Bosh and Flapdoodle Read online

  to turn my armies of words around in or camp

  out and hide (bivouac): height to reach up

  through the smoke and busted mirrors to clear

  views of the beginnings high in the oldest

  times: but seriously you know, this way of

  seeing things is just a way of seeing things:

  time is not crept up on by some accumulative

  designer but percolates afresh every day like

  a hot cup of coffee: and, Harold, if this is

  an Evening Land, when within memory was it

  otherwise, all of civilized time a second in

  the all of time: good lord, we’re all so

  recent, we’ve hardly got our ears scrubbed,

  hair unmatted, our teeth root-canaled: so,

  shine on, shine on, harvest moon: the computers

  are clicking, and the greatest dawn ever is

  rosy in the skies.

  CAST THE OVERCAST

  Informing Dynamics

  We don’t live near a stream, but now we do:

  the water slipping down the side of the street

  would shame many a river with a big name

  inscribed on space shots, with a history, with

  fish: three or four inches this morning and

  more coming: a flotation medium rising in the

  basement, alas, a mop and bucket my squeezing

  remedy: and Phyllis is off at a funeral:

  put down in this much water, one could drown;

  at least, get wet: but what does the body

  care that has no spirit in it: it has already

  drowned in a medium sleep pales before: and

  the spirit, even: it was just a bit of

  electricity firing off joints and nets: off,

  it isn’t there anymore: the body, though, is

  but it has taken on the temperature of the

  ground and sees no difference in itself: oh,

  but the difference to some! a lifetime’s

  worth of getting on with life: it is just that

  quick cut between getting our monographs

  published about horse fever and keeping the drain

  free below the rainspout and putting a little

  aside for the kids’ education and—BOP—gone:

  I have so much trouble with that edge: the

  day-to-day plunged into eternity: the look

  back then from eternity to the day-to-day:

  what was it all about, what was the use, how

  did we get so interested, so worried, so

  anxious: I say, meaning cannot be criticized

  by time: where does time get off: while there

  is meaning, there is meaning: meaninglessness

  is not the opposite but the absence of

  meaning: when anything has served its purpose

  it might as well be abandoned, even meaning:

  but meaning is really good while it lasts: too

  bad you can’t store it up anywhere for a download.

  Pyroclastic Flows

  I’m on drugs, now: this is the way people on

  too much medicinal uplift write: they are

  very nearly sorry that they cannot take you

  very seriously: they have been rendered

  incapable of their own tragedy: they don’t

  understand how anyone can hold a strong opinion

  or crave a stiff measure: they are the first

  to hold themselves up to the mirror of

  inconsequence and smile: they don’t grasp

  that their ribbons are on a flogging stick:

  I say to the man, are you my provider: when

  I need the feelings, I get down on my knees

  and say, wipe out some of the darkness, put the

  jiggle back in: how much is that: the druggist

  flips out his counting knife and 5, 10, 15,

  there they go, one a day, twice if need be,

  only as prescribed: well, it takes a few wks

  of flushing and burning to get on them but

  then you cool out, you float, you are under

  the wings of butterflies: the air, you know,

  is not just nothing: it is a medium like the

  sea but thinner: things, as fishes in water

  do, float in it—mites, and household plants

  called yeasts, sundry viral and bacterial

  organisms: you’ve seen pictures of those big

  catfish breathing thick water: well, we have

  our own strainers, blockers, and sort of gills:

  already here 70 years, I don’t get too shook

  up about what floats in the air: as long as

  it’s not me or only my drugs, honey

  HARD ASSETTE

  Odd Man Out

  I’m just an old man in a de-gilded (gelded?) cage: a

  bird, too: I think I’m a hornbill: when I

  blow hard, I get a horny sound: it whacks

  off tree trunks: my friends in the forest

  want to know what’s the fuss about: frankly,

  I can’t keep it down: I try to hum a lot

  instead and look way out into the periphery:

  but as to a lodestone or couple of lodestones

  my attention wanders back and seizes exigency

  out of aura: listen, talk about old: mineral

  deposits stiffen old men’s bladder walls: at

  the latrine, if you can get started, only,

  say, the first level, a third, goes, especially

  if you’re in a hurry: you cut it off: the

  walls, you know, need to collapse to the

  remaining quantity: that takes time: you

  could shake away with a bladder hardly spent:

