A Gross Anticipation

It was always the same for him, the sadder for her.  That same sensation rising after the first morn, ther first time and stare.  He had a way of hooking them, quick; maybe it was some off kilter genetic thrust, melding with the openness of toes and sheets and honesty.  And in the end it was sad for them, but for him, always in the beginning; for him it was the initiation and in their first time apart that made those wet ducts shatter and perception glared.  In longing he dreaded what was assumed to come, it only mattered how many spent hours would accumulate to its arrival.

It was unsettling how distinct each one was, though succenctly repetitive.  No tww had ever appeared similar, nor had any differed in his gross anticipation of their future.  What was so difficult about patience?  Why did he continually play his best hands at the opening bell?  Not to say it didn't work, it was striking how 'successful' his most recent pursuits (?) had been.  Yet it obviously changed nothing of their outcome, or his lofty appraisals at the onset.

I often pondered if the resilience in his attempts would ever warrant what he deserved.  Sadly, or not, none of it was in vain, or rather, half-hearted.  I think he truly loved some of them, the less they loved him and the more he affected, wounded.  His sister and best men would confer it, though it was strangely skewed with his mother.  She saw beauty in every of his encounters; us seeing a measuring scale and bovine sale; his sister seeming irreverent, finding each demeaning to their family character.  But his mother bad been through one of those seperations, she had to remember how to love when you don't feel loved.  And she knew that he was trying.  But it was harder for him to love, having felt and feeling he couldn't be loved, he the undeserving.

It was more difficult to believe than it was to be involved, for he, they and us.  He truly believed in it its sanctity, aware of so much ugliness around him, he blindly sought for it, for beauty, companionship, putting faith in Platonic admiration and unfettered grace.  Not to say he was faultless, but I never met a canine he didn't adore.

Dear Someone

Dear Someone,

I've been trying for sometime now, seeking like a wary traveler, just enough sustenance to make it home for Christmas. And I've often tasted it, a hint or false version: scented and veiled and assuming. And I've made a lot of assumptions, conjectures along the way. I don't know what certitude is left for you or me, but I'm glad you're here - and with me now. I once thought myself incapable of such wanderings or growing fondness for regret as I've now found. Only failure and regret, or a geranium kiss, can recall the intricacies of that progression toward our present stature. the generals always pondered if we'd ever arrive and receive their blessing and acceptance.

And likely that's why it's so arduous, transgressing, feeling warmth and acceptance from veiled pessimism and incapable notions. Though appreciated so much greatly, presently, it's culpable to harp upon those tragedies, that ugliness. Wanton days can cloud so much through the drizzling rain, making you declare, "I musta been mad; Not a penny on my name." And thusly it's hard to get back home and make it, hit the pawn shop before you hit the highway. In times like these, you wish your brakes didn't cinch so tight, and the abrupt interruptions were not so frequent. Driving across those levees, it's hard to never make a few stops and layovers. Or those Indian mounds along the Natchez Trace... You make conjectures, again, assumptions over what they withhold, or even provided beyond reverence. For that's all we seek.

It's the approbation of innocence everyone yearns and pains for in the end. We were there at the close and sensed the iceberg before it was even in sight. Ms. Someone, I just want you to be aware and that is all. Take and bring whatever you can and be forgetful of all you dread losing. Departure from all those constraints and lost hope. The amends made, you'll likely forget and make again. Trying to coll your brow without drawing attention, or seeing their eyes. It makes you want to run so hard and go far abroad, just to arrive a little out of sight. And I can't deny that bluebird in my heart. She'll keep pestering as long as my heart keeps burning. We'll let her out one day, soon, I hope. But I like it there, having the pain to keep me in check; I revere it and it rewards thusly.

But we're almost there. I know you can taste it; just don't drink too much before I get there. I'm tacking time.

Mitch

He was African

ecstatic beyond what can be
kept in
It’s a smiling affair, which
Only the suits
complain
incapable of grounding
their aspirations

Lofty and feathery, fluttered
they look upon
the content and continuing
unevaded, unaffected
How can you object 
or surmise anything
less
when he’s lived in 
the bush
and swallowed harder than
Lions.

“I think he’s half
Chinese,” an off
one emits above
the ping-pong pitch.
I thing his beauty is darker
than an angel
his affability
softer than cotton

I can’t care when I 
watch such grace
You can’t
compare
with a door open,
a porch screen
locked.
They advised the fashion
of the athletic-
fit shirt
black and obvious
for impression and 
introduction

Sponge-like I am
remaining open to 
any wave of color
ambivalent to certainty
and assuming of grace

the buttons are stitched
at a lesser to
his once buckled bucks.
Smile.

