in light of
the moon and venus
and jupiter faintly. there’s a big
hole in my head and it has ghostly
cylinder sides. high air all around. thumbs
of tomorrow today. it was tomorrow.
the little book I learn to love
says lie down now and
wait. and wait and wait.
this is the barrel
at the edge of the deadly
desert. nice and cool
it is except
for noon.
were there not several
versions of me there’d be no reasonable
horizon. and god knows I go there
to yell. but,
this is all so much
filler.
in light of
moon and venus faintly
jupiter, and there’s a big
hole in my head. it goes down and down
but nowhere fast. know what it is
directional mathematics? at peace I wait
the morning out, and love
as I do.
not you. you.
is it a heap of broken stuff
or a crowd? is anyone
surprised to see
the giant face brooding lovely
on the hill? the face of the corpse lacks a certain
touchability. on
the other hand,
the ring won’t come off.
I wrote this morning that some lives
concentrate down to a
rosebud, like that. the center
of possibility. some lives
brood on the hillside having
nothing left but face. others die
justified, left and right. still
others are still. be still.
cold light stars and planets colored
inside the lines.
was it Captain MacWhirr? really? the typhoon
of glass in the white night? got some nerve to pick a name
like that. when
Raoul Walsh needed a boat sucked up by a typhoon he put
the model in a big bucket of water. turned it over
with the camera running then
ran it in reverse. you need to think that way. all
the time now. slowly
turn my hand to light it does
its job. bounces back
the light. need to know
what you’re doing. what
you won’t know is what
it’s doing. never will.
anyway. the Captain
has his slicker on. it gleams through the gleam
as the sea rises hollow and cylinder endless
and smooth. jupiter is barely seen.
the green. electric
orangeade.
in a sequence is noticed
beginning and end
and precarious.
moves. right along.
move it along johnny
or you’ll get my foot
up your ass.
move it along. orion is my god of moves
across the face of the earth be
holden. how it was and how it will
be once. in the great clutter
of things I’ve been given
an imagined arrangement of stars
hangs above and punctuates
mr. lincoln’s
hat. there’s nothing in this life at all
but for noticing, describing,
and coming whole
to grief with a swollen
appreciation. Holden
got out
of the black rain
trap. in The Dark
Past.
every bit conscious. what do you have to say
with your pants down the lane with the Widow
Labyrinthina? ah, what have I done? there’s something simple here
and quite beyond the mind which fancies
itself, don’t it? get
the hook.
apply to the academy and note in your letter
your honors. note too
Mrs. Beaver’s elegant frock
and the death of the light
fantastic. blind man’s bluff. the classes fall
into categories easily
enough. easy as double-entry
bookkeeping. I’d break your heart
if I could find it. hit it hard
in your newborn
english department.
much as does the glue factory
the english department comes to being
faintly all the time.
then there it is. fuck it all.
in wide circle of pale starlight run
the bright swift fish the bits of life the monad
letters come dreamy came dreamy. damp day.
shorter life.
ecstasy.
yeah, but,
is the answer the blind man
gets on the subway. playing his b
flat alto.
what does he see?
I think to myself.
but I’m young
and don’t know it’s not
a serious question.
if I stick the nose of a telescope in
the light from jupiter
do I really see the past? are there
transparencies bumping
their edges and department
store dummies and faint
saxophone?
not a single
child’s question
has ever
been answered
by anyone.
welcome
to ghost island.
the big yellow key
and the starlight on the sea
wall. understand we don’t ascend
to god. god is not just a better
more-of-the-same. we
fall to god. ho ho the voices from
the center of the island echo.
they got caves
and they got combs
and they got towers and they
got money to burn. ho ho.
sky tonight and starlight on
the trail. the rails too.
big yellow key made of old and melted
yellow barrettes. will
you be on time?
will you be
in time?
will you be
under time? look.
a handful of dust is
a handful of life and the island of images
creaks on the sea like that boat.
the Sea Wolf’s.
it is as if and
more. take me this handful of dust to the post
office
and send it to the fireflies. the occasional
suitcased, the decoder
rings in flight. we had a ring came by mail
and you put a square of paper in the top
and held it still in the sunlight
and lo was a picture of the Lone
Ranger. we take the big blank book
out on the big blank rock and lo,
history. serious as can be, smiling. the smile,
after all, is the only sign of knowledge.
did you see that kid in the street? a handful
of reasssembly in the bright of mind reflecting
the projected? the movie starts and where’s
time. if it
[what?
were nothing
but simplest feel of love
it were all. at the top of my head is the picture that grows
in the pinhole light. who is it this time?
