1996 Road Movie Taking off part 5
taking off, through sheets
of Hurricane Bertha,
wind and streaking gray, then arriving to
an almost hideous green
everywhere
addicted feeling
harder to leave,
the city becoming
the meaning,
carrying me through, arriving to,
Pennsylvania
Oh, yes, again I’ve forgotten, just
how Beautiful
this luxuriant dripping, green-- is
and sinks me into reverie
of the Yellow Breeches Creek,
elementary stories,
the Indians and Hiawatha, washing
in the stream, coming out with
yellow breeches,
the waterfall, and memory
of a smell, the crayfish we caught
with sock protected hands,
in crevices of rocks, we stuck our hands
into, my head is awake
to these first loves,
nostalgia slows and but, maybe another day
I'm off
I shift in my seat, still remembering the
feet dangling, fishing
ordering, the ideas set
beside me, to become
agon, to fight
at limits of strength
at heights, sought
the hills steepen
and back down through West Virginia,
that old feeling of back water,
steep slate gothic roof
hill to mountain, old red and gray,
brick and granite, town’s churches
and state buildings of the beginning hopes
gray and blue Pontiac, Oldsmobile,
working class Ford
a box turtle crossing the road, messenger
like Benton illustration for Grapes of Wrath
it’s head up
prehistoric relic, two smashed so far, one day
there will be, none,
their message lost,
the Mississippi, and images of Huck Finn,
100 years ago
I'm arriving to Arkansas, a place I’ve never seen
or dreamed of, a surprise,
a swerve on the road
there they are at the end, waving--
the pavement turning to dirt, waiting for me
I’m buzzing
from the road, and the cicadas deafening-- that every
thing is alive, the negative spaces
alive and shimmer
this is scary that I could be so far away from this
vibration of life, set apart from that cultural hum
a woman on a porch
swinging past dark,
a full blooded Cherokee in these parts, staring
into seeming empty space
we huddled on the split plank,
seats and log for a dinner table,
I tasted the connection to the land, the garden
outside, the stars were
right there! a star shot through the space
Steve borrowed my flashlight,
I stood alone watching, the light flickering
between the wooden planks that made an out house
the cicada wirr set me off through the night--
early, a rooster outside the van clucked, directing
hens, marching out into the morning mist, as the sun
hit the top of the adjacent hill, goats sliced obliquely
down the slope, bells tinkling--
as a large tom turkey arrived, puffing a blue gross
head and gobble hanging, hissed and puffed,
the young birds ran
someone was getting the garbage out to the pigs,
some geese made a fuss,
I could see bass minnows, their striped tails
flashing, darting around the pond, as shafts of sun
now, beamed directly on our shoulders,
wiping my forehead, we talked about the heat
to come, we still were talking about breakfast,
as we finished chores and now it was really hot.
Guinea hens led us back to the house
as they fought over grasshoppers
we all had our sights on those pancakes
loaded with blueberries,
traded for the sweet potato seedlings
we just planted and raspberries, and honey
and butter, all from the farm,
a king fisher chattered, high over this idyll
unfolding in the sun,
diving towards the scattering fish,
a snake wriggling
through the mud and flickering
sunfish gems, that powerful smell
that muck stink holds, the childhood flooding in
as I found
myself escaping,
itching to keep on, thinking
of my larger plan,
in retrospect, re-seeing
the wonder of sunny pastoral
passing through
speeding into the night
excited by my adventures--
but poor planing in the real world
found me sleeping in a truck stop
on a hot Oklahoma night,
passing trucks and headbeams
making elaborate shadows
across my eyelids, air brakes
woke me and sleepily
watching the many stars and
brightening sky
I was off once again
on my repeated journey,
the trip becoming familiar
things seen from different directions
different weather,
the changing daylight, I came across
a lake I could swim in
and that was my bath,
I’d looked forward to since yesterday
windy and blasted by sun, I slept in
an oasis of trees at a roadside
KOA, on to Texas and dreams of
Indian design, paintings floating
through my head repeating the story
semi-- realized,
keeping them alive
caressing them
with thought, over
and over,
the mantra of progression
excited by visions of newly seen landscape--
spaces and colors
a line weaving through
kept in order, they proceed,
in spiraling fashion, style
in cycle, dreaming winter
thoughts, attaining spring
and summer height of mind
falling
into autumn,
to depth
of winter
spiraling form,
country music on the radio, out of state plates,
through windmills, my poem
becomes the song of lonely spaces ,
yearning for love, the connection in the wind
headed into it, south from Texas into New Mexico,
the west, incredibly--
as I cross that invisible state line, crystalline shapes
and cotton candy clouds reflecting earth, red
planted in green, turning to prairie
grass deepening into sage, thunderheads
beyond covering mountains in distance
anvil like cardboard cloud,
pinned to flat lonely space, varoom, the Greyhound
bus to Amarillo, passes in black smoke
and I'm left,
Santa Fe train, a B-line into the distance my spirit
here enlarged, nothing like it,
Arkansas woods are interior
compared to this New Mexico-- space
and lonely wind, following the long march
of Katchina looking power-poles, a raven swoops
surfacing and the sinking,
butterfly stroke, swimming in this bottomless
lake of saline solution, unstinging to the eyes,
surface and sink
heavenly body of water,
immersed in my journey
leaving behind inside turning
to outer space
dying into this land, free
a soul left out flapping,
wholly bodiless
in the sun and wind, clearer again than I
could remember, here remembering
it even as I see,
the wider spaces, grasped
MT Gallinas read the sign,
I’d been here before
Mountain top, the Here
to reenact as the gods
before-- the moments,
memorial, monuments
to drama of the seconds, arriving through
breezy pines, the mournful sound,
in a down jacket
at this height,
watching the glow
of the sun,
a fingernail moon
thickening
across the way, above black mountain
bands of orange and slate,
Albuquerque off
in the distance, scattered twinkling,
through ranges of mountains,
sleeping and awaking from one
dream into another, there
had been a fire here, hit and miss,
looking like an excuse to cut the trees,
green grass and purple lupine returning
in black earth,
no birds like before, looking
for that western blue bird
that sat so inquisitive of me,
and the beautiful evening grosbeak,
I’d never seen one before,
now just this wind ongoing--
who's that behind
me feeling, the frightening loneliness
spreading, as
