Zeitgeist Spam

This Morning I Got My

This morning I got my
Gospel from William Shatner, thanks
To Allan Crosthwaite, a couple
Great lines from Tony Tost,
Thanks to Ron Silliman, and
My images from Robert Flynn
Johnson’s anonymous, so now you
Know almost everything, except why
I wrote the one-line
Poem I wrote last night,
They think they have time,
And what I’ll be doing
In Vienna next week, or
In London the week following.
I’ll be back March 13.
Til then, my loves, goodbye.

Famous Long Ago? Not Me

Famous long ago? Not me,
I was just another kid
In uniform, swastika, strolling down
The street, surrounded by dog-
Masked clown-masked women, sad-
Eyed Death dressed up for
Halloween, at first I was
A blur, a leap, then
I was a knot, guess
What, I had 98.5% of
Your genes, I was good,
I did what I was
Asked, it strikes me as
Odd, however, that you rode
On my back, I slept
In a pet-sized bed,
I sat on a parlor
Chair, a dark child stood
Beside me, a quizzical look
On her face, I remember
The milk, I remember the
Chains, it was dawn, I
Drank from the tranquil stream,
I skipped a few pages,
Somebody'd dressed me in wings,
I skipped a few pages,
I took part in horrible
Pleasurable inexplicable things that suited
My upright sunbelt fundamentalist ways,
That suited Clown-Face and
The bird-masked women, too,
It snowed and that was
OK, that's when I rested,
Halfway between here and the
Glare of the sky, I
Lay in a weird metal
Bed, I wore three faces,
Piercing, Pensive, and Ambiguous Eyes.

I Screamed At My Dead

I screamed at my dead
Don’t die, but he ignored
Me, I held him by
The eyes to make him
Remember me, I anointed him
With Crisco, and forced our
Big black lab to kiss
His daddy goodbye, I feel
Bad about the Crisco, and
Getting the dog all greasy,
But I wasn’t ready, I
Wasn’t ready, how could I
Be ready, we’d been together
Since I was thirteen, I
Made a film, excessive in
Duration, about a woman’s obsession
With Amaryllis Hippeastrum, when the
End came, the catastrophic invasion
Of a despoiling tropical mite,
No, she wasn’t ready, how
Could she be ready, I
Painted fifteen tiny still lifes
And placed them in the
Least most likely of places,
Pasted them to lampposts and
Road signs, pasted each in
Exactly the exactly right place,
What could be more idyllic
Than a loading dock, a
Warehouse, a factory, I filled
Them with entirely unnatural petro-
(Or is it poetro-?) chemical
Light, I know a woman
Who married Poetry at least
Three times, I’ve seen the
Photos, protean Poetry, how could
She be ready, sometimes Poetry’s
A man, a woman, a
Petro-chemical light, I took
Up painting, I went back
To Manet and Bataille, black
Squares, impasto, abstracts, asses, mountains,
Plants that die, I obsessed
On evidence, commodities, places to
Pray, I tried to get
Some work done, I studied
My monitor, I expected to
See BIP, instead I saw
A series of colorful (petro-
Chemical?) rectangles, I took up
History painting (remember when that
Was the genre of genres?),
I made Dick Nixon flee
The White House, I brought
Ceausescu down, Mauthausen was two
Hours away by train, how
Could any fool think we
Were ready, have we ever
Been ready, we painted FREEDOM
On a chalkboard, god wasn’t
That a spectacular sight, stripes,
Stripes, stripes, stripes, stars blotted
Out from the sky, I
Made monuments for my dead,
I screamed don’t die, the
Statues looked tiny out on
The lawn, under the trees,
In the white room, under
The white star-blotted sky,
Tiny, helpless, I remember us
Alone on a driftwood beach,
I remember a skinny man
In an orange canoe drifting
By, I remember thinking all
Of us, all of us,
Have to die, but I
Wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready,
How could I be ready,
I ate a sandwich, I
Drank some tea, I bit
My nails, I was alone
On a stage, I took
Up conceptual art, I rebuilt
The Bride, I translated the
Master’s notes, but I wasn’t
Ready, I wasn’t ready, how
Could I be ready, though
I’d read every book on the
Intermediate State, I first came
To prominence in the early
1970s with a series of
Subtle installations I referred to
As ‘speculations about space’, I
Got as crazy as crazy,
Mauthausen was two hours away,
Do you understand what I
Mean when I say thirteen,
I ate an apple that
Tasted like water, though later
I thought of it as
Sweet, I’m all pooped out
Questioning stainless radiance, the is
What it is, was what
It was, will be what
Will be, piling second-guess
On second-guess, worry on
Worry, I called one work
The Earth is Flat, another
Say Hello to Peace and
Tranquility, one might have thought
Me ready, but the camera
Doesn’t lie (well, it does
Tell stories), I put everything
I knew into a giant
Drawing, but tell me, was
There one human being alive
In my city, when pigs
Fly, when stones float, when
A woman screams, I screamed
At my dead don’t die,
I put speakers all through
The environment and screamed through
Them don’t die, but I
Really was nobody, I was
Only a story, I was
Only a story that had
To pee, I told it all
In a drawing, I filled
Every inch of interior space,
But I wasn’t ready, I
Wasn’t ready, how could
I be ready, I climbed
The space instead of the
Stairs, I screamed through my
Photos don’t die, I screamed
And I screamed, but how
Could I be ready, I
Feel bad about the Crisco
Getting the dog all greasy,
But I was only thirteen.

