1997 Brooken Beauty Home I guess-- part 5

1997 Brooken Beauty Home I guess-- part 5






the Second Ave stop
she comes in with
the flow not noticing
me sitting beside her
“Oh Hi “

I go on immediately
about not being
very happy about being back
“yes ,
of course NY Stinks,” she says

I’m not actually looking for someone
to agree with me
this is just the way I do feel and I wish the feelings
would stop, my feelings of failure, guilt,
confusion at not being able to figure it out

it seems over
can I go on for another 40 years, “our age,” she says,
“the meetings,” “oh,” my mind just sinks,
“my studio,” I say.
I just can’t believe my whole life in that hole

and that I’ll get used to it soon is my real problem
we get used to it, all in a NY minute
getting out at Broadway/ Layfayette,
going on about the city and the country
a neurosis, certainly the country has its own problems--

and I love this city, it is my life, has been for 30 years
I feel a dizzying pressure, I want to go to sleep
this is not me, I struggle to go on, I have some money
and I’ll busy myself, I want to get through this poem
figure out what’s up and go on,

I have some threads
to go on for new paintings and I liked the work I
left last year, I’ve seen some good shows
a few good painters still going for it--

I need to get going, none of it
that great, like Titian
but then I have trouble reading Shakespeare
these good shows, always got me up
the competitive drive, I feel isolated from it

everyone protecting their little turf
I must fight through, and make that connection
always that distant air, saving me
then we do this--
movie like fade, where we see a car driving

down the lonely road
in sharp perspective
slanting light on the mountain ahead
the empty desert,
ME myself alone with thoughts

having escaped CALIFORNIA, throwing everything
into the van, really feeling as if I’m sneaking out
hung over from
talking art world, god I hate that anymore--
I get dragged into talking it all down

well, the whole world is going
that way of the mall that Soho has become,
and all the pseudo
sophistication the art mags-- fashion stuff
ha!

but still I want to be a part of, but they don’t seem
to want me--
the fiery sunset-- glimpsed
fleeing it all to start my adventure,
I ended up at a bar of tourists, me, of course the important

ARTIST
dressed in black, obviously lost-- wild
in thought and deed, I made a
sappy painting of the view the front yard
the Big Sur

where Jack Kerouac groped from the highway
up the creek bed, drunk and crazed
search for soul wearing thin by this time
in alcoholic hero, tired of this?

what about me? none of this is going to get me
on GOOD MORNING AMERICA
the confession, the spots of flesh,
destruction, in drugs, sex the rock and roll
adds a dimension

the dark rumbling,
I remain lost in, but to believe--
is to crawl out of the deep to a shallow hope
is to look up, the grimy light-- these directions of up
and out, have stung me

Yes, still a faint-- Yes, like when
I watched the ants, this summer their
fantastic purpose
carrying that grasshopper
under ground

to some amazing use
unknown
and the direction it pointed
to in a larger scheme
Yes, and the idea of a farm

watching things grow
and being the caretaker for it
if all else failed--
Yes, like Crispin as the namesake of Candide--
the garden--

I thought some how, and it has
well, it was a bad start, I think maybe
this “new realism,” where I could make
an inroad again
catch a new wave,

it’s where I come from
but now I am so very far away,
that realism seeming profane
my work a monument
of where I WENT FROM THERE

painting the models,
the nude in the landscape,
the wonder of SHE standing there,
the curve-- negative spaces, the height
defined by line-- to shape,

this was Art personified
the fashion photo
beyond critical deconstruction
J. Crew model, from head to foot
Alex Katz type, I thought,

soft cotton, plaid colors
that was easy
in wool stocking feet relaxed
that was easy, and now I’m elsewhere --
what is lurking behind,

hidden desire, behind that smile
want-- to power over that nude
plain beauty in nature,
could we love that easily?
God, and then the idea the horizon presented

and-- GOD that collective word meaning--?
meaning what ever might be that illusion that,
there is some “personal” force making things
better or worse for us??? I keep thinking
I’m cutting myself

with that big kitchen knife
when my mental state sinks, then I feel like I’m
being
well-- fucked, by this landlord that thinks GOD
is some Rabbi-- Lubbavitch--er

who is telling us to get ready for the end, hmmmm
heard that somewhere before, well, here is the political
part following the spirit-- MY RENT GOES TO ISRAEL
Oh how very religious!
So of course, I want a drink, to fight

Oh yea, I feel good most of the time
I can get out there
-- excited height
looking around out there winding down
from amazing height