a paperback book, The Navajos
flipping in the wind, seeming silly,
there! a bird, off in the breeze,
I’m still shell shocked
from trucks rumbling down Walker St.,
dodging the bums,
pissing in blackened doorways,
had to just believe
no one is here, no bear or anything even
the deer gone,
like the Mediterranean’s crystal death
the looked for, story changes
unexpectedly, and there is
no story
one of loss, the last time
I was here, I made a painting
watched the deer and birds,
now I’ve forgotten
and no place
to remember,
vanished,
I don’t even make tea--
I’m off into the distance speeding,
speeding through wwww's
of Indian design, the jagged clouds
continuous into distance
rushing back to city time,
airport stores through reproduction
blankets, bowls, and baskets,
trying to rush her off
to my new world,
where as Indians we see the birds
make design and shape, make the place
come forward
to own to hold in our hands, spirited thing,
I wanted, desired to
become the other
we had the smell of fire on our clothes
crawling into our sleeping bags
waking up in the dew
the crisp high elevation, stretching and becoming
acclimated, we swam in the Pecos River
crouching, shivering
in the cold water refreshed and warmed
in shaft of sun, between mountains,
later on, we bought a tiny Buddha at the swap meet
to leave, in the Mountain Sierra
we buy the dharma, some melons to
cool the hot sun
and take off north
we talked of what we shared
love of Art and the open spaces,
Andromeda and hummingbirds, Ellsworth Kelley
and Jasper Johns, the classic and romantic,
talking, winding through the roads ahead
towards, dinosaur bones and UFO sightings
mesa views and the spectacular icon,
El Cerro Pedernal
blue saddle in distance, lightening blasting,
the mythic place
clouds thickening fast and soon to fall--
displaying freshly scrubbed sky, living in a wild
amazing surrounding sky, adobe homes
dot the landscape friendly to the earth,
mud and straw,
porches looking out from
decorated rugs in piles and strewn along fence posts
streaming in breeze
the western dream of romance
driving farther still, through
the beckoning direction
of mesa and colored rocks, we slept
at campground of echoes
echoes of swallows,
bouncing from rocks and
mixing in gurgling water,
we whistled Mozart into the dusk
and it was wondrous
the swallows flit above
in the waning sky
through the Hopi land
we heard the flute winding
into the land and followed,
dissolving sight into soothing
spirit, which time floated
the same spirit designs, bringing it
all into awareness
wind that blows through it all
feeling the eternal
slowness
of a turning center,
the time-lapsed clouds
shadows fleet
over land, black and white
design of a vase
swoosh--
voices of the land,
and Asian influence,
the narrow road connecting
to eternal return and Indian hero journey,
images return
of mountains and falls
of stream and red paint-brush,
flower on mountain meadow
fairy path
Indian way, distance and dust
driving into another time
scattered around, in pieces, fragmenting--
Gallop, New Mexico
is the perverse twistings of one culture
upon another,
a sorry drunken Indian asking--
we were spotted as tourist,
I surprised myself
by letting out a rude reprimand,
I became the sorry one
as I watched him shrink away,
we turned
fast from this town of pawn and aimlessness,
lost without expression, lost pride
with out place,
invisible at the coffee shop,
we sheepishly downed
our enchiladas and coffee,
drifting out
onto the mysterious emptiness
of the winding path, confused,
washing machines on roads and
refrigerators in the cottonwoods
winking in the hot breeze
wrecked cars,
there a painted pony
lovely against the mesa sky
we WERE GOING TO A HOPI DANCE
a corn dance,
dancing for rain
and thanks for what crops were received
Kachinas represented these feelings
and prayed for the life, to continue
a tradition of designs carried their selves
weaving disparate places like Phoenix
and Hotevilla together, no Indian is the same
as I am not, the generalizations of an-- other
do not work, who would be the more spiritual
one? question mark?
I have a stone thrown at me
and a motion tells me to remove
my hat, Gringo with no respect,
the others all shielded from the sun, with umbrellas
and hats, too? I shrug, this is tricky
business but the mesmerizing music, or
rhythm continues, continues and that
is what is important, this art is about
continuing, being something different, and the
same, that stopping-- owning their life
is just their-- just wanting to go on, asking
nothing, before the corrupting addictions
to quell a people full of fear, arriving
we roamed to the rhythm
kicking shards
of dreamed pots at our feet, everywhere
where pots and bones, the procession
arrived in green fir and black grease,
the rhythm produced in the hot sun
a hallucination like
a hand bringing
something forward unseen, coaxing
over and over, the drone of bees, design
brought forward, differing feelings
and fads of the place, the figured spirits,
there, we watched from the roofs
of the tiny rock town, spirit ladders
reaching to the sky, watching
shuffling from foot to foot, captured
there in a time’s bubble,
clouds arriving
and-- looking up with surprise
to passing wind and rain
every one murmuring, the drone
continuing
the brief sprinkle
fleeting into dryness
of desert air, continuance,
the rhythms of sex,
or death, in the
cycle of life, beauty way
the meaning of order,
in a poetry of belonging
to something even larger
than this sacred place
standing apart is not allowed
or could one be capable of--
buried in that dirt I can only glimpse--
I cannot give up this divided life
a hypocrite? thrown stones
reluctantly we leave,
amazed and confused
driving away, to our civilization
and culture, we regretted
our decision, to go
we had been close and needed
to leave, we ever anxious to keep going
on to the next,
off balance a bit, we drove on
hardly stopping through
the tourist laden trading posts
and Arizona, heat, 120' in Blythe
cooling off from journey
in the sun heated aqua bath,
neon light, the setting sun mimic
reflecting dancing cactus and
setting Gulf-- gas sun shape
in tangled telephone lines,
we washed the car and watched teens
hanging out, cruising the strip--
Mom, was closing up the hotel desk,
a towel, around the waist
pacing the movie like, carpeted hotel room
the pool still too hot at 9 PM,
packing in all the ice we could gather
for tomorrow’s trip across the Mojave Desert
the sweltering morning arrived
with the fright of yellow smog mixed, now even
in desert heat, the ever thickening speed
of Los Angeles, felt in ripples
this-- 300 miles away, we tucked away our camping
gear, in our ever more ridiculous van as --
approaching civilization, seemed to liken
the crashing of spaces
of wild county, to spaces of painting--
flat, stop, here!
