All Those Ghosts
All those ghosts have come
and gone again
they took a taxi
took a train.
Just some city somewhere
with someone in it
Just some cowboy
bent over bullets
welcome home
fire of pain
Just some Indian
got it in the back
speaking to Wakan Tanka
keep company with smiling wounded
inhale the wafts
of perennial flowers
roots all washed in sour blood
Just some sidewalk
like a list of names
those ghosts have
come and gone again
My friend is a blank book
looking back blankly
Ain't no sugar
no need to wash the spoon
sugar in your hand
rose of dolor in your mouth
Just some lesson
to be unlearned again
just some soul
on the knife of rain
Just the wind
blowing through a screen door
let it blow!
picking up dead leaves
and laying them down
in their brittle veins.
The wind is gone
the eye remains.
Clear thick window
man standing
Just some raven on the wing
just another dollar bill
another five, another ten
all those ghosts
have come and gone again
Just some singer
radio, sing me in this room
a sky of stars of sand of flame
another ticket for another train
just another star and cactus
vision in the street lamps
sad bags of letters sent
without addresses
singing on the cool whistle
when the train has gone
Just some clumsy boy
with a string tie
salvation army suitcase
waiting
just another lifetime
just another horizon
laughing.
Valley View Manor
80,000 cars a day thunder, pound
wrest in their furiousness
from the beaten tar a pallid miasma
of weary dust that rises
swirls with noxious fumes
mingles with the clouds
to fall and settle on the houses' roofs
where babies are awakening
to yell with lust in the houses of life.
Amid these tabernacles of flowering domesticity
hard by the freeway
under the dusted roof of Valley View Manor
whose blond bricks are shaken
by the adjacent stampede for lucre,
for advancement, for survival
everybody hanging on,
there dwell those souls flesh shocked;
preparing to shuck the weary flesh,
they turn from death's threshold
to gaze at long life's kaleidoscope.
A thin hand upraised by white curtains!
They to whom some sentience remains
gather daily about their special table
and glean what levity they might
from memory, shared misery,
and caring still shining in dull,
encroaching night.
They fence with life's horrors
with the foils of humor
in the same manner as people everywhere
all times, from the playground on.
And all around their tiny island, Lord
the fog of death floats above
the sea of oblivion, obscuring it.
The return is imminent.
The unravelling is at hand.
Are these then the councils of the wise,
where youth hears not the words of age?
Sequestered, cloistered,
they lose their psychic edge.
Treated like helpless children,
helpless children they become.
Their keepers, heavy-lidded, legs hall-weary
deny them ice cream.
80,000 cars a day!
May there be a just man in one of them!
A thin hand upraised by white curtains. . .
Let us Continue
Let us continue
our incredible dance
let us live madly
and love
and never cease
to wring joy
from the plummeting earth
with our pounding feet.
Even now
amid carrion screams,
the black-wheeled coming wagons
and the remote ice voices
of clear intent,
let us sing.
Now loudly, now softly
the maddest,
the most joyous
the most
ancient songs,
and let us continue our dance
and let us
never cease.
Streets of America
I.
We finger with delicacy
the streets of America
after the motorists have driven through
on their way to somewhere else,
something else.
We allow them their dreams,
content with small, allocated parts
in their furtherance:
someone passed on a street corner
who remains to number
the dry sticks of few choices.
The trashpicker never takes a day off;
out in the blizzard
or cutting through sleet like a ghost.
Now the sun lays its feverish blanket
over stillborn dreams and songs
and it's all the same clacking metronome
of empty mailboxes and just a few eggs.
We are the jugglers of days
and small hopes
and we finger with delicacy
the streets of America.
Into our eyes is beaten and forged
a certain patience. This only
you may see and mark strangely:
the gaze from front steps
or from behind blind windows
pierces the transparency
of yesterday and tomorrow.
You cannot read our eyes.
II.
Now in the cool evening
the machine has shifted
to its night frequency.
Motorists have passed through
arterial streets
and left them cooly humming.
They're esconced in slots
of consensual making:
alarm clocks set
for a riot of repitition.
