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Death has a life of  its own. See how its album has grown in a year and how the sharp blot of it has softened till those could almost be shadows behind the cherry blossoms in this shot. In fact you couldn’t prove they’re not.

I look in that one kind of dwindled. And in this, look up, a truncheon in my fist, tin pot on my head, the war. My father, I’m looking at, is my age then and thin, his pants streak to the ground, shadows of rosevines . . . His father sits beneath a cat. Here the shadow has more flavor than my trains, elbows on livingroom floor, bangs that curl, opera broadcast, The Surreptitious Adventures of Nightstick. I lie in the wind of the sun and hear toots and smell aluminium smoke. The tiny oval of my mother’s youth in back and the rest is dark. Sundays, the floor was black. At the beach, here I’m a nest of seaweed, an earlier portrait of surrealists I saw later, a stem of grey what rises from my scalp. My hair is peaked in brine. And this here hat, dark green fedora over same green corduroy suit for a trip to the nation’s capitol, how far askance I’ve been since and never another hat. Cromium rods, the hand in the guide’s pocket seems far removed. Blurry shoes on sandstone steps, double and over exposed. Then in this one the SECRET points to my head, shaved, and emblem, OPEN, striped in “pirate” T-shirt and HERE IT IS. My elbow bent, upright this time, behind a pole. I had yet to enter at this snap the cavern beneath my sneakers. To the right my soles protrude from beneath a boulder, for I had trapped my mother and she asked Why. Taken. Given. Flashlight brighter than my face, another grotto, where the ball of twine, indirection, gave out but we never got very far in, Connecticut. I swim out of another cave in a further frame, cramped gaze of sunlit days, apparel forgot. Later I reel in a yell as my cousin takes a bite from my shank beneath ranchhouse breezy curtains of Marion. On a trudge up from the gasoline rockpit in the gaze of Judy Lamb, she carries my pack, my jeans rolled as I step on a pipe. Estwing in hand and svelte as only youthful can. Most of those rocks remain and she married a so-so clarinetist. My greygreen zipper jacket leans against a concrete teepee, my father looking bullchested stands before. Perhaps we had just argued. Central Park cement steps of pigeons, the snow removed. Overexposed whiteshirt at the drums, stick fingers ride cymbal at the camera raised, livingroom Brenton with orange & black “sea” wallpaper and orange&black tubs. I wore a wristwatch then and never again, drumtime hitching me past it. I graduate from highschool in white dinner jacket and diploma and frown, too many hot shadows back of the garage. Must roll up the bedroll with skinny arms and lam for the caves. Dave & A. Bell by the Ford Company Squire first time allowed alone to tool Bleak grass scapes of Knox farm. Rope down a crack, mosquitoes and Koolade, sun dapple leaf moss sandwiches, ache. Then in this group more drums on the roof, the gravel and the flat, a cover attempt for no album even thought. I tap and step in the dim known street. Lean on a chimney to inhabit the sky, deep with drops. Here I’m pressed on a wall of Tennessee limes, stones-throw from mouth of the underground we camped in. Too many thoughts, elide. Then lie on a beach in a doughnut pattern shirt with a stick, a pipe?, in my mouth as my cousin grins shiny beyond. Truro, also waiting for the caves. With the poets then I’m fat and the driveway is dark, the clapboards all white in a day of all talk. This then all ends in color, my red bandana and shirt out on Devil’s Pulpit, open hand addressed to the grey where Hawthorne and Melville now view of a highschool. While the water still spills, and the cat squints at leaves blown, my father wears Brahms, families lean in on one for a group shot, and the rock remains shattered in a star.

This forest in May. It haunts my whole life: the invisible moving van. Singing birds. In silent pools, mosquito larvae's furiously dancing question marks. I escape to the same places and same words. Cold breeze from the sea, the ice-dragon's licking the back of my neck while the sun glares. The moving van is burning with cool flames.

Heifetz’s Decca recordings show him doing what he did best: transforming two- and three-minute trifles into works of perfection. —John Maltese Imperfect things are always— it seems—a wave of some wand away from perfection. They’re there—the toady and the bumpy with warts—for turning into princes. Even pumpkins— propped upon piles of lumber— idle like unupholstered carriages up on cinder blocks. But a trifle’s potential— its capacity for alchemy, actually— can leave you longing for lead. So many things you think are Prince Hals are really just kings.

You do look a little ill. But we can do something about that, now. Can’t we. The fact is you’re a shocking wreck. Do you hear me. You aren’t all alone. And you could use some help today, packing in the dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and grinning with terror flowing over your legs through your fingers and hair . . . I was always waiting, always here. Know anyone else who can say that. My advice to you is think of her for what she is: one more name cut in the scar of your tongue. What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than harm, is not abject.” Please. Can we be leaving now. We like bus trips, remember. Together we could watch these winter fields slip past, and never care again, think of it. I don’t have to be anywhere.

