NIFTY

If anyone is listening
as I make my speech

hiding from me
behind Sight's reach

snickering little secrets
about... Love,

or warming up to my language
behind th'stove

peeking in silent watch
through creaking cracks

or sitting on sofas
devouring snacks

... If anyone is
listening as I talk:

I'm shutt'n up & going
for a walk--      

        Passed:
the dumb figure of a desert palm
feeling the soil deserted

all around Sands' sifting reaches

from Autumn to Spring mere shadows
strewing here the useless colorations

on impalpable handfuls
filling the hot breath of the dusk

with the ironic icicles
of th'bird-formations
falling while

I passed
from the horizon's formal animations

O Grand caricatures
of crowds

winding down all the Winds
hungry salt-starved sweet beasts

chasing the fair Wind
neutral & unbiased tears
scentless & just

of straw-stuffed rolling billows
mounds & mounds weathering child-like
all the dead corpses of clouds:

Moon's treble, I passed, the
bass holds us together O

all expression's treble

& though I passed
we never go
high as our Soul nor sink
low as our Self

We are the brotherhood
swishing One, I passed, and

our expression's trying to hang us
above our Woe so low
because we're trying to live up to ourselves

Alas!               

       we're bass
& the undertow's treble
I passed,       

    and no matter
how we trod down ourselves
or live ourselves down

We (passed) th'fountain-hairs
of trees perpetually suspended
in th'old age but green

velvety-thin, tall skeletons
of frozen thick Bangs

covering like curtains the Victori-
an House: green bushes breaking
against the rushing like waves

(I passed) the upstanding stone rusting
& timed by the timeless sundial
of Form keeping its watch

& gauging the grasses' gorgeous growing
crawling dark-green over
the sprinkled yellowest daisies

twisted with the dumbest dark distortions
of midnight, I passed, the sudden flowers
exploding out from their seeds

& the leaderships of the shrivelled up moths
combing the herb-knots languishing
languidly floating to or reeling

from the couches of the moment

settling into tranquility
after having captured the bee
(I passed) but O,      

       Zsomhappens
and the growing silence mounts screams
against Brain's whistles/bells/rings

leaning against th'Woods
trying to break into suspicions

drawing the invisible maps
of the Brain's aims, purposes & pains
I passed: men, men & men

lunged at each other upon the patterns
of their ancient-most habits

& bite off the nose, hack bits of legs,
arms, genitals, pull their hairs off,
bloody their brains, push their eyes in

thinking--Thinking, sinking
useless & senseless, I passed

ghost centipedes suspended
upon Th'Vertical arms-mucus all
extended unto each other

frozen white, I passed, the Winter
closing in over them

its cruelty of cold
they warm at their stakes

their shimmering Ways spreading out from their feet

like saints waiting their burning
in order to race to God

medallions & medallions
hanging around their necks

I passed the world's heroes

up this way & that
down & around their necks hanging

medallions by the millions
& while one young man wears his full of life
another fully in death, I passed,

one wears his executioner
& another's taken his breath,

I passed:

a flower vase
in an indented window

an undented book
admired & admired th'What

gardens there below Perhaps
guarding the blue mysterious block

a sculpture (I passed) Mind's

concretest Answer
to its melting Moods
across the silent Woods

I passed the wild stemmed flower-hairs
illuminating everything Problems & Cares
through the collections of old filtered lights

condensed, although little concentrated Rights
across the Woods/bars passing
across the windows I passed
--flat tire! I paused.

"The moon is round
only" to astronauts & such
who can roll round her dark inv-
isible side's belly flat

like spit through jelly or
maybe a plate of finest china
for lovers & such to serve up Love
(on it) & have it too:

eat it all up! until
Love itself becomes (passed)
one great tasteless flop

under the moon's appearances

passed the children playing at
hiding from th'eyeball of the Sun

who eventually scorching breadth
from amongst the other shadows
resting in the gardens of th'parks

from the fiery Imagination
I passed: the cool mother's cries
of Certainty, O         

      but the limbs
I passed are too weedily overgrown
with Sun's passed & passed & yellowing beams

& Moon's a bleaching cancer (in th'Voids/in th'Blacks)
which transcends the passing distances
of the Darkness with her piercing points (of

