Oyama Morning

The restful sleep of boyish innocence

Awakens, stretches, smiles through dreamy eyes,

Looks over sunlit window ledge and spies

His Labrador, Black Queen, fixed, pointing, tense,

Below the emerald lawn and picket fence,

Stock still, as now the air her black nose tries,

Then delicate with stealth, she steps ... Surprise!

A pheasant cock splits sunlight rays suspense

And arcing, flapping, squalling, climbs the skies,

Squawks window by, a boyish reach away.

Flinch startle back, now pause, now hear him bray

Look forth and see the green, red-golden glide

Fade into drifting dust of growing day,

The flowing tail and wings in angry pride,

Through fresh rose-saffron Canada, immense.

Grace at  Sedan

This ancient field, fought for so many times,

Where weeds push through such remnants of such crimes:

"Yes ... interesting ...weeds," I say, aloud.

"The men who heave and sway the stupid crowd

So these will slaughter those who slaughter them,

In all their planes and ships and armored tanks,

Have not the wisdom of a single stem." 

Morning, Love

The mirror beside your bedroom shelf,

I saw you studying yourself,

By morning light, and, oh, my love,

I knew what you were thinking of.

You are a Queen, my suffragette,

The world just doesn't know it yet.

But, I will tell you secretly

You're, every day, a Queen to me.

The world, meantime, won't let us shirk.

Move, dear, or we'll be late for work. 

Jasper  1971

the party in the spectacular Rocky mountain tourist town  --- the real party -- 

began at one a.m.

the waitresses and chambermaids and some locals drove to the hidden lake...took the stereo out of someone's van, set it up...bass throbbing the blood...made a fire       

a little before two, the guys in the band at the bar and some of the bartenders began to arrive ... sober still, a little MDA, a little hash, a few on acid  ------ blotter or blue-check or sunshine...colors, pictures, fears and ecstasies...inside one little tab...inside

(telescope into the time)...then the crowd-tides...groupies, bouncers ... big guys

girls dance....cavewomen shadows... around the yellow-orange of the fire

Did you bring beer?           I thought you were going to.          We could get in serious shit drinking someone else's beer.                 Stop sweating man! Geez! You are such a downer! Serious for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Hey Tom, sing something. Sing "Behind Blue Eyes". Now that's genius, hey T.?

Where's Barry?      He's closing and doing cash. He'll be here in half an hour. What do you want?          Colette can't find a vein again.        To get fixed? Well, she'll just have to wait.

Where's Jare?            With that little fox from Ontario.          What? Bangin'?            

          Probably like rabbits.        The sand in the panties tells the story.

You guys are all insane. There's nothing here that's worth this.         This what?      This fucking away your life.          So what is it that you think we should be doing?       Get on with ... life. I don't know. Not this. This is mindless.          I am getting on with ... life. Your twenties come only once man.          Yeah, you live such a great life you look in the mirror in the morning and envy yourself.               Hey, yeah, man! That's it! I wish I was me!

Helen's pissed.        On wine?       No, she got into James's tequila.       Whoa, where is she?     Disappeared. So has James.        What? That bastard. Gets there before me.       Billy, you couldn't raise a hard-on with a crane, right now. You're too pissed.         Shut up.

Jackson you shut up.           Wanna go?              What you wanna go? Well, come on. Make your move, sucker!

Barry!

Some fine Panama Red.      Panama my ass! What? It's a brand name or something? You don't know what's in it.           I know good ganja, man. Who's got a roach?

Papers!                                                Far out.

Just go and sit beside him, Coral. He'll talk to you. You don't have to think of anything cool to say.              Oh, Tami, I can't.

Faye is really in love with you, you know. She never did it until you.

Hey! HEY!! Don't throw beer bottles in the lake. Brilliant! Just fucking brilliant!!!!! Yeah, I'm talking to you! Someday you're going to come back here with your kids and be sickened by what you just did. Don't tell me to shut up, you little cocksucker!!!!!!

No! Brian NO! You are not layin' a shit-kicking on that punk.

Shut that crap off! Didn't anybody bring Neil Young?                     Right on.

What's the matter now?! Where are you going? You can't walk back to town. It's twenty-six miles.           You leave her alone! Haven't you done enough?!

Nuts. This is all insane. Beer, drugs, and mindless bullshit!         Fuck you, Einstein!     

Yeah! Go home then! Who the hell invited you?!

