Morton’s Fork
This is the way in which I proceed.
This much madness is too much madness, I think.
Thinking this, I am here about the revolution.
Because I am here about the revolution,
and building a small cabin
I have found a reason to write a comprehensive almanac.
When I am not here about the revolution,
and I am not building a small cabin,
I am writing a comprehensive almanac.
The almanac includes or doesn’t include a section on each subject.
When I write my comprehensive almanac,
either thinking or not thinking about madness
and the amounts of madness there are and aren’t,
but not building a small cabin,
though perhaps thinking or not thinking
about building a small cabin,
I write a section in the almanac on each subject.
In or not in each section I include or don’t include
a section that is either about or not about each subject.
When I am or am not writing or not writing a section about each subject
or not about each thing I am building or not building a small cabin.
When I am building or not building a small cabin,
while I am thinking or not thinking about whether this much madness
is or isn’t too much madness,
and I am writing or not writing a comprehensive almanac,
I am always or not always thinking about the revolution,
or not the revolution.
In this way I proceed.
25 April, 2008
Saw my first concert there.
Jones Beach State Park
The grey wooden walkway floats damply over the grasping fingers of salt water:
Its pilings silent, clogged with must and clamped heavily with marine life.
The music is questionable: the question is immaterial
Over the roar of the sea: there is only the occasional gull.
What aren’t they thinking, sitting alone or in twos and threes?
Each one contains one bird-brain, and two hollow-boned wings.
Without any guidepost I would pace down the pier
Dividing up all the debris: some flotsam and some jetsam.
This uneasy and tired night, settled firmly over the sea-side landscape
A space reaching to be filled, like interlocking parts of a whole portrait.
Some darkness is like a winter, thin and full of wires
And the lights reflect on the surfaces of the water, moving back and forth.
Three flags wildly flapping and clapping loudly in the midnight breeze:
I am casually rolling home wearing a garland of garbage and leaves
The pavement along side the pier, cracked and holding back
The earth’s final cataclysmic stretch outwards towards the stars.
The grey wooden walkway floats damply over the grasping fingers of salt water:
Its pilings silent, clogged with must and clamped heavily with marine life.
The music is questionable: the question is immaterial
Over the roar of the sea: there is only the occasional gull.
What aren’t they thinking, sitting alone or in twos and threes?
Each one contains one bird-brain, and two hollow-boned wings.
Without any guidepost I would pace down the pier
Dividing up all the debris: some flotsam and some jetsam.
This uneasy and tired night, settled firmly over the sea-side landscape
A space reaching to be filled, like interlocking parts of a whole portrait.
Some darkness is like a winter, thin and full of wires
And the lights reflect on the surfaces of the water, moving back and forth.
Three flags wildly flapping and clapping loudly in the midnight breeze:
I am casually rolling home wearing a garland of garbage and leaves
The pavement along side the pier, cracked and holding back
The earth’s final cataclysmic stretch outwards towards the stars.