Flicker III (Poem Beginning With A Line By Barbara Guest)

Where birds are a light,
Which is singing, handful of
Dead long-stemmed roses, oil
Drum, tree, octagonal pavers, slice
Of the curb, blur of
The child on the bike,
Bricks, shadows, manhole cover, penalty
Eyes, what dirty rain makes
When dirty rain dries, fertility,
Steel, wine, paint, one blue
Pigeon, sunset, everywhere you look
There are signs, poppies, alphabets,
Lives, people watching people out
Of their only eyes, red
White blue green berry branches
Black, bio in neon, which
Is life, His Airness was
Someone once, she certainly loves
Her boys, adventures in Asia,
Kiss kiss, what could be
Better than hair over the
Eyes? Half but which of
A face, the half with
The lights on, 4 in
The morning, the other half
Waiting for a train, train
Gone, sidewalk, curb, chained bike.

Mr Language

I was maybe eight, out
To dinner with my folks,
A place I called the
Savé Somé Room. It wasn’t
Til I was thirty I
Got that the proprietors wanted
Me to order some pie.
I was in a garden,
Grass was dead in patches,
But oh the roses or
Rhododendrons or whatever they were.
And Coop Himmelb(l)au’s NOT repeat
NOT some crazy Dutch guy.

Anti-War Poem (After Ted Berrigan)

It’s the first full moon of the
Lunar year & a time / for Resolution.

I don't like “American Idol”.

I love the clatter of those
Strange green birds.

Where was I
When I heard them?

The War goes on
                         & war is Shit.

I'll sing you a first lunar month
Full moon song
’Cause that moon’s supposed to be brightest.

“We used to go up the hill to wait
“For the full moon to rise
“With wishes.”

I’ve never even looked for a warm room
That I could go to
                           be alone in
& never have to fight.

That’s nothing I've ever wanted.

I thought a lot about the poetics wars, too
But I said Fuck it.