Light) running transparently & finger-like
cosmic & representative
characters in the World's morality plays (which are

life) while some aloof deity is saying
th'straight lines
crossing the silent stage

flooded by & with the limelights-leaves
against the startling closing Eye
so wonderful I passed human experiences

& the children playing in the slums
which are their grand & magic lands

I passed their darkest properties
& closeness of family numbers
bouncing you upon the knee
& don't quite know how to prepare you

for the dull Dawn's cremating Sun's
approaching Revelation over the city skyline

smoky Death'll burn you right out, baby, right off
of life: revealing your playground
for the black graveyard it is I passed

& gun-handle notches in dreams
wherefrom little white crystal streams

flow sprinkling quite & quietly profusely
all the littlest crimson dreams I passed
so quickly over the grass & into
the lately converted stout embrasures of the rich

all decorated up with potable Death
I passed & looked back from the distance:

it's a bellwort blooming upon the dirt
that This Man holds perpetually upon his hand
feeding upon his red, red blood
all black & watered with the darkest sweat

& it's a flower whose cosmic purpose's
ultimately to reward him with the small scent
for whiles, O

catching his breath spent
silly & desperate
when he fails finally

falls upon his ground
into th'deeply brown
browned earth which made him up
upon the Mind, I passed, & also

to nurture his son washing off
from his limbs the brown, brown, browned
I passed, which

while th'tall towering maple gentleman
shakes ever subtly within the small soft shades
his O inimitable silken ancient hair
& streaming it ardently upon the freezing airs

a veteran actor who has already often spoken
all his seedy words for centuries
in countless previous performances
composed by the ultimate gods

I passed looking down condescendingly upon the herbs
shaking with their all new-made passions

in fresh uncontrolled deliveries
their dialogues really quite ordinary
lines long out of shape & yet so natural

that they strike distinctly the undistinguished Night

All the native inborn Midnight's
glassine, passed, my verbs-manuscript

where-in I pile up leaves
in irises of flageolets
flutes & yet

all the natural buoyancy
of the dreams pipe themselves up
deeply into their being, I passed

their own Song so unmatched
unmatchable I passed around their Zodiac
unfalteringly tracing all their
unequal lengths & even

the breadths of all our spaces I passed
upon the scoopfuls of each/every measuring

rejuvenating outwards th'distance
pinching their purposeless being
unto the most outraged End I passed

outline outliving gaining & gaining Death
I passed upon pursuit of Life glowing
even in the grayest Song I passed

the midday dialogues ingraining water-crystal
circumcentrally revolving syllables
& monumental keenest shreds of phrases
vibrating upon the lake-skinned tongue
I passed

as the fantastic memories
wound round neglect formed their new messages
from the meanings O passed

yet O take the word
of a painter at least: Something
comes always into being
not through the vain addition of the helpless Light

but through piling up Darkness:

shadows, shadows & shadows I passed
until I came to the conclusion
that Man cannot take away the darkness
he finds already there himself
but must deposit more Depth, Meaning, Significance,

all of his Soul & character
values, merits & the other concerns
(merely to keep things down)
O the more profound something has to become
the more darkness pours into it
blacker & blacker

Black is the distance
and blacker the more distant, I passed,

blackened with distance
even as the human heart: which means
everything takes up all that surrounds us
distant as Death              

              which is itself only
but the unbearable Light-Stroke of God's ^[sic]

most distantest art           

        I passed, & yet
the distance clutches at man by the throat
so terribly! and forces open his lips
& pours down the Blackness
till always going back again

endurance brings almost into clear focus
th'rushlight candle extent to which
the social circle has fallen into
th'saddest geometry I passed

the Mutilator of everything living
with his razor-like wings &

indelicate wandering, deliberations,
stances & mad chances or imbalances:

A creature bringing itself up
from th'Mind's vomits of birth

dried up itself with the breeze-rags
& toweled upon the grass

then started walking
down World's way-circling

until he found
himself in round & round

& he felt dizzy enough
to feel at home in this
his craziest World ^[sic]

taking The Convenientest Path

& swallowing with his blackness
all the whatever obstacles
he found laid down by the Light

he turned This Way
& he turned That Way
& he made up his own Way

to the spot Precisely
where he had hatched

at & there he died:

Precisely:
There passing
(or,     

passing)
he passed