POCKETS OF LIME
Everything has happened, nothing
possessed.
The lawn engages
Its constituent appraisers. Burrows
fold
by, unaccosted by memories of
Synergies the doorjamb clops
to.
Boulevards
Beam in the near distance while
on
its wand the
Hermits are organizing affinity
clusters.
In the cab, desiccated Dominicans
Cop to outtakes from “Take the ‘A’ Train” as
the
band plays late
Into a night that never comes. On deck,
a
shipboard romance turns
Sordid when the expiration date embossed
on
a Ouija board is
Overlooked. The days so blinding, before
you
know it’s time
For another frame of Limbo at
Club
Lumbago. “There’s no
Buggy like the Buggy that ate my
baby
in the summer of ’82.” Not
Two days left, scouting under the eaves
for
thrown-away cheese &
Mink fleas. One chord crests, no
place
for more, when
You ’ear ’er, down by the Walla Walla
Feedway.
(As if foreign or foreign-
Scented.) Nothing has happened, everybody
has
been processed. The
Elevator leads to a flight of bronzed
stairs
that ends near a
Picture of your majestic presentiment,
rather
noisier than had
Been or would be anticipated or
asphyxiated,
in some ways a
Damp cloth and light dusting would have
done
as well. At this point, the
Nasobiliary tube is inadvertently
dislodged;
before replacing it, we
Decide to insert an endoprosthesis. “Worms
in
brain, worms in
Stomach, how’m gonna worm me way
out
o’ here.” You see, you are
What you tear, but only the baker knows
what
the bread’s been fed. “But the big
Question, which they don’t discuss, is
what
kind of glue the man was
Using.” A soul as soft as Detroit, a
bile
as big as a bagel—though the
World’s not made of muslin and the only
cosmic
gas is static
Electricity. How would you treat the patient
now?
Would you leave the
Tubes in place for continuous drainage? Refer
for
laparotomy? Or
Perform balloon dilation of the stricture
and
endoscopic sphincterotomy?
Keep in mind that the bilirubin is down to
1.6 mg/dl
and the platelet count
Remains low at 4,000. Where the harp is
the
loneliest fire station, adorned
With piecemeal crescendi and unaugmentable
nosegay,
enlisted into an action
Encumbered by touch, hostage to
decision:
derision’s ubiquitous
Breatholizer, haphazard and blousy.
Double
space everything; use soft not
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word
wraparound
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where possible, numbers for
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(don’t start
Numbering from one). You may be asked to
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such codes without specific instruction
From the Instruction Terminator.
Everything
has progressed, nothing
Has occurred. The firetruck roars
to
the Lake District while at the encampment
All that’s left are
flesh
wounds. THE DAY THE $
STOOPED. BILLIONS FOR BROWNIES. BABY’S FIRST
BATH.
DESIGNATED VICTIM. “There’s
No question that he’s got a big Freudian
thing.”
“Arguably the most argumentative
Poet in America.” “You need to know that when you
infringe
on somebody else’s
Profitability, you have to have a clean
operation
or a load of
Protection.” “We’re
going
through this coffee like
A fly through butter.” Keep in mind, however,
that
many of these changes need not
Cost a leg nor require you to overhaul your
imaginary.
Clean, uncluttered shelves,
For instance, do not require a wrecking
crew.
Neither do neat, legible, complete,
manuscripts. Similarly, you may not have been
born
with attributes of a Greek
God nor the fashion sense of a Milan
model,
but you know what you’d
Like to see in a competent art professional.
I
am sure that a stained smock, seen
Through the haze of hemp smoke, is not what
you
have in mind. We won’t
Put up with that in our physician or stockbroker, then
why
should we expect our readers
To accept less from us. “Don’t question
my
similes,” said the supple senorita. “Don’t
Mess with my metonymies,” cried the mandarin
matador.
(He kept his prosodic
Devices in a toolbox on the table of
the
padded basement shelter near the
Washer-Dryer and Automatic Pump.) Not
liberty
but the leer of liberty
Lulls the laddies from their crusted
craters,
the jaded from their lard-like
Ladders. . . . and the ladies, with their crimson
laces,
Bill and Lou, Viv and
Stu. Or saying:
Broiled,
broiled in the broiler with lemon
Or poached, poached with some water, or
fried,
fried with butter in a pan on a stove
In a kitchen. The green so green in the afternoon
light
so no longer color but a
Cavern or expectancy jelled into a reel of
gypsies
dancing a pellucid romp
On the altar of Nostradamus, vicar of the implausible
audibles,
then cast upon the foam
Of a sailor’s groan. Thus, certainty confronts
us
but we cannot be sure of it—
A surrogate holding, cradled in the mist of
an
impossible necessary, and lost
To its purpose, or our own. Vagueness, in
which
belief is mute, & manifest . . .
