1269 Arts and sciences poems

My first teacher told me that what sculpture involved was being a God. He was not talking about the old ways, about fashioning a man out of a rib. Out of the earth. A god can see something that does not exist yet in the world. Who could have imagined the giraffe, the octopus, the flounder? Who could have imagined our sharp sensibilities, our contortions? The materials are all there—eyes and blood and respiration, but still, they get made new. Now I know that these days such a view is against science, but the idea of a god is as real as god is not. A scientist who sees what has been done versus one who can make straw out of gold. Or more like plastic out of petroleum. Paper out of trees. You have to decide which kind you will be. We’re mistaken when we equate the wise and the prophetic. You’re always looking either backwards or forwards. This piece puts you on a precipice. It’s up to you which way you fall. You see—it’s all there. The scientist and the artist were once one— how else could you record what you saw? How else, find a way of seeing?

But how choose the appropriate sticking point to start at? Who wants to write a poem without the letter e, Especially for Thee, where the flourished vowel lends such panache to your carnet de bal

After Francesco Clemente ’ s Indian Miniature #16 The sun-face looms over me, gigantic-hot, smelling of iron. Its rays striated, rasp-red and muscled as the tongues of iguanas. They are trying to lick away my name. But I am not afraid. I hold in my hands (where did I get them) enormous blue scissors that are just the color of sky. I bring the blades together, like a song. The rays fall around me curling a bit, like dried carrot peel. A far sound in the air—fire or rain? And when I’ve cut all the way to the center of the sun I see flowers, flowers, flowers.

Down in the basement, jacked on Kimbo, I’m screwdriving chunks of OxiClean into the washer. Jane:Collage is tattered backdrop, not worth the Time nor Money.

Upon the plain as I rode all alone, Assaulted by two sturdy lads I was; I am a poor man Sires, let me be gone. Nay, but ye shall be poor before ye pass. And so I was: yet lost nothing thereby. Would they had robbed me of my poverty.

To Marc Crawford from whom the commission Whose broken window is a cry of art (success, that winks aware as elegance, as a treasonable faith) is raw: is sonic: is old-eyed première. Our beautiful flaw and terrible ornament. Our barbarous and metal little man. “I shall create! If not a note, a hole. If not an overture, a desecration.” Full of pepper and light and Salt and night and cargoes. “Don’t go down the plank if you see there’s no extension. Each to his grief, each to his loneliness and fidgety revenge. Nobody knew where I was and now I am no longer there.” The only sanity is a cup of tea. The music is in minors. Each one other is having different weather. “It was you, it was you who threw away my name! And this is everything I have for me.” Who has not Congress, lobster, love, luau, the Regency Room, the Statue of Liberty, runs. A sloppy amalgamation. A mistake. A cliff. A hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun.