Lawrence Kenneth Kearney
late of red dust filling cloud
and road. the pictures come out real, no name
attached. Red Cloud Jamie
used to call me. lovely
girl.
writing up a storm. Storm
is a woman named Jameson had
these books on the shelf in the old
library. how I loved it there though not
for Storm Jameson never
read her. the storm
moved all across the sea
in a ball bearing. and it was silver
and rage and dull
and foam.
images down this coast the coast
of course
is elsewhere
and not. of course. the course of the blind
river. the storm on the blind
sea. was there a movie
called Captain China? there was.
and the big black heavy
crates slid side to side
to crush the human
flesh and bone. outside
the storm on a great
waste of sea. everywhere the spinning.
every where.
odd scraps of death.
Storm Jameson:
hope is a talent like any other.
I never would have thought but for
the name and what else was there?
hear that?
in the first
wellness of spring
was always a smell
in the air never there
till then. it come
[a thaw; moisture in the air; sweat on ice when frost begins to yield
all sudden high electric. in the library
the doors would be open and by the gate
forsythia new bud. I stand in the aisles of the novels
and skip over Storm Jameson. fake name
I think. it isn’t. who should I turn to?
so many. hope was always
my real middle name.
and who’s to say
I was wrong? consider
the lilies,
fake the rest.
Thair fell ane greit storme at Sanctandroisday of snaw;
the elegant diversions of
the stone voice brought to hill of light of white.
and dark. that hill
was right behind our house
and out in front the scribbled ocean.
so many voices
live in the hill,
and so many pepper
the sea.
I lifted my head up
and looked through the window
and light of the moon and
of venus were one
in the other. money in my pockets on
the floor but not
enough. hard day’s night. the library followed me
here to the edge of the thumbnail
planet. and I love yes I do
and god
the glass is a river
of window.
flocks of snow and tender fingers,
broken lines of flight and
powder.
the snow is not never the moon but the moon
is on it. a relationship
passes in the night.
with crooked back
and sack of cloth
I wander in
this surging broth.
and ride the onion,
slide the grease,
portray the carrot,
ey the meese. see how they ran. calliope
on four stout legs
with pipes of silver. ane meese
distrubil. storm cloud hides
where you see the pussy
in the well.
i took meese for
Muse but's
muse. ah ha.
‡MEESE, n., v. ne.Sc. form of Eng. muse
Cf. meesic, Music, and P.L.D. §§ 35, 128.
Also reduplic. form meese-mose, to wonder,
be suspicious, imagine things.
I had a peg board. we had
an abacus. they had a gatling gun. learn
in sequence. be not chaste
but come with god. as over the hill
comes the coach and the runner. the starver.
the ghost with the big
eyes. the subway comes to town pre-drawn
and lays it’s body
down. do you know the stories? do
you care? if I
could find one open ear
I’d go to sleep there
just outside.
where all the birds and trees are pitched
their tents and drawn
attentions. take this language
break it up
and scatter meaning.
feed the trout.
I knew a girl
named Stephanie Trout.
and lovely she was
in the meadow where everything
opens. she had
she told me
a hole in her heart.
as my son said,
poetic is to poetry
as jazzy is to jazz.
halfway up
the sideways slope
the ragged villain
ran to ground.
and burbled as he went.
unwilled exits. elevator temples. broken
hearted melody. we gave it a shot in the old days.
the sky looked down
and we looked up.
and kicking down the coffin street
there wasn’t one of us with life
expectancy. Nell Gwynn First National
held all the real money then.
lord take
this cup and down
the sky.
down the sky in a long
cool drink of water.
did I scare my kids?
sometimes.
did I want to?
above all things, no.
above the grave and the rose
and the floating corpse.
no.
so what did you do?
I let slip the face of
history. mine and all
the other stuff
around it. we all do terrible things
and hardly notice. my effort has been
to notice and not
repeat..
how many times around?
A my name is Anna.
it only takes the fallen
syllable, you know?
it takes the razor wind across
the eye and voice in fenced
place. here and now
I say goodbye,
and bathe in the cold dim light.
the star fuck.