Those who remain at the fringe
in the center
casually drink the colors
of evening
and are come into their own
for what it is worth.
The whore or maiden of night
settles with a sigh
on a creaking divan,
hardly daring to lust after dreams:
a nocturne dimly sounded
like a slender abeyance.
III.
The twilight takes hours to pass
so subtle the flow of its change.
The city's hum grown softer now,
few cars pass on Grant street.
Only the sparse heel
of an occasional walker
can be heard.
The cries of children sound far off,
diminish.
The statue of the Virgin
in the convent niche
raises palms through wrought iron.
Her hands are white
with the blood of the moon.
Los Ricos Y Los Pobres
Los ricos tienen mucho,
Los pobres tienen poco.
Los ricos son pocos.
Los pobres son muchos.
Misfit Cafe
In the little cafe
on dusty old South Broadway,
I join the other misfits for breakfast:
the old man with broken shoes
reading tomes on the history of the world,
the woman who rides up and down the street
on the trike (the one with the basket and umbrella),
the guys who don't have to be at the office, ever,
the women who don't belong to anybody.
Outside, the world roars by,
afraid of being late,
but I can relax in the peacefulness of this place,
and its feeling of timelessness.
This is the America I love,
where with dedication, and a little orginality,
you can still lose on your own terms.
Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!
If yer talkin' travelin'
around in the bars
or out in the street,
you got yer derringers of course
but check this out.
It's small and light
.22 magnum, nasty bite.
Bad thing is it jumps
you got to bring it down
or use two hands
to keep it in line,
but it carries four rounds
like I say.
Two shots ain't enough.
You can't think in terms
of one assailant, man,
you got to think in terms of two.
Two shots yer lucky to take one out
and wing the other
and if the one who is wounded
is also armed
then to have wounded him
will not have been enough.
That's why this baby is nice.
It's concealable. .
good gun
for a lady. . .
Now a man,
especially in winter
when he wears a big coat,
wants something up under it
a little more substantial,
say a snub nose .38.
Some file off the spur
of their double action
so the hammer
won't get caught
in the coat.
You don't need to pull the hammer,
just the trigger.
Automatics are flatter
quicker, carry more rounds
but there's always the chance
that they'll jam.
Not likely if they're clean. . .
still, always a chance.
To secure the old home front, now. . .
you got yer .357s yer .44 mags
heavy duty hand artillery
hit a guy anywhere
he's out of commission, at least.
But we're talkin' home protection, guy
let's not fuck around . .
We're talking' shotgun
automatic. . . short barrel
for a shorter arc.
Shift yer weight
to the right foot
like a boxer slipping a cross
and just squeeze
and keep squeezing
spinning as you fire
in the general direction
that's all you gotta do!
Yer dealin' death now, brother,
ain't nothing left
but for the mop
and the bucket.
A Little Healthy Competition
After the enemy is beaten
you can see
he's just another guy,
more or less
like you,
uncomfortably enough. . . ,
As he packs it in, he looks weaker,
smaller and vulnerable in a way
that makes you want to touch him
somehow. . .
which his game face, retreating,
would never permit, so
the protest is registered
and remains silent
in the throat
as usual. . .
Later, dully, you ponder
how even victory leaves
a hole in the heart.
Inevitable, it would seem,
in a world where one is always free
to choose compassion, yet
even when within arm's reach at times,
can no more change another's path
than, by throwing a rock in the water,
move the course of a river.
A Little Healthy Competition
After the enemy is beaten
you can see
he's just another guy,
more or less
like you,
uncomfortably enough. . . ,
As he packs it in, he looks weaker,
smaller and vulnerable in a way
that makes you want to touch him
somehow. . .
which his game face, retreating,
would never permit, so
the protest is registered
and remains silent
in the throat
as usual. . .
Later, dully, you ponder
how even victory leaves
a hole in the heart.
Inevitable, it would seem,
in a world where one is always free
to choose compassion, yet
even when within arm's reach at times,
can no more change another's path
than, by throwing a rock in the water,
move the course of a river.