I’m writing this poem
it’s all a wasteland, still
I work up to some froth and frenzy
I start, a search
through glass mountains

I’m not persuaded to look for beauty
--order
I’m headed to Vegas, on a destructive bend
watching along the barren road
gambling is for losers

second chance, selling it all, for yet another
chance unseen
I’m feeling sad driving,
the mountain is very cold,
somehow made a nice hike

among the butterflies and flowers
I kept on though roads
even an evil mind could see
the amazing beauty
blue mountain, golden hills

winding road
hurtling through spaces
windows down
wind through hair
remembering

the road in winter
full moon over the Sierras as Orion overhead
turning, this is what my, ‘soul says ‘
yes, I can see the problem-- my expectant soul
wide open, I thought I’d never feel this again

but my wound is great and only peak moments
transport, to suffice
the heat builds and flat roads lead to trucks
and vacationers , passing through
“We’re not from here, we just live here,”

hot heat shimmer, a little too hot,
I’ll climb in altitude
to adjust and camp for the night
sun setting behind Sierras
through rain never reaching the earth,

rainbows appear
another curtain like cloud is wrapped
and peaking through, campfire blaze,
aghast at black jagged silhouette
of elemental granite ascending,

I’m up early
and passing through, winding through pass
and there is some slight green--
valley on a beautiful day
so lucky to be here

remembering the Christmas tree on Route 395
feeling
of home I guess, and looking back
on the Sierras in blue snow, cold December night
trying to make it back to dinner, back into the Nevada hills

lonely good-bye, no return,
magnet of Vegas star
drawing me along, into darkness and,
anxious profanity
a hitchhiker, nowhere

speeding past
the boarded up whore houses
on empty road
cinema fashion model, fallen
on broken heel
this lone drive into self

far from surface
in Indian designed smoky ceiling
this finger paints
a lonely soul
swimming

dragging this tangled poem
through simple words
un-tangling
in the flood
of water falling

deafening roar
words crash
the city coming in on me
hears nothing
as he sings


mad in the glen
Buddha stone
left behind
a line stretching across desert floor
that dot, me

hot jaded mountains
behind
hidden waste of nuclear
experiment--detritus
the word for trash

tumbling through towns
like Alamagosa and Mercury, thunder
storms mounting, the sky hurling
lightening through this intense scene,
from California suburb,

to the extreme of desert
to meet my distant city self
Vegas pace quickens as I join rush hour
trying to find a place to shower
I’m a bum, I guess

the KOA says no
I’m a transient and turned away, the cities prickly
welcome, women up from jangling jackpots,
bells and whistles
lights flashing quest of artificial arrival,

I’m ready for a fucking battle
I hate it here but adjusting, to the adrenaline now
and loving
the hate, the heat my sticky hair sunburned skin
I’ll match what I hate in myself to it

Circus Circus

Oh how I wish
for the God I deny
Blue Heaven Hotel
Blue Angel
the angel’s halo

and a fairy’s wand
stripped bare
of all illusion
cynic black humor
this is timely, money is GOD

here, what’s left to you
and creating out of this
mess -- beauty?
here his death is enacted as spectacle
this winter mind,

brooken beauty
of the decreated
this is my world, I’m born to it
man’s judgment
is the resolution, something is slipping away

the final
end, dark glittering light of nothing

Las Vegas Thrift, another Second chance

the thrift store’s air conditioned nightmare, here are all
the flannel shirts we don’t wear anymore, shoes others walked in , the children’s things all grown out of,
Herb Albert’s Whipped Cream LP, thrown out, onto pile of little girl’s dresses, the colors of red and yellow

and blue, that unicorn, teddy bear, DOG,
turquoise hippopotamus
fiery dragons and innocence of tiny girls, lost from their stories
tossed together
some on the floor over flowing, who’s that clown?
laid away, color pretty fresh-- only slightly soiled


that musty smell
everything has, the book’s pages underlined
highlighted in another’s epiphany, I bought, the same things
believing in them,
the ideas all shelved

here for resale, another time around,
games of life shoved in between Risk-- Parcheesi, over there is, Goofy-- clocks and telephones,
ticking out the quality of the differing lives, one more time
around, carousel of life--the gold rings,

reflected in plastic mirror, star glasses, shielding glare,
a wire rimmed pair of finest craftsmanship,
Christmas already over again and, there
between Mickey and Honey Poo this Eight Ball
that is undecided of future

shelves and shelves of cheap glasses for high ball martini
never smashed
against walls used once more left behind
in trailer park decor fake flowers
every where, nice and cool, yes