They want it, man. They all want it. Irregardless of what they say.

How long've we known each other, man? Have I ever let you down? Has my dope? 

Too bad you can't give it to us, asshole! And "irregardless" isn't even a word!

NO! Karen. NO! Don't you get sick in my car!                    Leave her alone!

Where's Jon?        I don't know.         Who would?         I don't know. What's happening? 

Dorian's bad tripping!      Dorian?        Yeah, horse tranquillizers.       What?!      

Jon!! Thank God!      What's going down?        Come with me.....      .... You sold it to him!!

Danny!       Yeah.       Not you. The other Danny.      He ain't here.    Yes, he is. I saw him. 

Hey, Ann, no. Danny M. is busy. Trust me. This Danny will take you home.   Brian. Gimme your keys. Just give them to me. I'll explain later. I'll be back.

Insane.       Fuck you.         

I want to write what's real.                           So? Do it.

It it's the hah ah ah ah ahnky ton tonk women!! Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues!           Shut up!! You two sound like cats!              Fuck them, eh T.?           

The Model

The model for the human race is trade.

We must exchange; it’s how our race is made.

But mutual advantage and consent

Must always be both parties’ whole intent.

No whines, no threats, no subterfuge, no spin.

Fair work, fair wage, fair price, long term, all win.

Now there’s a worthy prompt for poetry.

Don’t mutter, glare, or shake your fist at me.

Reality is where we have to live.

Full stop.  

Dream of Heroes

Is any man's best hero e'er himself?

The pictures in my head ... I touch them up.

The tones can be enhanced by subtle shades.

A feature here obscured or there re-traced

My image of the Hero, 'gainst the sky

Could be torn out -- blood-fringed -- but not erased

Not changed in size or posture very much

A giant form, impassioned, strong ... and such.

Too large ever to fill? By God, no way!

I'll die. I'll burn in Hell before I'll say

I've shrunk my dream to match the everyday!

To live and never dream lives not at all;

It wanders numb, not knowing Awe or Fear.

To dream and never live is to love Death

And be a coward Joy will not come near.

But dream of dreaming, life becomes a song

A rapt, unending, haunting melody

With rhythms deep, insistent, intricate

And lyrics strange, of words and thoughts outlawed

That swell a singer's certainty of God. 

                 

              Deus

Grief, wonder, fear, rage, ecstasy I'd known

But humans gave me loathing, new, though rank.

They came, they spread, refining all the modes

Of bully, whine, and glut to subtlety,

Mad-gorged on every other thing they met,

Things that they'd neither earned, nor won, nor made,

And then gorged on each other, nauseous.

Excreting, spewing acid-bilious clots,

They mewled pretentiously of wrong to me,

Who, by devoted care, had justice fused

Into each, every, single minute quark.

At last, the swollen vileness burst.

I wrenched away and thus reversed...

Time.

The forests shrunk and screaming fauna youthed,

Leapt into wailing mothers, youthing still.

The rivers ran clean, purer, on uphill

To sparkling streamlets, as each tiny rill

Was finely sponged by thirsting sod and earth.

Green shadowed turf then trembled, shook, and shot

The waves of crystal bullet rain to skies.

Clouds blackly swirled down slopes of thinning air

To shred above a heaving sea of froth.

Mass ocean shimmered light thus back in sheets,

Up t'ward a roaring, pulsing blue-white sun.

The starry avalanche geometrized,

And all a sudden Sun is swallowing

Earth, Neptune, Icarus, the moons, the rest....

So sun to sun to arced Andromeda,

Successions of unthought sensations reel,

Undoing meaning, racing toward The Word.

I groan and wring the last exertion forth,

And draw all into Singularity,

Then sink ... dull ... comatose, nay all but dead.

All this -- yea all! -- tomorrow morn was done

That Love may grant-be-granted one last run. 

Despair

A bitter winter's day when I was ten,

I walked the wind-ruft ice here, and fell through;

Fought, primal element to primal me;

Tore fingernails off. Here. This lonely slough.

I pass by now, coming to talk to you,

Somehow, to save,

Our love.

Christmas In Town

A pair of new, grey nylon gloves,

Palms pressed together,

On a dresser,

All rich, dark red mahogany

Against the faded drywall pastel green.

They pray, sideways,

Aimed through the glass,

Exactly at the dawn horizon

Where snow-clad Earth and rose-gold Heaven

meet.

They know.

Merry Christmas, Gloves!