This Train
I hear that slow freight train
rumbling in the night
destination certain as the rails
engine: inevitability
its whistle my marrow scream.
The train runs from Colorado to California
Mexico Washington Idaho
This train's runnin' in the dark
this train's runnin' late
slowed by the heavy freight
above the rods of time past.
This train carries Ireland dreaming,
the round sun of Spain rides this train.
These wheels drive sparks like stars:
no fire no warmth cold night.
This train eats its track
this train carries eyes of hopeless love
closets full of useless clothes
bodies packed with muted souls
this train carries whores of gossamer
imaginary lovers of steel
this train carries phantoms to ultimate
unraveling
this train carries dreams denied
cars of my needs bones bleached and broken.
The train dreams itself
This train runs one way only
This train this train
this train
goes nowhere, really.
Mad Malloy #1
In the bathroom late at night
interrogating myself
under phosphorescent light
I was caught by a spider walking up the air
and it seemed that all
the truth in the world were there,
for another's empty form
swung from an invisible strand
while a third awaited close at hand.
Time! spoke the spider
and I went out,
my skull ringing in the magic time of night.
And time, creaked the snow
in the night's empty streets laid shrill
by the cop's first gear growl.
And time, spoke the drink-crippled Indians
crossing streets unsteadily
with bags of white bread.
Time, spoke in unison by the grey heads
floating above the bar's plane
in their miasma of age and drunkenness.
And thus sang the young also:
the oglers and the splutterers,
the squirters in the Big Con void,
the diers in the neon dreams.
Pell-mell, like iguanas over the falls
in all their colors
rushing and dancing down to darkness,
they go.
Thus the noiseless metronome intoned,
and so sang my heart
settling its seed in the dust.
And thus rang my mind,
leaping from lace to lace
configuration.
And so sounded the dark beat
of the heart's wings in the purple light
even as promises unfurled.
And so spoke the smiles and oranges
so I wrote poems on wings of butterflies.
If I Knock at the Door of Your Heart
If I knock at the door of your heart
it's because I've stood in the wind
and the wind blows darkly, dear lady,
full of snakes, dismembered limbs
and blackened teeth; please let me in.
If I pry at the lock
on the chains of your arms
it's because I've stood by the sea
in the night while the angry sea curled
and the sullen froth crushed
the bloated dreams of men on the sands.
Undo the lock of your arms
and give me your hands.
When in the shrouded night
of swirling dark forms I knock
at the door of your heart,
rise, light a lamp, let me in soon.
I've come from the road in the forest
where the trees hold strange fruits
in the light of the moon.
The Workman's Song
We live in a zoo world, my friends,
and the keepers will have you walk on all fours
like a pig or a dog to prove you're a man.
They themselves are vipers,
they do not understand.
Cajoleries, banalities, insincerities
drip from one fang
while imprecations form on the other.
Would you fly like a bird
in a sky whose color you choose?
Fly swiftly, brother, sister,
their guns are aimed at the sky.
Would you have wings pour out of your mouth?
Would you dance your brains to flames of flowers?
They will shackle your wrists to wheels
whose turnings are hours
and your days will descend
one upon the other
like hammer blows.
No wonder Nietzsche went mad.
I tell you, the same man
is beating the same horse
in the same street in the same way
everyday
all over the world.
You know this,
and I know this:
The world itself is balled into a fist
shaking itself at the heavens!
It is no great matter,
the heavens answer.
Stasho in the Station
In the heat of a summer Sunday afternoon,
hot and sultry after mass
the family went in totem
to a carnival of priests.
And there moved slow footed, dreamlike
through the yellow shafts of light and dust
among the many booths, the strange raiment
of the diverse priestly orders
following and followed by other families
slow moving,
speaking and reading slick brochures.
And with these seeds engendered
it so happened in the sudden resplendent autumn
that my brother stood forth among the family
and announced that he would be a priest.
His soul had been fished and he would be a fisher,
saving the heathen in distant lands.
Elated, vibrating with pride and excitement,
Mom bought him a fine trunk.