dreaming rock form
sky and cloud, tree shape
mountain
distance
romantic wish, wish
a place, to write a poem about,
a house, a studio hogan
having no money, the forms
used, of the earth
and scraps, blown through detritus
of civilization
art of garbage, a vehicle for organizing
the shapes of mind, a place to love,
with mountains,
beyond,
beyond that, sea long so long and far away,
to swim-- free
as zooming cigarette boats through
empty desert and boom boxes blare--
in giant treed forest camps.
California Dream, that ocean
once and now, to see it
broken, before realization
California my idea
of an escape from Long Island
transformed
in a similar way,
the word again
AMBIVALENT
destroyed places, ironic Hero
singing of what is left?
American Myths,
off again
on my journey, that is me the HERO
large, inside
arms spread to outside,
Summer Sun, to sing,
deflecting, mocking, stinging--
death, saying no-- I say yes,
got to keep on somehow
making something of the wreckage
I’ve always said yes,
just do it-- swoops,
continuing
the cycle
I slid into the darkened theater,
the movie already begun
my life on the screen, my mean streets
black and glistening, red light-- green
LA cars honking the music,
me, trotting the urban street
reflecting lights, in cowboy boots,
holding coat to throat,
hustling along,
the mythic painter
holding ideas, revolving in the streaming lights,
on my head, the king’s crown,
now remembered,
they’ve created
us and now, they're throwing us away
it seemed a dream
shadows in windows,
across the way
flickering blue, silent
a shadow in the room,
is it a dream? that we were ever alive,
risked our lives for
what we believed and madly--
I KNEW HIM! --the duck man!
even hung out with Jean Michel, flying--
driving up the beach to spend the night
Los Angeles hot and alienating
with no place to rest, whiz--
whizzing, reflecting curves in rear view
its too easy
to go back to the ocean, here
mantra returning
Achilles/ tent
the lagoon
dreaming
the square
the figure
arriving
and waning light,
the leaves
a sound before
the spring
blasting light
and flower
Gregory singing
the villa dazzle
the dying
into space
of fragmented
dream
swoosh
another revolution,
on to another
through the leaves
clouds,
waves
palm of
CALIFORNIA
dream of my youth
western Sierra from 12,000 feet to sloping
golden hills through to coastal range
emptying fog and rain into ocean
lagoons spilling to Pacific wave
out on the point of Conception, solitude,
from suburban town
the ranch horses nosing about,
we were out painting the end of spaces,
emptying out
oil paint smell and satisfying air,
a deer bounding through brush
noisily and is gone,
the wild lights
of sunset and clouds,
the enlarged view from the pines ,
the lagoon
watching, up the coast ,
light struck vanishing points,
mountain view, wild sea and larger Sur,
crashing wave
wind from crisp burnt hills, traveling higher
mountains
crashing falls--
doing all this again and then again,
The Sierra, we got off--
finally, cutting the strings to our lives,
escaping routines, woven
driving that black silent car,
slicing through the night,
we saw the long angle of light
closing on the volcanic cone,
entering the kingdom,
gazing up and onward, climbing
and finally the cool air of mountains--
morning light
climbing the opposite hills,
soon we are gone into that stride,
the march into the hills,
a rich pack on each of our backs,
eager to find what awaited, our test,
around, the familiar blue emerald
of silent curving pine
edged alpine lake,
we hike beyond
to an even deeper blue--
lake we swim, and on
a campsite short of
Donkey Lake behind
another ridge,
a small illegal fire, we fanned
as we made dinner
and entertained
with a celebration
of gin and snow--
the stars where greater,
are always great, and falling
asleep looking to some effect, trying to look
deeper and waking, realizing we’d fallen
to sleep, now, the moon
is up and I glimpse the Great Square,
too bright now to see, the swirl
of Andromeda,
on to Donkey Lake,
not any thing special beyond
what we’d seen, ha!
what a categorical remark!
This was a trip for extremes
and Baboon Lake our destination,
would fulfill, expectations,
Amazing!
beyond anything we’d ever seen,
greens, blues, wow, a real fairy land
of Indian paintbrush,
yellow, red, and purple, back lit glowing
orange- red psychedelic,
the alpine reflections
and variations
in green and blue in waters reflecting all of it,
we-- our mouths
a ga-- a,
tired, we trudged on lightened,
I was going to paint--
the trip-- I promised my self,
and for some reason, every thing is in the way
Oh, well,
I grumped,
I grumped,
I suppose this is not going leave me,
these growing frustrations
etching my life now,
“that’s life-- stuff”
distance between myself and reality
and the mountain beauty is right, there--
through the stinging of mosquitoes and effort,
dinner never tasted so good,
those mountains, saw-toothed and surrounding
curtains of changing light
hard won, the panoramic view,
gazing from this sheltered bedroom of arched pine,
dozing off easily, awakening to buzzing,
bitten face exposed,
peeking out
to stars,
the band of sun light rising,
slowly up the peaks-- I hear the chatter of an
hummingbird sipping purple in blue shade and
the early light,
flitting away, chipmunks scolding,
scampering under rocks
returning call or chink, a funny antic,
chipmunk and bird,
morning cartoons, at Hungry Packer
hiking to check
the overlooking view,
something even now itches
and a sullen reality pervades
everything is work and hardly
a moment to see, unencumbered
the cold, the extremes of heat,
mosquitoes, always something, out here,
separating from
that object
of fancy,
I just want to walk
along free and easy
make a water color, being the hero,
ha! the hero
what the hell has gotten in to you!
