37 Seconds


Howsoever it ran, one of the things

that made it beautiful

was the lack of the angle-terre,

the rough clash of the Saxon,

maintaining more the euphony

of the roman in the romance

of the Norman tongue, sounds

of succor, of sweet feeding,

the kind that draws a steady stream

of sustenance

from the source, the flow, the fleuve,

not so much of knowledge but

of knowing, one long steady

birthing, one long breathing in,

which Beckett made last 37 seconds,

the life of a play, and here,

the life of the life of a poem.









After Quitting


A wagonload of empty barrels

circling the stadium

is good luck, I read. They did it

in the old days before a game.

 

I am an alarmist.

 

Mist is simply interesting

on the flesh—

to touch a hunchback is lucky too.

 

Inches mightn't be the best measure

of rain; how

to figure to whom luck comes,

from whom; and how.

 

How to say a prayer

at sea—on your knees.

The violent yaw & pitch, wish

still for land like solid

haunches in hand, some-

one's neck, the silvered,

scalloped slope

between

the jaw and the clavicle; hear

the silent

patience

of her swallow.

A hat thrown on a bed

is bad luck.

Hugs!








Autobiography I



I am not./ A self-taught artist./ I am trained./ By seals.// I know my way./ Around./ Not like Darger, found./ 
(Hard 'g.')// Balls./ In the air./ Live fish./ Food.// That just sits./ There./ Shaker shit./ Get a kit.// Sit a shift,
Jack./ In the box.// Tools./ Through the streets./ Fences./ Himself in./ Is there a way out./ Place./ To go for./ 
Take-out near./ The Champs d'Elysee?// Why, oh why do I?/ Eat, meet and greet./ On the avenue?// I 
don't.// Sweep the street./ This fin thing./ Or wing.// How to work./ It.

I learned how to spell “assassin” when I was nine years old.












Second Home



wrackline and sand
and Junior Wells somewhere
on the harmonica



turtledoves, beach plum;
saltspray rose and beach pea



eyes on nothing
unnatural
but a distant house



With my pen’s wet nib
I have picked up a grain
of sand—white, quartzlike—
and set it on a notebook page.
I circle it.



On the beach today
I ran across a sundial made
elaborately of beach
stones and shells and a two-by-four
and hear 
it was built yesterday
by a French-Canadian couple
which explains the lovely fleur-de-lys.



Je suis muet sans le soleil, they write out in stones—
“I am silent without the sun.”



Drifting in an afternoon nap
I am the sunshine. 
I dream that John Ashbery
is giving away sweaters
on a street corner.
He knows I don’t need one.