22 years = rows of corn side by side miles beyond the orange horizon

sunrise today elementary taxi ride through Tacoma's charcoal streets morning school drop-off up through the gates she goes turns to wave blows a kiss a bell rings AND it's 1988 Red Beetle 73 rolling hills Polk County i was raw play-doh fresh out of the plastic cup thin as a heron in black high-tops getting better everyday Tesla mechanical resonance cassette magnetic tape TDK up to 11 Pioneer speakers thumpin the back seat Pacific Highway south for the winter more academia for whatever

i jumped in the river and what did I see?

i jumped in the river and what did I see? black-eyed angels swimming with me a moon full of stars and astral cars all the figures i used to see all my lovers were there with me all my past and futures and we all went to heaven in a little row boat there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt 

kiwi spooned morning

kiwi spooned morning sweet earth's gift to us work is not my life evening washing black metal clean she's at Jakes watching the sun dip beneath the sound smoked porter one month after a family piece dies hard to explain music blood I won't back down nothing is as important as sweet sweet burning life I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass how do you like me now?

what comes is better than what came before

read this today:  Prozac pollution making shrimp reckless ~ as Lou Reed says "What comes is better than what came before" which I want to believe except that shrimp used to go about their business being shrimp writing novellas eating short cake now they drink pipping hot coffee while sashaying at the edge of the Mariana Trench


what comes is better than what came before i need water through my toes a straw hat crown a walking stick Gandalf staff two inflated tires a brain bucket thighs burning chest sucking no batteries nor windows nor clocks nor supposed to be ~ a sundown ride past old houses sunken lots stray cats chasing dogs wild flowers curb scuffs bus routes gutter weeds lotus and mint and people my friends my kin my loves in every direction plus strangers to meet later


your heart beats true and loud your own blood transports sublime melodies more than this more than this the tides bring new things twice a day

a dirge jubilee for Uncle R

so this is the day he left upon the wheel in the sky ~ i bet the Beatles filled the room with pomp and circumstance a last piano chord struck hanging on til the tail-out groove cued the tone arm retract ~ an enso engulfs a point in space the orbit around it being everything else ~ Rio has it all ~ a siege of herons a pod of dolphins 5 miles wide a lotus seed lost in the low tide eel grass sprouts again somewhere unseen on the far side of the sea

1992 Sweet Oblivion

1992 Sweet Oblivion La Luna Portland Screaming Trees what the day brings ultraviolet elevated breaking free and breaking things La Luna October 92 Mark Lanegan whiskey bottle hand forgetting lyrics couldn't finish the set one of the Conner brothers took the mic Frank said the show got better after that if I could see backstage I see him falling over old stage lights hitting his head and finally passing out Uncle Anesthesia 4000 miles from pain

The End of the World

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

-- Archibald MacLeish

======================================================
Mr.Tambourine Man

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,

It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seeing' that he's chasing

Hey, Mr.Tambourine Man, etc.

Then take me dissapearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
out to the windy beach far from the twisted reach,
of crazy sorrow, yes to dance beneath the diamond sky,
with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea,
circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate,
driven deep beneath the waves,
let me forget about today until tomorrow.


-- Bob Dylan

===================================================
When I was Young and Ignorant

When I was young and ignorant I loved a Miss McDougall,
Our days were spent in happiness, although our means were frugal;
We did not sigh for worldly wealth, for vain and tawdry treasures,
We were a simple country pair with simple country pleasures.
Beneath the village chestnut-tree it was our joy to meet once;
We used to tread the dewy fields with wonder-waking feet once;
We wandered once in leafy lanes and walked in Woodlands shady;
But now she's gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady

I loved her as I loved my life when I was young and tender,
And happily our time was spent although our means were slender.
We used to pass the golden days in countrified pursuits once;
We walked through simple country bogs in simple country boots once.
High hopes of happiness I had, but now my hopes are zero,
Alas! My love has left me now to carve her own career O;
Not all the hopes of her I had of her are worth a maravedi;
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

My love now dwells in circus halls with clowns and tight-rope dancers,
Where dromedaries play bassoons and sea-lions do the lancers;
She moves amongst trick-bicyclists, buffoons and comic waiters,
With elephants and acrobats and prestidigitators.
No longer daily by my side she wanders through the hay now,
The glamour of the public eye has lured are far away now.
Remorseless Fates, my tender hopes how cruelly betrayed ye!
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

When I was young and ignorant I loved a Miss McDougall;
But that was e'er she heard the call of Fame's imperious bugle.
I thought her kind as she was fair, but I was green and calfish;
My love, though brighter than a star, was colder than a starfish.
High hopes of happiness I had when I was young and tender;
But time and tide have falsified my juvenile agenda.
Farewell, my castle is in the air! Phantasmal mansions, fade ye!
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

-- Patrick Barrington

======================================

THE CIRCUS

You say we need to be happy because

The material world is a door

That never closes, a jewel

Of astonishing purity,A love incapable of weakening,

Plantlife that simply grows and grows.