seeing the growing holes in my mythic yarn--
immune to mosquito,
reciting poetry at mountain high,
rehearsing the drama,
of flowers and birds
and animals, all that made the place,
the place, remote in my head, making
the exotic flavor
the remove, distant, compelling
the boozy anxiety,
wanting that drunkenness and distancing,
I feel in chains, not free, I want to string prayer
flags and chimes, meditating Buddha style, be
the figure in the falls, go back to those flowers,
want it all to work, be in control
higher yet,
feeling free beyond
all the necessity’s of this extreme place, a fantasy,
I make fantasy, I’m sad to think all this, I want--
want, so much to share
with the others, the experience
then I’m
caught, in my own fantastic romantic
head, alone
we pushed on, on to the cull, to look over,
like gods beyond,
we felt we could see, to the sea,
It is really a hike and finally it eludes our capture
the height, yet to go,
but we walked through to glacial snow
and drank in glacial ice
greenest aqua, ice
frozen icebergs of strange formation and
stood arms out
stretched at longest spaces ever beyond,
yes, beyond and humbled, said so
happy finally, to be safe and back to
camp we laughed, and I said I was sorry
for my moody behavior, we be far away, we
were far, where lakes had no
names, #1043, #1049,
awaking on our last day,
looking for a crook to take a crap--scanning
marmot material in pinecone scraps
like fallen teeth-- over looking
all the view, backed to a small fir,
and the soft needles at foot, insects
still biting my ass, reading a pine and the view
below, another verse,
watching the ever creeping light,
were we’d come from and where we’d go
that was far away,
I was the mythy mountain man
that I had made all these painting-- but
I was a tourist
I was still so far away
relating to the view
from the real experience mastering it,
I was a tourist
and angry, away from home
knowing, owning-- wanting this
all to be mine,
my spirit constrained, held hostage
by the artificial feeling,
the bottled up spirit
still
eating at me, I’m on my way back home,
I some how am leaving something undone,
unrealized, my story needing
other characters?
beyond myself? others--
no story, just this obsessive going on
calendar scenery, turning gray,
ocean fog cold damp,
a chill
and saw nothing,
sped along everywhere
fog and smoke of wild fire
obscuring the largest space,
falling into it
and I driving on edge
of sickening boredom,
oh, I fear this most
that, I could tire of it all this
a figure comes fore,
that nude, the representing goddess
in Art, of nature,
taunting me that I’d wasted it, My Life
height of ordering figures, sought
being involved, truely part
but my affair, the places-- running aloof
through distance
the figures elude me
they walk beyond me
the humanity of joining--
through distance
from the landscape
from the figure
in the landscape
from relationship
speeding now
through Deep Springs, Nevada
into Vegas orbit, center of vice
suicide city, thoughts burn
matters are spinning out of control,
into alienation
furies and harpies
taunt, hot wind,
burning sun
good-bye to coreopsis
silhouetted,
my fancy, arms and
headless,
men and strip-ped legs
turquoise sea wind
whipped sun
reflecting, fog creeping
around peaks, salt spray stinging
something is not right, something in
a bind
some thing in the machinery,
I’m afraid I’m wrong
all this for naught,
that my life is not worth it
meaning less
driving beyond
self to solipsistic
disconnection --death haunted
creating perverse drive, the songs pulling me
to the rocks
to dash head, to--
the herons
the herons
in the dusk’s--
last light,
scream
returning, beaks aimed at sky in dueling,
stance and dance,
the powerless,
to gain
power over, lust
I began with that old fashioned
belief still blanketing us,
given as GOD
and now I am alone
she said, “I’d be an unhappy...”
the knowledge, beyond right or wrong,
ahead of myself, lost here
suffering, that-- I am,
evenings of rambling disconnection
going nowhere,
Glacier Point was clouded,
rock shrouded, unseen
forest fires raging out of control,
amazing clouds of white-yellow
fire-smoke,
wanting to get out of here, this beauty,
a torture, my soul
turned ugly, out of order
can’t see for the smoke,
its all gone to hell,
shivering through the nights,
I should be happy, as I was on a track
writing this simple poem seemed enough--
what’s happening, maybe
I should pray?
to Shiva, Vishnu,
Christ
in sandals
Mo --hamm-- head
Hamlet, falling
what of my Tanager?
the green bug ?
the highest pine?
the blue jays--
BAD FAITH
chattering
listening to trees falling
deer surprising me, in thought
painting
the overlooking view
the trees
will save me
look deeper
the trees
the trees, that silent deer’s
eyes, reaching for stars
dark brown, green-black
against blue-purple sky
smatter of white gray nebulae
a bat that flips
across the space between
let me believe
the saint, the hero
the sun, the bird
everything extending
below
revolving orders, leading me through
trekking through this
Chinese blue screen
smoke filled air
I got out of the car--
different view,
a bird, up close in binocular
vision, Nuthatch chattering,
I saw the magic glint
of its eye
no one else here to see, alone
with the mystery, maybe an
elemental glimpse
at my self, a moments peace
as I trudge on, I had to go
that was a good thing, that bird,
watching me, looking back--
I’m traveling on,
still too nervous to reflect
on through the desert,
leaving all safety behind--
the desert
magnifying one’s life,
the barrenness, fragility
one to one,
good bye, I loved you, LIFE, all connection
I am gone
Odysseus dismembered
hero fallen from high to low
No-body-- No-thing--
torn to pieces, divided
winding through hills of silence, tears,
well up behind headache,
looking back to the valley,
the green patch
out there on the floor, passing by,
the dark desire for the mother,
that oceanic feeling
winding over rocky mountain passes
gnarly forms that twist one’s insides, mirroring
inner, rock
into mud, ground contorting thoughts,
of guilt and shame
together back again,
rising to surface
advancing age, facing
them thinking I’m unafraid, what do they mean?
