THOR

THOR

We are all warriors when in wrath

we explode. We are all the guilt men,

for violence is merely the end of a war;

chimera, hoax, coaxing from within

the good the slow-fused volcano.

Then, a cover-up, a trend to hide,

and when we can we all have died.

NICKEL

 NICKEL

My sorrow, it's your ride touching.

Black cape on the solitude, and

baskets in the hay. My sorrow, it's

your dust blowing; kicked up on

the dried-out road. Rock fence

crumbling, old pond dried now,

marsh tree sagging. Branches

that hang. My sorrow, it's your

plea banging the forgiveness

drum, and, my sorrow, it's your

gaze hanging from the maple tree.

Someone has left a raft put on the

water. Who's come here? Where's

he been? Which broken window

lets the sun shine in?

Hawk Wind Three : Day's Closing

DAY'S CLOSING

On the street, wise Wall rose and,

busted, groped the sunning elves,

those gnomes of knowing, creeping,

searching for dead knowledge of

their loss or gain. And onto all of

that the wise Sun shone : On blinding

Sun, in nickel matinees and strip-tease

dances in the naked flesh of sordid day.

-

Tin-gray (and tunny), the lots of

auto-didacts were maiming themselves

and, suddenly stationary, were lining

the lunar nicks of running time.

Sensation. Mother of the maiden 

rhyme. (I can't do it, can't I, time).

-

Broadway whom I love; the gun-stalls

and the bookeries, the food and penny

arcades, the cheaps, the bordellos. Ten

dollars for a wet erosion; limousine,

blue neon scene. Dying heaps of the

caterwaul. I  -  and dreaming  -  see

the purple ocean harbor rise and

capture; twist, recede and spiral.

-

The violent pale faces of the crowds

seem screaming, Munch-like walkers

over a hooded bridge of time  -  no one

sees me knowing I am there with them.

A self-bought insularity keeps me.

always knowing where the other lurks.

-

Tell them, tell them, buying, as they

sell: There is no other, watching,

keeping counters' scores with a

whistle to admonish. Hell. Yet

they are all still living?

-

I shall light this smoke, and wait some,

to see the struggling dwarf depart.

-

Broad Wall weeps, as Maiden Lane

eyes the slick expanse 'neath rainy

skies, despondent, thrown, and deluged

now like rage across two fiery seas.

The nation throws in ships its wastes

along the worthless marine caverns

while soiled men bet their fortunes

on outcomes unknown. Awkward.

Thrown. Like dice, for years a'tumble,

revived, revised, alive.

-

Smokes the unknown ground, abreast,

its steam and subway groan; a running

subterranean fury kept disguised. Our

commerce rules the figured sky; the

numbers romp, the billions build. The

hordes, upon their sinking slopes,

descend in droves some mother ship

to master. Pealing, does not old, fair

Trinity let us know, by its manifest

of the graveyard dead, what worth

has any of this? Let us know now,

please : disaster, striking, striking.

-

Some scape; few trees. Watch the

snow descend, o'er the small park

of Man-King : Dollar; build, renew,

sacred arch; bold wall, again. The

dark eludes the fire. The fire eludes

the smoke; the situation's dire. The

crazy madman spoke.

Hawk-Wind Two : MORANO

MORANO

I, in want of cage and

broken, stumble,crassly

different, towards a

solvent piece of

never-ending light.

-

Now fade all those small

traces of what before

has capped my head. I

am alone in such a laughter

and delight, and  -  quick to

show  -  the solemn twist of

tight discord; the knot-wrist,

the tamed face, and, utmost,

the quick-muscled little bird:

-

Which falls to fires too soon

flying to recall the feather,

faithless, singed, yet flying

with a faith all the same.

-

I wish I had a line to keep, a

walnut-spray of silky gloss

walking blindly ever on. I 

wish that I could cover all

the wild extremes, yet, as

tightly to a toehold, become

what my eyes see.

-

I, tired, lean to turn and fall,

yet slowly, and as surely as a

force, still twist to rise anew.

Hawk-Wind 1: My Introduction

MY INTRODUCTION

In vast labor I comprehend

the rushung force of that

which time, in its rudiments

of strangeness, leaves behind:

White; the soft-decayed still

shadings which appear where

none before had stood.