I Was Walking Where The

I was walking where the
Wind blew twenty-four seven,
I was a baby, language
Had yet to climb right
On top of me, I
Was a head on a
Pedestal, I was in a
Different landscape now, where mountains
Were gray, trees black, water
A white cascade, your real
Subject was the fluorescent ceiling,
I held my bony hand
To my pale cadaverous cheek,
I held up the candle
Though the real wax was
Me, this time the trees
Were green, there we sat,
Side by side, separated by
The Bug-Eyed Thing, you
Let me look at you,
I counted millions of graves,
Clouds hid the peaks, it
Was a private joke between
The gods or laws, I
Couldn’t understand a thing, I
Became collectible, I counted more
Graves, clouds hid the peaks,
I stood on the Last
Place, For My Art and
For My Loved Ones I
Will Gladly Endure to the
End! I counted millions more
Graves, not one natural death,
I've failed in so many
Things, the snowstorm in Switzerland?
Nothing but paper and ink.

For Shixiong

Steve says a poet (whose
Name he can’t recall) writes
A mountain’s heart beats once
In 200 years, so a
Mountain might be a little
Hard to get to know.

And Inso links me to
A New York Times review
Of a 1986 show, Kernels
Of Energy, Bones of Earth:
The Rock in Chinese Art.

Which brings us back to
Mi Fei, who not only
Bowed to a rock, he
Named it Elder Brother Stone.

I’ve sat on boulders up
High-country gorges and (pleasure
Of pleasures) unlaced my boots.

I've soaked my feet while
The glacier sang til I
Was numb to the ankles.

I've watched the late afternoon
Clouds roll in and snag
On the cliffs til the
Bare granite heights were gone.

On top of a rock:

A fine place to sit
After a six-hour walk
While the sun slowly westers
(Westers: what a great word!)
And the evergreen shadows grow.

Han Shan sat here once.

While he viewed the ground
Of his mind, a lotus
Grew out of the mud.

A penjing: a thousand-mile
Vista on a single tray.

What’s that, my sibling? Ka-
Thump, ka-thump, ka-thump? 

[Note: “I’ve sat on boulders … mud”: an extremely faithless version of Red Pine’s Han Shan poem no. 264 (I’ve glanced at Red Pine’s translation, but mainly used Inso Chung’s)]

I Stood In The Warehouse

I stood in the warehouse
District under a salmon light,
I coughed up blood or
Tea, I looked a while
Where wood bumped into white,
I finally got it that
The god of the sun
Was having a good time,
I let grammar checker get
Rid of some of the
Green wavy lines, I realized
I’d never be able to
See what Alice saw out
Of those very peculiar eyes,
I stood in the warehouse
District under a lemon light,
I coughed some more but
Nothing came up, what was
Flashing in the corner
Of my eye? I owed
Insight and compassion, the ultimate
Nature of mind, I bounced
Between the show, coffered ceiling,
Black trees and cold sky,
I put the laundry in
The dryer, I answered the
Phone, I spoke to a
Human I mistook at first
For a machine, I finally
Got it that the bird
Gods were having a good
Time, I saw six identical
Women, two were lost in
Roses, one was on her
Feet, I stood in the
Warehouse district in front of
Electricity in natural light, I
Saw four black panels through
A window at night and
Wondered will this be me?
I wondered what Vision Serpents
Were, and I wondered at
The ancient face, I shouldered
A wolf, it was the
Right thing to do, I
Couldn’t explain, I coughed and
Took another drink, I stood
By the train tracks, I
Stared at a thing on
A gurney when I wanted
To study the sea, I
Saw a jar marked with
Realms the soul traverses on
Its journey, I didn’t believe
In a soul but agreed
A map might be a
Good thing, I carried my
Wolf like a spark and
A light, I owed insight
And compassion even when I
Couldn’t make sense of what
Was directly in front of
Me, we stood a moment
In the long spooky tunnel
And we looked exactly alike,
Let’s all get in the
Same bed before it’s too
Late, the phone rang again,
This time it really was
A machine, I stared out
A window at the foot
Of the Spanish Steps, hoping
To see my son in
The crowd, it was weird,
And I swear it's not
Just all this goddamned coughing,
I was in the room
With the dead John Keats.

There's A Name For This

There's a name for this, and a pharmaceutical.