beneath a lemon sky, in
a muslin shift and boots.
He was no hoofer, that was certain,
but he was game. As was I in
those halcyon days before
they came to drag him away.
Scribes from the future, fire
belching from their hands,
these men with no mouths to sing
took him, and held him
at their home away in the sky,
until he ceased to speak
to them at all.
to those who die is:
pack a fucking lunch.
And I think this next
might be important:
don’t be expecting nothing.
No double downs no call,
I know, for naught, nor for
not foregoing that last;
but, one might think,
likely, there’ll be in store,
not neither no kind of fast,
but rather, some sure but
slow sort of reckoning,
some dealing out of
just what’s fair, what’s earned;
what’s not, left in the ground.
Or, scattered, as some do
to sea; not me, though
leaving any body’s just
a call to lunch for some,
I reckon.
One might not expect
in one’s early twenties
major relationships
in their beginnings
with the mad sex and
various movings in
and out then back
extending perhaps
beyond a year.
Nor should one expect
forgiveness for thinking
a baby might
shore things up
public demonstrations, but just this once
I’m going to let it fly: a startled bird of vast dimension
hewn straight from me to you. Dear reader, look to
thy cloaking, don’t let me find you, cups turned up.
Must there be more, why not? This darkened time
deserves it well; my sword with wrath is whet,
and grown in truth most hungry. May we a
volunteer, some civilian evil its edge to mettle ?
For soon we go a-sporting, don’t wait till then;
don’t be caught haunched back and shy. Better,
give it up, abjure your nasty ways. What would
Jesus do? I’m not sure. I know the Old Man’s
really pissed. Ah, what have I done? A motive, shit, oh my,
I’ve expressed an agenda. This ain’t poetry, people;
this is politics. And I, for one, have had a gutfull.
It’s now. It has to be. The time has come today.
I couldn’t get through, or reach into her
sack for something mightn’t save me.
Stuff me quick, I lust implored, but
her recedin’ ‘cross der narrows.
I, left anon-digo, and little sign: a fading
bloody ragging, next to nothing;
'fore her share was cut,
I’d be seen some ‘counting up,
some mangled geld, or coin, no less; less
artful now. Give it heart, me frere, or don’t,
fair bonney. Same’s all reckoned true.
Later, boys and girls turned in, wicks snuffed
all ‘round, and native wind just rising, curling
to the miserlou; all benkers wasted, good and
gone or going.
early this morning: I had been gone for some extended period for some reason, and in the meantime, the entire area bordered by Wm.s and Irv’s, the dinosaur rocks, Becky’s, the pentagon, and down to Phyllis’s cabin had been built up into this vast connected warren of ramshackle 60s-type addition structures. Claire was there, one of the herd, a really tiny toddler, but an amazingly fast runner; she knew every little corner and space and enclosure that she could fit in, in that sprawling cast-off plywood and weyerhauser blow-sheet megopolis, and was tearing from one little hideout to the next, showing off to me her QH toddler chops. It was wearing me out, and I remember wondering when, hoping, please, soon, someone would be coming to be on with her.
I saw you only
through my window;
its frame never moved, you did
turn your face to me, brightening
dawn’s passing; a new day's beginning,
now near burned through, too,
by the endless combustion
that sourced you; was it then,
you split away?
you keep your distance now,
aging surely--perhaps, it’s that,
nothing more;
yet, you balance the night,
then tuck it tightly away,
somewhere, beneath; where
vast vaults of sky
shelter the horizons
you’ll range, but I can’t
know your face, please,
don’t turn away. if it’s bright
now, too bright, yet still, I see
your mystery, finally, I admit,
I can’t reach it; perhaps
I can't hold you
against darkness, again,
this brilliance has me blind;
I'm asking, then,
did you slip away?
spake the lizard king. I sure was. The doors slammed behind me.
An urn tumbled from an ancient pillar. A large black bird took wing.
Slowly easing myself along a low stone wall, with designs on
a sofa-like thing I’d spotted on the far side of the republic,
I tried not to think about how I was getting out. Crashing
sonic booms in the muffled distance. The ground beneath me
was gravelly, uneven, and now I could make out dim light
coming in here and there beneath the walls, which seemed to
circle a thirty foot wide depression, or pit. I couldn’t tell.
