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A circle. What was needed was a circuit, and a good operating system. What’s within is without being seen to be so. Optical anomaly as unexceptional. Four left’s a square. One way turning system until it becomes its other way. A passive insistence on multiples until that divorces itself, becomes single. A single pitch made up of the sounds of multiples. Conduction, instrumental absence. Fundamentals establish separate planets. Similarity wars upon their lines, planes. Said well, here opens, his, sits at its bottom. The bodies. Spoke well, agreed in kind, general. But the way of its expression requires hurt and then, treatment of skin for leather clothes or whatever, it’s old, sometimes, often. Depending on the question, it can be the answer. One shouldn’t be proud to not have it. A knee, an elbow, three arms up. Then a last one, a fourth. Last and happiest, willing, fully skin end. The whey, foam, on the head of the safest society in human civilization. Amnesia to people who will actually harm and hurt.

Chop, hack, slash; chop, hack, slash; cleaver, boning knife, ax— not even the clumsiest clod of a butcher could do this so crudely, time, as do you, dismember me, render me, leave me slop in a pail, one part of my body a hundred years old, one not even there anymore, another still riven with idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was for whom everything always was going too slowly, too slowly. It was me then who chopped, slashed, through you, across you, relished you, gorged on you, slugged your invisible liquor down raw. Now you're polluted; pulse, clock, calendar taint you, befoul you, you suck at me, pull at me, barbed wire knots of memory tear me, my heart hangs, inert, a tag-end of tissue, firing, misfiring, trying to heave itself back to its other way with you. But was there ever really any other way with you? When I ran as though for my life, wasn't I fleeing from you, or for you? Wasn't I frightened you'd fray, leave me nothing but shreds? Aren't I still? When I snatch at one of your moments, and clutch it, a pebble, a planet, isn't it wearing away in my hand as though I, not you, were the ocean of acid, the corrosive in I which dissolve? Wait, though, wait: I should tell you too how happy I am, how I love it so much, all of it, chopping and slashing and all. Please know I love especially you, how every morning you turn over the languorous earth, for how would she know otherwise to do dawn, to do dusk, when all she hears from her speech-creatures is "Wait!"? We whose anguished wish is that our last word not be "Wait."

of course, I may die in the next ten minutes and I’m ready for that but what I’m really worried about is that my editor-publisher might retire even though he is ten years younger than I. it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe old age of 45) when we began our unholy alliance to test the literary waters, neither of us being much known. I think we had some luck and still have some of same yet the odds are pretty fair that he will opt for warm and pleasant afternoons in the garden long before I. writing is its own intoxication while publishing and editing, attempting to collect bills carries its own attrition which also includes dealing with the petty bitchings and demands of many so-called genius darlings who are not. I won’t blame him for getting out and hope he sends me photos of his Rose Lane, his Gardenia Avenue. will I have to seek other promulgators? that fellow in the Russian fur hat? or that beast in the East with all that hair in his ears, with those wet and greasy lips? or will my editor-publisher upon exiting for that world of Trollius and trellis hand over the machinery of his former trade to a cousin, a daughter or some Poundian from Big Sur? or will he just pass the legacy on to the Shipping Clerk who will rise like Lazarus, fingering new-found importance? one can imagine terrible things: “Mr. Chinaski, all your work must now be submitted in Rondo form and typed triple-spaced on rice paper.” power corrupts, life aborts and all you have left is a bunch of warts. “no, no, Mr. Chinaski: Rondo form!” “hey, man,” I’ll ask, “haven’t you heard of the thirties?” “the thirties? what’s that?” my present editor-publisher and I at times did discuss the thirties, the Depression and some of the little tricks it taught us— like how to endure on almost nothing and move forward anyhow. well, John, if it happens enjoy your divertissement to plant husbandry, cultivate and aerate between bushes, water only in the early morning, spread shredding to discourage weed growth and as I do in my writing: use plenty of manure. and thank you for locating me there at 5124 DeLongpre Avenue somewhere between alcoholism and madness. together we laid down the gauntlet and there are takers even at this late date still to be found as the fire sings through the trees.

I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First soldier, and then poet, and then both, Who died a soldier-poet of your race. I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained— And one thing more that was not then to say: The Victory for what it lost and gained. You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day The war seemed over more for you than me, But now for me than you—the other way. How over, though, for even me who knew The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine, If I was not to speak of it to you And see you pleased once more with words of mine?

Oft have I thrilled at deeds of high emprise, And yearned to venture into realms unknown, Thrice blessed she, I deemed, whom God had shown How to achieve great deeds in woman’s guise. Yet what discov’ry by expectant eyes Of foreign shores, could vision half the throne Full gained by her, whose power fully grown Exceeds the conquerors of th’ uncharted skies? So would I be this woman whom the world Avows its benefactor; nobler far, Than Sybil, Joan, Sappho, or Egypt’s queen. In the alembic forged her shafts and hurled At pain, diseases, waging a humane war; Greater than this achievement, none, I ween.

