FLICKS & CLICKS
In the last days of warm weather
my Mind is funning
but my tongue is waters upon the heathers
with the windflaws running!
Think how long a trip from Here
to the 7-11. Well, before you know it
you'll get there & be on your way back
thinking: "That was quick!"
Here I must part
& although it is more than probable
that you won't recognize me
(for I too am greater than my parts
and can only know a part of things
part of the time) yet here's
for my part: Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore
non faci mai male ad anima viva!
The drowned book flutters its pages
(the supremest effort)
in the breezes of the human beaches
suffering A Sea Change
& the tide deposits itself by the side
like the soul revisited,
in the selfless Self trying to hide
against the Sun watching whether it's
the lovers playing or raping
while singing in their stilled being
non ho amato mai tanto la vita!
protected
from the prying of our human realities
& kakistocracies of our conscious realities
upon the phonographs always & always
io lascio al mondo una persona cara--unhappy lad
smiling unkindly the unions of waters
nestling Music the ungentle kindness drowning
meeting the blades of the grass
with winds rasping & Caruso
on the phonograph whose tongues
thaw into Dust the equilibrious leaf &
catching her from her fall (he having pushed her
to begin with) whilst marchers
in Michigan avenues
into the dust
conjunctions & the Moon molting
& madness mauling many...
looking into the mirrors of the operahouses
& museums, lost, aimless, misplaced
by our miseries
trying to see ourselves
milking the mountains
midwives of our millenniums
& husbanding the moving milestones walking
which turn out to be tombstones
coming back this way
with Wagner ... the paintings
Paradise fading from our too fantastic Faith
this side of Keeping On
& representative mouths
ever so slowly as if steadily (but dead-drunk with---)
building the Unity of unanimous polarizations
& other multiplying political manipulations
trying to move mankind out to the public morgues
where they keep their polls too private
Brahms & electing effigies to misrepresent
us: the able Harlequins entrusted with
Caesar's wife the clowns! playing harmonicas
& comrades almost up to our knees in
excrements of harmonies & the guerrillas
(who always take advantage of too much noise
in the harmony) going all out
against bad goings-on to bang us
the critics closing their cruel controls
over our Good (in the Name of God--who?)
saying, "Wouldn't we trust ourselves much more
if we stopped wearing these silly nylon stockings
all over our headless faiths?..."
the bare floors of granite borne smoother
than Need the silk by the nude feet
of slaves the centuries tasteless
of lips! and Mozart's Don Giovanni
making impressions uncanny upon the blue
concrete bathing the soles of leagues of [sic]
O running & running & longings &
lunatics washing away standing right there, still
inadmissible evidence's admitted! to Heaven's
saints-hemorrhage & years-demons & Verse
statements ruining the starchiest words or worse
since only Haydn remains
blown solemnly or else quietly grinding
& grinding all over
the balding head misleading Columbus the skater ahead
& beaten Mohammed Ali, his body
exuding pastes of pus purple by th'tons
from multiple acidic sizzling sores
numberless all over his soul bent low for slurred
white matter, who still pats the shoulder of the tired but
unbruised young man who put him in so deep a Hell
for fighting'im well, & following: faints
into the stupor nauseous of his stinking fall
(not one of his enemies or detractors
gloating at all!) which is Johann Sebastian Bach
the numb sac body turned mute to contrasts
in proportions or proses adventuring
to meanings too daring (Shostakovich sparing
the sentiments of the Old Leadership) paid
in the commonest wages: O World's
vain objections & wind's ideological oppositions! and
the indirect anti-sunlight catching glimpses
of O eyes calling out the (wrong) names
--for distraction--or the fashion of Progress
walking from the crowds of whiskers & women's wings
into almost a multiples the tight-ropes
& live-wires & addressing the population-
explosions! kicking up dust
O I have nothing further to add:
I am old, I am old now & my eyes
can't swivel & in any case
there's very little else I'd care to see
although now & again I drop some oil
down my ears & put on the phonograph
something like the 3rd Rasuomovsky...
the tainted windows trying to keep out
the diminishing World (outside, outside only)
--Have a heart!
--Don't mind if I do. Delicious.
Otherwise I starve--Is't yours?
No. Beethoven's--You make this up?
Beethoven strings bring back
the earliest Spring, & please note
that it is not your heart: It is a bomb
about to go off in the Futcha (if it suitcha)
And while we wait for it to go
off--Let's sing a Song about bombs:
Do, re, mi, fa, O estan los muertos218
que hacen olas! Damn it, this particular bomb
's full of aplomb: Do, re, full of harmony
melody: Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, Bomb!!!
In the first days of the turbulent Cold
my Mind warms itself so weak
and slow, and my tongue is thick
with the heavy elements of Old.