the animal greed approaches as jackle-coyote,
hungering, reptilian mind,
ripping skin in jaws, shaking off
the bits of marbled flesh,
chomped off mechanically
like in a Japanese Sci Fi movie,
the fur trimmed women attacking naked men,
raw scraping feeling
rocky Nevada center of junk
and arid mind, dancing tits and ass,
a disgust blinds me,
between naked and nude
this culture-- and the nature
I now run from
all good sense gone, racing through--
bird eye, Indian design of skies,
nebulae of darkness, hardest wooden
search and yearning desire,
Oh! for a cool shade of mind,
a cotton wood,
void of these sticky knats, the sequins ahead
into glitter coyote joke,
slouching
through, atomic bomb blasting,
salt desert
self creating--
eternal, self destroying
heat shimmering
the electric clouds,
above glass mountain
mirage and boom,
the streak of vapor jet,
sky and inner depths, spiraling, cracked
to hard frontal pattern, here, clap!
of hands, now, the surface--
I’ve been speaking of
the objective truth of the Katchina’s face,
color outlined in black,
shaman test for extreme of mind,
masking, every day routine
haunting smile enraged--
driving Hwy. 95,
Vegas sky, barreling
some where, flying low,
at someone,
rabbit brush, mesquite,
creosote, prickly crunching soil,
clouds mounting to clouds
and thunderhead, dry heat and shower
plunging to steamy ground,
sweet Desert smell, my life
swung wildly from side to side,
now parallel lines converging,
central being--
throbbing, beat,
the driving force-- bursting, shaking free,
where love and death are one
the cycle,
sacred cycle
the inside out, flung wide
speeding on through crystal,
bug eye, goose bump
horror, stark reality
to feel, to satisfy,
the heat drying numbness,
of being,
negative value
the sucking of mute moisture,
pressing upon unquenched desire,
to rubbed lip-- bruised
and bleeding through,
chest torn open
parting, slippery and panting
sweat
removed embrace, no love,
crying deeper, --no love
alien connection, put off,
bursting
gush, through --to the road
ah, the road ahead
La Strada, free! YES!
some flavor returning --
tramping tune,
leaving behind the want
and forward the clarity’s
arrival, the Hero returning,
twirling order remembered from above
the transcendence
the road,
the journey, there
some music remembered,
to accompany a brute fool and
darling waif,
the sad eyes and funny hat
glimpsing across a gulf,
still, still disappointed and, OH still--
wanting to destroy
black looks
still, the helmeted thoughts
clang-- waitress of desire
that blood rich want, on tip toe thrust
and through
the collapsing house
the atomic shock,
the cards blown away
the hearts, diamonds
spade-- blasted, shot through
tumbling
reflections of
softening hills
a view
from here
seeing out
unsure, --nagging head,
traveling north and east
across paradise of freedom
in space and light,
yes finally free of--
there the yellow brush,
yes the greens and red of land,
a cloud hovering reflects,
the red reality of earth ,
the blue holy mountain on horizon,
unfolding
beauty,
as the Hopi way
this lush green, of Navaho land
clouds rushing overhead, showers
here, there, shadows rush over ground
dark and lights,
picking over hills and mesa
a group of sheep and goats,
tin-like bells through camp
the drama in place,
renews my spirit,
spirit-walker
in this soulshift
and I finally make a few paintings,
the death of God
is as long and as slow as Nature
the feeling of going back
out driving, stop--
and bomb off again
with dissatisfaction, eyeing the Vogue
magazine, reminder of what one doesn’t have,
doesn’t need
the drugs of want, the urban desire
pumped up sophistication, naiveté long gone
a habit, life long junky
New York Fashion, need to know,
obsessive want, to see the new,
even in this amazing beauty
want of the other, having lost
the sense of the one, revolving
the hero in space
reality, the order
fragmented by desires
beyond the land
artificial want
and created need
the Crispin, simple fellow
turned to carouser, merry go round
of Motel chronicle, turning
of evil desire,
lust learned and unsatisfied,
manufactured want to destroy
I need to go back and put it all
together, tattered pieces
the strewn flowers
in the fields
saintly ways,
stepping out
mind of hero
journey
following bliss, reforming
the ordering, my way,
connecting, making a story
record repeat,
this underside--
has minimal play
fades, ROAD MOVIE
empty fad
evil monster
always there to slay,
myself and free
to be-- to fill
and show or name
the ordering
retelling the story
Oh, feeling
all is lost, I barrel through Texas --
I got lost,
Zero here--
these complicated feelings,
of aborted plan,
artists with no kids,
loosing our paintings in
changing weather, out of kilter
with world, out there
our own home,
maybe, need to make a home--
have I lost the poem?
it was a simple--
a simple want, a place to sit to look
at the painting, sit on the small porch
reading the poem, we all have our poem,
intertwined with the place, the revolving
order, natural orders
of sun up and down, place and figure
revolving, encroached upon by urban
need, desire, subverting beauty
here it goes again!
continuing cycle,
trying to find the handle
to grasp again, ending in a twist
of fated ruin, in a secular world,
lost from the sacred
story, degeneration into realism
of lust and want, shopping the mall
cruising the strip, drunk and sexed
elevating back or on
through the hours
to dreams and myth,
the bird’s glint--
it works amazingly, the thought
love is on this plane,
and lust tears it away,
beauty out of order
the pictures build, to human form
separating and making, this figure in the landscape
this Ideal, stings?
the sacred falling to the profane?
another cycle--
the fictions to caress
in painting, another poem?
of how my simple dreams
turned
to degeneration
they wanted what would succor them
NOW
moment to moment--
could not see beyond
what poetry was
what art had been
they couldn’t imagine
and I was forgetting
my WESTERN JAUNT
frenzied furied intoxication
searching death
how can I drive in this frenzy--
an accident ahead
glimpsing the lowly hills
of Texas and cruising down
into suburban sprawl
of the east, the light fails ,
the faint night lit, lost bird glint--
the 7 11 sign,
no one there
blinking in the night
urban
Arcturus.
