Poemunity — your poem community

And at the picnic table under the ancient elms, one of my parents turned to me and said: “We hope you end up here,” where the shade relieves the light, where we sit in some beneficence—and I felt the shape of the finite after my ether life: the ratio, in all dappling, of dark to bright; and yet how brief my stay would be under the trees, because the voice I’d heard could not cradle me, could no longer keep me in greenery; and I would have to say good-bye again, make my way across the white California sand and back: or am I now creating the helplessness I heard those words express, the psalm torn like a map in my hands?

Moissac, France I walked to the baker’s and thought about the bread. And at the corner store the butter. Four kinds of butter! I bought them in order of saltiness. I studied slang in secret. I said little. And my students were so beautiful I couldn’t teach a thing. Instead I made them sing. Twenty-two. Nothing to do. New York had vanished, Connecticut, too. My students grew hair and got haircuts, grew hair and got haircuts, and sang. I’d lie in bed and masturbate and wonder why I’d come, and come and come again and then rise for some bread and a run. Does the village persist? It must. Right now, someone hums “Nowhere Man” and thinks of that shy teacher from — Manhattan? New Orleans? Bel Air? And she brushes her lengthening hair.

You keep me waiting in a truck with its one good wheel stuck in the ditch, while you piss against the south side of a tree. Hurry. I’ve got nothing on under my skirt tonight. That still excites you, but this pickup has no windows and the seat, one fake leather thigh, pressed close to mine is cold. I’m the same size, shape, make as twenty years ago, but get inside me, start the engine; you’ll have the strength, the will to move. I’ll pull, you push, we’ll tear each other in half. Come on, baby, lay me down on my back. Pretend you don’t owe me a thing and maybe we’ll roll out of here, leaving the past stacked up behind us; old newspapers nobody’s ever got to read again.

Where there’s smoke there are mirrors and a dry ice machine, industrial quality fans. If I’ve learned anything about the present moment • But who doesn’t love a flame, the way one leaps into being full-fledged, then leans over to chat • Already the light is retrospective, sourceless, is losing itself though the trees are clearly limned.

There's a black bear in the apple tree and he won't come down. I can hear him panting, like an athlete. I can smell the stink of his body. Come down, black bear. Can you hear me? The mind is the most interesting thing to me; like the sudden death of the sun, it seems implausible that darkness will swallow it or that anything is lost forever there, like a black bear in a fruit tree, gulping up sour apples with dry sucking sounds, or like us at the pier, somber and tired, making food from sunlight, you saying a word, me saying a word, trying hard, though things were disintegrating. Still, I wanted you, your lips on my neck, your postmodern sexuality. Forlorn and anonymous: I didn't want to be that. I could hear the great barking monsters of the lower waters calling me forward. You see, my mind takes me far, but my heart dreams of return. Black bear, with pale-pink tongue at the center of his face, is turning his head, like the face of Christ from life. Shaking the apple boughs, he is stronger than I am and seems so free of passion— no fear, no pain, no tenderness. I want to be that. Come down, black bear, I want to learn the faith of the indifferent.

( Morton St. Pier) Lying here Flat on my back I can almost see Myself in the morgue On a slab, tagged I am the corpse No one will have Not stabbed, stored No one takes my life It goes by the board

Now the pink is in the water its wavy edges celebrated by cars & guys with hands in pockets staring out. A woman chewing gum by the window of the train. Which heaves its accordion on & we move. They call it choo-choo because of the faint chooing sound as it starts. It's twee too & dit dit dit eel & screech. All this as the colors change. The buildings they bothered to paint white are pink like someone's awful socks were mistakenly washed. Who owns this insidious red. The trees are black cause that's where the green goes. The girl who chews has fanned her fingers out below the glass and I long to stare at them. To count them one by one as the wires slip by. It's the sultriness, the smokey approach of the loss of light that I love. The homosexual lilac comes & it's ours & everyone like us. The bright compartment of white lights & gleaming flip top & yawns rage on. Outside the Hudson River queerness tools on my brain like a hopeless little wallet of feeling. A clear swipe to night. Everyone in my compartment is tearing now. It's true, I heard two sheets at once get torn to pluck a brownie out. Its smell oozes, & the other one, god knows whose—to park her gum? Her hands are holding her head, my silent partner's & she's sleeping (deep in my gaze.) I look at her knees, the wrinkled foot just above the heel, a yellowish unmoody pink. The trees crowd the house & finally we go fast finally it's not so warm on the train & boats are sitting on purple sand the mountains are bland & blue a woman's sigh is falling off, from on high and into her body. My partner's knees sway. Someone says Proust. Or was it Bruce. The train is rough. Cutting through sweetness every night. I think "time." Then "cargo."

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. Then the traveler in the dark Thanks you for your tiny spark, How could he see where to go, If you did not twinkle so? In the dark blue sky you keep, Often through my curtains peep For you never shut your eye, Till the sun is in the sky. As your bright and tiny spark Lights the traveler in the dark, Though I know not what you are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

There were two brothers, John and James, And when the town went up in flames, To save the house of James dashed John, Then turned, and lo! his own was gone. And when the great World War began, To volunteer John promptly ran; And while he learned live bombs to lob, James stayed at home and — sneaked his job. John came home with a missing limb; That didn’t seem to worry him; But oh, it set his brain awhirl To find that James had — sneaked his girl! Time passed. John tried his grief to drown; To-day James owns one-half the town; His army contracts riches yield; And John? Well,search the Potter’s Field.

On a parking lot staircase I met two fine-looking men descending, both in slacks and dress shirts, neckties much alike, one of the men in his sixties, the other a good twenty years older, unsteady on his polished shoes, a son and his father, I knew from their looks, the son with his right hand on the handrail, the father, left hand on the left, and in the middle they were holding hands, and when I neared, they opened the simple gate of their interwoven fingers to let me pass, then reached out for each other and continued on.