It's a business that won't lay off its employees,

And a terrific circus.

See? See? Of course I ...

Ostriker, Alicia

The circus. (poem)
Nation, The, March, 1989 by Ostriker, Alicia



-------------------
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.4/cohn.htm


By the time of Whitman's death in March 1892, the small book had gone through eight, nine, or, as Sam Abrams has pointed out in The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts, maybe ten editions. Leaves grew from its initial twelve poems to the 289 poems of the death-bed edition (4-5). Of Whitman's death, there remains the strange case of Guillaume Apollinaire's April Fool's Day accounts in the Mercure de France (1913). Apollinaire composed a false description of Whitman's funeral as being held in a traveling circus tent complete with a barbecue, barrels of beer, tubs of whisky, vats of lemonade and sparkling pure water. Three brass bands played continuously and over 3500 men women and children—everyone Whitman had every known, all without invitation––as the spirit moved them giving spontaneous readings and remembrances or song punctuated by pounding on the coffin until at dusk the entire party, enjoined by crowds–– workmen searching after damages, unshaved sailors, calm martyrs, old-faced infants, the 28 bathers from "Song of Myself," nurses, army surgeons, buggy drivers, artillerists, the lunatic and abolitionist just out of the whip-stocks, politicians and journalists, mothers and fathers of boys killed in the war he had held in his arms when they died, dwarfs and harlots and poets he had known and loved over the years––moved to the cemetery outside Camden where 6 drunken pall bearers wielded the poet's remains to his tomb as the strains of minstrels played New Orleans rag-time.

over my head i hear music in the air
over my head i hear music over my head
it's loud and clear
it's going to my head
music music i hear music
music i hear music music music oh! oh! oh! lord music over my head
i! i! i! hear it so clear
i! i! i! hear it so dear

i know i know i know i'm not crazy
it's going to my head
grandma used to sing
grandma used to sing
everynight while she was prayin'
over my head
over my head i hear music oh lord
.
.
.
.
.
- king's x

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
- Goethe

Once at Cold Mountain, troubles cease
No more tangled, hung-up mind;
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
- Han Shan

Picture a massless particle.
- Koan of Modern Physics

Lift the stone and you will find me; cleave the wood and I am there.
- Jesus

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
- G K Chesterton

Do not fear mistakes- there are none.
- Miles Davis

worlds where music is the world

My Love Reveals Objects


my love reveals objects
silken butterflies
concealed in his fingers

his words
splash me with stars

night shines like lightning
under the fingers of my love

my love invents worlds where
jeweled glittering serpents live

worlds where music is the world

worlds where houses with open eyes
contemplate the dawn

my love is a mad sunflower that forgets
fragments of sun in the silence


-- Isabel Fraire









Psalm 183


Pardon me if I seem to cop an attitude
But the attitude is one of worship
And is, I think, sincere.
My heart swells
against the prison of my ribs
And grows to keep my lungs from seeking air.
Still the breath is not pushed out
By such a simple force as pride
But by the glory of my dreaming
That I might, perhaps, be loved
By you.

Pardon me if I'm moved to endless chatter
But I fear that the beauty of the silence,
As I watch your distant eyes
Caress the words I have arranged
As atonement, on the page, as sacrifice,
Might cause my soul to rise
Above this flesh
And leave inert these hands
With which I spell these prayers
Against your thighs.

Pardon me;
I burden you with too much honour.
I know you are no goddess,
Simply human,
Still alive.
The others who I prayed would love me
Ran,
Or else I was the one to run.
And yet their cracked reflections
Howl to me from pools of molten glass
Within my hidden pantheon.
I know you've missed perfection,
But your quirks and flaws
Are not personal betrayals,
But are the marks left
By the kiss of angels,
Allowing you to live within
This far too real world.

Pardon me if these songs of praise defile you
But I'll try to keep my hosannahs
To a quiet whisper,
And try, as I stroke your face,
Not to inscribe the Holy Name upon your brow,
Not to believe that you are both
Creator and Creation
And that you, therefore,
Must obey my will.
For as I rest
My head upon your shoulder
My lips against your throat,
I read your pulse as the rhythm
Of the rushing of the waves,
Your breaths as the passage
Of clouds against a bright and empty sky,
The gentle motion of your breasts
As the soft processional of continents,
As, within this dark and silent world,
We define
A temporary world of our own.

-- Joseph Zitt