the air.
Freely we send thee, feathery greetings today.
Sometime I'll see my sorrow where I hold it,
Chasmic past frozen into. Just like I did before.
Dripping cigars are my favorite.
Hard to tell the brand.
Super extra filler swept off the floor,
Makes the Flavor (wow!).
He'll do his best (the devil) to pull you down.
He has no red color, horns, or fork‚d tale.
Remember my story forever, advice my brother learns,
Comes from source of wisdom when it works.
The tomato juice is shrinking, the moon' a frozen ball.
King with white hair, laughing lady,
Exposed for all eyes who care,
Falling off his throne, in agony he grasps
The lady's breast,
The beauty he carries down.
He will stay, he is heavy.
I blink, beauty is still here. She is light.
Where, I know not is the king.
The king is dead, long live life!
I only see you in the morning
When the planets do congeal.
There you stand upright in the mist
If only you were more real.
Only more real,
Make me a meal.
See how I feel.
Only more real.
Evening in the weather of dark.
You have found yourself nearer
Over the noise and weeds & humming of bugs.
Your world is becoming clearer.
Clearer my one
My world too is clearer.
It's here nearer and clearer.
My one clearer.
Today makes each tomorrow
And only today is here to live
But it's only well lived for tomorrow
And all our other lives.
My strange face over there
Mimics me severally
Tells me that really
We can make it work.
We are not alone in being alone
The prophets tell me from far Mars.
Which star cannot speak?
Which sun has not conversed with me
Across the stretched arch of time
And whispered light-eons of staring brilliance
Into my soon-turned ear?
My wisdom is not yet that vast
So that I can at a flick recall,
But when the if of my finding one comes,
I shall know and speak and listen.
Fiscal Lunarverse
Elegant fleeing steps will turn about
More times than courage counts.
Fired thoughts equal builded space.
Curious organisms pry apart the seeds of
Knowing destruction and the knowing seeps into the soil.
This our history has been and would be,
But for one man who changes it all.
Who could be saved by antics
Calculated to enclose a being,
A being who needs and wants
To take his space at will?
What kind of being is it
Who promises truth and freedom
While chaining one to
Total effect of the
Chemical mystery formula?