Cat Stevens on the brown wood grained sound system,
lime green and frosty orange so very tasteful
“some things never change”,
nice and cool, the dream, we shop together, plodding
along in hospital slippers,

No Smoking
passing time in the aisle,

I’m at the end around the corner
and must go on out
through the glass door into the heat
across the freeway, through the cars
brand new shimmering, cool aired and fast

for once in my life I’d rather--
I have not lingered in my life
the little girls back inside,
standing in a shopping cart looking
like velvet big eye paintings-- watching

cartoons on slightly colored,
TV with no sound, giggling back and forth,
from one to another, the Price is Right Bob Barker, the pervert Oz man
Wizard, Bozo

eager of that thrift shop, pink fuzzy dream winning, the magic number of reality only slightly tinged in greenish cast of black and white realities, cheap and degraded
on daytime TV
the smell of perfume, of fleeing dream

the cigarette burning down
in the overflowing ashtray, look even the language
of this all is new and lively
and the chance, big percent
out of the tinted window

the same beating sun
10 percent chance of rain
little relief
big thunder clouds rising
sunglassed women chatting

in stripper’s clothes, the clouds threatening and
do nothing,
love me, give me, I want
a woman wheeling around
in a chair though the parking lot

the unforgiving sun overhead,
no second chance
she’s on her 10th or 11th, he’s complaining its too hot
to sleep in the car, people coming here die
the second mortuary I pass,

a department store like place
the gag toy, another naked doll, reflecting
the flickering light show
neon and strobe, flesh bounced in mirrors,
eternal Palm in the glowing sky

flashing flashing, fish net stockings,
crash down stairs, boobs, twirl and a curve
what I’m trying to evade
before being fleeced, of myself
the airplane is landing,

the guilded gold lit runways
slot machines whir whir, and clang, lights receding
speeding through, and ahead new adventures
something unexpected, by now I’ve described the sky,
the mountain, rock and brush,

the desert scene passing
a blur out the window
but here Monument Valley--
take a moment, under this crystalline sky
you have never seen

such original sight
the red rock and blue sky, yellow flower
held up
Indian flavor
so new? or so very old,

neck relaxing, forgotten anxieties
of travel and in suspension, in the entertaining
ever-changing scene
brilliant light edged candy dotted hills
sinking into dark, the night sky and again I am faced

with the dying into emotion,
of letting go into that space
would anyone want to be here,
there, is nothing here?
I want to go home,

a death wish?
a feeling so very sweet, with the wind on my face
want that death should be this
so very easy and inviting--
but no this is life and the struggle is

delicious, this angst
describing the depth, of love
the grasp it has, feeling drugged
feeling apart from-- in all this self consciousness
and going on

the urge, the act of continuing
the unconscious
being, a part of, dissolved into, a feeling of rude--
awakening
into reality

of sublime
unity with
what is beyond
final merging
to one swirl
of star light
the whole cycle
at once
the stripes
of seasons
twirling
Sufi like
part of--

the Indian flute reaching the far distance
creeping into my soul, feeling as though I lived there
Big deal, some landscapes I made--
on vacation-- what do I care? there is a pile of them on the shelf lined up in a calendar sequence

the silence, resisting the silence
giving in to it, all right, maybe, you won’t disappear,
if I did its all right, no flowers to water,
no dog to feed, kids, the paintings--
I WAS WATERING THE PLANTS

and soon I knew each one
how much water they needed
me and soon I needed them
bought more seed, watching through season
the goldfinches arriving

silent, through the window,
the hummingbirds gone
watching flocks of Pinon jays
arriving, and magpies group,
Oh, there the goldfinches

once more today perched
swinging, the upside down pecking antics-
off in a flock-- and swoop
walking off into the hills,
I wanted to climb that mountain

then realized as I got closer,
its triangular peak, became many ridges,
a long way to the top
I painted the clouds overhead
and the light patches

changing fast,
I started out early eager
to paint
all day waiting for the clouds
to pile up and then as I would paint

predictably each day
a thunderstorm, the lightening here,
rainbow there,
me in between
painting the drama

360 degree scene of the Ghost Ranch
and Butte, the Cerro Pedernal and Piedra Lumbre
leading north the Chama River
in chamisa plain, pinyon and pine
dotting red dirt and arroyo dug out

giving foreground space
the Pedernal rising, bluest blue cerulean
against a slate gray cloud
and the chamisa yellow
the dirt sienna road into the distance

leading to the space
of the hogan, reminding me of my youth
pretending aborigine
beginnings in snow lodge, Klondike Derby
the cold pine air

snow’s silence carrying me away
even at that young age
into the stars, the Indian spirits we fancied
excited in the atoms
of our fingers whorl, Indian spirits

the chinle
haunta virus--
this hot desert element
has closed the hogan to visitors abandoned--
old road winding along

