The hand that drops things
The brush the pills the keys the phone the suitcase
The stack of small bowls the cooking utensils
The pen

The childish scribble since childhood
Illegible unintelligible
Inarticulate
Fomenting misunderstanding

The hand that upsets the drinking glass
Noisily bumps the door jamb
Slips away from the steering wheel
Strikes in anger the innocent or the guilty

How do you express a feeling
How do you do it
Keats began with a cliche My heart aches
But then worked around to the sublime renunciation
Of Bacchus and his pards
Wherein it becomes rich to die

A woman’s place is in the home
Said the female teacher in the sixth grade classroom
Just as my mother was commencing her job
As a medical technologist at the big public hospital
I can’t even name much less express the feeling
Occasioned by that contradiction

The words for feelings couldn’t be less helpful
Did sixth grade make me sad
Resentful
Indignant
Afraid
And now the pissed-off boredom of adulthood

Wordsworth was a liar like everybody else
Emotion recollected in tranquility
Ha
Maybe tranquility was readily available
In the late-eighteenth early-nineteenth century
For traitors to love family country and philosophy

I’m not asking nor can I ask
The right question
There’s more to it than a technical process
Not that I have applied myself even to the technical process
Poetry and truth are distinct and diverse
And what is that something more

As I contemplate these bad days I go back
To 1972 the overwhelming fact of the Viet Nam War
The Middle East Africa Latin America The Cultural Revolution
The age of assassination and cities on fire
The apocalyptic ideological conflict of the Cold War

Yet I popinjay that I was
Aspirant to hipsterdom
Loved a toke or four or five of marijuana
Four sides of Exile on Main Street
And getting close to the girl I love

Look back
See the person in the mirror
Now look ahead
Those are other people

I am not Aeneas
I am not Paul
I am not a hero of obedience
Nor a hero of defiance
Nor a hero of any kind

My father on the deck of the Saratoga
When the kamikazes came in
Effected no daring rescue no divine commission
Just got his face blown off
And a medal depicting George Washington

Which medal he lost or threw away
The same awarded to his brother who died
Which one was the hero
The lacerated seaman or the crewman of the doomed B-17
The suicide pilot or the slave at Nordhausen

A plague of earwigs

There is no substitute for poetry
In America we’ve tried sports
Which is like thinking about baseball to prevent premature ejaculation

We have songs
Show tunes pop tunes
Baby tunes torch songs raps hymns jingles and handwashing mnemonics

But for painting and sculpting
Architecturally building
And yes singing with words alone there is no substitute

We have streaming video
And special-effects blockbusters
But for mordant or tender verbal arrangement there is no substitute

We have sex and drugs
And undead rock and roll
But for inflections and innuendos there is no substitute

No ideas but in things
Sure but what’s an idea
We certainly have plenty of things and probably for that matter ideas

There is no substitute for poetry
On the list of essentials
For the practical and the impractical there is no substitute alas for poetry

William Carlos Williams they say
Hated the iamb
Opting instead for the plodding spondee
Or lines so short
As to defy the measure of a foot

Prosey rhythms tend in fact
Toward blank verse
Provided that lines break
So as to begin low and end high
As had done Stevens and Frost

And images and sounds never really
Coincide do they
One or the other will always prevail
As Chieftain Azcan of Iffucan attests
Along away aloft astride his red wheelbarrow

Hate is far too strong a word
And did he make a statement
Or is history judging from the squeaks
Of analytical philology
The sunset murmurs of russet March

Are we to discern biographical data
His foibles
His infidelities
His physician’s panoply
Anapestic protective device

It must be a science
Or a quixotic journey with Stevens
Across a world of words to the end
But lo the refrigerated plums
They too are good

And the death-deadly flowers
Daffodils in rugged March
Litmus hydrangea
Blooming crimson sunset
Below the horizon

The boatmen of the dead
All the ancients
Bearing their dead weight
Everything new is old again
An age of hurtful blossoming

Dream yet awhile beloved
While I toil as I must in the scriptorium
Or rather indulge that other fantasy
My obscure emulations
For you whom I love beyond all measure

A dialectic
A mutually constitutive arrangement
The force of branching thoughts
The shaping constraint
The golden cage of form
The fountain trained to buttress and to dance
Architecture blossoming and protecting
Serrano’s seminal trajectory
The cool diagnostic clipboard
The barbaric yawp
Boatman across the river
Let the dead past bury its dead
Let imagination welcome the bondage of reason
The momentary pang of pleasure
The eternal majesty of mathematics
The ongoing campaign to know the facts
Let’s go down to the ivy bank
Let’s celebrate the acts of love
With which we are familiar
Which await their latest invention