Even one thing can make a display. And there
was surfeit of singularities, odd
Lots of broken middles, splintered
threads—eidetic
deniers as Michael once
Put it—for to deny is measure of our
heft;
even small coins can be traded
Or stolen. The Unquiet Journey of Martin Heidegger.
As
in the expression, ‘What clock is it?’—
“One clock,”“three clock,” “eight clock.” For
anything
said is significant—& much that
Is not said but only spoken, hinted—
tossed
from a glazed eye to a
Nearing touch. And what the senses
but
limiting scanners, combing the
Ineffable to produce sound, searing
the
seemless to appear as
Sour? Soaring, senseless
night,
of no limit, that
None have known, or
could
wish to— “Pipe
Down, you pipsqueak,” said the Piper, hitting
me
with a six-inch length
Of galvanized tube. In the rooms the children
suck
& blow, talking of Moholy-Nagy.
Segmenting the real: Coca-Cola franchises
the
metaphysics of
Numerosity, according ‘classic’ and ‘new’ equal
status,
the diversity of constituencies
Obliterating the elitism of “one common
taste” of a people. (Thinking
All is secure when nothing is secure, all is
resolved
when everything is
Indissoluble.) In this sense, postmodernism coincides
with
pluralism and Daniel Bell’s
Smiling. The end of idolatry is the beginning
of
commodity fetishism: God
Isn’t gone away to a happier place, she’s
not
napping nor hiding nor
Lying in wait, just having a snack & settin’
back.
No shit, no shoes, just
Me & my electric windmill. “But despite
six-
and seven-digit severance
Arrangements, a fall from the top can be
grim;
neither money nor the memory
Of power innoculates against frustration, greed
or
a stinging sense of injustice.”
The memory of power. Do’s and don’t do’s & could
do’s
& won’t do’s. “My
Personal taste never enters into anything
I
do.” Everything
Has been resurrected, nothing has vanished. “The regulator
is
never separated from the
Main spring.” For only truth is
reversible,
lies fester
Under the skin & make it rancid. & the
smell
of lies is everywhere
& the people crave it as perfume for their
perfume.
But truth cannot be
Smelled & is as nothing & reviled as only
nothing
is—a void & a pox & an
Abomination—for what cannot be tasted nor
heard
nor smelled cannot be put to
Use & what is not abused is less than
nothing.
Busy as beagles, we
Think what we see and say what
we
gnaw. So cry not
For the beloved nor lost but for the unseen, un-
touched
that we will
Not abjure. Cry for the steam, not the machine.
& Monsieur Madame takes me in hand
To sing the Tut-tut-aloo, yes Monsieur et Madame
they
take me in hand & sing
The Tut-tut-aloo. Calling Ruth, Ruth
when
there is no Ruth. Patterns
Are what we fathom, needs
what
we endure. A crack
Is not a fault nor a fall an oasis,
neither
are vases places. & I
Have known disgraces. “I wish I were
a
gurgling guppy, ’cause then I’d
Swim, yeah then I’d swim / Sure if I
were
a gulping guppy, the Atlantic
I’d spin, Pacific I’d be in.” But
you
ensnare me with your wet
Cold eyes and golden ear and I ripple
beside,
bound to the tide.
Nothing has changed, everything recalls (recoils).
The
hunger of prostration, the lassitudes
Of— “I’ve spent half my life covering up my
mistakes
and another half trying to
Expose them.” These are the ways, counting
one
and two, three and—; but
To pray is still a dance, to fray a lost
leader
. . . on the road merely
Tread, the mill seldom silenced. Everything
is
promised, everything
Delivered. Who waits waits
in
the company of women & men &
Boys, for the Messiah whose come & gone
with
no trace; for waiting is the customed
Course for those who’ve missed the last boat, misplaced
the
keys. No one was
Promised, no one disfigured. & the breeze
becomes
a gust but
The house does not blow down. “I can’t have
your
experience, I’m not sure I
Can have my own.” “Up among the curls so
high,
like a lever that’s a
Sigh.” The baby play with its
fingers;
this is called ‘finger
Play’. Sometime it work and sometimes it
doesn’t:
all the rest is
‘Redolent with breathless antipathy’.
“Where have they gone?” asked Jasper.
“To the deep dark dank & won’t be back, to
the
end that has no beams.”
It’s your dime but it’s my quarter.