27 mayo 2008: The Truth Shall Make You

dazy and i were on the steps of the art institute
it was august 1968
there were protesters in the park
we would join them
after our march to the democratic convention
and climbing the statue of the horse

i always look at the pictures of the statue of the horse
in the books and magazines of that time
and believe i see myself and dazy, with his curly long hair
standing there, 18

a dealer with long, long hair approached us on the
steps of the art institute
he had sunshine
orange sunshine barrels
five bucks

“is it any good?”
“yeah, it is pretty good”

later dazy said the dealer had set up lowered expectations for us
as a gift
because in fact
it was pure and perfect
when it hit it was perfect it was perfect
someone mentioned czechoslovakia
prague was in the air
we were in awe of the word
czechoslovakia czechoslovakia
we couldn’t stop saying czechoslovakia

“look,” i said “it’s teddy kennedy”
walking on the steps of the art institute
dazy laughed a long time
i was sure it was teddy kennedy
i still am
forty years later

we went to the park until the vapor trails of tear gas canisters
no longer amused us
there seemed to be a war going on
in czechoslovakia in chicago in vietnam
we were in it

we found a car
it was my car
i think
i drove
i watched the stoplights
red means i must stop
green means i must go now

we found a house
i don’t know whose house it was
we had never been there before
they let us stay
we went to the bathroom and watched the black lights
we listened to anthem of the sun
and last time around
both sides, both albums
alligator
he had to die
i am a child
over and over all night long

the following month
i was arrested
i worked at the a&p
produce
lettuce
to pay for my lawyer
who did nothing

six months later
i was in jail

six months later
i was free

the world had turned
half a year
without me

i never caught back up with it

a few years later
i had lunch with my community college
english teacher

i understood everything everyone was saying in the entire restaurant
it was the chuck wagon
everyone was talking about me
and to me
because i was in a
paranoid schizophrenia state
that wasn’t frightening
it made it difficult to speak
to order food
but i did

“what do you call this?” i asked the teacher
she replied, “love”

it has become hard to recover that state
or perhaps
some ego, maybe mine,
has become proficient
in steering through
the red and green lights

that it never left
whatever it is
that is me

dazy lives in iowa now
i saw him in the liquor store last year
when he came back to visit

this town

he is balding now
and has a new wife

the words are still the same
we didn’t mention czechoslovakia
or the word we were after at the time
free

Chienne Verite

YOU HAVE WITH YOU ALWAYS

A series of 14 poems follows, posted in reverse chronological order.

The title of the series is YOU HAVE WITH YOU ALWAYS

17 mayo 2008: Gone

the ramshackle barn
favoring to a side, like a limping dog
scant memories of the once red
traces of straw bales, rotted twists of twine
dust spitting glints through unintended slats
striped parallel suncasts

"once here
where
leaping from the mow
the wind
knocked out,
a fall,
that or laughing"

here i'd abide rather
not the shining remodeled kitchen
stainless country oven
upkept
after hired carpenters
spent months honing a sheen

she and i agree
it is the fallen
spirits

we would sustain
and preserve

nothing new
nothing

ourselves inherited a like vision
gardeners, celebrants of decay
always the intoxicating smell of the gone
filling our lungs
in that quick, and deep, intake
regaining breath

to fall again
and again

outside the clean, the new, the never

16 mayo 2008: Sweet Nothing

Fugs: Nothing nothing nothing
Velvets: Sweet nothing
Janis: Nothing ain't worth nothing
Beatles: Nothing's gonna change my world
Dylan: Nothing is revealed

15 mayo 2008: History of the Counterculture

no name for our progressive state
we rejected all the previous names regardless

in just fifty years
we were not those, that, or them

we're still here
the same, different

14 mayo 2008: Regret

the pit of my stomach tightens
sometimes i sweat
when i remember
the times i denied art

when i insisted we leave lollapalooza
before the prodigy played
the band ernie wanted to see, he was maybe 10
he probably doesn't even remember now
but i still regret it

when i refused to let ted
go experience the male strippers
in times square
because i knew it would be bad
but he perhaps needed something like that
and i don't think he ever forgave me
for dragging him someplace else

scott was desperate to see liza minnelli
in, i don't know, the rink or the act,
and even though i was the one getting
press comps, i just couldn't bring myself
to do it
now i wish i had

bill wanted to see the end of
joe vs. the volcano
and i didn't
i wanted to leave
and now i regret it
and i don't even know where he lives any more

so that is my story
my judgment day apology
things that feed my nightmares
i must have done worse things
but i don't remember