1996 Road Movie Back East Part 6
keeping on
against my feelings, this story of self--
inside job, what one speaks to one’s self about
writing the road, the contemporary story,
Natural-born Killers,
way out-- mixed signals, this circuitous quest
and Lost Highway,
run down into the dirt,
reaching to height,
I do not want to die here,
that the world’s way is one way
and I go so far, but I have my own--
idea of soul, to satisfy
bathed in this space,
and this moving picture, an affair of places, I feel
as though I am going to die--
always going to die, that’s it!
like this lump in my throat, feels like fatal disease
traveling on towards home, through Louisiana rain,
Alabama rain, through the southern humidity,
towards home grasping for the rock of home
dashed upon--wave after wave
remembering the yellow rabbit
brush, blue sky, green against red, earth
of New Mexico design, brings me back
coloring the place, already
but now, I’m driving highway culture,
East, now and I NEED TO PEE
I have to begin the search, losing the freedom
relying on Burger King--
I’ll be happy-- to see, my old friends,
I miss, but then the doubts, I’m so out of it,
out there, here, the
tightening spaces
make obvious the social ills
having become the life,
of the east,
the built upon built,
upon tension of--
the power politics involved,
becoming savvy in this Art,
the painting’s sensuality, so old fashioned
in that we don’t have the depth
for those big paintings any more
and the fashion changes to small,
“A Good Thing,” they say
the profane world is the subject
what we can see, that’s trouble enough
forgetting that inner space
although it is obvious
that it is becoming the only space
left, the new West the reaches
of the Romantic inner distance,
the debased art, the empty church
everything for sale,
in the what’s new
next economy, picking through for Poetry,
“negotiating rapture” I’ve heard it said
beyond innocent transcendental reach,
my poem repeats ,
un- original thought
if this was all there was, I’d end the poem here--
in desperation
add glamour to that dispare
never seen reality, the ordered poem
what Long Island had been
looking for new poem, to keep going,
flipping through the fashion magazines,
having replaced art becoming the art,
next thing,
down runway,
keeping on, stacks of new names
new places, next place
never new, for long
used, on-- on,
pass-- pass
but I keep on, wanting to be part
of, maybe, I had
escaped that feeling of failure,
leaving last year, the reticence, to come back
and maybe that was the failure of my trip
back, and black
cloud on my head, traveling along with me
my poem dispelled the clouds
and still does when I have it there
in front of me, and that’s a success,
the poetry soothed me,
I'm supposed to be beyond, the mildew
and deepening
snow, the snow man
to whom things speak
and nothing myself beholds, the nothing
that is not there
and the nothing that is, nature and nothing,
me to nothing
death and change,
my smallest creation,
I revel in this, change--
the same bare place, becoming
transparent eyeball, I am nothing
I see all, this crystal death
the loneliest air, not less was myself,
the compass of that sea
tossed about
beyond what I can stand,
these are the words that save!
defeat into victory, I go on, I was the world
in which I walked
I found myself more true,
more strange, beheld
her solitary there,
for there she sang, innocence
the maidens song, could have
no ending
I sing beyond
what transcendence, wholly critic
body wholly body
fluttering,
empty sleeves,
constant cry,
the old mother--
what is this spirit?
for it was the spirit
that we sought--
and knew, content to know
our element, is of ice,
a wintry air sighs for me,
night wind,
shouts for me loudly
Dazzling and tremendous,
how quick,
now and always, the sunrise
would kill me, if I could not
now and always
send it from out, from me
the sea
a power
over the sea
the poem
a forever cycling power of the mind
over a universe of death
the blank, blocks the new world,
the poets mind
over death,
it was her voice,
that made the sky
acutest, at it's vanishing,
beauty, Oh, blessed rage
the order, the maker's rage, for assembly
the scholar of one candle,
he opens the door, (the reduction fails)
and he feels afraid,
roads not taken,
packing the things, that last, to succor
the mind, remember, go over, again
another round about cycle
ordering, the possible, the damage,
the toll taken, building back
the leaves
the waves-- through the sand castle
the voyage slipping, clouds
anastazi texture--
surfaces manipulated
remembered, to give clue
to this world I make of
life, through dream,
keeping on
don't let it fail, keep on,
follow the simple unending dream
of that new world, follow
the round, the wheels turning
eternal scene
the mountain’s peaks
stepping from summit
exhilarating crown!
up once more, to greet the day
poem of the mountain Sierra, the Joshua Tree desert,
of the Ocean Pacific
in the New York winter, the library
--keeping big, making
life, flaking from my eyes
the mountains
the jays
that rare tanager
flashing--
Buddha mountains
no-thing
sno-thing
blue haze
becoming
the phone rings, what do I want
to hear? “you, need me” but a recorded
advertisement of our entangled world,
fighting to stay, Oh, I’m off--
into the palms, the flash
before my eyes, the eyes
on the street, the fear they display,
anger, the fear, music pounding,
the insanity, copying
the reality, what myth--
reality copying reality,
swerve and dream changes--
reality imagination,
so, far away, the ringing of
the phone, death unanswered
wrong end of telescope, no one there
an empty fifth
blank--
I reject this,
I chose life,
looking forward to the new shows
happening this year
walking
through Corot,
after brutal reality-- of the old loft
at least the trucks are not rumbling
--here in this tiny apartment,
even some sunlight,
quiet, becoming resigned,
still older
trying to feel the dream,
spreading in the sun
when I’M STOPPED, I die,
the money came and I’m off
into the REVERIE,
thrilled beyond belief, to be alive,
greeting the dawn,
come with me, I’m full of it!
