John Godfrey

I come off a little bit ventilated but you must realize the material world is constantly crumbling under my eyes it's too much for the novel tongue I speak the glitter of pavement in my brainstem, you must accommodate the polytonal grimace of the set lips becoming a smile, and you must accept the thin section of arm advancing across your peripheries to grip you in pleasure, measuring feeling in your restraint We have lived through the most furious little chunk of history for this? that we must unburden ourselves on night roof air, presuming the poise and perks of champ pigeon teams planing the evening winds until, signaled from the roof with a flag we become American birds

Radiant dog on doublecross, and I, by night, a raven fly. My fear is that eternity has an alm that is ordinary to ten thousand and worn from my strings, my console of limbs, and I a missing part. It is the world that's new, not I, and submarines can shoot the land from the wheelbarrow of sickly pastorals. Give me the swamp any day! or the huts that pave the slave to freedom. From a small cloud in my ears the song has leapt the valley curtained with snow, and for ascendant harmony the gambler thumbs his cards. Of all the queens one is a witch whose curse is that she's held. The horses roll the stone and trot after their maturity sweepstakes. This time the homeliest won't ride my bet into hasty subtract glue. The pieces fly and here I lie, triangle of head and gut and thigh. Put me on my mount, Tomahawk, and past the river our cortege will dust the heavy fur, and peasants' prayers will touch the smell of holy cadaver. I will have sun and manly rage, and Mike Atlas will trim me up to rip the bier from my brother's hearse, and avenge me for my loss. The gallows hurt! and for my scheme I hang on the bridge's span where my mother will trust my lips with tears, the ones I send her now.

in memory of Ted Berrigan Lose a brother? Lose a pa? At the sound of the tone it will be exactly sayonara. Meet me in the lobby of Casa Purgatoria when it's Turkish bath hour.  We will sweat  out  whatever  the  fuck it is that's unclean and inside us, at least inside me.  Round and brown and getting cool. Vestigal  feeling in the monkey I cut off myself.  Having  stood beside the  catafalque  to  nominte  him for  heroism I did not expect a nom- ination  for  tragedy  to be so rapidly forthcoming. You saw as well as I  did  how  the  hot  afternoon  was  grateful  to  him for bequeathing himself  to  its  mysterious  finitude.  Dry  and  bright and breezy and the hours were honey.  The shadow of a fully leafed-out tree over our white  knuckles.  I  would  have  liked  to  have been holding beads to show how humble  and elated I felt.  I talked of farce as if it were life. Life itself seemed  more than ever  high hips in a  form-fitting sheath. I  can  be  restfully  subdued  by  the  sight  of  long  undulant  fingers, please  let  me  show you  my entire body!  Every time  you see me re- call  my  neck  sinews,  my  piano-string  forearm  tendons,  my pneu- matic  sexual flesh,  and  my mild and erotic  eyeballs—forget the shy- ness  about me  that  you can't understand.  You can easily read in my eyes  how  voluntary  my  fantasies are,  and how flattering they are to you. Body. B-o-d-y.  Ah, the bruises.  Later for laying flowers, says the body.  O  body,  O  tough  stuff,  O  body  capable of sleep.  I break  the shaft  of  my  spear  over  my  knee  and kiss a patch of concrete.  Then from  hands  and  knees  I rise  to my full height.

Bungle is the password A slight matter of a deposit secures you the night's blank face on the large crude banknote I offer all the grease that's ever been on my palm as advice: Don't breathe in the lights of evening Moonshine hits the can bounces off and consumes the drapes I'm talking about here where we meet at the emergency water supply One man and one woman gets you one of each and some shadows A caress in the breeze A caress please so much? You can't even die without touching, you can't sweeten the fat street of faces without touch I don't retain the melody that set me, dressed as I am, in motion in marriage with myself It ain't no honeymoon to take off my breast and play it So it happens you notice me in my canary shorts and my crimson fez Twunk twunkity twunk My thumb piano, my very open eyes

Happens this time in answer to indecency Lit by the yellow shop windows cast Unkind to you, that light You say, Sit, Ubu, sit, or Hey, I like your weave This avenue for instance Gateway to escapade You can see from the beginning to its end All-embracing greed Distracting appliqués of altruism Small pomme de terre Can you tell whose hand on the basinet and that does what for you Warmth all in the light Sight all in garage park hallway Morning's dusk on pause You stand body in profile What you don't fill in the doorway stays empty More than overcome I know you're there and unseal my lips