WHIFF-O-HEAVEN

The poet addresses his gullible child:
My boy, I track the little circle of the light (where
it extends a Fate almost introverted

a starlight over the drastic thresholds
suspended in the middle of Th'Darkness,

probably made from neon tubes or some other
such phony stuff placed under the accusing flame
of Th'Imagination (full of blame)

molding itself through folding
th'wrinkled risks of Man

over all our carefully-avoided Pot-
ential folds & folds into against itself at once
into some unimaginably cynic shape & then

th'Vogue at its vogue, adamant Love
at its furious flowers, all those anonymous storms
fuming metaphysics, hurts

to th'wastebasket, the bed's ascribed scars,
th'multiform's trembling, self-circling uni-
formity: at times             

      coming together into
th'form of some social comment
with dirtiest sexual undertones

shaping up into an artificial set of bones
molded into an as yet not quite
determinate Intelligence perhaps

Mind something buttery

& incapable of grasping
the slippery neon lies

circling & circling
& molding, molding

itself into harmony trapped in a harp
th'sweetest knots Perfection or
unlacing itself bitterly into desolate
lyres some other downright realization

passions too flushing
for th'shotgun barreled Light of th'World
born out of the neon Mind

while flashing Implication's someday,

shrunk through some unconsoling--
th'cricket versificator sneaks in

through a crack between th'wall & the air-
conditioner, squeezed out of all toothpaste passions
one of God's most solid ghosts

surfing th'Bugle's prodigious
ripple, sporting Repetition's

well known reputation--the circles turning
upon themselves, which is but another form of his verse

returning from the regularity of an island
brushed by his shiverings

into the primordial Ocean weaving & squirming
a calm Worm (undoubtedly another form of
social comment at th'artificial) rambling next

Scriptures! (but, this isn't the time
to die: despite Hitler, famine, sickness
apathy, greed, hate): no death is sweet

O insensitivity makes statues of us all!
Less than animals, thinking ourselves
more than gods, etc. and Form (of illusion)
falling into th'quick resemblance
or A Whole Ocean falling apart into the
world entire! so dry thinking upon th'dust

imagining the kind hands of The Light-Master
O th'craftsman of Mankind giving great Shape
to the balls (of mires, messes & muds)

like Suns shining out Meaning, returning
& returning to th'Form, all the while turning out
the beautiful shapes too perfectly shaped
for our momentary eyes sinking to

th'unwitting caresses of the sudden
Night so restful, when one does not have to exercise
the flabs folding & folding over Mind

our human spark crying out painfully
eyes can't remember th'Night our light
in too long a Darkness th'daytime artificial Sight

My boy, the poet takes his hammer aspirins
(of small sleeps for dreams) & his bed's

arcs sweet of th'decomposing leaves, leaves
& leaves, th'glimpse's golden

Goodbye burning his world throughout th'dark
Why beyond his touch of lightning

th'while yawning projections of pictures & sounds
& gestures of indigestions from th'nightmare day
gonna make you eat it up (until:) O,

the geometrical dissimilar conditions
in the alarm Clock truth! throws him down in-

to the unsettled World settling him
from his countless lost dreams into

one Dawn, solitary & with The Only God

already gone O parachuting him from the
uncomfortable spiked platforms of his head

to th'floors paved with the smashed glass
of his mirror image at its waking, walking, breaking

down & up th'horror of the unkind birds chanting
foul halitosis & recognizing his bedfellow Death

smell at its mill, some self-revealing Realization
in Th'Sometimes' entourage: Off th'bed! you

Torch full of undiminishing sufferings,

you pealing lisps! you Identical
down to a twink--        

     But landing! upon
th'universe expanding: he dips into
th'tides timeless            

of city's commotions-oceans & such
with all th'subtle approach
of a roach & afterwards, after all
talking & fighting & peaces & wars

dried O himself! with th'breezeless regions
of his Past (inner space), my boy, O Prince,
digging into th'steak breakfast of hearts phony
& gulping All down holed shoes & crowns &
coffee like blood: he sings his morning prayers:

"O ye warm Gods
of th'worlds so rimeless!
If I, Oh if only I
could better this living before I die

but by lifting a finger
with elegance:
I'd do it at once!

