Adam Clearwater's Uncanny Abilities

Adam: Right emphasis. drums. counting time. beating time. keeping time. blonde. surf. no bum though he. essentially expressible. means what he says understands what he means. psychological process: Aries. green. blue. flecks of silver shine. light side: flip-side: brighter still. his only shadow is a brighter light. standing before him. makes you want to talk. his listening abilities. his functionality. ableness. miss him

-- Jeff Wietor

2 Light Poems

36TH LIGHT POEM: IN MEMORIAM BUSTER KEATON --
4:50-6:18 A.M. SAT 1 JAN. 1972

1

As a mad scientist
Buster lights a Bunsen-burner flame
that starts a series of processes
that eventually releases The Monster

As an Undertaker
Buster lights a Bunsen-burner flame
that starts a series of processes
that awakens a drunk who was about to be buried as a corpse

As a Muscovite
Buster lights a sisal wick in a sesame-seed-oil lamp
that suddenly lights a mystical orgy
officiated over by Rasputin

As a boater
Buster beats a cascade by floating out beyond its edge
borne by a balloon
lit by a wintry sun

As an Unwilling Passenger on a Drifting Liner
Buster the Millionaire & his rich Girl Friend
learn to cope Alone Without Servants
when forced to rely on the light of their Upper-Class Intellects

As a Worker
Buster arouses the Compassion of the Nation
in whose light the Corporations
sell themselves to their Workers

As a Key Man
Buster carries around with him
an enormous bunch of keys
lighting the way with a Keats lamp

As a Beatnik
Buster meditates in a Redwood forest
seated where the Selenic light
first falls at Moonrise

As a Leaf-&-Feather Gatherer
Buster Means Well but bugs everyone in the Park
spearing the ladies' hats & the picnickers' salads
in featureless Hollywood Light of the century's first quarter

As William Butler Yeats
Buster addresses an irate Irish crowd
that thinks that Poetry makes Nothing Happen
but lets itself be bathed by its Truthful Light

As a Cannoneer
Buster explodes his own ship's magazine
treads water in Gunpowder Light at a safe distance
& blushes in embarrassment at his Clumsiness

As a Violinist
Buster surpasses Paganini
until Boston-Concert-Hall Light
Poisons him with Love for a Proper Bostonian Maiden

2

Spirit of Buster Keaton
if you survive as yourself
receive Please our honor & praise
you conscientious Workman

Hard-working Buster Keaton
when you arouse the laughter of children
as you live in Projector Light
Your Karmic Residue dissolves in Joyous Shouts




58TH LIGHT POEM: FOR ANNE TARDOS -- 19 MARCH 1979

I know when I've fallen in love I start to write love songs
Love's actinism turns nineteens to words & thoughts in love songs
as your "A" & the date made "actinism" enter this love song

Also I seem to start dropping punctuation
My need for punctuation lessens like some people's need for sleep
My need for sleep lessens too but later I fall on my face
Lack of punctuation doesn't catch up with me like lack of sleep
It doesn't make me fall on my face

So bright the near noon light the toy photometer twirls in
the sunlight slanting in from southeast thru the southwest window
the stronger the light the faster the light motor turns
diamond vanes' black sides absorb white sides radiate photons
See it go

A "42" draws the northern lights into the song
as yesterday into the Taggart Light Poem twice they were drawn
as "aurora borealis" & "aurora" by "A"'s & by numbers
There they seemed eery & threatening Here they seem hopeful
as they seemed when last I saw them over the Gulf of St. Lawrence
cold euphoric after making love wondering
at swirling curtains & sudden billows lighting the sky northwest

I remember their evanescent light as neutral or bluish white
I remember the possibility of yellow the improbability of red
not like Bearsville's rose & blood sky twenty-five years before
Now these memories mingled with pictures' descriptions'
project on inward skies idiosyncratic northern lights
that only exist while I'm writing these lines for Anne
Even the next time I read them the lights they arouse will be different

Nineteen sheds a tranquil light on our love song thru your "T"
Our love's tranquil light revealed by 19 & by T
is turned by 15 to an aureole tipping an "A"
The "A" becomes your face The aureole grows

Reducence from my face glows back on yours

A telephone bell can deflect & dissipate my light
The deflected light is lost to poem & person
I turn my telephone off these days to help ordinary light breed poems

The sun is so bright on my desk now except on the typewriter keys
that there's no need for the light of the student lamp placed to
shine on the paper

But now five hours later the lamp's the only light
& I begin the poem's "astrological" section

II

Acetylene light may be what Virgo needs to see the "pattern
except that for him this is something" he will
only acknowledge if it can be seen in natural light

Can we gain new light from astrology that ubiquitous superstition
You Sagittarius Woman Me Virgo Man
What "can happen between them is a" mazing
a dizzying a stupefying or dazing a crazing
a great perplexing bewildering amazing
forming a maze of something or making it intricate
being bewildered wandering as in a maze
What has happened between them is amazing

What is happening between us is amazing
more intense & vivid than electric arc light tremendous light
brighter than acetylene light friendly as reading lamp light

