Mr. Clean



1.

Let me peel a fern

from inside a ripple

of bygone bath water.



Your fingers were cold and sweet.

OK company for my knees

along your thighs.



You hadn't yet noticed

the scum ring

in my basin.



These days I wear

that on my face,

around the mouth.



2.

Tennessee changed me

from a wing-hearted champ.



I caught a dark bird

on the river down there



and spat on its breast.

Split it open, had the flesh.



3.

Next time you caress my temples

in the mist and oil of the bath,



only I will know what great danger

you are in,



this far from land.

1996 (revision)



1.

Back in the days of growth and prosperity,

lambent blue harmonies pealed from my movements.



My gait measured counterpoint in basso profundo



to a lone creature clenched

on the green shoals of Venus,



in the chlorine and methane tinged amethyst haze,

feasting upon its own mustard innards



in spasmodic recumbence.



2.

March and its Ides had just turned the corner.

The park was a gritty sponge not fit for sleeping.



None deserve sight of one better concealed,

so I hid in my room, for days, like a gun.



Then my good buddy, Wyatt (who'd razed

me before with his hex-addled bags

of organic slug menses and thorium scones)



rapped on my door flush with thymine derivative.

I knew he had come to undo me again.



Later I called him. Okay, Wy, I did it...



He knew me, and paused.



Yeah? Huh, me and Hofer had the same trip last night,

man, and we felt the SAME WAY...



3.

Two mornings hence I had dreams of the future that sort of came true.



Though later I realized how all twines together:

drugs, times, drinks, needs,

smokes, her, them.



My days back then were dark incandescence.

I felt pure as an animal.



I knew what to do.

1996



1.

Back in the days of growth and prosperity, lambent blue harmonies

pealed from my movements to sing broken counterpoint in basso profundo

beneath a lone, doggish, reptilian creature orgiastically clenched

in spasmodic recumbence on the green shoals of Venus, in the chlorine

and methane tinged amethyst haze, feasting upon its own mustard innards.



2.

March and its Ides having just turned the corner, the park was a gritty

sponge not fit for sleeping. None deserve sight of one better concealed,

so I hid in my room, for days, like a gun. Then my good buddy, Wyatt

(who'd razed me before with his hex-addled bags of organic slug menses

and thorium scones) rapped on my door flush with thymine derivative,

come, as he had, to undo me again. Later I called him. Okay, Wy, I did it...



He knew me, and paused. Yeah? Huh, me and Hofer had the same trip last night,

man, and we felt the SAME WAY...



3.

Soon after that I had dreams of the future that sort of came true.

Though later I realized how all twines together: drugs, times, needs,

smokes, her, you, them. My days back then were dark incandescence.

I felt pure as animals. Sometimes I still do.



Even now, under idiots' cubed jurisdiction.

obsess



I drive in redress beyond red, diesel dusk.

Blood saps the conscience, no escaping this lane.

The joke wind issuing hard on the mirror

whirls ashes, blasts my interior space.

Fractious, I creep the fringe,

sealed by otherness, adrift.



I whisper a black psalm of rocks,

now scoping girls in the parking lot.

sherm's march (a revision)



I drive in redress through red, diesel dusk.

Blood sapped of conscience, not escaping the lane.

Fractious, I creep the fringes, sealed by otherness.

The joke wind issuing hard on my mirror

whirls ashes, wafts through interior space.

Adrift beyond mute psychosis, I whisper

a black psalm of rocks, scoping girls in parking lots.

march to the sea



Driving away from Atlanta,

red diesel dusk,

blood conciousness adrift.

Lanes of steel, history, dismay,



refractive sensing.

Otherness creeps along

the fringes. Cigarette burns

yellow fingertips



joke wind issues

hard and fast over

sideview mirror. Whirling ashes

through dark interior



spaces. Stubble shirt, cotton chin.

Black palms, rocks. Mute

psychosis in strip mall

parking lots. I drift ahead

dog eye



back in the times

of unprecedented

growth and prosperity



tired melodies

peeling off me

played counterpoint



to a lone,

grey, leathery

reptilian dog creature



eating its mustard

guts out,

chewing them



way up there



in the green methane

dawn on the white

dust shoals



of Venus



what can you do?

yes, the bar, sweet harmonious

amber beer



but after that?



March just turning

the corner, the park ground

a sponge,



not cool for sleeping -



and suppose

one of these thin chicks

around here has kids? Then?





I should be hidden



I did go hide.