Achilles to Crispin,
into a classic space
to modern cartoon, Davey Crockett,
raccoon hat, into the hills,
Hopi way
must, keep up
the Indian design,
the flute drifting through crystal space,
unending, wind of my soul,
of our souls
walking in beauty
broken pieces
in my eye
the Hopi way
the mystery of that eye
high up in the wood
glinting-
alive
my own-- clearing
to see-- choosing sight
keep on with dream
I’m off--
before the sweeping tide of reality
the politic of resenting
belief,
against the desert
that oldest self, before an even older god
the aesthetic dignity, a covering angel
of the terrible beauty
NECESSITY
I stopped, once--
twice, the bird
I saw an eternity
in both
stops
in the music, that eye,
the bird, I thought it watched, me--
cocked its head
I trying to understand? it flew
through the stream of sun
paint flooding through,
a rhythm of mantra
revolving
woven varied design, blown apart,
the center will not hold,
over again, never quite right,
shards of
Indian way,
each year it was harder to make the painting
that would lift one out of despair,
de Kooning was the one to beat
skating along in a heaven,
color and light,
playing out the line
the shards
fly
across gray
ground of being, making
shape bright,
the same light, or the light
of a explosive sunset, going,
abstracted figures
see the shapes formed,
to see again, happy day,
clouds skipping
across the sky
1st order, clarity, height of order
kaleidoscope of color,
chosen out of desire
set against this desperation,
heaving its breast in the corner,
the echo
of the original bang, the desert air,
the trailer door
flies open in the breeze,
unending, gods outside,
of oneself
the eye, I search for,
I see myself
besides this mess of words,
they won’t save me
decorated with war, seeing beauty,
the hero bluest
another revolution,
the leaves, the empty chapel
a flurry of feathers
in the yellow light
laundry, the five flights of steps,
a paper,
the coffee, the studio,
a friends dance party,
lunch,
gesso the new canvas,
the news, dinner,
bed,
TV, Charlie Rose--
Oh, the OPEN ROAD
ahead, hold on to that dream,
I read my poem,
defending self
apology for,
afraid to see who I’m addressing--
and the words just fell like lead
or flew like fluff
what I loved,
FELT at what I saw
on my deathbed,
Giotto’s blue
the HERO, keeping on
I have my paintings,
life, ‘...aimed at my family
like weapons!’ I heard myself,
telling a friend
one evening,
I’m right, you’re wrong,
no shading of intelligent life,
sounding like my father
after all this
our innocence in Pennsylvania,
dreams of Eden, of ideal lives, chipped away
economically and then rocked by sickness
and death, scattering us all
into our guarded beliefs,
I started, to see the drift
into a narrative like reality, of confession
of what mistakes,
of what I'd better do now
our time not strong enough
to produce another
Benton mural, laughable, you say
and in desperation
I cling to such a laugh--
Disney forms, approach art
recipes for strange concoctions,
urging unseen fiction
or myths, turning,
cultural adventure,
setting off
once more
the Bridge,
high on tip toe
on to the es--studio! there the work
of the WORLD, to be done,
set beside EARTH
--to keep ones feet planted
within the place, revolved,
telling some story
yet unclear. the Indian (ME)
native us all, American,
beauty in the face of death,
night and day,
revolving a mantra
the colors, the shapes, and line
the different shapes these fragments
thoughts come in relation
perspective, context, changing
light
--now, swerve
the hero reaching, from inside,
sights on distance
coming together, crashing loud,
sound and push
world
of time
revolving
time beyond
keeping on
turning, telling
who we are
or can be
or should be
or-
this circus juggler
in sun
and wind
red and yellow
diamonded
shatter the present
scattering
souls
explorers
in spirits light above--
exorcised
to go on--
cure of
the disappointments
keeping the dream,
the sun
the wind
in the face
the great distance.
1997 Brooken Beauty ...another round part 1
“ ...Odysseus’... ever present
solitude and loss
the copious uncomforting tears--
Again and again
his journeys,
the struggle, against temptations
to cease struggling
sinking into an exotic
drugged oblivion
listening,
the Sirens
passing lotus eaters
the real danger
to find
contentment in
non human forgetfulness
dangers over come
finally and painfully
as he reconstitutes
his social role
father, husband, and son, King
One does not always like--
nobility mixed
with dissemblance,
gentleness mixed
with ruthless fury,
but one always recognizes him.”
muses echo, the song of this quester’s
swerving twists and turns,
something is slipping away
something is beginning
repetitions, another to depression
can this search be continued,
this artist thing--
maybe this is the end
the time to leave, quit--
CA plates on the van,
looking for a job
the old outa fashion painter,
feeling the clown
needing a change, ready to leave
spiraling from dark to light,
return to nature, the origins
of so much we think
the sun goes up, the sun comes down
searching--
for revitalization, returning cycle,
caught up in, culture copying culture
even to a tracing of a memory--
are we that distant from any tradition?
that close, to modern?
to be post-- anything?
again each year
the proportions of mock epic,
the over the hill artist
shot dead, not knowing--
keeping on
revision of romantic idea,
out of reach, abstract--
symbol, along side
narrative storied building,
toward same symboled height--
and falling once, again
in distance from nature
back, to a re-- dreaming--
a new
nature-- there culture is seeing,
but the continuing change--
all death
of moments saved
by painting them--
preserving
the wonder we face, life
a painting seen on ones last bed
the pictures whirl-- past,
fading colors through reeds
the sunflowers,
by their repetition, comic--
brown, now, tragic stripes
the bread and the wine--
toppled still-life
unrealized, blank
dark now
inner form,
emerges
the striped torso
flying,
over broken
ideal,
BEAUTY, in this cycle
that Kiefer show was the best
a real excitement
in the air, 1984, Rene was there,
we went to Roy’s after ward
never stopping a fevered chant,
looking at Fra Angelica
so authentic we thought, the other books strewn
across the floor and Julian ambition --
It was what I saw, thought I could --
the interior world figured
as Sublime
from the physically abstract, before us
yet beyond touch
but then, that other rivulet
of Corot at the museum
outside, painting the sincerity,
if there was any other the concept
was somehow there in fever,
beyond a moral of after-death
death was contained
there, the whole fear, right here!
seeing NOW, the change-- being now
he painted from outside in
we began inside, struggling out,
the inner self
is the self of outer freedom,
gazing upon a classical
ideal that must be broken,
we see the busted world
revolving to Apocalypse-- signifying nothing
all part of our creation of romantic
tattooed pose
pierced ear, depth in scarred brow
our Apocalypse now-- come
we are torn, flung in paint
pushed to recreate the surface,
of our continuing
modern art
held up, to stand in
for the lost
depth, we feared
to penetrate, was too simple
just nothing there
in that space, losing our selves
from this mythic place,
now 2001, looking old
and tattered
and the end still far and Walt--
an end for every beginning,
alone-- with others,
to use us as pawns
critics to make their worlds
each of us only a piece?
of a world? mosaic they say, pigeon holed,
in his place, playing one part only
NO, I want to play all the parts at once
spoiled child and withdrawn from the game--
idle conversation bores
great voices showing direction!