The mutilation or dissolution of one’s body
The commission of violence against oneself
The commission of violence against another
The emission from one’s body of noxious horrifying or impossible substances
The expansion of a limb or other member to shocking dimensions
The expansion of an ordinary space into looming or terrifying dimensions
The assault upon one’s person by myriads of small or large creatures
The conversion of part of one’s body into vegetable or mineral matter
The invasion of one’s body by large parasites
The expectation that another will respond irrationally to one’s own innocuous action
The expectation that another will take advantage of one’s self-deprecating remark
The explosion of one’s body when its internal pressure exceeds external pressure
The imputation of hostile intent to an innocent other
The deflation of one’s face
The recurrence in memory of some trauma
The enlistment of a unique person in some malevolent or disgraceful group
The conviction that one is in the unconquerable grip of a conscious but morally agnostic power
The conviction that one is threatened by an indistinct figure of graceful menace
The conviction that one’s body is collapsing under the harsh gravitation of Jupiter
The conviction that one’s avocations are harmful or deadly
The conviction that one’s existence is harmful

He hung his keyring
On the piano string

Den Soog
Den Efrenthandreg

Neither of us moves
Lying there touching
Pretending to sleep

I pitched it in the river I tried so hard to throw that gun away
Oh well I pitched it in the river I tried so hard to throw that stinking gun away
Of all the lowdown dirty moves I’ve made ain’t none worse than the one I’ve done today

I have killed my bloody captain and laid him out upon pale pale ground
Yes I have killed my bloody captain and I laid him out upon pale pale ground
I take no orders take no signals that the chain of command is sending down

If I had possession of the hearts and minds they’re leading by the nose
If I had possession of the hearts and minds they’re leading by the nose
I’d make those lily-livered scoundrels wonder what it means to say anything goes

I tried to get away with murder tried to get out from under the first degree
I tried to get away with murder tried to get out of the heinous first degree
And when the judge makes his decision I’ll hunker down and bide my time and wait and see

Well they got writs and they got summons they got all the fine provisions of the law
They got writs they got permissions they got all the fine provisions of the law
Ain’t no monumental tablets ain’t no textbook of procedure worth a straw

You know my captain is a tyrant and I let him see the bullet lay him out
You know my captain he’s a tyrant and I let him watch the bullet lay him out
And I call the many witnesses to wipe out any shadow of a doubt

Then I pitched it in the river let it follow where my true love floated down
You know I pitched it in the river let it follow where my true love floated down
All you justice-loving people you can watch as this poor rambling boy goes down

The moon was shining bright as day those drunken white boys were riding in the car
The moon was shining bright as day those drunken white boys were joyriding in the car
They ran over Sonny’s uncle and they made sure to run over his guitar

There’s rumors flying east and west about the circus is coming into town
There’s rumors flying east and west about the circus that it’s coming into town
I’ll believe them when I see the trapeze and the elephant so nice and brown

Now don’t you do me any favors I’ll be beholden to nobody if you please
And do not do me any favors I’ll be beholden to nobody if you please
I’d rather die in darkest dungeon than to live five minutes’ time down on my knees

Montresor said Fortunado won’t you come on down and taste a little wine
And Montresor said Fortunado won’t you come on down and taste a little wine
Said Fortunado Montresor my friend I guess I’ll take you up some other time

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg headed south down highway 41
Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg like a bat out of hell down highway 41
When they hit that Georgia border Kerouac said oh my God what have I done

You’re gonna have to serve somebody it might be the devil it might be the Lord
You’re gonna have to serve somebody it might be the devil and it might just be the Lord
Down highway 41 hit 95 and hope nothing outrun your V8 Ford

The Pattle
The Pretender

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards
The gorgeous psychopomp summoned and dismissed
The murmurous haunt of flies
Attracted no doubt by the perfume of death

Death with his comely features
Not the hooded villain of medieval fright
A fine countenance a little too angular
A luscious fragrance a little too strong

No wonder he is beckoned by the lounging portraitists
He joins at length the stately minuet
Too languidly disposed
For the exertions of lusty clog dancers

The more impressive the opulent cartouche
Should arise from such splendid lassitude
Do not imagine he seems to have inscribed
The fury of the crown of vines

Child
Speak not of death even in jest
Such talk ill suits your childhood
Your beauty

You walked across our little fence
From one end to the other
When a day or two later you attempted the same
You said that fear of falling had made you fall

Small fowls make melody
Emitting their ravishing commands
A hillbilly Get off my land
Or a cavalier Come hither love to me

The wingèd multitude
The mockingbirds the cardinals the bobolinks the Kentucky warblers
That thrush that in America we call a robin
And all the anonymous throng