Exert thy voice, sweet harbinger of spring! This moment is thy time to sing, This moment I attend to praise, And set my numbers to they lays. Free as thine shall be my song; As they music, short, or long. Poets, wild as thee, were born, Pleasing best when unconfined, When to please is least designed, Soothing but their cares to rest; Cares do still their thoughts molest, And still th' unhappy poet's breast, Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn. She begins, Let all be still! Muse, they promise now fulfill! Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet Can thy words such accents fit, Canst thou syllables refine, Melt a sense that shall retain Still some spirit of the brain, Till with sounds like these it join. 'Twill not be! then change thy note; Let division shake thy throat. Hark! Division now she tries; Yet as far the Muse outflies. Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune; Trifler, wilt thou sing till *June*? Till thy business all lies waste, And the time of building's past! Thus we poets that have speech, Unlike what they forests teach, If a fluent vein be shown That's transcendant to our own, Criticize, reform, or preach, Or censure what we cannot reach.

Excellent In The Two Sister-Arts Of POËsy And Painting: An Ode

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat: Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean, A merciful putting away of what has been. And this we know: Death is not Life, effete, Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen So marvellous things know well the end not yet. Victor and vanquished are a-one in death: Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say, “Come, what was your record when you drew breath?” But a big blot has hid each yesterday So poor, so manifestly incomplete. And your bright Promise, withered long and sped, Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

These New York City Pigeons cooing in the air shaft are responsible for me stubbing my toe spraining my ankle and getting sick on ammonia fumes That pigeon roosting on the clothesline stole my nightgown Those pigeons on the street lamp made me feel foolish while riding in a black car completely splattered with their grey & white poo poo These New York City pigeons are not calm like pigeons of Oxalá in Brazil and do not croon like doves of Zimbabwe New York City pigeons moan strange    low    mournful    quivering cancer-like moans mixed with hungry hyena barks & gulping loss of the forest cries New York City pigeons are not relaxed like pigeons sunning at Marcel Duchamp swimming pool in San Francisco New York City pigeons are not happy like pigeons standing on head of the woman selling bananas on a street corner in Johannesburg New York City pigeons flap viral leather fungus dust from wings into faces then sit on steps vocalizing & waiting for the death of humankind New York City pigeons are not friendly like pigeons eating flaky crescent-shaped rolls at Hotel du Piémont in Paris New York City pigeons are not content like pigeons posing for photos on arms of men in plaza of Caracas New York City pigeons will lounge on ledges & murmur profanity all day will fight for fucking space in the mating season shit on air conditioners & wipe their asses on windows while big cockroaches suck Sucrets in the dark New York City pigeons are not alert like pigeons sitting quietly on bicycles in peace memorial park of Hiroshima New York City pigeons roll their pearly eyes inflate their throats and defecate on the shoulders of pedestrians New York City pigeons have no love for crumb-throwing pigeon lovers & no year of the pigeon is celebrated at least not for these New York City Pigeons

The house in Broad Street, red brick, with nine rooms the weedgrown graveyard with its rows of tombs the jail from which imprisoned faces grinned at stiff palmettos flashing in the wind the engine-house, with engines, and a tank in which young alligators swam and stank, the bell-tower, of red iron, where the bell gonged of the fires in a tone from hell magnolia trees with whitehot torch of bud the yellow river between banks of mud the tall striped lighthouse like a barber’s pole snake in the bog and locust in the hole worn cigarette cards, of white battleships, or flags, or chorus girls with scarlet lips, jackstones of copper, peach tree in the yard splashing ripe peaches on an earth baked hard children beneath the arc-light in a romp with Run sheep Run, and rice-birds in the swamp, the organ-grinder’s monkey, dancing bears, okras in baskets, Psyche on the stairs— and then the north star nearer, and the snow silent between the now and long ago time like a train that roared from place to place new crowds, new faces, for a single face no longer then the chinaberry tree nor the dark mockingbird to sing his glee nor prawns nor catfish; icicles instead and Indian-pipes, and cider in the shed arbutus under pinewoods in the spring and death remembered as a tropic thing with picture postcard angels to upraise it and trumpet vines and hummingbirds to phrase it then wisdom come, and Shakspere’s voice far off, to be or not, upon the teacher’s cough, the latent heat of melting ice, the brief hypotenuse from ecstasy to grief amo amas, and then the cras amet, the new-found eyes no slumber could forget, Vivien, the affliction of the senses, and conjugation of historic tenses and Shakspere nearer come, and louder heard, and the disparateness of flesh and word, time growing swifter, and the pendulums in shorter savage arcs that beat like drums— hands held, relinquished, faces come and gone, kissed and forgotten, and become but one, old shoes worn out, and new ones bought, the gloves soiled, and so lost in limbo, like the loves— then Shakspere in the heart, the instant speech parting the conscious terrors each from each— wisdom’s dishevelment, the purpose lamed, and purposeless the footsteps eastward aimed the bloodstream always slower, while the clock followed the tired heart with louder knock, fatigue upon the eye, the tardy springs inviting to no longer longed-for things— the birdsong nearer now than Shakspere’s voice, whispers of comfort—Death is near, rejoice!— remember now the red house with nine rooms the graveyard with its trumpetvines and tombs— play jackstones now and let your jackstones be the stars that make Orion’s galaxy so to deceive yourself until you move into that house whose tenants do not love.