I came to the end of the road and it flapped lazily
in a stiff highland breeze.
of course it was beautiful.
in the final landscape everything flutters
but beautiful. it’s as if.
let’s drop that.
hear it clank.
the way the paths were at shore road.
the way the broke-neck river ran
to muscle.
this is a difficult day in the world,
but I wouldn’t miss it. look forward
to nothin at all. look back to the series of
things that guy did. the jerk
when the breeze gets cold with razor as
it was that night rest
in the feel of it, the wonderful
disinterest. dismemberment.
empathetic fallacy.
the other night the geometry went out again and just
around that curtain was something not the same.
a long hall not a door? a nest of beings
one right through
the other? a murmur
[mormor was typed first.
of boxed and ribboned
space? and through the door
a flat-out window? and out the window a great
eraser? you know how hard it is
to celebrate these empty
knots? hold
the little hook the question
mark it well. this child is want and that
ignorance. don’t matter much but the pain
is a monstrous staircase. but then.
to hear a voice in grace across
the flat revolve of old and black
revolver seventy-eight
rpm
is to point the weakened foot
in the right direction. see space
as a 78 turning
dragging gravity.
the compass sits in splattered grief
of rain beyond the pale. imagine
the sound
so you can tell
your kids. the leaning
night come sideways down.
the only present
we know is in
consciousness of consciousness.
which takes no time at all and isn’t
in the past the way
the card game is. sit back in your chair and take
your feet in both hands. notice the snake in your back. smile for the rushes and
the whispering lake and the old columns. rock forward
and fall forward
out of your chair to
the floor. let go of your feet. think.
how the cloud is growing now
and how the feeble spiders crawl
to mamma. no use picking on
the spiders. without a name
they’re same as goldfish.
unnamed. they
have no name.
no more do you. roll on your back.
the ceiling is the world. there’s
a pressure on your back
and a snake in your spine.
what’s the game today? whist?
when you play whist
on the post office loading docks
you slam each card to table. wimoweh
the radio chants. also
don’t they know
it’s the end of the world.
these are some of the things
getting done this side
of bleeding knowledge.
self-canceling
is no accident. the letter had a self-canceling
stamp. it touched the paper
and zip it was blurred.
the touch of your hand
left a print.
and it came into visible
slowly. every once in a while
it happens that
the world puts up its hair and I
can see. were I more fool than I am
I’d take all the pictures for true.
the cheapjack
too.
the wine was a dollar ninety-nine a gallon and we’d carry it
every night after the bar
shut up. we carried the blood
in the jar up the hill
unsteadily. the leaning hill the flat black sky the
studded-belt stars.
sure I was there. but so was this other.
he paid better
attention. remember
your mouth in the night?
it was all we could feel [hear]
that toppling.
Mr. Sludge
alive and out
of Browning’s syntax. saintly
and smirking and trapped like an honest
man. rolling the syllable
bones. Mr. Sludge of course is a sly
Irishman. Browning
is a great poet. who do you trust?
my money goes with Sludge. not because he’s Irish. god no.
but because he lives with the real
as it breaks like a wave breaking
plates. plate LXXII. Browning in
his study. a Brownian study. but hark.
does not the head of Browning hear
the voice of Sludge in per-
petuity? does he not write down
the phantom of honest
discourse? is it not the case that all those books
fall off the shelf in the autumn? the russet glass?
once the mayhem planned the peace
in that dear starving place
where mama
shined the skulls.
of the two
confidence men
Sludge is the more
reliable.
by jupiter
a number of the same old man
says. land
o’goshen
says the bright
child.
I took my harp to a party
but nobody asked me
to play.
as a good harper stricken far in years
into whose cunning hands the gout doth fall,
all his old crotchets in his brain he bears,
but on his harp plays ill or not at all.
the finest music coleman hawkins. dying. sirius.
crotchet: root unknown but perhaps connected to
Latin crepare, to crackle, crabro, a hornet; if so,
it originally meant loud-sounding.
at the endless birthday parties
we all turn slowly sepia.
and that’s that. the art of the traveler
is keeping his hands to himself.
tried a couple of times
to touch the unfeelable and
it didn’t work out.
by jupiter.
got me down to the store
by smokefall.
[the breath of the horses.
tell me again now
how the words go.
there was a crooked man
by golly.
euphemism for God, first recorded 1775;
a sort of jolly kind of oath,
or asseveration much in use among our carters,
& the lowest people.
the same old men are coming
one from the other.
as if from a mechanical
source.
[horse
I’d at ease be here among
the broken solids.
[solace
love
as the soul loves
is.
the privileged
moment.
potato chips moonlight
and motor trips.
