to prokprok of waves
Fearing too many great many great
Thinkers and thinkers of our time
Busy themselves, usefully. Seeing sprockets as the real
Real. (And all that entails.
Spend time dubbing in historical consciousness,
Makes the heart grow blonder with the distance.
Waterproofs hair. Air.
Fingernails grow whatever way you wish
Sunny nostalgia the way wishes grow,
Whicheverway, are more close to
OBJECTIVE vestments searched for where
Disguised as rockets
One’s free to choose between limits
Between sign that YIELD
Either a b c d e or
Any other squint or
Sequence found squeezing the fingers. Eh, graft. Being
Not so much a question of question or of answer,
Swallowed with unicap and orange juice, but of right
Detachment from the lips
Alphabetically precipitate, that really brings out
Evening crickets bats the real you eating bubbles
Every and each night of the week, depends
Combining sequence with each (vague) COUNT.
Always hoped for sixth toe on either foot.
Merely sonar, an indication you’re not alone
And someone somewhere cares for you.
Detailly, even if vaguely. Please, to mow the maudlin.
FOR TED, ON ELECTION DAY
for Ted Berrigan
rain (second day in a row)
morning (day-after-day)
body smell, need a bath
coffee cigarets ashes in ashtrays
one-after-another pile up
need shoes, yesterday walking
in rain revealed a hole in my right sole
sitting around not thinking of much of anything
feeling drizzly, wait to go vote (later)
‛no’ to mass transit amendment
have my fill of mass transport
everyone wanting to transport themselves
went to Columbia (last night) to hear
Ron read translations (one of four readers, translators)
fine translations drinking opium
through pores of ordinary american
unlike the others (studies in the subordinate clause)
(non) relation to (any) poetry
first school setting for me in 4 years (puke!)
vergule
everything starting to fit in place
have a home
be a home home
reaping (this fall) routines
reappearing in the dress of melancholy like
the housewife of a house
making (work) time go
I’ve made some money working with my own hands
I’ve made some working with my own hands
I’ve made up much
experienced some done some
I’ve loved often enough
been shot down enough to hurt often
I’ve pitied myself as well as others (both ways unhealthy emotion)
I’ve wondered if I could love someone else (morbid)
I’ve made my doubts into poems
discovering covers often get kicked off
to cool the body’s heat and mind’s jungle growth
I’ve wondered (and felt made to wonder) if my own ‛worth’ is
‛worth much’ and wavered
well, Ted, when I saw you on 8th St last month
we (you) talked for awhile and
then went over St. Mark’s and Gem’s to take pictures with Gerard
you said, the one thing that always disturbed you
about my poems
is there are no really embarrassing moments
in them (I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, you were holding forth)
I don’t really know what’s embarrassing, shot elastic in panties
at a party that drop and stop conversations
turn heads?
who knows (‛who knows’ embarrasses me)
and anyway there’s quite a difference between gossip and
embarrassment
(couldn’t get a word in edgewise, for two hours)
what embarrasses me is
I’m 28 and aware (and made aware) of it all the time
I’m finding it difficult to stop smoking (still 3 pks a day)
and have been drinking too much lately (out of what, boredom
habit, pain? don’t know, who knows)
smoking too much dope
irritates the shit out of my nervous system
being continuously irritated (snapping)
putting on weight
plagued by small aches and pains (right now open abscess draining
behind my right ball, can’t sit)
think I have trouble sleeping (and, I guess, really don’t)
my habits and routines embarrass me
and I still, although I don’t think so as much, think my arms
too skinny (they really aren’t)
my body too small or too big (varies from day-to-day)
it’s embarrassing to feel
my self body image etc (often)
defined by people around me (my reaction to their reactions)
that embarrasses me a lot
zeal embarrasses me, your zeal for instance
always lining up poets and their poems
one up one down
in relation to you and your poems
(I’m embarrassed by the same zeal, ambitions,
it’s no real consolation that when it rains it rains on everyone)
most of all, this Election Day, I’m embarrassed by death
death is really the only embarrassing thing
and sometimes (unexpectedly these days more often)