"But a young Sagit-
tarian need have no qualms about taking on a
man considerably her senior if he is a "Virgo"
Rand's random digits underline our case
in this lovely silly optimistic sentence

We've been living I think in a kind of drowning light

"He reaches the age of forty At anything less than that age
he is not even a possible for a Sagittarius"
Me Virgo Man You Sagittarius Woman
Orgone radiation flimmers between us
our curious safety light

"What can happen between them is superb
Something he has spent half his life dreaming about
At last it has come true" O ingratiating
astrological light may you never prove false
even to one who has often decried you as no light
but superstitious darkness natural light would dispel
or the electric arc light of empirical science

The way I'm writing this poem's like using
trichromatic artificial radiance
not as decorative light in place of
ordinary solar radiation as you photographers do

Before I was forty "not even a possible for a Sagittarius"
now I'm sixteen over the line & safe with you

"Her but a young Sagittarian need have" none
"qualms" have no basis
Are we dreaming Is this Virgo Man still dreaming
as "he has spent half his life" they say "dreaming"
"Sagittarian & Virgo"
"The pattern is perfect"
The poem is over

19-20 March 1979
New York

-- Jackson Mac Low

He Cannot Have Been Pleased Today to Hear That (Stein 55)

He cannot have been pleased today to hear her accidentally mention that.

Although she is little Carrie is forty. Ask for rubber in your prayers. They are doubles but are they brothers.

Whoever hears plaster dry listens best. It was said that the country might have had better kinds of fire if it hadn’t won that prize. Their hundred offspring were promised a whole new arrangement. Another disappointed rebellion.

Of all who were there yesterday who will be exclaiming in that place today. I heard the door. It has been shown that we men make dirt. Are we willing to hear it stopped. England and age loaned decision a train. Gradually he comes to believe no one. She does either nothing or little.

He said he’d undergone the same decrease of conscience after considering their stammering thinking. Please harness another one. He had a hundred. Did the designer understand. Weren’t you satisfactorily kind. Under an obligation to get the shapes into certain places what place did you mention as higher. He meant the knives entailed reparations. It has been found that women hear best. Can a man wait now. Julian mentioned the separate introductions. Weren’t you yourselves surprised.

Little ones believe me. This cannot be going on. Had you wanted to you couldn’t have chosen to carry the unavoidable but you did so accidentally. Are the brothers there. Whether they went there or not they doubled the plaster. Those who hear best are hopefully pleasant. That was the end but I prefer the beginning. Why should that other one stammer. They’re ordinarily together. When another drafts the recipe for bread there please tell me whether this furthers still another. What was the purpose of that resumption of bribery. A hundred offspring sprang from closets in another disappointed rebellion. Their higher exclamations were meant to call the wealthy to resemble them by doing what they did. These times principally carry with them undertakings hastening decisions. In the beginning everybody overflowed. There were fifty opportunities for the English to disappoint the rebellion. Exclaiming that higher meant wealthier the callers resembled doers. Undertakings in these times are principally fastened to decisions.

Whether near or far the rest rest. Anybody may accidentally become necessary. We believe bread becomes thinking. Does this sound like an accident. He accidentally changes. He went were the front lamps do little. Though he looked he had need of intuition to choose among the women. They made believe their faces looked that way. Please can’t we hurry to see what causes that resemblance. When we have seen whether they carry things faster will we have wanted to listen. I know I am mud. He’s gentle to fish. Hot or cool she would deny that. Promise you’ll leave out the introductions. Separate when this changes. He did the tired thing. Had any other needed harnessing. The designer did. Am I to understand you made her leave instead. Woody the baker was in an unexpected bed. He never said that we said either that he was displeased or that he was pleased. Credit another horse’s straps’ goodness. Whether reparation is everything or not this was harnessing. When we have met will we remember the rest of this. Such splendid running. Would everybody believe there was any chance that they wanted her to leave. Never revise her accidentally. They were annoyed when they saw what higher winning meant. Do it by widening it.

She was not lonesome despite the expenses of emigration. When they got the maps together they didn’t try to notice what he’d said they’d have to remember. All my toys were wonderful. Carving the splendid coal the bribed one exclaimed that Henner’s picture would be worth a hundred of his offspring. He was a designer and he did understand. He said you’ve not been satisfactorily careful. That very neglect was forgotten. Away with what you mean to say. Don’t only use cement. Why would emigration stand as the better measure. He recommended that he be a minister. The decision to loan away the fork was greeted with language such as no one would have believed. They rendered it accidentally. Had another believed in another there’s a chance that still another would have been displeased. It disappointed forty that Carrie was so little although many prayers were said for her. The number of rubber wheels was lessening in that place. Are those brothers the reason. He stopped his gentle plastering.

Ordinarily they would try everything. Pray that this harnessing be an introduction to toys. So far toys may be for anybody. He means that morning is the time to express emotion. Hundreds asked her age and what would become of her. He was trained to make decisions about loans and doesn’t believe anyone. Gradually they came to be doing very little. He said they’d undergo the same decrease of conscience. She considered thinking about it after stammering Please. To you harnessing another hundred was not at all satisfactory. The designer understood that.

-- Jackson Mac Low