Other than that, nothing. More booming. Breathing:
close, beside me. A sense of terror took me, though
I made no move, nor did I even know what I feared.
It didn’t smell well, that much was certain, which was a call
to action. Preferring an uncertain future to the one right here,
I pitched myself headlong out into the dark interior,
and fell into the pit and died. You could say, I should have
stuck, no telling where I’d be now. Yeah, bubba.
Hemingway more commitment. Einstein was
probably more gifted, in certain areas, and
Montgomery Clift originally did have a profile.
my contact with you is limited to this,
concealed within triplets of nonsense. The Queen
of York embarked one day, in June, with her
requisite entourage. There was fool King Philip,
I must see you tonight, I’m dying. Call me Zorro.
Call me Zarathustra. Call me Jimmy Jazz.
or you could say I just slowed down. Either way it’s the dust clapper
for this kid. Brimstone tickles my nose. And makes my eyes run.
The quickest way home is seldom the best. Nor is the longest to
envy. Not even the truest path has much to recommend it.
Weirdness and whimsy seem best to carry the day. In that vein,
I offer this, Pilgrim, a rest for your head at the end of the day,
a warm spot for your feet.
in the face of all that defiles it; sticking when
it’s easy to run. These are learned, painfully,
by shortfall. Harder still is giving in
in the right time.
Bricked into his skull was
the secret to surviving,
which died with him.
I feel an aubade coming on. Sestinas resist me
like the plague. I don’t know what it is.
Even the limit lines of the limerick escape me.
But to that I say this,
meet me in the pumphouse, Molly.
a lyric there takes wing, a bawdy and crude verse,
no worse than the first; and in the morning,
all throats will concur round the note:
Molly’s gone for a sailor, and the world is off cant,
our initials scarred into its floor.
No one could decide. The best minds put their heads together.
The boy’s future looks grim. If he were to resort, as we predict,
to low practices and shady activity, if he consorts, with the
poor and malfeasant, no nurture would be obtained,
from the tit of a whore, they phrased indelicately. Rose,
stung to the quick, as it were, took a hike to Toledo, I grabbed
a rail and rode it out. Which took ten years or more. Rose
is a phone psychic now in Vegas. I’m a ball boy at Forest Lawn.
An actor, really. The sensitive sort.
were it to descend on our heads
would be cut up, diluted, and washed away
before having the first chance to
collect in our hearts
much less reach our laps.
we lounged by the carp pool; reflections of her hair
fell across the surface sweeping darkness
willy-nilly. My main maintainers of mojo
shrieked an eerie chord, my brain screamed alert. At
that very moment a grand piano spectacularly
entered our dream, descending all in a rush.
Julliard took her. Then them.
should tell a story, you’re thinking by now, but
I’m way ahead of you; bear with me now: let me
just catch hold of my climbing gear, and here, seat
this hook in under your breastplate, HA, good thing
we’re wearing armor! Anyway, story was
Cleveland Cate, just to lose weight, took a Hummer
for a drive once in Spring. The larks were out, it was
quite a nice day. She thought, I’ll walk back for exercise. . .
Now, don’t get ahead of yourself, I know,
you’re thinking: How’s she get the car back?
I gave that some thought myself but decided, finally,
the last thing I need is a diet.
As for Cate and getting the car back, I'll say this much,
she didn’t. But what that means to you, or to me--or
to anyone, anywhere--is up to each of us as individuals,
I'm thinking. That’s our right.
Anyway,
that’s our story.
in deep: every day parting these clouds with cracked fingers
I come upon mind giving muscles a comb-over.
We don't speak, anymore. And my yellow fat, what's still
strung of that, is waved by an uncertain wind.
more’s the case, I’ve hardened
into something resembling the
Masai spear, a fearsome instrument,
deployed just so, though I’ve no
sights on office
in the mirror was likewise no prize
in other departments. Juice first gone
to vinegar, then turning hard, and bitter;
whither limb fled afore youth, or the other
way round, he couldn't say, nor answer
the bell at sixty-eight. The hell
with the crown.
I’ll stop at nothing before total world domination,
and maybe not then.
Furthermore, I’ve an agenda quite prepared for launch,
if I detect the faintest hint of resistance,
which is, of course, futile, and probably, plus that,
it won’t even help.
how when unguentine at long last becomes strictly unavailable
I’ll already be gone.
Fortunately so, the rub’s off the apple, and if ever an overture
to archery was in order . . . zen em, that would be now.
I saw Fredricka, she was speeding away in a Benz;
flapping pink helpless arms from das boot.
The curses she nevertheless hurled back at me,
from within, were thus muffled, and difficult
to understand, in German, but I caught their gist,
which went something like this:
you evil stupid disgusting prick, I'd rather be
returned this instant to Hades' driest bowel,
and blinded, chained, and afflicted by boils, scabies,
and 2000 species of parasite, forever remain . . .
and so on, she went on; it seemed she would continue
until both the earth and I would be cinders.
I ran beside the car, snapping now and then at
those same plump arms that had cradled me, held
my last best hopes as an honest man.
Once or twice I nipped a tire.
. . . be taken prisoner by Turks and sewn into a sack
and sold, she still railed from trunk, where were stored
as well the spoils of the last nine days, out of reach,
of course, now I’d hooked hard again left.
A bent man’s way passes under the arch.
what could I do,
what with all we’d been through? They hadn’t
a thimble’s dram uncorked ‘fore I had her forques undone,
not long after she busted all the metal loose of her hind-
quarters, which famously rip-sawed appendages
can do some damage, as well you know, if
you've been paying attention. Haag, Eternal Queen for Life of
the Giant Black Dung Beetles was a formidable foe, which is why
I'd loosed her, expecting, I admit, some smidgen of gratitude
for old times sake, at least. But giving barely a glance at
her former captors, she turned on me, flaring
dorsal flanges furiously, emitting her regal scent
before her, as always, all unknowingly. And oblivious she was
to its effect on me. Stunned again I was, as if from the first,
and it was this, my friends, not the ripping
socket from bone, etc., that did me in.
As far as I know I did die there, and quite happy
I was to do so, in the circumstances.
Today came the Maker to my door, hoping to collect what I owe
on my sins against his terrible mercy. Good luck on that. Let me
wash your dishes, I’ll crouch by your knee like a dog, but don’t ask me
to pay. I slipped through more thinning passages than even your
hundred fingers could count. What’s that worth? Not
a free ride in sight. Price and accounting’s greasy sheen over all.
I took in a breath. It cost me to do it. He turned out my pockets
and took my home, my bike, and my last-born. She capered
like a fawn at his knee. It should have been me. Now
I’m sitting here with nothing but this gray dawn,
the same tide that turns us over and over and over.
love like a truck. Lick the lodestone with regularity
at first, then speed up. I got wisdom’s never been written
nor even repeated, I know how to write a score. I know
the last thing ever will be you gasping your love.
And I know how to load the implement, hand her over there,
shorty. I went down early in a dirty fight, thought I’d avoid
a passle of mischief staying out of the way like that. Then
she come along with her needs and issues and cunt and all.
you run across some strange ones. In Calgary, I saw the sky go
lemon from inhalants released unknowingly into the atmosphere
by middle school graffiti artists. You had to give them credit.
The night said, look at me, say my name like you mean it,
and I’ll sing. The forest was blacker than that.
Morning found them of course partially eaten by wolves,
who had been especially adapted and introduced into exactly
that biosphere where the claimant had his left hand taken
at the wrist. To be plain, your honor, is my way, therefore,
let me say, my client deserves to die. Of that
no man can have doubt. A more low-down, evil scuz-ball
you won’t find. He’ll have to do.
can require resourcefulness, and ingenuity, certainly, patience,
I would say, of all qualities one could have as an itinerant python pacifier,
an appreciation of time as process, process as good, as in good for
the python, which is why I should probably insert selflessness
up there near the top.
can be found here. Wealth beyond measure will come
to some. Others will find themselves fleeced of even
their shorts. Many will despair. Over there,
leading away up the hill, there’s your path to certain
glory. A way paved in pearl, and a rest for your head
in luxury’s finest moment, stilled and captured.
If you take it, let down pride, leave all starch behind,
it’s easier that way, then when they come
to harvest your head, it won’t shock so much,
I hate surprises, don’t you?
had been tormenting me
apparently
for a long fucking time
I tore her off of me and
slung her like a bag o’ dried snakes
to a crowd of some kind of ravenous things
maybe people
maybe not
also there
but on my side
apparently.
Joya Lonsdale’s My Mouth is Open to All Rivers opens with an ars poetica worthy of its dedicatee, Pablo Neruda. With her leading poem I cannot reside, unentangled, Lonsdale declares straight off her astonishing adhesion to all life’s stuff of edge and dream, and in a poem so easeful in its arching ambition, so lyric in its insistent indictment of our complicit crimes, that the reader is willingly enfolded in the soft creases of our (as she must see it) conjoined natures, and basking there, little suspects that within the mutable frame of these short and short-lined stanzas lie buried pungi stakes of inescapable fact. . . . massacres, unfettered by blood . . .births, fevers. Lonsdale says: I have cravings. and Lightening strikes me in places. She won’t say where.
But star-borne, yes, we are, and of the rocks and air, and as much of blood; but contradistinctwise, deprived by desire, depraved even, in result, and not just to the strange, but too, toward family and friend; we lament, can we escape ourselves, this world? Again, Lonsdale says it better and more plainly:
. . .
Sometimes, I admit
I become
empty of
breath and
long to
run away , untethered
by hands and feet.
I grow tired of my skin.
News accelerates my pulse . . . and things won’t leave me alone . . .
. . .
A grasshopper lands on my chest,
presenting his perfect form. . .
. . .
Because I have ears
two girls on a bus look at me and erupt into song.
. . .
Because my mouth waters
a fresh raspberry lands on my tongue
. . .
The ocean insists on crashing into rocks, and smelling salty.
I cannot escape the sand inserting itself coarsely between my toes.
I am here
clothed in human flesh
and I love.
I was out in the dawn;
you could see
gray cut by pink,
the night’s journey
trailing his limbs;
in his eyes still
stars being born
all unknowing.
developed between my
thumb and my finger
marked by Cain.
I’d been distancing myself from my antecedents,
logging miles
before lying down
in fens ne'er found by youth.
white devil, now it
peers from its black hole
blinking at our brittle goodness
how it slips from our fingers
with an ease
it hates
to his family:
I expected to be talking to you, probably this weekend, but Brion’s email had your email addresses, so I don’t want to wait. It took me almost a week for this to really begin to sink in. Since then I’ve been flooded with images of William as the extraordinarily happy person he naturally was (and wanted everyone else to be as well), and with remembrances of how he exceeded every known limit when it came to gonzo style, outrageous never-before-existent humor, and, most of all, in his all-embracing love for people.
When I came to QH, I was 21: Wm. was 14. He was more man than 5 of me at the time. I eventually cut that by advancement (in my mind) to a 2 or a 1.5 maybe (maybe), but no one could ever exceed, resist, deny, or keep up with him. He always looked after me (with a sharp eye on my utility, of course, but still . . .) and I owe my one decade of solvency this lifetime directly to that nurturing.
William was so overwhelming he seemed dangerous. I often felt, I think, that it would be better to avoid him, so easy would it be to be swept away by the strength of his intention. But there was no avoiding him. And that’s been my good fortune; it’s added dimension, substance, and excitement to my own life just being around him. None of us will ever forget him.
Many of us, when we’ve gone, will, like William, leave the powerful and enduring legacy of our children, and their children’s children, for all time to come. Let us not forget that cardinal reality. But William, like LB, Irv and Barb, and yourselves, have also formed the core of a family (unlike any in all time) that took us in when we were uprooted, fed us, clothed us, opened our exceedingly provincial (if willing) minds, and grew right beside us--with us--as we multiplied, over a stretch of paradisiacal years we thought could never end.
Now, here we stand, roots severed once again, a full third perhaps of life remaining--or not. How quick the end can come. To any. And none can lay claim to breath by their own rights or abilities. We stand perhaps because we’ve not yet given full measure. William did. Every damn day. He was my friend, the leader this good soldier needed, and always a fount of a fun that charted the outrageous deep into the beyond.
Let us remember that it is given to some to assault the known world’s limits with an originality never seen before. This was such a man. And his energy, verve, and compassion will always inhabit our memories, vivid they be as our dreams. But this really happened. Here was our life lived, all outside the known. And here was our leader, our protector, our friend. Thank you all, for all the same, and for being his family. It does go on. And is not to be forgotten. Ever. Love you . . .
Rick
just to check in; I wanted to say
that this wasn’t what I was expecting;
not the quiff off the quim, the veriest, not
the one told enwombed, not the shelliest parade
for the stage; not the milk-boned, nor the putty-minded,
neither held him sway. His obliquitards alone
set myths to Sysphistean tears. Her need turned
his mind to jelly.
I can come up with,
mostly; I been around the horn
ensqualled. And was there man who
d’in look ill on is kin during the poison?
If so, send him round, we’ll cure his fuzz
slapped on backs of charging rhinoceri,
In case you’re thinking Dr. Seuss dropped by,
think again.
I should speak in favor of my judicial mien, may it serve me
in court. I failed to file an answer to Citigroup’s up-close and local
barristers; now we’ll sight its machine, going under. O well, as I’ve
said before, those shitheads are their own reward.
Not to be uncharitable, however, I can say with an utterly unchallenged
conviction, these people suck! Anyway, my scene is cream-where-found,
and any the sea throws back in our faces. The shaleen that brought
the Navy down, was a local lass already famed for her name.
And did they bring the gibbet down on our aging necks and
our heads rolled down the Thruway, which was no longer closed,
choked in traffic and smoke, a faint guitar sound whipping up in the wind.
on the high wire, too far gone for one to see,
lately, my fantasy life’s
bit into chains. Le Ordre d’Compose ain’t calling.
Well, I never wanted to set it out before which. I’m a flexible man
in a storm. Give me the unexpected, these horrors
won’t do. Which where I’ve got nowhere yet over in over
sixty years; and that life was the cream. I mean
the mental life; the one says you feel this, now here’s this,
now you feel that. And I do, I’m sorry to say
I’m a worthless, crawling motherfucker.
is all that’s asked. Was you wanting
elsewise, like, to flatten our potential?
I hope that would be not, for
I am compelled by law to
warn you,
these fucking eyes have seen.
Should,
dither, dot, damn;
O well. Who cared
if hope were silly?
I been there
is why
I know glory
today.
My boss
she better
than you
too. But who alive
don’t love to come alive.
A major live
wire she are.
in the changeover to these days of end; I asked kin to care.
Or anyone. Beyond Their Noses is uncharted. Beyond mine
stands nothing. I’ll die before a smoking bier or near,
I pray it has some fucking drama!
for sure, and I'm not joking. Whether me or
we no diff'rence; long run no lie.
What was wondering was I,
if a trust had developed,
with which I could
forego an advantage;
not one to gain,
and neither given to gin,
I'm must shamed to
even show.
boy is this a tough one for me, since I have this attachment,
apparently, to inelegance, not that I’m not a sophisticated
appreciator of its converse. And, even though nothing satisfies like
trim, I just want to show offf.
It’s fucking sick, if you ask me.
I’d crawled between the posts
into a wonderland. If it weren’t
I’m flammed. What I am, ma’am
is headed toward an end of
my time at least, if not yours. God
aren’t an enddays sunset dam best
outgrowing this art, but I sure brim over after a while
without. Such nice lines you have,
now. I remember when you barely filled
a dusty hogshead abeam a jouncing mule.
I guess I know ya.
was found a rake, among others,
less reputable, well, they bore his stamp.
Let none say less, nor claim,
that the motion across its tines,
has anything to do with our writhings
for my part, I’m not buying.
Wait, there’s more. If for one solitary second
I gave the impression of repentance,
I so repent.
beneath such a moon, one thinks, I haven’t seen them all?
Which despite my glaring, uncowed the dish still went off
with the new guy. After a while, you develop a hide.
You were lucky to be there. They scaled upwards
first from three-story behemoths to skyscrapers, then
lept into air; and not looking back, nor less leaving a mark.
Years before and during which, I scouted your ass,
full-believing I'd go down beside you, here-inwards,
that this we could say.
was crazy for only me, which naturally made me
especially partial to her ass. C’est l’a’fucking vie!
wasn’t communicating with the other two, but I’d not given in
to despair; all I could say would come true, no doubt; I wouldn’t wish.
It ain’t I.