They do not intend to propagate beauty
Any more than the sunset
The lapping wave
The pastoral flower

Each species its unique apparatus
Even that of sublime mockery
Immense vibration
From each diminutive frame

The ephemeral song eternal
We call it song
It takes a reasoning brain
To appreciate

Up to the brim and even above the brim

I could see that it was molting hard
That avian apparition
And I felt the ache of envy rise within me
O to shed my mammalian skin
As had the wingèd visitor its feathers

I’ve always watched for signs and portents
Silly I know
Even pretending to determine
How things will work out one way or another
Not as easy as you might think to deceive oneself

The prismatic edge of a drop of water
Waiting suspended on the invariant spout
The progress of a sore throat
When one side is more inflamed than the other
The transit of the moon behind the clouds

That ceaseless barking
The sound of trucks on the highway
The mottled discoloration of the brickwork
The overheard speech with my bad hearing
The bird’s new life and my old age

So much I already know
It isn’t worse for me I know
Somebody always has it worse
Someone will be sad when I die
I will be sad when somebody dies

The subjective world is just that
A world
Infinitely expanding and complex
A complex network of attitudes
Perceptions foresights and hindsights
As we discover when the doors of perception
Are cleansed

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment
And let me add to Blake’s demonic observation
That sensual enjoyment often resides
In personal interaction
But also occurs in interactions
With those artificially-devised subjectivities
Namely works of art

And so to my theme
The Catholic Church left me
With dread that has persisted
From childhood into my old age
And yet amid the dread I find gratitude
For Sister Nathaniel at Our Lady of Sorrows
And for my second-grade teacher Mrs. O’Connor

All the persons we know are humans alas
Weak vulnerable rather pathetic organisms
We do not find gratitude in the animal kingdom
Gratitude an emotional posture of reason
For I have reason or have not
To acknowledge the benefaction of another
Or indeed their destructive ill will

Therefore do I hereby retract the innuendo
That I have been left with only dread
For in the immense precincts of subjectivity
Dread shares its quarters with other less destructive moods
Such as thankfulness approval and love
But I am forced to admit
Not tranquility

For in 1962 when I was learning to dread the pains of hell
That psychotic nightmare
I lived each day in frank terror of nuclear weapons
And of their hell fire
And of the crystalline perfection of Communist evil
That somehow would become God’s instrument
For my punishment

And to this day I hate myself as a scaredy-cat
Even as I reason that less objectionable traits
Must surely lodge somewhere in the recesses
Of my character
And why the traits that might give strength recede
While devastating dread and self-damnation dominate
I do not know though I have my suspicions

Parents schools
Don’t punish your kids
Neither listen to the lie
That success matters most
Nor hear nor repeat
The stupid rhetorical question
How else will they learn to be good

Something substantial
Something of a heft
Tell a story

Once upon a time
There was one holy catholic and apostolic church
That taught the young
To dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell
And to avoid the near occasion
Of offense to God
Who is all good
And deserving of all love

And somebody once designated me
Anti-Christian
But I do not oppose Christianity
But merely acknowledge
The great departure

The departure of love
Of deserving
Of God
Of heaven
Even of loss
And I am left
With dread

The dread of pain
Of hell
Of offense
Especially of that which is all good
For who can conceive of or tolerate
Such crystalline perfection
Even in the light of one’s own wickedness
So partial
So impure
So mediocre

I punished myself when I was young
Punching my chest to stop my heart
Ineffectual blasphemy
Failure to usurp divine authority
I didn’t punch hard enough
Hatred vitiated by pity

Don’t expect substance
Don’t expect heft
If you lack the will
To go all the way
Unforgivable cowardice

Ruined at the outset
Craving approval
And deserving none
Begging for mercy
And hearing silence or condemnation
And who was ever motivated
By command

And yet behold the multitude
Cheerful in simple faith
Bemused no doubt by one
Unwilling to take the simple first step
Or the last

Something worth a damn
Something to be proud of
Deadly pride that twists the heart
Something substantial

And now we find ourselves in a great emergency
That demands bold action
That disdains a whimpering child
In the guise of an oafish greybeard
That demands something heftier
Than a tale of piteous contempt
Violent aversion
And self-serving blame

Thou beloved
Fixture of long habit
And always something more

Little demon
Who says to me Who cares
And always something more

Weary stale flat unprofitable
Stifled drowsy unimpassioned
Something that is gone
Now can see no more

Melancholy long withdrawing
Unaware
Nor hope nor health nor peace within nor calm
Close the door on me

Akcorn woi cirtus locqvump