(arranged for a White Dinner, a tribute to Erik Satie, given by Art Clay et al at the Rote Fabrik in Zurich, 25/9/09)
Humankind cannot stand very much reality.
T.S. Eliot
I told you if I have to leave town
I would go to
there was vast resistance
boarding the plane
copyright everything
to stop other poets
stealing bits of conversation
or paraphrasing texts
perhaps ekphrasis
should be prosecuted
the Anacreonic song
banned from bars
when I find
myself with poets
they buy the drinks
they aren’t scientists reconciled
to the myth but God all the while
of nondenominational silence
I wrote with the drunk composure
of a
felt sorry for something
and the pain of something good
naturally cruel my sin soiled soul
reduced to television and insulin
now was only a matter of time
and I didn’t know where it was coming from
behind the window or reflected in it
either way reflected in it
darkness and light
it is expectation and the unexpected
finally the expectation of the unexpected
leaning on the glass the dark shape behind its shape
or where it’s misshapen by the unknown known to be
I fixed it so it would break
there now it’s finished
puzzled by the solution
among the dead there is a slang
I am carried along
alone altogether
too many places at once by heart
hitchhiking up winter’s
interstate warm as newspaper
the insult of luck
the pudding of blood
makes we want to get
somewhere where
it’s not always
a river that outdoes
it’s banks
the intonation of deceit
sounds different
spelled the same
multiplying fractions
by time’s overdose
splotch of trammeled memories
random bastards
mother fuckers with no mothers
or just plain motherless fucks
stomping striding in their own righteousness
of wrong doing
"i am the man"
they say.
(ashes ! I say)
but... a hand in an empty pocket
looking for a few coins to rub
finding only a couple of balls to scratch
dangle and jangle to the sound of
early morning church bells
to that endless fucking hymm:
Ding dong...
still the literenergy vampire continues
his girlfriend speaks five times the language
he can he’s out of breath
these accidents are just people
waiting to happen
so place the mask around your mouth and nose and try to breathe normally
your nearest exit is probably behind you
this poem can’t make up it’s mind
how it feels
this poem is taking too long
to respond
but I must be allowed this madness
that I wished upon myself
and in wishing came true
I must be allowed this lust
old enough to love and
because I no longer feel do
beginnings in my life have no titles
my day has no subject no theme
and being the impersonation of 4 billion years of matter
I am either what I was or will become
otherwise de-believing so much of where I’ve been
you’ve been there and we seem the same