I sing the man that never equal knew, Whose mighty arms all Asia did subdue, Whose conquests through the spacious world do ring, That city-raser, king-destroying king, Who o’er the warlike Macedons did reign, And worthily the name of Great did gain. This is the prince (if fame you will believe, To ancient story any credit give.) Who when the globe of Earth he had subdued, With tears the easy victory pursued; Because that no more worlds there were to win, No further scene to act his glories in. Ah that some pitying Muse would now inspire My frozen style with a poetic fire, And raptures worthy of his matchless fame, Whose deeds I sing, whose never fading name Long as the world shall fresh and deathless last, No less to future ages, then the past. Great my presumption is, I must confess, But if I thrive, my glory’s ne’er the less; Nor will it from his conquests derogate A female pen his acts did celebrate. If thou O Muse wilt thy assistance give, Such as made Naso and great Maro live, With him whom Melas’ fertile banks did bear, Live, though their bodies dust and ashes are; Whose laurels were not fresher, than their fame Is now, and will for ever be the same. If the like favor thou wilt grant to me, O Queen of Verse, I’ll not ungrateful be, My choicest hours to thee I’ll dedicate, ’Tis thou shalt rule, ’tis thou shalt be my fate. But if coy goddess thou shalt this deny, And from my humble suit disdaining fly, I’ll stoop and beg no more, since I know this, Writing of him, I cannot write amiss: His lofty deeds will raise each feeble line, And god-like acts will make my verse divine. ’Twas at the time the golden sun doth rise, And with his beams enlights the azure skies, When lo a troop in silver arms drew near, The glorious sun did nere so bright appear; Dire scarlet plumes adorned their haughty crests, And crescent shields did shade their shining breasts; Down from their shoulders hung a panther’s hide, A bow and quiver rattled by their side; Their hands a knotty well tried spear did bear, Jocund they seemed, and quite devoid of fear. These warlike virgins were, that do reside Near Thermodon’s smooth banks and verdant side, The plains of Themiscyre their birth do boast, Thalestris now did head the beauteous host; She emulating that illustrious dame, Who to the aid of Troy and Priam came, And her who the Retulian prince did aid, Though dearly both for their assistance paid. But fear she scorned, nor the like fate did dread, Her host she often to the field had led, As oft in triumph had returned again, Glory she only sought for all her pain. This martial queen had heard how loudly fame, Echoed our conqueror’s redoubted name, Her soul his conduct and his courage fired, To see the hero she so much admired; And to Hyrcania for this cause she went, Where Alexander (wholly then intent On triumphs and such military sport) At truce with war held both his camp and court. And while before the town she did attend Her messengers return, she saw ascend A cloud of dust, that covered all the sky, And still at every pause there stroke her eye. The interrupted beams of burnished gold, As dust the splendor hid, or did unfold; Loud neighings of the steeds, and trumpets’ sound Filled all the air, and echoed from the ground; The gallant Greeks with a brisk march drew near, And their great chief did at their head appear. And now come up to th’Amazonian band, They made a halt and a respectful stand: And both the troops (with like amazement strook) Did each on other with deep silence look. Th’heroic queen (whose high pretence to war Cancelled the bashful laws and nicer bar Of modesty, which did her sex restrain) First boldly did advance before her train, And thus she spake. All but a god in name, And that a debt time owes unto thy fame. This was the first essay of this young lady in poetry, but finding the task she had undertaken hard, she laid it by till practice and more time should make her equal to so great a work.

By the time you swear you’re his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying— Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying. —Dorothy Parker Or else our drunken tumble was too true for daylight’s pleasure, too much in vino veritas troubled the gods of measure who sent bright draughts of sunshine down and sobered up my treasure. All night rapacity had come as naturally as breathing; we nibbled on each other’s necks like greedy babies teething. How soon an empty bottle makes one feel a blissful free thing. “Aspirin, aspirin,” he implored; I fed him several pills, and when he wondered where he was it gave me frightful chills, but still I told him of the party’s unexpected thrills. Words woke us up, reflection turned affection to regret: “After she left me I tried not to do this, but I get so lonely”...so I showed him out, warbling “I’m glad we met.” But now I crave the swift return of scotch-transfigured nights, like Chaplin, horrified by his rich friend in City Lights who only recognizes him from liquor-gladdened heights, sticking a tall glass in the man’s upstanding hand (the clink or worse awaits poor tramps like us if scamps like you won’t think) and meekly scolding, in a voice weak with nostalgia, “Drink.”

They were travelers, plotting river courses, writing the genesis of unknown people, fugitives with a revolver in one hand, reins in another, merchants among the olive trees, euphorbias, mimosas, emissaries, deserters. Some knew the native tongues; they called themselves by new names in the eastern twilight, different parts of their soul never having learned to live together. Skies burned. Dust covered the palms and minarets as they arrived by the incandescent shore of our city, each with his own little dreams and disasters. Some remained, never to be heard of again. Some left with caravans, wearing native dress — ephemerids. Where are they? What are they used to? The only preserved interview — concerning an artist and explorer. Did he ever speak of his friends in X? Never. The only thing he liked in X was his sister. But did you know that he painted? Oh yes! — some fine things: stemware, a series of watercolors of shoebills and Abdim’s stork.

I’m back again scrutinizing the Milky Way of your ultrasound, scanning the dark matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say is chockablock with quarks and squarks, gravitons and gravatini, photons and photinos. Our sprout, who art there inside the spacecraft of your Ma, the time capsule of this printout, hurling and whirling towards us, it’s all daft on this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens, our Martian, our little green man, we’re anxious to make contact, to ask divers questions about the heavendom you hail from, to discuss the whole shebang of the beginning and end, the pre-big bang untime before you forget the why and lie of thy first place. And, our friend, to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we’d die for you even, that we pray you’re not here to subdue us, that we’d put away our ray guns, missiles, attitude and share our world with you, little big head, if only you stay.

The chatter of little people Breaks on my purpose Like the water-drops which slowly wear the rocks to powder. And while I laugh My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch.