FLIRTY'S GAIT
Between Th'Lately & Always fall
our lives, our All, pale sparrows
that bless Th'Dark & scourge of crows
over th'snow picking at th'hints
of Th'Essential question: we creatures
neither of Here or There, mining Th'Monolithic
& picked right off the trees
... "the ones
in charge of making men into monks are
the monkers, the ones being turned into monks
are the monkees [sic]
..." fall, fall The Unheard
& the... herd, between th'lately & always
the police officer: "It would be helpful if you
told us your movements last night" (first I went
like THAT, then I went like THIS at th'Wind's whims)
rolling careless over the carpets of self-conceit
th'container plant that cannot explain Why the universe
has shrunk around it (Autumns are all my words):
39 persons arrested for price-gauging (at
The World's Imminent End)
... the earth's greatest
philosopher discovers: Man is a mechanism
for taking in new, different experiences--falls
twixt the unheard of & the unspoken to--
so he spends the rest of his life visiting
all the different McDonalds in the land
(whole wells of words, parrots & parrots
in battalions) to The Last of Silence
THE essential Question: How can Th'Great (so-called)
internationalists cry out anti-nationalistic
& anti-American slogans in the same breath
without it choking them?
a: Ignorance
b: Arrogance
c:"What do you mean, comrade?" and, "We hate
your guts, Chamberlain, but you were a good man!"
like blazing aborigines... those who th'sweat
fails to teach must then be instructed by Blood
--which must eventually allow us to learn
about such things as all th'insufficient details
[Ad:
Man who wants to be famous seeks: stuntman
to pretend he's him & jump off a tall building
without parachute
... fringe, center, sense,
goals, failures, wars, The Past implicit
upon th'walls--Bah, it tastes like watered piss
(give'im concentrated piss every time) fall,
falls]: Shall we put all our shoes in order?
with all th'other affairs (th'harder they fall
th'bigger the hole)--Doesn't THE BOMB scare you?
... Th'Bomb!? Tell you what really scares me:
millions of children starving, suffering
permanent brain damage--that scares me! leaves
trickling, subduing (inheriting the Earth, for
they surely will--& brain damaged!...
every generation we leave behind (to
take care of business) is a little more brain
-damaged than the previous one...
th'silences of Winter's white numb voids
& peoples of stains--corrections, chronicles,
conciliations, scrolls (the affront of fish)
errors & other considerations fall, fall (that
I am but a poor miserable fellow
with hardly a friend at all & not even loose change
in my pocket--let alone Th'Wherewithal--With
not even th'remotest chance to do even th'least
little thing for my fellow men--that scares me), falls
--why fish never cry in the ocean, birds never drop
to the sky (what do these things matter?), where
gentlemen: UFO sightings cannot be ignored any more
... Here's just one map with over 3,000
sightings (from all over this country: a Mr. Howard
D. Nutt reported them all while driving his R.V.
this past Summer) right through October that
aired-out house, & Winter is cold
... the road
paved down with nails/feelings so overwhelming
fall, fall (that so few of those who could do something
even bother to lift a finger--that scares me) just because
th'wolf hunts down the rabbit for being rabbit
the rabbit does not choose to change from rabbit
although th'wolf rips his soul right off its socket
in futility's loquacious squalls
... fall, falls that drafty
light that gives th'sniffles to th'Night, th'inquisitive
ears ... new-woke (out of the gusty bottom of a sea
thunderbolt-driven) over immense bouquets of mouthfuls
... listening to th'distortions (all destructions)
even God's Greatest Being proved too human for Him
& could not be saved... th'noisy decorum, dead festivals
live! burning top to bottom falls, fall th'languages
which crazily sing (pig-drunk) in maddening squealings
& such other melodies made enigmatic by our illogical
senselessness (trying to mirror th'squared & concrete
ideas softly & distinctly gathering abstractly
into a nut shell) like mechanical propeller blades
upon th'shiftless air currents' Deep Resignation
takes over Concentration
... th'Bird capsizes itself
soullessly into Everglades scream...
tearing th'life-fabric of limitless surface
& manages to arrive Down There still on its feet
like some cat & casually looks up towards
where he'd begun... & for once in its life
is absolutely certain of O, how far men fall
(& but by taking each step as it comes)
tranquil though overburdened with tons
of endless Courage ne'er failing him (there
is no Q in Cuba--What're'ye talking: Then
how do they quit? Cubans never quit) You
phony-baloney (I'm genuine baloney, friend)
... once you admit there is no Justice, then
you can sit down in peace to your little cipherings
... a steady hand lighting th'lantern which (maybe
accidentally) burns up Th'Lifeboat with slight touches
& re-touches of th'grey, grey, gray
hair in the pillowed emptiness or seaweed
hard over sideburns' usual labyrinth at the chair
of Destiny's painstaking dentist, Th'Wind
screening th'scruples ingeniously & all
our sad morals ... with terrible deafness
against th'terrible risk of becoming too clever,
scribbling in th'darkness O, th'slight
mystic oddnesses or other such ungeometrical
sweet patterns promising us: A Definite Design (to
things)
... somethings which base human logic
suspects to be thus, then actually finds to be thus
swallowed in the Shallow (after reflecting things
off its self-curved closed, treacherous brain)
between Th'Lately & Always fall our lives, our All
pale sparrows & scourge of crows: I do not know
WHY Christ came when He did--But I know why
He didn't come during The Silent Film Era:
Just picture him coming up out of the sea
(a bowler hat & a huge mustache) stumbling
under a heavy cross (to th'dramatic raging storm
of a ragtime pianola), a Post-Victorian crowd
urging Him on a hundred-miles-an-hour
& He falls flat-faced on the sand (everybody shrugs
& leaves Him to His Father's tides) all th'illogical
pieces of The Puzzle (fall, fall tripped) over
Explanation's inexplicable lisp, and Comfort's in-
consolable couch(ed by life's lusterless laurels
fashioning a sort out of perfection) without
actually having those pieces--Th'Peaks of The Pantomime
Rhythm's fine fists, Solution's items--be (each)
a tiny copy of th'much larger whole
they're trying to pattern... falls, falls
feeling (as lost as a favorite implement,
riding a quint) like some vehicle
all we see around us is: ourselves become
regular skinny Joes or great, fat Janes
(blue-collar types with powerful/unapproachable chests
& dirty with muscles worn healthy by th'long hours
of honest work) embarrassing th'executive types:
anemic & blood-shot with wealth & time-off (running
& shoving, prodding, jostling, half-kicking'em
bitches & their stupid sons under them)
bringing them in out of the rain
so nobody'll catch sight of th'potbellies
stuffed with their unfair shares, knees
like spoilt grapefruits knocking together
as they run, trying to get out from under
the downpouring X-rays drenching Truth, while
th'finer specimens (Mankind) don't need
enough horse-sense to come in from under Truth
(th'rain man-bathing clean their bones)...
it is inward we must look to see beyond ourselves
(and in there: thousands of nuclear bombs
have already exploded & made sense) after all
culminating carnations' inescapable beauty
in th'ineffable chemical compounds, bulwark
squawks & matted weeping, combining into th'Absurd
soft confirmations fall, fall along th'streets
deserted, th'crabgrass grabbing onto faithless sands
blowing away with th'swift dragging of the too fast
automobiles/footsteps: th'falls' feet pushed (which
do not kindly take) to: Determination (the bus)
preventing total & complete collapse--Everywhere:
Man's quilted curls & blotting legs spilling
to th'streets those over-thinkers who conclude
A Cosmos out of the mention of a bean, or
a Lennon & Ono 4-hour flick about their feet
entitled "Four Feet An Hour" or yet (being
picketed by members of "The Sanctity of Tenement Rats
Association") falls, falls debatable determination
or some other such exhaustion (as all those
men who so willingly gave up their lives
for Th'Glory of Hannibal, Alex, for the advancement
of Caesar, Anthony, Sulla, for the amusement
of Pyrrhus--Who were they? What did it gain
them?... All those common soldiers
hypnotized into believing it worth it
to deliver up their own valuable lives
for th'sport of some idiot with a big name!
... wakes up at dawn with that conquer-the-World
attitude (The Ride of Th'Valkyries in th'background)
until he looks in the mirror & sees he's really
wearing a Groucho Mask (but tells nobody)
... how many fools & madmen & idiots &
the essential Question to ask Nixon: "Do you think
you will ever have Th'Courage to admit
you're a crook?"
a: No (I will never have such courage)
b: Yes (I'll eventually admit I'm a crook)
c: "I am not a crook," falls, fall stubbornest
way-short-of, ignorant of any De-
feet (falls) down this trifling (wall
so frail he committed suicide con un alfiler209)
while whistling Decisiveness), who
make up their minds, size up
how to go about doing it
& then do it --But
a lotta morons do just that
too, every day: "By golly! I'm gonna ride
that giraffe!" & then he sees it's got a long neck
and "By golly! I'm gonna have to throw up a lasso
a long ways up" & then, more or less
he gets on the giraffe & rides it all over
& then the reporters ask him--"Was it a good ride?"
& he tells them: "By Golly! It was a hum-dinger
of a ride! let me tell U" & then may ask: "Why
did you ride that giraffe into the wall like that?"
& that's when everybody discovers he's a moron
--But then it's already too late:
the giraffe is dead already (wasted by
the moron's decisiveness), no/no/no
no: we are NOT th'liberal Fuck-Jesus Freaks
--We're the Fuck Jesus-Freaks conservatives
... ignored by all I joined "The Secret Society
of Concert Coughers: By gum" Whose aim is:
to become Immortal through coughing prominently
in some prominent Immortal Performance--Here I be
with Otis Redding & (no kidd'n! O yes), and
I was able to place myself right in the
middle of Domingo's aria--
... So what: I actually have
a tape of me coughing with Jascha Heifetz!
(Naw: I don't believe that--THAT I gotta hear)
call out their warnings (in The Asthmatic Ward
of th'Metropolitan Opera) falls, falls
th'clenched fists & th'teeth
so tightly together mashed: falls, falls
th'speeder's mad-smashed falls, falls th'drunk
driver who had that accident: he drove through town (end
to end) without actually hitting anything or killing
anyone... life's outward defeats or windfall's
lazy lakes fall, fall--death's inward victories
fall, falls th'blind struggle, dead efforts (the
biggest arms-agreement that can come
out of these international negotiations:
a total ban on all forms of nuclear
cigarette lighters) falls, falls
th'silent swoosh of eternity
... the Great
Peak of Existence that is Man (the end of all
things)
... some John who walked with Jesu
(tightened his butt & held his breath) awaiting
World's imminent End [because he thought
Plan's snails had got off Th'Gate
okay, that Language gave Start its legality
--God, because you have the memory of an unshelled
peanut... this I'll repeat]: It may happen
in your lifetime (& hopefully that'll be enough
to keep you in check) between Th'Lately
& Always I have seen everything... &
it's Nothing (that really scares me)
everybody fails until he succeeds--Tell you what:
Come back 50 years after my death, stand
over my grave & then say, "You have failed!"
& you won't hear a peep outta me... I, who
have lived my whole life on th'Edge
of my last penny: I who have had the sense
to make out life's self-focusing characters
amidst th'haze of men--If you think I really wish
to meet people who are brave in the face of adversity
--You're crazy: gimme cowards at ease (any day,
my man) keep this in mind: I don't believe
that by th'head men will wash themselves clean off
th'Cosmos in a nuclear bath (Hell, no: not
by Th'Head, but by th'tail--that, maybe) falls,
falls: the one who thinks that by Th'Tail (quite
unsuspected: End will sneak up on men, while they're
sitting there behind the blind with their shotguns
ready to blow each other's brains): We'll
explode! with numbers enough to brim over
this small planet (like a swarm of self-devouring
grubs) eating ourselves right up to Nothingness
(from tail to head, not the other way around) quite
unsuspectedly, too: Death shall conclude [sic]
(the vision of a snake shall bring us back into
Paradise again): falls, falls... pain, pain, by
a most shocking surprise--pain! pain? (and this
tooth shall pass) swallowed, between Th'Lately &
Always fall, fall... our lives, our All, collapsing,
falls, falls th'Victim falls, falls th'pedestrian
(run over falls, falls... once so healthy as to
run over't all--now falls), falls, falls by
Nothing (at all) run over between th'Lately
and Always trying to find the essential question:
"When will you stop killing your people?"
a: When we no longer have the power to kill them
b: When Christ returns to this world
c: "These are internal Soviet matters & don't
concern you"
falls, falls
... what nationality has
The Better Claim to humanity? falls, falls
when you slit the throat of a bull
or plunge your daggers into the heifer
that's your affair--But torture, kill, crush
but th'hopes of your people
... and that IS my affair
--The reason you can't see that is that
you can't see any difference between cattle
and human beings!... For
what decent man, staring down th'detached look
of a homeless someone
has to ask his legal place
(of residence!) before letting th'wind of his feelings
lift th'sails of his own pity?
falls, falls who
reels in all th'strings of a starving human being's
political affiliations to tie off his own responsiveness?
falls, falls
... who allows the civil status of a dying man
to overshadow his own tall consciousness?
falls,
falls: who lets the mists of some lonely old person's
ethnicity cloud his compassion?
falls, falls
what creature so dry he'd wait over a baby's cries
(to ask its citizenship) before allowing its tears
to moisten his heart?
falls, falls
... a pitiful old woman
run over by a car in front of your eyes, and:
Do you have to ask what land she hailed from, or
what race of man's
... before being overwhelmed
--yourself--by the sheer Horror that overwhelmed her
there? falls, falls between th'Lately & Always: we are
all... each other's countrymen, fall, fall pale
sparrows that bless Th'Dark & scourge
of crows over th'snow picking at th'hints
of Th'Essential
question:
We
creatures of neither Here nor There.