-

I delight in such a tonic, drinking

my heavy fill and  -  as sated  -  

burst to lunge in a drunken frenzy 

towards the open sky above. 

Meticulous to a fault, I watch the 

lighthouse misconstrue the harbor; 

sacred ships smashing as they scatter

through their all-determined night.

-

And I know no other. I am masked:

A stone, asunder; broken, shot, and

reeling towards a death the likes

of which has never been before.

-

So, no one knows, no, nothing.

Yet I, in vast alliance with false

labor, comprehend my end and

see, yes, see, as only I still can.

26. ANDIRON JELLO ARMS

ANDIRON JELLO ARMS

Tramp tramp tramp the bums

are marching. Mary Mattlegram

throws out cigarettes to the crowd.

It seems so late in April now, yet

so few things are growing or in 

bloom. We've decided, I've just

heard, to go to Maryland by bus.

That's OK for me, but don't try

feeding me no crabcakes see.

25. ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE KETTLE DRUM

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND 

THE KETTLE DRUM

[There are places by the shovelful 

and they are filled with people and 

pickers and soldiers and sinners and 

gents who work flat on their backs 

and with derring-do they sit out 

eternity with nothing to do dressed 

in their finery their suits and last 

dresses and clothes chosen by children

for the last of those caresses but there's 

nothing to be done for they're crowding 

the lawn and so many people have 

passed us that the land of the dead is 

ten-fold plus vaster than the mere acre 

the living inhabit - Civil War Soldiers 

cry with Mesopotamians and the 

Chinamen scowl with Egyptians and 

African princes accompany Finns and 

Germans and Greeks and Hannibal 

I see plays cards with Socrates and 

Plato and there's nothing to be done:

'it drives me crazy all this crowding 

and clamor' and all I ever wanted to 

know was 'is there a graveyard for 

vegetable pickers?' but instead they 

said a mass for this guy out in the 

fields and they threw some dirt on 

his body as it was lowered into the 

hole and the stalks covered and hid 

the grave in secret and the foreman 

had one less to count that night one 

less bed was filled and he was short 

a man I'd guess but even if he knew 

what could he do because 'they fall 

like flies in this Autumn heat' and 

that's how I learned my lessons that's 

how I figured it out  -  reading books 

on the sloping lawns watching the 

workers pick peppers looking at men 

through their junkyard lenses figuring 

out girls while the brilliant sunlight 

shone through their slim dresses and 

left evidence of (at the least) what 

anatomy was and everything known 

to mankind (I would think) was alive 

in those fields for me to see and I saw 

(benediction of self 'Veni Vidi Vici' 

indeed) what I thought was Abraham 

Lincoln in person going down for 

his eternal flat rest still raw and 

bleeding but at peace (at least once) 

with himself - and the fastest growing 

field is the field of the martyrs' yield.]

24. TUPELO FUNNY

TUPELO FUNNY

How it is it goes like this:

my thoughts about you are

sometimes not good, or at least

not so proper. Knowing what I

mean, hey, don't stay away.

-

Vacationland. Fat thinking in 

the sun. The most pleasing

moments of my life maybe

have just begun, and I won't

know, maybe, until I try.

23. DUE EAST.

DUE EAST

Coming in over the sea.

Just a pledge to always be me.

Salt-spray edges, a watery sea.

I don't know nothing if I don't know me.

22. A FINE LOAD

A FINE LOAD

Rigorous as the delay was, the manservant

was longer, and harder to take. As in my old

Latin textbook, the first thing I learned  -  

'Maria cum servum ambulat'. Something,

it turned out, like, 'Maria walks with the

servant.' Approximately. I never knew

what it was all about. Did they mean

'slave'? Were they, perhaps, trysting

in the barn, or in the hayloft? My

young mind was all a'twitter.

It was all hard to take, even

learning that 'cum' here

meant 'with'.

21. ICING ON THIS CAKE

ICING ON THIS CAKE

Sing a song of dense men:

One is a speaker in a house

of the dead. Another works

the foodline in Bangkok. A

third man reads from an ancient

illuminated book. The fourth

man was my teacher in waiting.

