It's coming on six o'clock again. The sun rehearses an elaborate little speech, strictly pro forma - no, wait - it's saying something, like Be glad it's over. We waited for you. I loved you, and these were the consequences: bright nights, lit sea, buttered roofs, dandelion breath. The dream of seeing it all.
Next year let's live in harm's way, under the big top. Incongruous, blue will find us, and the sun.
Like the growl of a friendly dog it backs up, shivers itself out of here...
I'm trying to remember what it is that I can't tell you
I don't know it just comes over me.
I can't tell I can't tell you I can't know for a fact I can't believe I can't be sure I can't wait I can't involve myself I can't win I can't know I can't even decide about making decisions I can't believe you meant no harm
I had the picture of you suitably framed When you left you left me with a handful of vanity and self satisfaction
Modesty prevents me from getting in your way You forgave me I pardoned you I think a lot about you but it's mostly ghostly
If you didn't have a name I'd give you a name something Hebraic, masculine, trembling with meaning.
I don't know you when you pass by some day I won't be doing this some day I'll be with you
make haste slowly sacred fire // ethics of the voice it's early afternoon // get on with it quickly how is it possible // to be only one short
II
not eternal: impure pain // happiness: knowledge what power in consciousness // power to see that an important question arises here // your own dead body
III
one could say "his swan song" // voice was just one part language as an echo // form of experience but I cannot describe // cover over one eye
IV
a story about Indra // and Virochana coccyx hammer scapula // ilium stirrup les animaux de la ferme // make a sounding
V
you are bright and witty // anxious groaning blaring the sound of shofar // who could only echo called upon to speak // fear of death clinging to life
VI
What does thinking actually involve //utterance Where does the voice come from // a response to that thinking is a response // to that mute voice
VII
say yes to great skin // you thought nature said no change in the winter air // your thoughts your seduction I don't want to be eclipsed // I must admit that
VIII
how do you picture // a mire of oblivion I ask him about // spelling out the solution lines of poetic meter // voice the call the cry
IX
don't object so much // not coming into contact Pythagoras became the object // of a cult no matter what he's thinking // voice behind the screen
X
he wore apple blossoms // at the end of the day February rain storms // everything feels unreal the other of the Other // nothing going on
XI
they wait they'll have to wait // the crucial question is see the transformation // verified by women anti-aging complex // acts deep in skin's surface
XII
the correct and interesting thing // to say is fire destroys things completely // follow it inside thinking means speaking // in one's imagination
Hi-diddle-dee-dee An actor's life for me A high silk hat and a silver cane A watch of gold with a diamond chain Hi-diddle-dee-day An actor's life is gay It's great to be a celebrity An actor's life for me Hi-diddle-dee-dum An actor's life is fun Hi-diddle-dee-dee An actor's life for me A wax mustache and a beaver coat A pony cart and a billy goat Hi-diddle-dee-dum An actor's life is fun You wear your hair in a pompadour You ride around in a coach and four You stop and buy out a candy store An actor's life for me!
Hi diddle dee dee An actor's life for me A high silk hat and a silver cane A watch of gold and a diamond chain Hi diddle dee dee You sleep till after two You promenade a big cigar You tour the world in a private car You dine on chicken and caviar An actor's life for me!
It's not so much about what you imagine as about what you imagine.
fevered flashbacks when he finally wakes
Lord have mercy on us
conflicted backroads. backstreet. fannie hurst. william randolph hearst:
Christ hear us
stardust the san francisco examiner lummox; george and phoebe phoebe snow;
Lord have mercy on us
show me the way shoveling sidewalks backstreets bareback riders white ponies
All you Holy Angels and Archangels
soapsud snow snow in Warhol's hair white peonies
Pray for us
cactus in the snow peacock in the snow snow white seven dwarves little big man man of la mancha the munchies the munchkins the monkeys Marcel Duchamp breakfast of champions champ the wonder dog wonder woman two women all about eve adam levasseur keds billy the kid billie burke hoagy carmichael
Pray for us
stardust
Lord have mercy on us
private objects of your vision
Christ hear us
one unknown amongst so many public memories
just around the corner time passes you by
Lord have mercy on us
1946
Lord save your people
humoresque: Joan Crawford
Lord save your people
broderick crawford
Lord save your people
roderick hudson rodney mallet my dog rags
Pray for us
rock solid
Pray for us
this vertical city: town without pity gene pitney pitney bowes major bowes
clara bow cupid
Christ have mercy on us
song of life: Life magazine afterdark look at that face
Lord have mercy on us
suddenly now I'm rin tin tin
Christ have mercy on us
oscar wilde: a double exposure
Lord have mercy on us
the case of the missing movies
Christ have mercy on us
Taylor Meade
Pray for us
made for each other be my valentine
show no emotion or personality it seems to me it rains when it rains
Lord have mercy on us
God the son
the young physique star light start bright the first star I see tonight blueboy all boy drum drummer falcon freshmen golden boys his honcho in touch mandate stars unzipped
God the Holy Ghost
march 1972 the ballad of billie blue kaleidoscope the bitter tears of petra von kant taking you back imagine that the other person sees but does not feel pain
Christ have mercy on us
be true to me I'll love you forever I said to him he didn't say the same he didn't mean to be obstinate
God the Father of heaven
end of the road pages and pages and pages boarding a train pages and pages and pages and pages he said: "the word "I" does not designate a person" I could neither agree nor disagree aguirre, the wrath of god
Lord have mercy on us
partly because I loved him zeffirelli's butt-naked francis partly because he was wild
Christ hear us
cabaret singing in the shower mostly because he had nice legs long hair torn too short shorts chole in the afternoon soaped up hair slick shiney face ready to go
Lord have mercy on us
the boy with glasses
Pray for us
you and me a mattress in the living room sunshine
Lord have mercy on us
joyous sound that certain summer
Christ have mercy on us
leonard cohen singing live naked and longhaired into the wilderness the inner eye deliverance
Pray for us
made for each other allegro nights acid days illustrations of howard pyle you -- whisked away to places beyond time recanted tears recounted moods
Lord have mercy on us
newly ejected oyster-spawn
joe dallesandro's flotsom hair
Pray for us
misgivings: you forgivings: me
Pray for us
I'll start with a description of what 'I see' but in impersonal form
ziggy stardust
Pray for us
the difference between my being angry and he being angry
We looked at drama and with a penetrating gaze forced our way into the inner moving world of its motives—and nonetheless for us it was as if only an allegorical picture passed before us, whose most profound meaning we thought we could almost guess and which we wanted to pull aside, like a curtain, in order to look at the primordial image behind it. The brightest clarity of the image did not satisfy us. For this seemed to hide just as much as it revealed. And while, with its allegorical-like revelation, it seemed to promise to rip aside the veil, to disclose the mysterious background, once again that penetrating light illuminating everything held the eye in its spell and held it from penetrating any more deeply.