13 mayo 2008: Dread

from my second floor office window
as i sit typing idly
at 10:12 a.m.
i consider my job interview tomorrow
and worry and ponder
what, give up all this, the man walking down the street that i spy,
why why would one
it must be money it must be sense of worth based on societal standards

i must go lie down
it is too much

i wouldn't even consider taking a job
except that
as things now stand

i am curious how it feels
to get a day off

perhaps it is a myth
but i have to know everything

12 mayo 2008: Repute

from my second floor office window
at 6:15 a.m.
as i type idly
i am watching the garbage collector
down the alley
lift one by one
the heavy pails
to empty into the truck's maw

he tosses one bag and it misses
he picks it up and tucks it in
he throws back a green plastic pail
and then he straightens the row of empty pails

such conscientiousness surprises me
he takes pride in his work
i am proud of him

the truck crushes loudly at the pull of a lever
all the recent history
the fraternity heineken over the dam
wheat chex detritus
a six-egg carton, styrofoam nipples crushed
tissues stuck with hay fever issue
a yellow sticky note crumpled before it could be read
leftover rice

anyway, the truck back ups and beeps
and drives away, to the next station,
and i continue typing,
organizing and discarding,
thinking about
going outside
neatening up
our poor world,
too

11 mayo 2008: Sweet and Sour Grapes

The master locked inside a jealous head:
His bliss could not persist, that much was clear,
The contemplation stalled, not love nor fear,
The vision waned, a headache in its stead.
The emptiness, once lusted for, felt cruel
As though he could declare no more the true.
He preached, yet saw the inverse and the skew,
He fasted long, but constant broached the rule
For all was right and all was as foreseen,
The hollow, hallowed prose, the Ph.D.,
The sermons on the drought, the ecstasy
Of nothingness, nirvana, tao. So keen
In expectation once and now fulfilled,
"How poor I am," he laughed, "just as was willed."

10 mayo 2008: Comic Book

My girlfriend left me when I was in jail.
My mother threw away my comic books.
The only real job I ever had, I got riffed.

They say you create your own reality.
Who am I to disagree?
With practice, you can chew gum and pray at the same time.

I had a day off once.
I don't remember much about it anymore.
Life's like that when you're free.

Sometimes I do miss those comic books.

9 mayo 2008: Dual Incantation

come, he pleads
not kneeling, slouching
retirement is hell
he cannot do this alone or any other way
being poor is not hell
being purposeless is hell
the world has forsaken him and vice versa
work, why have you forsaken me?
another grandchild is born
to have everything is to make effort meaningless
another republican no doubt
trivial
he will send a card
desperate for meaning
begrudgingly regardless
unable to volunteer, enslaved by blood
his eyes are closed, waiting, come
by prior commitments
something be praised, he murmurs,
unable to travel
receptive as a willing girl, squints blotting thought
or move
"i would edit my every thought
to places he has already seen
i would not swear i would undo syllables
and would rather remember as they were
i would talk backwards
than be disappointed
i would erase slips of the brain"
praying for imagination
he would control himself, he promises,
of worlds unstung by war
if he could only have those visions
that do not exist
that vision where there is no self
in the world
to control
pretending to welcome the grandchild
just one more time
investing in the dog
he would forsake himself
worshiping what was
if he could only once have that vision
glory days
that vision in which the eyes in his head see
what might have been
not him
learning to love
deliver me, he asks, not knowing
confinement
should he add a please or a thank you
rhyme
thank you, he lets the decision come, he flips a coin
order
thanks be to...
predictability
and then
tongues
it breathes
silibant
a vacation in his brain

