You said you'd show at
6, now it's 7, no
Matter, while I waited I
Was eaten by the light,
At 7:15 I walked around
The neighborhood, the usual route,
There were lots of different
Top soils, each one teeming,
I felt a lot like
The museum director who said
I wish that I could
Say that I am able
To successfully maintain being in
The moment all the time,
I found myself in the
Cave with the 10 blue-
Haired me's, the shiny bronze
Buddha in the cube disappeared
Into the fog of uncertainty,
I thought Dogen's dried shitsticks,
How easy to make bullshit
Metaphors from quantum physics, I
Was eaten again by the
Light, I saw a yellow
Blur, said bird without thinking,
We sat around the big
White table, 4 of us,
Because of the distance chair
To chair I was more
Comfortable with silence than speaking,
The fading colors, the hunched
Figure, reminded me of Hiroshige,
Everywhere I looked were marks
But only some called up
Memories, cast my memory back
There, lord, to Fashion Publications,
The patch in the plaster
At the 3rd floor exit
Off the service elevator that
Made me happy every day
And was why I called
The corridor to the Circ
Department my own private gallery,
O faces, faces, faces, lights,
For 3 unforgettable days everyone
I talked to had beautiful
Naked eyes, Tehching Hsieh and
Linda Montano tied themselves together
With a 8-foot length
Of rope for a year,
That must have been something,
But it's not as if
There's only one kind of
Touching, technical term inserted here:
Dependent Origination, there were lots
Of different top soils, each
One singing, I'll ask me
Again, why did I ever
Think even the sky was
Empty? The papers pasted to
Every conceivable surface were colored
Pink and purple and yellow
And green, each had text
Inscribed, but when Kathy pointed
To the window and said
Look at all the roses
I simply forgot to read,
I love that word simply,
It means so many things,
Like sitting in the living
Room, just sitting in the
Living room, I fell upon
The thorns of art, I
Fell upon the thorns of
Life, I bled, I died,
I just couldn't stop laughing,
Not that when I saw
Rick Lowe and Deborah Grosfeldt's Project
Row Houses I wasn't an
Inch away from a good
Stiff cry, I came upon
A note I'd stuffed in my
Jacket pocket I'd written for
An entirely different occasion, the
Mess said Beast of No
Nation, the mess said We
Don't need no fascist groove
Thing, the mess said Remember
The Lower 9th Ward, what
The hell was the mess
If it wasn't a better
Version of me? And then
This collective memory: The
Bus came by and I got
On / that's when it all
Began / there was cowboy Neal
At the wheel / of a
Bus to never-ever land,
What am I supposed to
Make of someone standing straight-
Faced in front of a
Flag? The pigeons gathered round
The giant skeleton, the beautiful
Woman put gold leaf round
Her eyes, O Rrose, you've
Confused so many people in
So many great ways, so
Did the Buddha with those ridiculously
Half-closed smiling eyes, since
We were dealing with photographs
I said fuck this and
Trying to sound like Chet
Said let's get lost in
That impossible sky, he usado
Un 'split neutral density' y
Un poco de photoshop a
Ayudarme, 8 1/2 x 11 sheets
Inscribed with secrets we already
Knew fell and fell from
The blue amazing, reminded me
Of those pigeons, fluttered to
Rest all over the place,
I had long, yes too
Long, searched for my own
Vocation, for the sake of
This always known yet never
Known goal, dissatisfied with every
Profession, I had prematurely broken
Away from each one, unable
To find peace in any,
Either in the calling of
A medical man, a mathematician, astrologer,
Philosophical scholar or teacher, the
Demanding but unrealized vision of knowledge,
The grave recognizable image of
Death had stood perpetually before
My eyes, and no vocation
Measured up to that, as
None exists that is not
Subserviated to the knowledge of
Life, none with the exception
Of that one to which
I had finally been driven
And which is called poetry.