for George Schneeman New York’s lovely weather hurts my forehead in praise of thee the? white dead whose eyes know: what are they of the tiny cloud my brain: The City’s tough red buttons: O Mars, red, angry planet, candy bar, with sky on top, “why, it’s young Leander hurrying to his death” what? what time is it in New York            in these here alps City of lovely tender hate and beauty making beautiful old rhymes? I ran away from you when you needed something strong then I leand against the toilet bowl (ack) Malcolm X I love my brain it all mine now is saved not knowing that & that (happily) being that: “wee kill our selves to propagate our kinde” John Donne yes, that’s true the hair on yr nuts & my big blood-filled cock are a part in that too PART 2 Mister Robert Dylan doesn’t feel well today That’s bad This picture doesn’t show that It’s not bad, too it’s very ritzy in fact here I stand I can’t stand to be thing I don’t use                            atop the empire state building & so sauntered out that door That reminds me of the time I wrote that long piece about a gangster name of “Jr.” O Harry James! had eyes to wander but lacked tongue to praise so later peed under his art paused only to lay a sneeze on Jack Dempsey asleep with his favorite Horse That reminds me of I buzz on & off Miró pop in & out a Castro convertible minute by minute                                           GENEROSITY! Yes now that the seasons totter in their walk I do a lot of wondering about Life      in praise of ladies dead of & Time plaza(s), Bryant Park by the Public                     eye of brow Library, Smith Bros. black boxes, Times Square Pirogi Houses with long skinny rivers thru them they lead the weary away off! hey! I’m no sailor off a ship at sea   I’M HERE & “The living is easy” It’s “HIGH TIME” & I’m in shapes of shadow, they certainly can warm, can’t they? Have you ever seen one?                                                NO! of those long skinny Rivers So well hung, in New York City NO!          in fact I’m the Wonderer & as yr train goes by                               forgive me, René!              ‘just oncet’ I woke up in Heaven He woke, and wondered more, how many angels on this train huh?                      snore for there she lay on sheets that mock lust                  done that 7 times been caught and brought back to a peach nobody. To Continue: Ron Padgett & Ted Berrigan hates yr brain my dears amidst the many other little buzzes & like, Today, as Ron Padgett might say is “A tub of vodka” “in the morning” she might reply and that keeps it up past icy poles where angels beg fr doom then zip ping in-and-out, joining the army wondering about Life by the Public Library of Life No Greater Thrill! (I wonder) Now that the earth is changing I wonder what time it’s getting to be sitting on the New York Times Square that actually very ritzy, Lauren    it’s made of yellow wood or I don’t know something               maybe This man was my                       it’s been fluffed up friend He had a sense for the vast                               doesn’t he? Awake my Angel! give thyself to the lovely hours        Don’t cheat The victory is not always to the sweet. I mean that. Now this picture is pretty good here Though it once got demerits from the lunatic Arthur Cravan He wasn’t feeling good that day Maybe because he had nothing on paint-wise I mean PART 3 I wrote that about what is this empty room            without a heart now in three parts a white flower came home wet & drunk                2 Pepsis and smashed my fist thru her window in the nude As the hand zips you see Old Masters, you can see well hung in New York              they grow fast here Conflicting, yet purposeful yet with outcry vain! PART 4 Praising, that’s it! you string a sonnet around yr fat gut and falling on your knees you invent the shoe for a horse. It brings you luck while sleeping “You have it seems a workshop nature” Have you                                              “Good Lord!” Some folks is wood seen them?                                          Ron Padgett wd say amidst the many other little buzzes past the neon on & off night & day     STEAK SANDWICH Have you ever tried one Anne?          SURE! “I wonder what time ‘its’?” as I sit on this new Doctor NO             I only look at buildings they’re in as you and he, I mean he & you & I buzz past in yellow ties      I call that gold THE HOTEL BUCKINGHAM (facade) is black, and taller than last time is looming over lunch         naked        high time        poem       & I, equal in perfection & desire is looming         two eyes         over coffee-cup (white) nature and man:         both hell on poetry. Art is art and life is “A monograph on infidelity” Oh. Forgive me stench of sandwich O pneumonia in American Poetry Do we have time?                           well look at Burroughs 7 times been caught and brought back to Mars & eaten. “Art is art & Life is home,” Fairfield Porter said that turning himself in Tonight arrives again in red some go on            even in Colorado                                 on the run the forests shake meaning: coffee            the cheerfulness of this poor fellow is terrible, hidden in the fringes of the eyelids’ blue mysteries          (I’M THE SKY) The sky is bleeding now onto 57th Street of the 20th Century & HORN & HARDART’S Right here. That’s PART 5 I’m not some sailor off a ship at sea I’m the wanderer                                                                (age 4) & now everyone is dead sinking bewildered of hand, of foot, of lip nude, thinking laughter burnished brighter than hate Goodbye. André Breton said that what a shit! Now he’s gone! up bubbles all his amorous breath & Monograph on Infidelity entitled The Living Dream I never again played I dreamt that December 27th, 1965 all in the blazon of sweet beauty’s breast I mean           “a rose”           Do you understand that? Do you? The rock&roll songs of this earth commingling absolute joy AND incontrovertible joy of intelligence certainly can warm can’t they?        YES! and they do Keeping eternal whisperings around (Mr. MacAdams writes in the nude: no that’s not (we want to take the underground         me that: then zips in & revolution to Harvard!)                 out the boring taxis, re- fusing to join the army and yet this girl has                asleep “on the springs” so much grace                   of red GENEROSITY) I wonder! Were all their praises simply prophecies of this the time!           NO GREATER THRILL my friends But I quickly forget them, those other times, for what are they but parts in the silver lining of the tiny cloud my brain drifting up into smoke the city’s tough blue top: I think a picture always leads you gently to someone else Don’t you? like when you ask to leave the room & go to the moon.

It happens again As soon as I take down her book and open it. I turn the page. My skies rise higher and hang younger stars. The ship's rail freezes. Mare Hibernicum leads to Anne Bradstreet's coast. A blackbird leaves her pine trees And lands in my spruce trees. I open my door on a Dublin street. Her child/her words are staring up at me: In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find. We say home truths Because her words can be at home anywhere— At the source, at the end and whenever The book lies open and I am again An Irish poet watching an English woman Become an American poet.

Before I got my eye put out – I liked as well to see As other creatures, that have eyes – And know no other way – But were it told to me, Today, That I might have the Sky For mine, I tell you that my Heart Would split, for size of me – The Meadows – mine – The Mountains – mine – All Forests – Stintless stars – As much of noon, as I could take – Between my finite eyes – The Motions of the Dipping Birds – The Morning’s Amber Road – For mine – to look at when I liked, The news would strike me dead – So safer – guess – with just my soul Opon the window pane Where other creatures put their eyes – Incautious – of the Sun –

Stairs: a rushed flight down thirty-eight; French doors unlocked always. Always: a lie; an argument. Argument: two buck hunters circle a meadow’s edge. Edge: one of us outside bleeding. Bleeding: shards of glass; doors locked. Locked: carpet awash with blood. Blood: lift and drop; a sudden breeze. Breeze: its whistle through bone. Bone: the other was looking at — Bone: cradled to catch drips. Drips: quiet as a meadow fawn. Fawn: faces down each hunter each gun. Gun: again. Again: somebody call someone. Someone: almost always prefers forgetting. Forgetting: an argument; a lie. Lie: a meadow; a casement; a stair.