8 mayo 2008: Cloister

poor poor poor poor poor
poor poor poor poor poor
poor Gertrude Stein
stuck in Europe, collaborating to keep her hair cut short
poor Emily Dickenson
stuck in her room, never saw the sea
poor Herman Melville
stuck behind a desk, writing poetry no one wanted
poor William Burroughs
stuck a needle in his arm and called it macaroni
poor Brad Pitt
stuck in People magazine mobbed by children
poor me
poor me
poor me

7 mayo 2008: Desire

"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than to nurse unacted desires." - William Blake

A cold choice to make
Upon reaching the first air
Regards taking breath

Once tasted, that gulp
Becomes a constant desire
Involuntary

Some roads less traveled
Pass underneath, the earth moves
This way and that way

The rest also comes
Morning through the tired winter
The will of the One

Notes: You are born by cut or by canal and air gets in your lungs. No one knows how that decision is made, or who makes it, or how the desire to proceed, to live, arrives. No one remembers. Billions of decisions follow. We don't even think about them. Desires are decisions we imagine before we have opportunity. We are rich, we are poor. We are tall, we are short. We have an automobile accident or asthma. These are not haiku.

Post publication dialogue:
Gene: PeeGee,
babies take their first breath because we have a
reflex that causes us to gasp involuntarily for air
when sufficient carbon dioxide builds up in our
bloodstreams. When the placenta no longer delivers
oxygen to or removes carbon dioxide from the baby, it
involuntarily gasps for breath, filling its lungs with
air for the first time. (You want this to happen
outside the mother rather than inside, if you get my
gist.) The same reflex is also why you can't commit
suicide simply by holding your breath.

PG: Sounds awfully technical.

Shipmaster: PG, I know you probably didn't mean that to be funny, but I laughed harder at your comment than anything posted here in a long time. Maybe it was
imagining the perplexed look on Gene's face when he saw such a reply.

PG: I meant it to be funny. Funnyish. Gene's explanation of why we first breathe when we are born is true, I guess, but the poem, such as it is, wanted to see that action as a choice, a decision made by either the individual or by God. I guess Gene holds to the God theory. In which case, with humans having had no choice in the matter of that first breath or of the last breath, it would seem that every breath in between is also beyond choice, leaving us with the wonderful Eastern philosophy of living -- "It breathes me."

I'm not there.

6 mayo 2008: The Poor

i check the flights, the times, the dates, the tax
i cancel meetings, rearrange the fair
that work can't wait. there's time to cut my hair.
syllable syllable incoming fax
the poor pig lives what looks like difficulty
day to day wanting food
does he know he abides in the place
we spend too much to visit
we try everything to be there
how different is it
is it guatemala or hawaii i ask you
at any price, we go, if we can earn an escape
we go to where the pig lives
on what he can find, day by day
we wish we were there. maybe when we give up
all our bank accounts
yes, the pig promises, then and only then,
you can live with me in paradise
you can actually finish your sonnets
take till noon
what is stopping you?

5 mayo 2008: Aside

Timothy Leary

forty years later

we have Oprah

same thing

look at her books

a new earth, self knowledge, cosmic consciousness

(as Lex Luthor is bald, that plain, so obvious, true)

we are all one melted ego recycled flower power pot

but without much vision

a simulacrum of sense(s

whatever works, recycled religion

I guess, being old now

on a quest for the poor

5 mayo 2008: Clipping

these poor are blessed, bless-ed,
blessed are they who and
everything is so cheap here

we are Everything is so cheap here
this market array fruits vegetables magic
cactus clippings over spread-
out sarapes guatemala palenque maya
squatted women offering squash

we could buy it all if we wanted, if we needed
not that we need not here where we can pretend
to be poor but richer
than
less poor than
squatted women selling mushrooms

move on to the next blanket
huaraches ruin the feet

4 mayo 2008: Bucaramanga

antonio presented a fish dinner inside his house

we sucked the bones and licked our fingers

it rained there was noise on the tin held by bricks

they thought they were poor

the teenagers didn't want to move into the empty house below

why, i asked

what, they said, and leave home?

they weren't poor

not even close

just look at that mountain across the way

a day's walk

and time to do it

they would all live a long time

they would never lack frontiers,

the one thing i lost long long ago

and all the money in the world

can't buy it back