Called my good buddy,

Wyatt,

the one who'd jammed me,



god damn bag of

organic slug toenails,

opium lips



...okay, Wy, I did it...



...yeah?...yeah, me and Hofer...last night

yeah, we felt the same way...



Not too long after

I had my weird dream

of the future



the sort that came true



though later I realized

how all twines together:

drugs, times, smokes, needs, her, you, them



still,



those days then

were dark

incandescent magnetism,



had me feeling

pure

as animals



as they still do



here,



under idiot

cubicle



jurisdiction

threes



red prophecies

black smoke billowing

nightclub fire

.

quiet meltwater

a thief ranges

under night's blue tower

.

paper voices

chattering

in buried wind

falling off



so I missed you that one night

I was hanging by the picnic table at 7-11

doing nothing but

waiting for the pay phone to ring

and this thin, blonde girl I knew from upstate,

Delaney, pulled up in her black '89 Camaro

smoking a Marlboro Lights 100.

I asked to bum one

and we stood on the curb

smoking, talking about a couple people we knew,

looking at the massive trees

down by the bridge

with the dusk coming up

over the river,

red and humid,

end of July.

What a great time to be hanging

outside smoking butts and

talking, laughing a little, looking out the corner of

your eye at some new girl standing

there perspiring in her lime green blouse,

her jeans all faded and snug

just how you want them to be. I knew

you were my girl too, that's

sort of the point. I said to Delaney

I had money for smokes

and a couple forties, if she wanted.

She chose Lite while I stuck

with Old English,

I bought a pack of Camels

so I wouldn't have to keep bumming,

though she said it was fine,

and then we rode off, low in her Camaro,

both windows down,

breathing in the dusk,

the close air moving over us.

We drove down the dirt road

to the old, sumac-ridden

bridge abutment, the one rising like a tower

from the steep, gnarled

river bank, huge blocks

of cool, filthy granite.

You sit there overlooking

the brown river feeling

like you own it, and if the

end of the world ever comes,

I guess we will. Or someone will. We sat there

drinking our beer, smoking,

talking quietly about all sorts of things,

finally just saying nothing,

sitting close, bare arms lightly touching,

aware of the electricity in our bodies.

I thought I could smell the

small, blonde hairs on her arms,

then a couple other things happened. All the while

I wondered if you'd called,

if you'd been calling,

that beat up pay phone ringing and

ringing and finally someone

picking it up, or someone not picking

it up. I wondered if you were going to have

that baby. I never found out. That

was all 3000 miles ago,

and now I'm wondering

if I should go back. But I'm chilling now

at another 7-11 in a strange, desert

state, and there's no

one around worth asking, and also

no one who could give me

a ride.

blow me



frustration



is a political party



count me and my dog

in



Motherfuckers, you've earned

my unmitigated hostility



I don't care if it's bare:

you fuckers think you're runnin' the country, now



You're wrong.

looking both ways from February (revised)



hidden, it was

a way

to relate



down in the dew scrubgrass

overlooking the field

in that cool spring night



I lit a butt

while you took

your hits.



I grew up here.

No one can take that away.



I'll see you later.

I'll be the one reeling

in the Chinese restaurant bar,



snow in my hair,



the blues peeling off me

like white sparks

from your



lithium sparkler

go away from it



look up:



the sky's a grey liquescent web



the wayback sun

hosts its white

diamond party

above the clouds



we might as well be underwater down here



the sun's a pale yellow

Jupiter's mote



I just can't

think what to say



empty, inert,

slouched at the kitchen table



only the trusting way

the dog lays curled

at my feet

belies what's opaque here



it's hard to reconcile

all the world's insanity

hard to feel perky

and play along



with all the chattering Sunday humanity

channelling boredom, road rage,

child care issues, heartfelt concerns,

alcoholism, depravity,

childlike faith, smugness,

righteousness, fear



riding the red petroleum tide

toward shopping malls, auto-miles,

churches, breakfast spots,

video stores, jails,

movie theaters, sports bars,



massive retail outlets

everywhere

dedicated

to home improvement



Ours is an info-mercial age

of decency, honor, integrity...

good, humble folks...

loving other folks...

the way they themselves

would like to be loved

under Almighty God...and

thank God for



god, what bullshit



if the church shows

never seemed so

blantantly evil when I was a kid

maybe they weren't



Wisdom counsels:

take the long view.



What if it's already been taken?

From us?



