poetry notebook

[This will insert before the final stanza as it currently sits at http://bit.ly/av7ibr]

[I've also decided to reverse many years of practice and capitalize the first letter of each line. The idea is to emphasize the line more.]

You believed in experience, didn’t you?

You believed that experience would refine you,

Augment you, exalt, enlighten, enrich, liberate

You from your pathetic self, the over-sensitive

Sensualist, naked-woman obsessed

Ignorant boy with a bad complexion

And no social history.

To know work only as a means

To an abstraction of what work would be

If you were to become the work,

If the work accomplished you as much as you

It. You began to break rank with your childhood

Coterminous with your first, unexpected orgasm

Fantasies of heroic action, Odysseus, many minded,

Concept of pure science, and the scientist

Part Odysseus, part Oppenheimer, part Homer part

Mickey Mantle and part Don Juan but not Don Juan

Just a fantasized sexual encounter with virtually every

Female he ever met, because he was the great protector,

The hero, the champion whom they all wanted.

He read manuals to learn how to control his mind

But preferred the one he read about where one could

Absorb all knowledge while sleeping by placing books

Under the pillow. And then there were social contexts

For which he had no road map and, besides,

He was too tall and his face covered in boils

Even though he had been an almost pretty boy

Who undressed many girls just to look at them

Now became nervous, self-conscious, aware of

Limitations he hadn’t imagined before. So you strove

To imagine a time when you would no longer have to

Be you, where you could become a digger of fields,

Harvester, irrigationist, tractor driver, grunt

In a restaurant in a kitchen through the splattered

Food as dishwasher and splattering food as the cook

Then, as a waiter, carrying it back and forth as you became

Fascinated with factories, you could work in a fast

Hot kitchen on a couple of hits of acid, and got around by

Hitchhiking or driving or bus only to discover that his skin

Cleared up, it was the treatments that were prolonging

The problem with his face, but then got hit pretty hard

In the head, fracture of the temporal bone through

The ear, so that his eyes popped out (only one

With a damaged optic nerve) and the Vth facial nerve

Broke into mid-saggital paralysis with cerebro-

Skeletal fluid dripping out of a slightly damaged ear,

Which slowed him down, but as soon as he got out –

You remember, right?

–Of the hospital, when he should have still been resting

He got a job in a factory silk-screening substrates

For digital clock and watch faces. It wasn’t easy to

Get the job because of his out of phase look and his

Eyepatch, but he convinced them to give him a try and

They did so he worked as hard and fast as he could,

Tripling the output of the next-highest producer,

But it was only pride, and he didn’t really feel good about it,

He just felt that he needed to prove that he could

Do it but before that, as a young sophomore,

Sitting with a girl he just met in the back seat

Of a car while her sister drove he just put his arms

Around her and started kissing her as though they’d

Always been lovers, pulled her blouse up,

Unsnapped her bra, and licked and sucked

Her nipples on the way to his house after which

She was his girlfriend but he was afraid

To penetrate her with more than his fingers

Because he was sure she’d get pregnant so they

Wound up breaking up, but that didn’t stop him one day,

When a big-hipped blond girl smiled back

At him as he sat at a table in the strip mall

And he pushed a chair toward her with his foot

And told her to sit down, and she did.

The next day, with his cock inside of her he

Stopped and asked, “shouldn’t we use a condom?”

To which she replied, “don’t worry, it’ll be ok”

And getting it together for her to have an abortion

A month or so later, with much familial angst

And polarization, she lived with him later when

He made 12,000 watch faces a night at a

Pedal-operated machine and then lost focus

In an assembly plant after which he was hired

To work on pianos, disassemble them,

Repair them, refinish them, move them, pose

As the boss’ wife’s son to buy used ones

So they wouldn’t know she was a dealer.

When they said, “it took 5 big guys to move it”

How were you going to move it and she

Pointed to you they didn’t believe it until

You had it tipped up to drop onto the dolly

Rolled it out through the front door, tipped it up

Again, turned it to come down flat on the bed of

The pickup truck, then grab the bottom handle

And lift and heave ho to shove the upright piano

Up onto the truck and tie down…

[Once again, a temporary end. I'm not really sure where this is going. It wasn't meant to be so linear. But this is how it came straight out. I had a ghost of a drift in mind but I've departed radically from it, may elaborate and return to the drift, may delete it all and start over]

In this blood that runs in arteries not yet filled with

latex for dissection

a trillion tiny beings swim

blending with billions of zoophite transcenders

In this blood chameleon of red and blue 

universal plasma flows in lighted cells

In this blood personality-crowded 

dominance, submission, violence, quiescence 

desire to stand apart, the drive to unite 

perversity and sanity subjectively defined 

froth form shift foam into believed-in solidity

In this blood the ones six 

arms three faces

dance fucking pose 

Rudra and Buddha seem

to change in the flickering 

attentions contending 

parties believe they in 

habit a separate world

In this blood ones serene in lotus 

union compassion and wisdom in deep 

bliss prism the light which is 

always one essence

In this blood each social

miscreant murderer thief

pedophile liar and braggart

and burgher 

and compassionate

one loving one kind one

ethical one saint even

humble

high minded and free

framed in quotidian 

reference point

conjunctions

of habit.