  old men have to stand there and soon they can

  feel the second level acquire pressure, and

  then when they get down to the last dribble

  there’s probably half a pint unencircled: we,

  you, they have to work at it: but out in the

  forest meanwhile the monkeys burble, the floor

  viper slides: give it half an hour, then

  RAISE A BEAD

  Squall Lines

  They say of us old people, look, what do you

  care, how much do you have to lose: go ahead,

  cruise down the Volga and check out Petersburg

  or drive into New York City: if you get

  blipped off, what’s that: it won’t be long

  before you blip off anyhow: why, what has a

  25-year-old built up in 25 years that compares

  with a 70-year-old’s trove: think of the

  perspective, the seasoning, the long loves,

  the vigil till enemies die: also, how about

  the money, prestige, the real estate: what,

  you ask, do the old have to lose, why, more &

  more till sitting back in easy splendor they

  don’t want to go at all: but the 25-year-old

  will complain that if he flips he loses what

  he had yet to gain: still wet behind the ears

  he doesn’t even know what that is (not that

  anyone does): alas, the old have little in

  that bank: the young inherit the world, but

  we already have it, except we’ve had it. . . .

  John Henry

  This morning I greeted my wife’s waking with

  how’s my little dewberry but, poor thing, the

  answer was a rotten sore throat, headache,

  upset stomach and, soon determined, 100.2

  fever: so I said to her, well, there you are:

  sometimes these berries mold or canker on the

  vine: an oblong aspirin, coke (potable), half

  a slice of toast, and cuddled up in a corner

  of the couch with the Ithaca Journal and the

  Wall Street Journal she is locating, I hope,

&
nbsp; the road to recovery: but that hacking cough:

  dry, unyielding, nothing getting up: feathers:

  this train has run out of track pppsssssstttt. . . .

  Rogue Elephant

  The reason to be autonomous is to stand there,

  a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search

  the moral realm and actual conditions for what

  needs to be done and to do it: fine, the

  best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it

  comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then

  you see the danger in the effective: better

  then an autonomy that stands and looks about,

  negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences:

  is anything to be gained where as much is lost

  and if for every action there is an equal and

  opposite reaction has the loss been researched

  equally with the gain: you can see how the

  milling actions of millions could come to a

  buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental,

  warm bottom of water stuck between chilled

  peaks: it is not so easy to say, okay, go on

  out and act: who, doing what, to what or

  whom: just a minute: should the bunker be

  bombed (if it stores gas): should all the

  rattlers die just because they rattle: if I

  hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down

  the hall in the men’s room, should I go and

  inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no

  wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit

  about in inaccessible states of mind: no

  wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to

  exchange places occasionally: but if anything

  were easy, our easy choices soon would carry

  away our ignorance with the world—better

  let the mixed up mix and let the surface shine

  with all the possibilities, each in itself.

  Mouvance

  Hilarity and sour scorn typify my reactions to

  passions of the moment: I mean, seeing people

  expend themselves into fugitive extremes, it

  speaks poorly of the power of the mind to

  govern any kind of distances: until you

  consider that passions, except in intense

  subduals too longrange to bear, only come in

  moments, so if you are to get any passion out

  of life, you’ll have to dig it out of narrow

  spaces or squeeze all you have into slender,

  if deep, circumstance: I myself have never

  known what to do about anything: as I look

  back, I see not even a clown but a clown’s

  clothes flapping on the clothesline of some

  tizzy: is it really wise so to anticipate

  and prepare for the storm, so to gauge it in

  terms of other storms, that when the fierce

  lightning breaks and high wind falls blunt

  against you you just look away with a numb

  nonchalance: what about the splintering free

  of the green branches, the bubbly pelt and

  spray of windy rain on sudden pools, what

  about the vigorous runaway of rivulets finding

  themselves: what, what, did not the vibrance

  of the ground in that thud click your teeth:

  think of the tranquillity, all passion spent,

  when the passion passes and you lie back in

  a relief of sweet feeling: whereas, unspent

  you would just growl your away into the next

  worry of the next storm: hark, the bells are

  ringing, the announcements are in preparation,

  might as well start singing. . . .