I am waiting

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting 
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle 
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting 
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am seriously waiting 
for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley
to exchange roles seriously
and I am waiting
to see god on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find the right channel to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the living end
and I am waiting
for dad to come home
his pockets full
of irradiated silver dollars
and I am waiting 
for the atomic tests to end
and I am waiting happily for things to get much worse
before they improve 
and I am waiting 
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a cliff somewhere
clutching its atomic umbrella
and I am waiting for Ike to act
and I am waiting 
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting 
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and save me forever from certain death
and I am waiting
for life to begin
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting 
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting
for Ole Man River
to just stop rolling along
past the country club
and I am waiting
for the deepest South
to just stop Reconstructing itself
in its own image
and I am waiting 
for a sweet desegregated chariot
to swing low
and carry me back to Ole Virginie
and I am waiting
for Old Virginie to discover
just why Darkies are born
and I am waiting
for God to lookout
from Lookout Mountain
and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
as a real farce
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting 
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am awaiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth's dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace 
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

10.20.09

A man scolded me

as I cruised the speed limit,

he pushing a stroller and

jaywalking this autumn rising.

He wasn't ready.

Not this morning,

not for what he carried.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti had a huge influence on one Robert Zimmerman in his earliest writings and epistulary wanderings. Enjoy

Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes
At the stoplight waiting for the light
nine a.m. downtown San Francisco
a bright yellow garbage truck
with two garbagemen in red plastic blazers
standing on the back stoop
one on each side hanging on
and looking down into
an elegant open Mercedes
with an elegant couple in it
The man
in a hip three-piece linen suit
with shoulder-lenght blond hair&sunglassed
The young blond woman so casually coifed
with short skirt and coloured stokings
on the way to his architect's office

And the two scavengers up since four a.m.
grungy from their route
on the way home
The older of the two with grey iron hair
and hunched back
looking down like some
gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
also with sunglasses&long hair
about the same age as the Mercedes dirver

And both scavengers gazinf down
as from a great distance
at the cool couple
as if they were watching some odorless TV ad
in which everything is always possible

And the very red light for an instant
holding all four close together
as if anything at all were possible
between them
across that small gulf
in the high sea
of this democracy

Cold Owl Blues

My skeleton sings my sorrow
with strings, like lightening
rumbling towards your horizon.
Window to the world
seeks proper placement.
We're corralling them indefinitely.
Bluebird in my heart
bleeds songs of sorrow.

She wants to be free
she wants to be free
she wants to be free
she wants
Maybe she'll arrive triumphantly
maybe she'll arrive
maybe she'll arrive
We shall end this strife tonight
We'll unwill their ransom
Skeleton sings my sorrow
skeleton sings my sorrow
Come on babe, just one more try
Can you just believe
in one thing like me.
It's only one thing, one man, one thing
But I can't tell you how

Come on babe just a little try
cause you know I tried
you know I tried, so hard
Bum I'm not lonely now
But if you'll try to see how
Just put on my boots
try and point you toes south
Open the blinds and shut your mouth
And I'll move along
and I'll just write
one more
cold owl song
one more

And if you just want one more
cold owl song
One more hope

So open the blinds
so shut your mouth
If you want more
want more

How bout one more
How bout one more

If only

If not for the misleading,
we'd have no need for lawyers.
If not for the tears,
we'd have no need for consoling gestures
If not for the downtrodden,
the disparate, the helpless
and cold
we'd have no need for kindness
and warm embraces.

If not for Faulkner
we'd never have written a thesis
or pondered the possibility of
pen and ink.
If not for forgetfulness, misunderstanding
or failed gestures
We'd have no need for apologies.

If not for her abeyance of forethought
and communication
then I'd have been better-
suited to accept her well-wishes
today on my birthday

But they exist, pervasive,
thorough and frighteningly.
We'd all be better if
veils didn't exist,
if smiles could not be mustered
when knowingly unwarranted

I thinks myself closer to truth
when I can override such
atrocities.
I find goodness in hatred
when I know it's unfounded
and only a callous attempt
by them to reassure they
didn't care
weren't hurt
are beyond the realm of guilt

It all made sense
when the day's duties required
nothing beyond taking notes
and remembering your bag-lunch.
when destinations were more erudite
than the journey
when we could not discern
between gratefulness and assumed
gratitude.

If only.

muddy veils

I like to watch
and pick 'em out
the ones I might
could have a beer with
the one's who may enjoy
vespertinal drifting
and the thrill of
a meeting.
It's always more simple
picking between the guys.
Because there's so many
of all those girls.
It's overwhelming,
like drinks at a
wedding.
and they're so elusive
like bride's maids
in Boston.
Perplexed, we wonder
if such encounters
will prove anything,
or explicitly nothing.

Hell, they're all seeking the same gig,
the general assumptions.
And if you can't appreciate
that beauty, you might
as well resign.

We've only got time, and
wonderings, hopes of
acquaintance and possible
acceptance.
But if the moon weren't
so illuminating and bright,
if our ventures weren't
so self-absorbed
it's amazing to imagine
the potential
of such paths,
to ponder every pretty
proportioned face.
We're as lucky as
we imagine and equally
are as lovely as we get.