What transformation of something

called sound before one hears it

must as Proteus change media

or bodies before it goes conscious

to one who feels the she or he

is some kind of unity the sound

something that actually exists

as she hears it

and this too in this blood

When you cut me I bleed

as do you what we assume

merely pipes through organs

and muscles to bring and 

to dispose

which when we run out we die

but more than that in each

drop so many beings so much

consciousness we can’t see

as we are if we did

our heads would exploded as 

Semelê turned ash

when she saw 

the real Zeus

Maintained by this blood

the intelligences

moving data in packets

sense pressure and temperature

gently caress the inner thigh

in wonder at the thrill of sensation

fraction approaching the limit

of tolerances beyond

its reach.

This blood so close to the surface

of shape receptors who say

nothing but you think they want

you to judge and you do out of habit

like salt and dislike slime

but what is it even that you 

experience with my tongue other

than the tongue’s special function

to guess nutrient or poison

by microscopic form but no

property inherent

yet to speak

In this blood the blood Kassandra smelled 

when the god made it clear she would die.

In this blood a plasma ghost

that bathes gel in sockets

latticed by muscles that feed on this blood

to aim the apparatus at

light such minimal

capture as eyeballs make 

suffices

for beauty to exceed

capacity to see

if the whole spectrum were

suddenly known 

Shantideva’s sword  

that burned 

the king’s 

uncovered

eye

A single duck who quacks and paddles in an arc

upstream causes panic in the river,

a turmoil on the surface not from

wind or duck feet.

The river forged a path through rocky

mountains dense with forest. A highway

follows, sedan, logging truck, motorcycle,

pickup, panel truck, and sports car

follow with wheels hissing on wet

pavement up the mountainside out

of sight not continous or near

even in the summer.

I often address you in my poems

but i don’t even know who you are

nor even for certain whether or not

you are me. 

Either way, how do I know 

it’s really you? Is it?

Am I being

indiscrete?

Are you? And what makes you

think that I is I?

Someone asks these questions, but

who is who is not important.

Look at things as though they were

photographs or paintings or drawings

framed by your eye to give you

the maximum pleasure you can

derive from the landscape

wherever you are by the way

you frame it and hear it and see it

and add, like that artform you

wanted to create.. remember it?

You were maybe 16 and it came

to mind in a flash – to make

something that would engage all

of the senses, a box maybe,

painted, variously textured, made to be

touched, resonant and redolent with

sounds and incense or perfume

or dog shit (whatever the

particular piece calls for) and

flavors and poems.

See it that way, wherever you are,

this work of art, this avatar of

the six senses in which you’re

so lost in the is 

of whatever you’re with.

Know it

as a work of fictional genius

as often as you can.

Even in summer.

In 10 minutes gazing into a river

So many things happen that

If placed end to end

They would reach into eternity.

Have I, older than multitudes

Who have died,

Begun

Learning only now

How to see?

Let’s say “stone”. What is meant? Is “stone” a concrete image? Some critics say it is. Let’s pretend some words have “actual” referents (for the sake of fantasy and fun). Even so, does “stone”? What color? What dimensions? How hard?

Basalt? Can stone be basalt even though basalt is a type of rock? When would it become stone? Not “a” stone, as when a small chunk tumbles for a few decades in waves on a beach, say Glass Beach the one the Pacific reclaimed from the old Ft. Bragg municipal dump, a stone you can hold between finger and thumb and, sidearm, skip across the Eel – a stone, distinct from a rock, but still not stone … or is this stone also stone?

If the chunk of basalt’s as big as a black whale, say a sperm whale, jutting out of ice plant (maybe even mesembs, definitely one sporting purple highlights) roots dangling from rain and chipmunk erosion of stony topsoil from its macrocephalus, would basalt then be stone? You’d probably call it a rock, but not one small enough to throw at some one in concert with others to kill out of anger (probably for having sex the wrong way or something)… or for the maenids as they whoop and holler to rain down on Opheus before they dismember.

If basalt were a great wall near Brisbane or another near Taiwan, would it be a stone wall? Basalt columns in Yellowstone to be carved by some future Praxiteles into caryatids of stone? Already stone?

In Thousand Oaks dad lived in a rock house, but not basalt nor hewn from a single rock had walls made of piles of stone, soft in memory, diatomaceous, certainly not marble from the quarry at Carrara.

No, the Great Basalt Wall is a rock wall, neither stone wall nor stonewall.

Basalt tiles are stone tiles, but are they stone any more than the hot basalt stones your aching back took warmth from at a spa? What if, very carefully, meticulously (don’t let it crack!), you chiseled a slice a couple inches thick in a big rectangle, polished it to a mirror, sailed ship with it, and laid it out flat for the Chrysler Building lobby floor… ah, yes! That would be stone! A stone floor even stone cold suits would look at now and then.