However, if it takes (even)
a little more work than that

FORGET IT: Let the world
work it out itself...

and the poet is ready to face up (to) his world
a bag of winds sweeping the sidewalks
a good-looking tomato going by blindly spoilt
some cats on a dogged set of wheels
a bit square & Fuzz sweating over th'kids
smoking weeds & rushing onwards to find out

what is this world coming to? th'skyscrapers
Morning drags up th'bones (low living
Smiths & Joneses) monuments of Any Insteads (any
instead--not many instead of one) looks: th'modern
pyramids give only a guaranteed maximum 4 inches
to the wildest winds (the old pyramids
gave nothing--things are growing more flexible)

or worse, giving way to
no one, baby: Newspaper crying out: "Rebellions
of trees in th'streets" & th'sunshine
suffocating the concrete bulk of mankind exchanging
places with anyone (instead of th'many) playing
musical chairs amongst itself
perhaps if only to see if it is

motion describes Mankind (we are

what we do) humanity sending out anyone down
to th'streets: Diseases attack & counter-attack

dividing th'worlds between Dear Tragedy &
Beloved Sad (two outta three ain't bad) Buddy,

which tree? says The Created monster
taking possession (of the street), Prince, you
poet, you do realize O after all

that you must ask even when it is freely given!

don't you! you conjuror stirring up hard luck,
you arbiter amongst th'bantering boughs
all the distilleries of dreadfulness
pouring their syrups upon Toasts! (of victory) or
Boasts! (over th'latest defeats)
cutting down the acidity of th'Blood drunk
down with coffee bitterly & only to keep

the eyes from the lips
of Death burning the stomach-linings
with its vivid dreams
empty too empty

th'rubberless tired(s) smoothing th'ways of
th'bicycle peddlers going by (th'streets
of Saigon) as we drink our coffee
with their plastic explosives in the air-
pumps sarcastically saying of th'world

we gonna blow you up Suckers right down
under your Texan noses! or else My Privilege is

standing on my head at spiked platforms
to prove I've One & if it fits you, suits you

& the solution to all this pollution's
more contributions: I walk on my hands

to save my poor sole, throwing off th'folk who
'd like nought better than to throw me off

my feet (too buttered Alls) while the ordinary folks look
to my self-glorified insanity & realize

it's th'pollution! doing it, confusing this
with our human so human blood they cry out
It's gone to your head! Sometimes &

even then there is enough I say & enough
room & sufficient Time left to th'World
(after the world) to jump up into all

those Up There open oceans of heavens &
wasted emotions not blasted but

only if, of course, th'whole damn thing
doesn't damn Blow Up! over our heads
& blow us down to Hell under our very feet

before we even have a chance (ourselves) to
blow ourselves up to Kingdom Come on high
with drugs, where God sits knitting His
Supremest Lie (of All)

whilst shitting
the World like

in th'great affluence of a woven Wind
th'graceful Mankind bubble (sweet-smelling) like

balloon also & th'bellowings like earthen roots
marshes numberless wings: trombones, bagpipes
up & up into rim clouds of dull thud

apples & mint blinking steeples & blue chapples
flint like th'promises-sparks kisses loves, hates
& eases' lisping wits, under Guilt's cumbersome
Sun, over the Moon's morals of another order

pink upon th'entire atmosphere wove of full
browsing interests in human colds
cold lives that compose their prose
poemes-pictures & such bunny bug motents ²¹³

acts, like mortality upon the lanterns'
lightest facts ( Today's profitable pelts

Tomorrow's stinking) skidding stabilities
into th'kidding culpabilities imitating th'fanciful

a jester izzard's (imposed over the flax-
en haired weaving of th'empty floors
we're constantly scouring with our credits

caustic), yes, we earth curdling darlings'
soft syllables like a fleece & pucker O
reverence (pulse sounding) before th'plenilune

Glows' flickering drips down th'downcast
Distance's withdrawing avenues floating

indirectly: a frozen sorcerer Motion
winding wistfully up th'purple
breadth of profundity--Depth whimsically
frosted a Wisdom poised at its balance
lingering but slowly awakening into its dusk
its arms hilariously euphonic

pause: almonds still nuts--just long enough to
mischief minstrel misjudge th'distance

& his footing misses th'miscellany (spectrums &
spectrums of) th'floors-whorls like spells of
musics unreasonable (bells solemn
chanting their chattered sophistications)

mangled & all twisted with our own mental maneuverings
bringing us to Death patiently awaiting our most
slightest mistake--all the while it takes

th'poet keeps up his insane payments
on the final asylum
pasting labels & et ceteras & th'fragments
of an honorable hemorrhage: All

up together with his poisoning dry tongue
buried in world-wide apathy (th'Soul
minus a breadth: holding its only primal lasting breath