A list
A List of Things That Cannot Be Described in Words
1. The taste of peanut butter.
2. The feeling of laying awake in bed on a weekday morning.
3. The sound of the D string on an acoustic guitar.
4. Wind that blows the front of your flannel shirt open and cools your hair.
5. The interior of pancakes.
6. The first instant of sexual intercourse.
7. Snow on the soles of bare feet.
8. Pine resin between your thumb and index finger.
9. The smell of bacon in a hallway.
10. The smell of old paperback books.
11. Soup in the moustache.
12. Headache.
13. The cold side of the pillow
14. The moment of inevitability between the trip and the fall.
15. Vomiting.
16. Just the lips (and the tip of the nose) in an icy creek.
17. Owing money all around.
18. The smell of grass.
19. Rock and Roll.
20. A pink sunset through grey windows on a yellow day.
1. The taste of peanut butter.
2. The feeling of laying awake in bed on a weekday morning.
3. The sound of the D string on an acoustic guitar.
4. Wind that blows the front of your flannel shirt open and cools your hair.
5. The interior of pancakes.
6. The first instant of sexual intercourse.
7. Snow on the soles of bare feet.
8. Pine resin between your thumb and index finger.
9. The smell of bacon in a hallway.
10. The smell of old paperback books.
11. Soup in the moustache.
12. Headache.
13. The cold side of the pillow
14. The moment of inevitability between the trip and the fall.
15. Vomiting.
16. Just the lips (and the tip of the nose) in an icy creek.
17. Owing money all around.
18. The smell of grass.
19. Rock and Roll.
20. A pink sunset through grey windows on a yellow day.
17 October, 2007
Sailors
All along the concrete sea wall the tide breaks restlessly in measured frenzy
Sensing its domination of earth is approaching and coveting its destination
The rude boardwalk floats damply over the grasping fingers of salt water
Its pilings silent, clogged with must and clamped heavily with a fertile scent
On every bench some child’s hero sleeps off their fearless traipses sonorously
Their cacophony beneath the throaty moans of fog-rich air frosted with salt
Everything lost on the other shore journeys here with purposeless determination
And rejoined with its waterlogged brethren assaults the sea wall on the downbeats.
Sensing its domination of earth is approaching and coveting its destination
The rude boardwalk floats damply over the grasping fingers of salt water
Its pilings silent, clogged with must and clamped heavily with a fertile scent
On every bench some child’s hero sleeps off their fearless traipses sonorously
Their cacophony beneath the throaty moans of fog-rich air frosted with salt
Everything lost on the other shore journeys here with purposeless determination
And rejoined with its waterlogged brethren assaults the sea wall on the downbeats.
Burial
down beside the road-edge I waited, sitting in the yellow of the sun
I divided that yellow from the green beneath me, under my hands.
Smoothing it all out, pushing the wrinkles off this American lawn
when it is ready I will rest my head, and I will pull it up over me
How many things, neither yours nor mine, are still slumbering here
where there are no traces of melody, only damp persistent rhythm
in the somnolent mounds of this country there remains for all days
an entire America, which was long ago discovered and forgotten.
I divided that yellow from the green beneath me, under my hands.
Smoothing it all out, pushing the wrinkles off this American lawn
when it is ready I will rest my head, and I will pull it up over me
How many things, neither yours nor mine, are still slumbering here
where there are no traces of melody, only damp persistent rhythm
in the somnolent mounds of this country there remains for all days
an entire America, which was long ago discovered and forgotten.
16 October, 2007
Flotsam/Jetsam
The music is questionable: the question is immaterial
Over the roar of the sea: there is only the occasional gull.
A raw squawk breaks time: I have forgotten some memory
That frightens me: it is possible to erase anything, then.
Without any guidepost: I walk up and down the strand
Dividing up all the debris: some flotsam and some jetsam.
Time recedes all around me: soon it rushes back to my feet
Though: this certain ebb and flow dissolves the footprints.
Over the roar of the sea: there is only the occasional gull.
A raw squawk breaks time: I have forgotten some memory
That frightens me: it is possible to erase anything, then.
Without any guidepost: I walk up and down the strand
Dividing up all the debris: some flotsam and some jetsam.
Time recedes all around me: soon it rushes back to my feet
Though: this certain ebb and flow dissolves the footprints.
15 August, 2007
a LOVE poem
I find an urging,
circumspect but sturdy - a heart murmur
growing into a heart-shout.
Feeling this feeling,
this feeling about you
feels to me somehow
like an admirable quality.
I want to find,
(after baffling through thickets
and thickening baffles)
myself at your front door
the front door of you
with probably some warm
orange lamp-glow.
I should like to come inside
and rest awhile
while the snow melts off my pants
in front of your fire
circumspect but sturdy - a heart murmur
growing into a heart-shout.
Feeling this feeling,
this feeling about you
feels to me somehow
like an admirable quality.
I want to find,
(after baffling through thickets
and thickening baffles)
myself at your front door
the front door of you
with probably some warm
orange lamp-glow.
I should like to come inside
and rest awhile
while the snow melts off my pants
in front of your fire
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