A fifth guy, I swear, he has always

been a warrior. And the sixth guy,

underneath it all, is me myself and I.

20. HEAVEN HAS A GESTATION PERIOD ALL ITS OWN

HEAVEN HAS A GESTATION 

PERIOD ALL ITS OWN

Kerchiefs of the sky are beckoning to me, floating down

a Bowery lane. The old tenements here are sparse with

their happiness, even as they try now to be giddy. The

New Museum has a store in its front  -  first things first

when you get to the moon. Run that air again.

-

Reproductions and pins and pencils. Art books galore  -  

probably any of that silly matter that never matters.

19. CARMICHAEL AND JONES

CARMICHAEL AND JONES

I am waiting at the Mercantile Exchange; too

jagged men are smoking cigarettes beneath the

wooden shelter-roof. They look like huddled

refugees about to leave for another land.

-

I walked over to them to speak; I said 'what is 

the proclamation you were reading aloud this 

morning at the entrance?' They looked at me  -  

we all knew this was but an instant, and not 

some historic moment of memory. 'That was

our proclamation  -  we have started a movement

anew for the individual rights of free men.'

-

I wanted to say 'you do not need to do this,

you are here in America.' But I knew that was

not any longer true  -  men are in chains everywhere.

Tired and true, and unaware, but in chains.

18. THIS MANNERED ANNULMENT

THIS MANNERED ANNULMENT

They have taken down the signs.

They live for the day. Ages await.

As do I - calling like a prophet.

Bring your dogs home, they have

become too lethal for this day:

modern Man does know the news;

modern Man assumes and proclaims;

his nothingness is of a constant cycle.

-

Kids dance on the Brooklyn rooftop;

they are drunk enough not to know the

weather  -  12 degrees is not so happy a

step, even when sober.

17. WE CAN MAKE THE BUTTERFLIES APPEAR

WE CAN MAKE THE 

BUTTERFLIES APPEAR

Even as we want to : they linger with a vamp of

beauty on the wing. They have no place to stay

but to continually move, and somehow to them

places on the globe are dreams. And they move.

16. I'M BREAKING UP

I'M BREAKING UP

This consciousness is all compromise :

red sweaters, black coats, hammers and

steel. My eyes have to focus on higher

things : the cloud of realization floats in.

-

Fragmentary colorations are breaking the

lines. You will say one thing, and it will

itself say a hundred more things. Such

flames light up a distant dark.

15. COMPLAINT

COMPLAINT

This swan dive, gentlemen, will be the last.

Between us, these sorts of theatrics are over.

-

'You have never given us a chance, never

listened to our words nor even let us

speak. You enter the forum as if you're

in charge. The crowd cheers, yes,

but they would cheer for anyone.'

-

...It's always like this : at the 12th St. Bookstore,

the 2nd Ave. Deli, McSorley's or even at

The White Horse. Everywhere, 

people are lined up for a sighting.

-

I often chuckle to myself.

Your hammer is held high,

above your head; like something

to be feared, something about to strike.

14. MEMORY

MEMORY

A father's bathmat,

a set of beliefs

once forced to be

stood upon, now

grown slippery,

slippery with

doubt and regret.

The disbelief of any

flowers in bloom.

The wide-gape of

womanhood

blooming,

replaced in new light

by the endless array of choices

as represented by

shoe after shoe after shoe :

engathered like dust

in your own

personal

ensaving

bag.

13. PORNOGRAPHIC GOD

PORNOGRAPHIC GOD

I

am the

God of

your

belly

spilling

milk white

seed allover

your skin -

one slick

elongated

pull-out

at the

very

last

moment

in

time.

12. POETRY NOTEBOOK

POETRY NOTEBOOK

I've got my poetry notebook

in my hand, holding it open towards

the sky as I sit in bright sunlight

at Madison Square. The statue of

Admiral Farragut is over my shoulder.

-

He knows nothing, of course, of any of this  -  

like some timeless dead man anywhere, now

he is just a statue. No whistles, no bells.

A few birds whiz by; their swoop

defines my day-dreamed arc.

-

The only words I come up with are vacuous:

'I'm leaving the city at 9:45, got the hots for

you baby, it keeps me alive.'