Some Slight Small Nothing Little
Significance (which is

all along what he really wants to highlight
mainly by conspicuously keeping it out of his
poems), My boy, the poet

warning his heirs:
The poet knocks at the door
by slashing his wrists
& no danger here at all of his death

which is but a tiny insignificant Less:
In any case he's already half-dead

& what-ever-else's left of everything right else
over & above or under all this: he himself sells
by the ounces & th'chances of the ordinary streets
finding at last his ultimate living

a nuisance up your nose! (the stimulant
of Time's waste), drowned by the clamoring
breeze amidst arbors of untouched candelabras:

his final rewards & eventual forgiving
satisfaction--definitive--and crowning Joy
... in his keeping fully One Hundred Percent
of th'portion still left him (after
all the ages are charged & spent

O after all of the ages Past, Future & Present
which satiate themselves first
quench all their wanting thirst ) knowing
th'Poet is always dead last

always: feeding only upon passing contrasts
th'poet is always dead last th'poet
they say: That's how he lasts
That's how he lasts

Paper th'poet contains th'moment: there
are the heavy eyebrows which can come down
in case of heavy weather & protect
rainbows th'flowers in ruins along th'walks which failed
to close in upon us... instead (some dope) throws

the light-switch ON and wakes us
from the world

so we no longer rove (but
Love): while th'body fails to regenerate
indefinitely itself & crashes
against Certainty: we'll never learn
never really know how to get over it
& go beyond th'silliest words & worships
of harmless things--Th'crickets ambling
in, after the showers of Spring,

& the creatures of the Autumn, of great
superstitions, crying out: O we believe

creeps through the cracks...

in th'crickets wandering & believing th'devil
takes only one form (& yet always murdering him
in th'unusual many disguises of our own kind)

dear old friends innocuous (turned
slightly into the Dark): How hard is it for us
to feel the crowd's superb moods beginning to make

adoration's overstatements, lunacy
without a leeway, Delegation (the apparatus
of responsibility), th'melodies
of th'winds furrowed with harmony

... while th'World passes & passes
its hats & glasses
towards its less than perfect Was'

Were there no perfection
nothing else could exist:
looking for it always everywhere
in general or particular,

ugly & fair, glance/stare, prayer or
aware, common & rare, entire or
share, or breakdown & repair,
or dream, nightmare,
afar, affair,
destruction,
spare

we live in a geometric living
consisting exclusively of a corner

abstract & impersonal & indistinct

incomprehensible & yet everything's
around th'corner O, some further uncertainty
or the tumultuous motivations of our times

... a lyrical relentlessness
which recklessly moves us
worst into worse...            

                   carrying aloft
th'bodies burning (of our Songs so soft)
into th'hollows of our thirst for Oft
never receding from our dumb-
st Defect: but faithful always that we are correct
dying Cold while th'chorister Machines
making their musics all our selves convince

Woods without warmth's th'mantles of our since
Bird stilled & hushed's our Nature, Prince

We Are but distorted gatherings
into a Frame weary & sourceless

only sullen symbols & wild saddened webbings
ours but th'Arms of upwards-stretching brutes
who, endeavoring yet not actually
catching Th'Reaches beyond their virtuous roots
& grazing over th'insubstantial spoils
of Dust storms Rages & Rages! our toils

reapers only of Th'Abandoned desert's bloom
of breezes bantering from Tomb to Tomb
their careless, voiceless knocking doom

dirge: th'weaving, giggling Winds
tossers of numbers meaning-
less, if melodies: words but so grinned
with Limitless less & less

My boy, it's
but this: Th'Illusion

of Child arrested
dukes to the chin
on several counts
of kicking royally

against himself
plus

An Outside Chance
(actually the charge)

RED lollipop POSSESSION
and even Suspicion

of spying

on things that EXIST

actually

& move
th'Poet

th'Poet
is never outside
the Court of Man
My boy, caught
at the wrong time, wrong
place & etc all th'time

down being always
right in th'middle O

wild insurrections
of songbirds & busted
for pot flowers (not
for crying in th'streets

The Future Belongs to Us
or, Fate the fake!

but actually for quietly asking
under th'deadliest breath
Who Are We?) when he perfectly knows

we could be anybody, really
we could be just about anything

--except, of course, th'poet
who is too seditionary:
My boy, inside himself

the poet knocks at th'door
& then quickly hides

behind his heart
or some other furniture

HEADLINES:        

      "... Stealing

away into th'Night outside

when The Door
that he cannot open

himself, is opened

(finally)

like any dog,--"PRINT