  Called Into Play

  Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry:

  some flurries have whitened the edges of roads

  and lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: &

  turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to

  find something to write about I haven’t already

  written away: I will have to stop short, look

  down, look up, look close, think, think, think:

  but in what range should I think: should I

  figure colors and outlines, given forms, say

  mailboxes, or should I try to plumb what is

  behind what and what behind that, deep down

  where the surface has lost its semblance: or

  should I think personally, such as, this week

  seems to have been crafted in hell: what: is

  something going on: something besides this

  diddledeediddle everyday matter-of-fact: I

  could draw up an ancient memory which would

  wipe this whole presence away: or I could fill

  out my dreams with high syntheses turned into

  concrete visionary forms: Lucre could lust

  for Luster: bad angels could roar out of perdition

  and kill the AIDS vaccine not quite

  perfected yet: the gods could get down on

  each other; the big gods could fly in from

  nebulae unknown: but I’m only me: I have 4

  interests—money, poetry, sex, death: I guess

  I can jostle those. . .

  Back-Burnerd

  No sooner do I say I don’t do something than I

  do: no sooner do I say I believe something

  than I don’t: the minute something comes up

  clear, behind me it goes: it no longer seems

  to be surrounding: it wasn’t till I saw it

  that I saw it was a basket or bucket not big

  enough to hold enough: and anyhow when

  one is in the habit of looking for something

  how do you find something to do after you’ve

  found something, why, look for something else:

  I guess we’re pushed ahead into what we call

  progress, hoping: I’m soaring today like a

  dead mole: I have as much get up and go as a

  rock bottom: the point of it all has folded

  back into a parachute drag: the narrative

  has cracked, too brittle for bridges:

  my father, begetting my coming hither, begat

  my leave: my mother bore me between two legs

  but hence between twelve I will slowly go:

  there’s nothing like nothing on a hungover

  morning: they say: I don’t drink: it’s

  just that phrases come to me: I think, what

  can I do with this: into the trash, a possibility:

  but I’m a saver, I hold on: having something

  to hold on to for an old man, even if it’s like

  a turkey snood or slack eelette, is better

  than a smooth cutoff of things: we must not

  leave the hapless helpless hopeless: who

  knows when the next beautiful morning will

  appear: for sure. . . .

  A Few Acres of Shiny Water

  I guess anything gets old: being rich, yep,

  pretty soon it’s old—occasional pleasant

  spurts of realization, then—celebrity, a big

  ox in your way wherever you turn, that gets

  old: having nothing to do gets old in a hurry,

  going from having something to do to not being

  able to find anything to do, I’ll say: being

  in love, oh, dear, even that, about the third

  month, gets old as hell, all those re-arisings:

  on the bestseller list—great the first week,

  also the second week; then it’s every week,

  expected, tedious, getting old: market up,

  wow, up again, oh, boy, still up, up and up,

  I see, okay, really: you are finally thought

  to be as good a poet as you thought—so; so


  what, what is a poet: even getting old gets

  old, the novelty aches and pains, surprising

  and scary at first, they don’t wear off but

  the novelty does: finding, and trying to

  find, something new gets old: find a new

  risk to take, a new cliff to sail off from,

  pretty soon it’s a drag to get all the way to

  Nepal or a Filipino trench: telling about

  getting old and everything getting old gets

  old, I’ll tell you, it sure does. . . .

  “They said today would be partly cloudy”

  They said today would be partly cloudy: I’d

  like to see the other part: this part is

  clearly apparent, which is to say, cloudy:

  alas, that ever flakes were snow: the effect

  of lake effect snow is in dawn’s early light

  about five inches, the plows not out, the

  birds not singing, the muffled night turned

  to bleached silence: but what do we here

  expect, why, this: but a partly day promised,

  this whole one so far is flurried: have

  you ever thought how the weather, of which

  there is such a tedious plenty, especially

  when nothing happens for months, say, no rain

  or no sun, have you ever thought how the

  weather is just the planet carrying on, an

  atmospheric thing native to these millions

  of turnings in space: I mean, that it has

  no reference to us: the weather is its weather:

  it doesn’t even know that the roads are slick

  or deep or that the hill roads are sliding

  passageways into ditches and brambles: it

  isn’t aware that someone is tangled in a

  drift or that a big drift is sliding down on

  someone: it’s just amazing how much it doesn’t

  know: it doesn’t know anything.

  Feint Praise

  The world has dealt (nothing personal)

  outrageously with me: now, I deal back: it’s

  like arguing with the head-chopper, though, where can

  it get me: I guess I could get to where I’d

  be saying, look, sir, do you fully realize what

  you’re doing: is there any room for

  negotiation here, like, your head or mine:

  (when an artist, say, striving to be normal,

  isn’t, there you have genuine stuff: not