-- each in democratic depth
modern mediocrity
to be, hung revolving
all the broken pieces
in lowest common denominators
but look the sun shines on us all
of sun,
figures in leaves
blown
face
of the night
all revolving,
the planets
out the window
I’m in the library, the first snow
on the ground,
drawing, drawing, obsessive drawings
trace these drawings?
loosen the landscape of reality
or photographic fact?
experience lost to abstract head?
but what is art?
experience lost only to be saved
I write it is already gone,
but I write to get by
and the narrative
still haunts
the western story
out there, out there
my romance
and just plain painting in the landscape
no old lady’s Sunday feat,
heroic keeper of some light,
sees the Sun for the first time
fast-- colorful, POP!
short even line
no character involved,
turns to twilight,
depth and shade
lost in the reeds,
colder
sun going down
green
pop
against
oranging
sky before
last gasp
the falls
blasted tree,
rock--
out stretched arms,
”my brooken beauty”
the sea wave
continues
ripple rip
the wind blows
the clouds,
the leaves
swing low
skitter and swoosh
the paintings line up
fragment
and blown away
sand on the beach
exposing
a new idea,
morning
a line makes a shape, to color,
the ‘note’ one reaches for,
drawing at Paul’s in that old brown loft
still thinking,
I might go further
a wonder, seeing
the shapes he comes up with
beyond all of our reach,
beyond skill level
what I recognized as the supreme feat
to abstract the human shape to represent
in that shape and simplicity, the depth
of so many aspects, this is the poetry
that Greek sculpture, made a world
from the human shape
a perspective never toppled
that simple but all encompassing need
divine convention as tradition,
I draw over and over,
change ever so slowly
through the shapes of Polykleitos
Raphael to Ingres,
Manet into Picasso, but
a different world, now
must I be without? I grow tired
of the copy
this second order disconnected
from first order reality,
original
Drawing now a tracing
of what’s already there
a depth in slowing and then speeding line
another dimension beyond present
rightness of any, one, perceived reality
Achilles reaching to Blue Man
Crispin in the sun
ideal and
Crispin falling--
Charlie Bum under concrete overpass
hitching to Gallop
snuggling lost waif
tears running through
glittered cheek, “my brooken beauty”
the soul-- striped, the figure
brought forward,
in idea striped, BANG! and now
dies, Oh!
try harder the ideas, the reality sought
against the ground,
(nature) blank, space of death,
memory-- what’s broken--
a hand, spot of flesh, figure of
crooked shape, the wind
a far off, waterfall spilling
silent-- yet continuing through
blackened space
to wildflower glow of back lit sun
and narrative builds and breaks
bird of great height
west of dream, this imagination
a god flies unconcerned
power suit, joker, King
coyote warrior,
blue man mind,
artist poet
the critical, bummer queen
cool princess, corrupting force
culture’s fashion, whore
the natural nude in
sun warm, truth as nature
OUT THERE
the whole cycle
muse in sun and naked flesh
the paintings revolving
through night
returning flower
hero in the sun
fading
dream
to blank
figure striped, there holding truth
beauty in order and idea
come forward,
recognition in the sun
steps out from the ground
reaching from nature to cultural height
the repeated shapes, declare an end?
walking around
down turn
the old dark bars,
I had stepped from
that proud darkness into a braver light--
had I failed?
I’m so far from now,
looking-- for connection
they’re all gone-- one went west
should I plant the,
sunflowers?
the dirt is frozen and barren
besides it’s January,
here in the city
then after the end
beyond the land
out painting the sky, that feeling
this is it, why did I stop?
a stay against, the ongoing wind
“The red square is the heart of misery,”
I didn’t hear him-- Allen died this spring
working on the new paintings,
thinking about a figure painting
that flies-- part of the abstraction,
Tiepelo at the Metropolitan, gods with earth
and sun revolving,
Grand Style, we have Versace
fashion symbol, on the Miami scene
symbol, falls to realism and want
tumbling over and over
Can’t I see who I am by now?
why go on breaking myself
to newer shape, we want a deeper
shape, art and culture, fashion so--
sophisticated-- culture as art,
Crispin left Art
a bum for what he loves
himself an idea, the hero
in the sun shine
extreme
I want to go to the sea
take me back to the sea
a surface style
wallpaper
the surface we loved
fast, abstracted
without worrisome--
depth to shards,
to broken pieces covering the ground
ruins of the sacred truth
scattered stones
in the sun
the crumbling tower
I can’t go on
I will go on
sea wave
celebrating cycle
whisper to lightening day
Pop! in the sun, surface to inner
murmuring
the painter’s master, nature
nature as muse, nature always
death, death, death
the whisper
“I am nature”
and respectful representation,
I am dumb in front of--
the blasted fragment,
the continued story
the pieces of narrative
blue bird
red bird
pine trees and falls
arms wide spread,
Hero
falling shape
beauty’s order
to love
becoming familiar place
something made of it--
an elite love
developing, entangling
forest, Crispin remains
the cardboard image,
fallen from cycle
Buddha form to narrative
hell,
meandering
lost without depth
loving the modern,
flat confused order
of profane interest
seeking another form
to climb