But would a sculptor, saying, “I work in stone” mean basalt?

What sort of stone is stone? “Stone” is obviously not a concrete image… but is stone an image of concrete? A smooth, durable, workable building material? Are marble and granite always stone or are they sometimes rock?

Is stone ever sandstone?

If a rock, kicked by a mule pulling a wagonload of parian marble (a single slab and many mules) from a quarry for the Tempio, rolls down a canyon wall, is it stone?

Is stone what hearts are made of? You’ll never break this heart of stone.
Have you seen a virgin block of alabaster lie waiting for a sculptor’s liberating touch? Is this what you think of when you hear “stone”?

A three-figure relief with Eurydice at the Louvre? The Cerberus Metope from the Temple of Zeus? A collossal Hellenistic head of Medusa from the east gate of Beroia?

A color? A texture for your website? A surname?

Or just about 14 pounds?

How old were you that year, Rhosonny? Nine?

He can never remember what year he was at what age

or what grade or for certain in which state he lived.

But he remembers 1963 better than almost any other year,

though he hasn’t always remembered that it was 1963

when he thought of this or that event.

Was he in Alabama that year? Or was it the next?

In any case, he was a news junkie already:

Cronkite, U.S. News and World Report,

newspapers wherever he found one,

[George Wallace in the door saying

"segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"

the next day Medger Evers murdered;

Gideon vs. Wainwright, Abington School District v. Schempp

but if you go to Cuba, you're not American anymore;

Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail and his Dream;

the Beatles and diet cola, Bob Dylan Freewheeling

through the Feminine Mystique and suffrage for women

is established in Iran, and even in Detroit

Malcolm X gives a speech while in Viet

Nam Buddhist monks are beaten and shot by troops under order

from the Roman Catholic U.S. puppet Diem, himself

taken out by the CIA (but not the new

Domestic Operations Division); Mecury 9

was the last of its type, and the first geostationary

satellite to verify a nuclear test ban treaty went up

though William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Sylvia Plath,

Theodore Roethke, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Louis MacNeice,

Ellmore James and Edith Hamilton,

Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, and Edith Piaf,

Dinah Washington, Tristan Tzara, Paul Hindemuth,

Sonny Clark and Fritz Reiner,

László Lajtha, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley

and so many others, too many to mention,

left us without the push of an assassin

unlike John F. Kennedy and one of the six

who tried to take out de Gaulle,

Lee Harvey Oswald, and Lee Quang Tung

and so many others both known and unknown,

especially in Viet Nam and the deep south

like Eugene Connor and his dogs and hoses

and maybe Jakarta over Malaysia, but somehow

not the same though in Africa things were very bad

so The Organisation of African Unity and finally

though Dorothy Nyembe goes to jail

the U.N. at least calls for a voluntary

arms embargo of South Africa, not much,

but finally...]

Yet the one thing in this maelstrom to which

he was privy as a child, that also includes

his neighbors, sharecroppers living in shacks

who went to a different school

and weren’t allowed to play with him

though Bertha babysat often, whom the kids loved

but from whom they were separated by race

and the pictures of men hanging from bridges

and the sign on the new segment of Interstate

very slowly manifesting on the other side of the barn,

“Gov. George Wallace is Building this Highway for You!”

with his picture smiling down on their poverty

so deep they didn’t know how to dial a phone,

and his family’s relative wealth

and crosses burning and the letters KKK

very present at every turn, at every sign

that said “colored” or “white” so that

even taking out the garbage at night,

knowing that he was white,

feared the KKK because they were evil

and the old man across the street

who’s parents had both been slaves

was the person who treated him with more

kindness than anyone else he ever met

in Alabama.

And yet, there was one thing,

one act, which he only witnessed in pictures,

that changed his feelings about power,

its relationship to terrorism and militarism,

forever. At most every other turn,

Dr. King the most notable exception,

power was defined as the ability to maim,

destroy, and kill. There were frequent parades,

a parade always celebrating military might

in some way. Heroes were defined as soldiers.

Bravery, heroism, and power were fused

together into a single dominant concept.

But then, one night on television,

a young man sat down on the street

while another poured gasoline over him.

Once the other was clear

lit a match and went up in flames.

And didn’t wince. Or writhe.

And didn’t change expression

while he liquefied before Rhosonny’s eyes.

This he recognized as power, though he’d

seen many rockets launch. This he saw

as bravery, though he saw that there was bravery

all around him. This man was his hero.

Of course, everybody else said the man was crazy

or stupid. Some went so far as to attempt

to establish this act as proof that pacificism

was merely a method of getting trampled on

by those more powerful than you.

But Rhossony was never able to accept

the power of weapons as being greater

or more meaningful, even in the hands

of an army, than the absolute power

displayed by this single monk

one day in the summer

in Saigon.