Out in the west we wear our hats, for a lot of different reasons. Some for work, and some for show, but mostly we follow the seasons.
Jaunty and low, the brim just so means he has some pride. Straw in the summer, felt in the fall, and he’s sure to catch a bride.
Those Montana boys like to wear ‘em wide, and the Texans, high and mighty! But the Colorado pokes have all the style, And they wear 'em neat and tidy.
We Colorado gals can pick our men not by his manly size, not by the fit of his tight blue jeans, but by the hat he wears over his eyes.
It never fails to fan our tails when a tall one comes in sight with his best boots on, his jeans all pressed, and his hat pulled down, just right.
The man I met never showed his sweat, his band was gleaming white. A fancy scarf wrapped ‘round the crown ........with both eyes out of sight.
At the Valentine Dance he wore those pants that fairly made me shy. When he slowly looked up, to take me in, it was to the side - with just one eye.
He winked, I blushed, he tipped his hat. We danced to the cowboy band. From that moment on, and for the rest of our lives he held my heart in his hands.
My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets. He has several likenesses, like stars and years, like numerals.
My quietness has a number of naked selves, so many pistols I have borrowed to protect myselves from creatures who too readily recognize my weapons and have murder in their heart! though in winter they are warm as roses, in the desert taste of chilled anisette. At times, withdrawn, I rise into the cool skies and gaze on at the imponderable world with the simple identification of my colleagues, the mountains. Manfred climbs to my nape, speaks, but I do not hear him, I'm too blue. An elephant takes up his trumpet, money flutters from the windows of cries, silk stretching its mirror across shoulder blades. A gun is "fired." One of me rushes to window #13 and one of me raises his whip and one of me flutters up from the center of the track amidst the pink flamingoes, and underneath their hooves as they round the last turn my lips are scarred and brown, brushed by tails, masked in dirt's lust, definition, open mouths gasping for the cries of the bettors for the lungs of earth. So many of my transparencies could not resist the race! Terror in earth, dried mushrooms, pink feathers, tickets, a flaking moon drifting across the muddied teeth, the imperceptible moan of covered breathing, love of the serpent! I am underneath its leaves as the hunter crackles and pants and bursts, as the barrage balloon drifts behind a cloud and animal death whips out its flashlight, whistling and slipping the glove off the trigger hand. The serpent's eyes redden at sight of those thorny fingernails, he is so smooth! My transparent selves flail about like vipers in a pail, writhing and hissing without panic, with a certain justice of response and presently the aquiline serpent comes to resemble the Medusa.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s bay an orange cliff rising from its waters to the east to the west a slope of reddish earth whorled with gray olives between them an arc of rock, then sand, then little port four houses of blue-washed rubble and red-tile roofs and below them under broad-leaved vines a terrace with tables and benches from which at noon the smoke of golden bream grilling brings a gust of longing to the wayfarer as he looks over the bay from a bluff down which a dusty zigzag path leads to a straggly cluster of fig trees near the water’s edge (their first fruits now ripened in July sun) to whose left on flat rocks ample nets have been drying to whose right on the sand — green, yellow, green, red — four fishing craft rest through the languid hours of the blue day only at night taking to the clear dark waters through which their bow-lights beckon curious fish for nets to scoop from their nimble careers to be shaken over the decks in slithering heaps and at dawn the boats coast home between brighter blues the glory of the world suffuses earth stone and leaf land and sea reaffirm their distinction in an exchange so gentle that the wayfarer briefly believes he has been suspended lastingly in newborn light the happiness and rightness of the morning no longer dreaming plowing on through thick mud?
The plains of Iowa dreamed, or seemed to dream, the prairie dogs erect above their dens, the corn unripening by the local Gulf. We slept through May in the landlady's single bed, like two wives -- creaky, uncomfortable as sin, the eagerness of sin a sin itself. Airless at dawn, at dusk a tinderbox, your shoebox apartment shared the slanting roof. The alley lay in moonlight's palest talc. One night a shout -- a file of naked freshmen streamed away, white asses hot as dimes, onward into forgetfulness. Youth, ah youth. We slept, and woke, and slept the day away, careless as pigeons with their broken quills.