Chama--alone winding down
an Asian guy with a knapsack
ignored my looks, I didn’t pry and passed slowly,
my own impromptu pilgrimage,
winding along new road of unfolding

landscape to river and cliffs hidden to most
a paradise of birds following along
in roadside bushes
watching , for places to paint , I’d come back to
all too good to stop now

as I turned to get back, I watched
the thickening clouds
unaware of a storm
pouring around the bend
the mesa’s red dirt

turned to slippery clay
and sliding into gutter
and pushing and pulling, myself back out, passing
on the single rutted road,
bumping and swerving

up gravel and--
final bump up
onto highway
and fast approaching dark
clouds hiding the last light

that satisfied feeling
of doing this day after day after day
painting every thing my eyes meet
twitching with weary excitement
drifting into calm

a story of the different places
unbroken
the Pedernal storm, the lightening
and the road up curving around
onto the ranch, and surrounding view

the mesa’s rainbow, the shiprock of O’Keeffe
“place”
behind, seen through
darkening pinyon-- pine
forms to capture

in the ever-changing light
to live here is to believe
it is really true, beautiful, seeing the order,
from the urban perspective
it’s a ‘surface’ among lots of ‘places,’

the wallpaper motif!
do I want to give up what is necessary
to die, to slow--
MY love? the mystery beyond, of
being there, watching, the change

be part of, dying into
woven into climbing cloud, blue hill
piled up changing light
on dotted pinyon pines, in red earth
yellow chamisa, the gray verte sage

It seemed the first day of Autumn,
falling from height
to dream of passion sadness of a morning after,
keeping company with the wind
the quaking aspen,

reflections in the glass
the mind going over--
motions of searching bodies
mixing time with the bells
something reminding

the strewn poem, in the wind
intermixes into a complexity
and mystery
and style
of going about

it all, the ants marching on
carrying the
‘hopper high aloft--
through hail stone storm and festival of summer end
can not go back to fix anything

summer fades, autumn onset
the many paintings missed,
that Sunflower’s bloom,
finch bobbing
in the wind, the toads gone,

bunny hopping along
pausing, the ancient fear in its eye
watching, I get up to make some lunch
in the silent house, the warm sun
across the table

looking out on the changing light
cloudy amphitheater of yard,
the flowers turning,
the magpie’s sawlike voices
announcing themselves,

I try to own it
decorating my head
with the revolving orders,
these cut out shapes
of cloud and hill and bush

a wreathe
of golden
flowers
feeling
the whole
once again
and
journey’s end

letting go
and satisfied

the moment

tired from the day, searching for dinner
getting cold, the sun is down
the garden
tradition, keeping things up
tidying a bit, preserving a subtle height

for you, as you arrive,
in freedom of dream
destination to classic shape
arrival of modern crown
diamond regality, certainty?

the Cinderella hope,
clinking champagne glasses
evenings dream,
the palace at 3 am
painting the last of summer’s sunflowers

take me away, to the other .
another drug against the anxiety
of that same mystery
we drink to good times, we drink to bad times
“the darker the old era appears

the brighter the New Age”
the chalice itself!
Bird, Flower, Hero!
stepping over the blue
mountains, in distance, sneakers and spirit flying

tipping hero’s hat in greeting--
calling to come along, share
the wealth of this poverty
through the scene, in that old radio voice of Pollock
“ the artist of today masters the forms of--

expressionism
realism
formalism
world maker
all at once-- a style

of many, in one --revolving
flung to that wide
curve of horizon
rising o’er the land
cycle of reality, man’s truth

is many and one

I write the far away
romantic escape, this brave new world,
close up and bang, to temper
subway clang,
the sleeping sad person

driven from home,
out of mind, bags of worthless possessions,
schizophrenic need,
dragging along the want
the wide cure,

THE PEDERNAL BLUE
MARES TAIL AND ANGEL’S WING,
swoosh-- through sky
the empty bottle, clinks
as it rolls off the porch--

rambling into
the years 2000
sunset sky
over again
and again

on to the future
drunken saint
talking to myself
what I was trying
to tell you.


April 1997, New York City

June 2000, Abiquiu, NM

April 2001, New York City