Arthur Vogelsang

For a long time the Spanish from Spain Who came here became slightly insane In a special way and just a little. You can try this yourself. Walk farther than you can into the forest in New York So it’s a toss-up whether or not you know the way back. For you there’s going to be a smidge of confusion, a glow of fear That smells like burning rye toast, And the illusion that you are the only person alive On the earth. You will probably have the second illusion That no one likes you, which doesn’t jibe with the first illusion Of no other people. This was about the extent of it, for the Spanish, They felt all that just a few hours a week, but every week at home, Living in, say, small San Francisco, Which made thinking slow and hard at these times, But if you try this yourself in the deep woods You’ll see you can still think enough And you’ll remember your way back to the loving arms Of your wife, husband, or mother, in Rochester. (Yes, You could try it as a child, but please don’t.) The Spanish had a purpose to walk east inland to the Sierras, the gold. The Indians said there were five hills and two mountains Entirely of gold and you had to wear ferns dangling before your eyes Like sunglasses when you got near the mountains. The hills, they said, were not so bright. The Spanish thought this was bullshit But were having trouble with the coast (where They truly believed the gold was) which was that boats Could not travel north and south even as fast as people walking Because the Pacific coast was opposing currents (you made Half a mile an hour in the water with biggest sail). An expedition of thirty Spaniards from Spain (living In small San Francisco) walked east inland toward what’s now Mariposa. It means butterfly. In that place, the shivering feathery Insects rose from the ground and blacked out the sun. The sky had no room for more butterflies so the leftovers attached to the trees, Making the trees appear like ragged trees. Look up the other way, the explorers said to each other, but That way, when they did, was no blue sky but darkness of orange insects That did not fly in clouds but were the sky, So any forward motion by the thirty men seemed, not seemed Did make the sky covered each inch With the thin trembling insects, brown or green or orange, But as a whole a black ceiling with little light between them and the men, Who thought slow and hard but did think, and so returned To small San Francisco where no one believed them but understood The illusion because when they asked the thirty men What such an encounter with butterflies felt like, the men described Feeling the way all the colonists and explorers and priests and women Felt a few hours each week at home— Fear making the olfactory illusion of burning rye toast hand In hand with the illusion of being the only one And the simultaneous but contradictory illusion That no one likes you. How could everybody hate you If there was no everybody? Or even anybody. Well there was a way to fix this And we use it now around here (I Mean in New York and California and Nevada and Hawaii, Not just in my house) which is to wrap our loving arms Around each other. It works very well And I know you’ve tried it. The Spanish from Spain brought virtuous women Over for that purpose only (you don’t think the virtuous babes looked For gold, did you?) and it worked very well Except the women were worse, I mean much worse, Not just specially a little insane and needed The loving arms much more than the men. They needed longer sessions and more sessions. What’s more, if the expedition of thirty butterfly Illusionists had gone six miles further, They would have seen silver sticking out of the ground Like glass after a four-car accident on a street in Rochester. But for many decades the promise of the waiting loving arms, Versus the unacceptable illusion of the butterflies Forming the entire black sky, kept them near the coasts. When you put down this book, you could decide For yourself if it is true that wrapping loving arms around Somebody is as temporarily powerful as I’ve made it Out to be or is possibly permanently powerful or is an illusion Like the massed feathery insects which were absolute.

If  you give money to an animal He or she gets cloying and aggressive But when arrested for that behavior Says, “I didn’t know anything, my reps Did it. Well they did. These humans Committed their tiny crimes in the mail,” it says, “Knowing animals are photogenic. You can hold One in your lap or hold a sheaf of  photos In which a feline looks like you yourself  tearing off a leg Of a springbok antelope, which prey looks like you Concentrating on the flee instinct,” it says. I tend to agree with it. It and All of them have expressions on their faces, four limbs, Two eyes, noses, ears, etcetera, how close can you get to you Or me, and then there’s the same insides. If  it is a cheetah Do not put it in your lap. If  it’s A black rhino it weighs 2,250 lbs. And has two! sharp horns about 24 in. ea.! Let’s suppose nothing about that one and not say It has a facial expression. My own opinion Is it will have one in a matter of time. There are ten other scenes in which I look like the animals In them so don’t argue I’m writing yet another check this week And as a matter of fact I’d like to smack something, Bite it, and cook it. You do that, tonight For instance. If one of us eats the other It’s a very big crime Not tiny like the revolutionary revelation in a solicitation That we are like the animals, no,are them, Which is bigger in evolution and spirituality, Sure, and in the final accounting Much more important, but today Don’t put a cheetah in your lap and don’t eat other humans.

I called Hart on my longer distance line And in case you didn’t know he is in heavine. Hart, I implored, I searched your book (Yes, you have a Collected) and could fine Nothing about the 36 cast iron bridges in Central Park, why didn’t you write about one At least. He said he wrote about the narrow Bow Bridge For peds built in 1878 which is sad and fine And always photographed through branches in the foregrine Which was sufficiently sad to make him weep all the tine He was trying to write the poem so he threw it away. He tried again and he uncontrollably wept agine. Did you try a third tine, I asked. No, he said, and here’s why: Life is uncontrollably sad all the time Unless we divert ourselves with art objects, Sex, or tequila or beer, and if we tell the truth About this, for instance when we feel it While looking at a photograph of the cast ine Bow Bridge or see in life not photos but the real bridge at a short destine Away with the actual park and branches around us, We feel like killing ourselves to stop the pain Or as you, Arthur, call it, the pine, So I didn’t try a third time To write the poem. Get off this line, He said. Wait! Don’t hang up, he said, I take it back, stay on the phine! Well, I considered calling on my second longer distance line Kenneth who in heavine has changed his name to Kenneth Kine And Barbara who I did call on my second longer distance line With Hart on hold and affirmed her name change to Barbara Gine But I didn’t ask those younger two about uncontrollable totally dominant sadness Or whether they had discarded their own poems about the 36 cast ine Bridges for people to walk on in Central Park Because they were weeping on the paper and pine Ing for Hart’s Big Deep Salty Lake to ease the pine. I didn’t call Frank because I never knew hine I mean him. I figured the next step was mine. So if you can believe it I hung up on Hart Crine.