It's cold

it's freezing,

what a winter,

it's



way too early

to drink, laugh

fight

or forget



so here we sit

again

waiting, waiting,

all the bus stations and bars,

cigarettes and sidewalks,

coffee breaks,

classrooms and minor calamities

all here,

pressing like a caul,

thier alien grey meat

gloving all

in inertia



what a wreck it is

realizing:



it is possible



to live and breathe

underwater

Intercalary entry:



What's strange is, when you're snoring you can't hear it. You can't even feel it.



Evidently I was snoring this morning and J. woke me up, shusshing me, because she'd heard someone go racing by on the highway that runs behind our house, screaming No, oh my God No! Stop! Oh my God! No! No!



J. was pretty alarmed. The temperature these days north of Boston has been below zero, so for someone to be screaming out the window of a fast moving car, you know, they must be crazy, scared, drunk, or all 3.



J. wondered if she should call the cops but didn't as there was no further commotion. Plus, it would've been hard to determine where the hysteria car ultimately rolled off to.



I fell back to sleep and made a conscious note in my subconscious not to snore.



Things in this country are getting more bizzare and alarming by the day. I'm glad I don't live in a huge city anymore.



I wish I had some humor, some of the old happy irreverent crappy to post, but I don't. But I guess I'll stay in intercalary mode today, and maybe get back to some blog poems tonight.



Btw, I don't know if anyone is reading much, but is anyone reading the links I'm embedding in some of these poems? Is anyone getting the idea I'm trying to translate of having the links act as a sort of intellectual counterpoint to the emotion I'm trying to contain in the verses? All suggestions are welcome.



One thing I'll do eventually is move away from blogger and get a real Website. I'd like to post images and sound files eventually...Broadband, I hear you calling me...

what next?



the chopless grey water

of the Merrimack River



neutral, ageless, roiling

beneath the whirring tires, salt

and monotony

of

the snow and wind swept

overpass



meanwhile,



We are so fucked.

Storm King



Fire on the mountain,

omens abound.

General, you were ever

eloquent.



Justice on the bier,

the thick shadow

of the gnarled tree's

thirsty branch



like a black artery exposed

upon the cold expanse

of the dry

stone table.



The hammer wind

pulls dark

red smoke

off the ember summit.



The coydogs

yowling somewhere distant -

beyond that,

not a soul around

looking both ways from February



hidden,

it was a way

to relate



down in the dew scrubgrass

of a cool spring night

overlooking the field



light a butt

while I take my hits -

I grew up here.



No one can take that away.



I'll see you later.

I'll be the one reeling in

the Chinese restaurant bar



the blues peeling off me

like white sparks

from your



lithium sparkler

Goodbye, John Stark



Mutant bards, bedouins, bastard nations, recession

Blood tides, insurgency,

insanity of Empires,

terrible omens -



all hard to reconcile

with the steady music of

falling snow this morning.



The neutral innocence

of the gray sky

it's falling from.



America will make

Horatios of all



such sons

as I



Far from the world,

we drink to her,

smoke in reverie



hidden beneath

recumbent boughs

of snow-strewn pines

too much



I learn today from the NYTimes that Chess is on the wane, finished



so goeth the record label, so goeth the game



dead like the Delta Blues



but this is ephemera, all of it



because the other story in the Times today was



about a crushed blue baby stroller, a toddler's shoe



in the road,



a girl and her son, and her young friend, run down and killed



on Atlantic Avenue in Cypress Hills, near the border of Brooklyn and Queens.



by a drug-addled 25-yr. old male individual



driving - or shall we say rampaging - in



his father's black Jeep Cherokee.



10 blocks after killing those poor people



he crashed into the back of a semi-, severed



part of his hand, bled profusely,



resisted the efforts of people



who came to his assistance,



fomented an angry mob,



and finally



had to be restrained by police.



the Times article goes on to say



that this apparently monstrous individual's



family has been worried about him



for a quite some time now



Why must the world be so pregnant with perpetual violence, insanity, stupidity,

and death?



Why?

my girl's tall with hard long eyes

as she stands, with her long hands keeping

silence on her dress, good for sleeping

is her long hard body filled with surprise

like a white shocking wire, when she smiles

a hard long smile it sometimes makes

gaily go clean through me tickling aches,

and the weak noise of her eyes easily files

my impatience to an edge--my girl's tall

and taut, with thin legs just like a vine

that's spent all of its life on a garden-wall,

and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed

with these legs she begins to heave and twine

about me, and to kiss my face and head.



- e.e. cummings

Indiana



this place where the streets run long and cold

and the skeiny trees rattle all night long

against the ancient dew

of her window pane



the medieval sprawl of this place

incongruous at such a distance

of cornbread

meridian



here the night air

seems to always be moving

like the boy's eyes cherishing

her chiaroscuro hair



like the girl's heart

cherishing

the rising red

demolition



of twilight

Day



It's a benevolent universe.

Some days you just know.



Kicking your feet

off the side of the bed

down to the floor

again

in the pre-dawn

gloom...



I worked with a fellow,

once,

in ladies' shoe sales.



Ed, in Atlanta.

Who passed

the assimilated mantra

on to me,



in (to his undying credit)

an offhand moment:



Sometimes

you just have to say fuck it

It's always something...

...and it's always some bullshit...



In the pre-dawn

gloom and redundant

thaw of

this soon-to-be bright

February day



I feel a wanting.

To enter into some kind

of mental clearing.

Some clarity.



The feeling brings

the wayback

retail postulate

back to the fore.



It's true:

They can depress your wages.

They can surely depress your outlook.

But they can't touch your soul.



Your process



Introduce some new fish

into your inner aquarium.



Having thus

assimilated

the postulate,

I wish all



a good night

Day



It's a benevolent universe:

Some days you just know.



Kicking your feet

off the side of the bed

down to the floor

again

in the pre-dawn

gloom



I worked with a fellow

once in ladies' shoe sales.

Ed, in Atlanta,

who passed this

assimilated mantra

on to me

in (to his undying credit)

an offhand moment:



sometimes

you just have to say,

fuck it

It's always something and

it's always some bullshit



anyway,

the pre-dawn gloom

and redundant thaw

this February day



(my God. purchased Steve Earle's Jerusalem album today:

...listening to it now....the controversial John Walker's Blues just came on...

this is a devastatingly good song & recording...might have guessed...

the hatchet job the Media Whores wanted to let down on S.E., a couple months back for this gem...

this entire album: highly recommended...on musical merits alone...)



and a feeling of wanting

to enter into some kind

of mental clearing,

some clarity



brings this wayback

retail postulate

back

to the fore



And it's true:

they can depress your wages

they can surely depress your outlook

but they can't touch your soul,



your process



Introduce some new fish

into your inner aquarium



There, I've assimilated the postulate.



So to all:

a good night

Day



ain't it a benevolent universe:

some days you just know,

kicking your feet off the side of the bed

down to the floor again

in the pre-dawn gloom -

sometimes you just have to say, fuck it



It's always something and

it's always some bullshit



I worked with a fellow once in ladies' shoe sales,

Ed,

in Atlanta,

who passed this assimilated mantra

on to me

in (to his undying credit)

an offhand moment



anyway,

the pre-dawn gloom

and redundant thaw in this February day



(my God. purchased Steve Earle's Jerusalem album today:

...listening to it now....the controversial John Walker's Blues just came on...

this is a devastatingly good song & recording...might have guessed...

the hatchet job the Media Whores wanted to let down on S.E. a couple months back for this gem...

this entire album: highly recommended on musical merits alone...)



the pre-dawn gloom

and promise of

redundant thaw

this February day



and a feeling of wanting

to enter into some kind

of mental clearing,

some clarity



brings the wayback

retail postulate

to the fore:

fuck it



it's true:

they can depress your wages

and they can surely depress your outlook

but they can't touch your soul's



process



introduce some new fish

into your inner aquarium



I've assimilated the postulate.

So to all:



a good night

Robert Johnson died like a dog



You just almost ran me down

in front of my house



Lucky for you, you didn't.



Or you would've had

approx. 200 lbs. of Post-Modern

enlightened,

Neo-,

Multi- Culti-

Redneck



directing his bare, semi-pampered fist

thru the windsheild of your fucking

All Wheel Drive

Subaru vehicle



Lucky for me

I wrapped the dog's leash

close to my side

with my right hand



and, left-handed,

thrust my arm out

in primordial

"Stop" signage



The left hand.

The one with the

half-smoked Camel,

motherfucker --



you symptom

of our creeping disease.

Like me,

oblivious



to the anonymity

of stupid

and certain

death

The Past, Refracted



Swallowed the clock

Now each tick wants blood

I'm a time bomb, baby

But you knew I was



Had a low opinion of most others

Had a low opinion of himself



This roachclip, a relic

From times spent broken

A token from the days spent smoking,

wasted,



if there is such a thing



tangential philosophies of self

scrawled on napkins and crushed

ATM slips

down to his final four dollars,



he's retained his grip



propped up like a drunk in a booth at Roy Rogers

like some reclamation project