And into this trunk
went his sad clothes of youth
and everything that he would need
for his journey
and his long stay
away from home.
And one day quite soon
with the grass still green
under the gold and brown leaves
and the clouds white
in the blue sky,
we lifted the trunk high
onto our shoulders
and down the stairs transported it
to the car's roof
where we lifted and laid it
and with strong rope tied it
with the other, smaller bags beside it.
And with all secure
and everyone in the car,
the old man turned his eye and his pipe
over his shoulder
and backed into the street,
and we set out on our strange pilgrimage,
uncomprehending.
Of that long ride, little I remember
only the vast spaces
and the thick, sullen necks
bearing bovine faces that slowly turned
to gape at our entourage in dim cafes;
and the rising smell of the earth
as we descended to the east.
But our arrival leapt into quick vividness
and I recall the verdancy of that place
and the riots of its trees.
And I recall also the quiet, robed men
and the strange boys gliding or chattering
among the ponderous buildings of onerous stone.
These were to be his mentors and companions
and there we left him.
And on our return Mom tried
to keep up our spirits
but Dad was red-rimmed and tight-lipped
and spoke little.
And I, too, stung
by the separation from my comrade
and brother wept quietly and to myself at one point
and out through the windows
into the pounding of the purple plains
in vast night
my grief choked to the surface
and took silent flight.
And once home it was strange
after the journey
everything subtly altered,
with the old man still moping,
the food in the refrigerator looking different,
the basketball hollow sounding
on the driveway court.
In the room next to mine
was a neatly made bed
where now no one slept.
His statues of horses, tasteless,
which once I detested,
I now loved.
But soon, in three days
the phone rang: It was Stasho!
Stasho in the station!
A perfect young warrior of fourteen years,
he had rectified his error
and struck out in the night
on a train through the strangeness
of Missouri and Kansas alone!
And now he was in the station
and Mom darted all about in franticness
from pillar to pillar seeking him
but not seeing him.
But he saw her from where he stood
silent and cool with self-possession
by the tall columns of the station.
And then he was home
and we wasted no time rushing out
and the sidewalk greeted our feet
in joyful familiarity
for the old neighborhood in those days
was like paradise.
But everything was somehow changed,
not quite the same, perhaps better,
but changed,
for though we knew time but little,
we knew it now a little more.
The Butterfly
He did not seem to hear
when the others teased him
about his socks or his pants
he was just
gone
down the alley
and didn't seem to see
the hollyhocks sway under
the bees or the neighborhood apples
coming ripe, but only
the butterflies
for which he quested with
his net and
searching eyes.
And yes,
he fixed them wriggling
but in a solitude that seemed
to transfix them, these
transient ephemerals,
into permanence and the essence
of the beauty they could represent
only temporarily in life so brief.
They came to be their own symbols
under his hand, in holy sacrament.
One day, when autumn had come
and the butterflies no longer
blessed the streets
and alleys with their lightness and their grace,
they boy was walking to school when he noticed
the largest, most beautiful butterfly
he had ever seen.
It had, of course, not survived the season,
but had left its perfect form
in the auto repair shop
trapped between a pane of grimy glass
and a can of cleaning solvent.
The boy was too timid to approach
the tall forbidding men inside
to ask if he might take away
the beautiful thing in their dim territory,
of which they were so obviously unaware.
Each day he passed it
once on the way to school
and again on the way home.
But each day failed to bring
the courage
he needed to match his desire
to its acquisition.
The boy asked his parents to approach
the mechanics, but they refused.
They said that if he wanted the prize,
he must be willing to take the risk.
And one chilly morning, the boy decided
he would do it. He gazed at the butterfly
for a long moment, then rounded the corner.
Two men stood outside
on the grease-stained concrete,
talking and laughing in their dirty, dark overalls.
One turned his head to spit
a great gob of black tobacco
and saw this boy standing there
just looking up at him.
What the hell did he want?
Their eyes met for the briefest second,
and the boy was sent whirling
down the street like a dry leaf
in the cold, stiff breeze of autumn --
in that wind that blows the leaves
to dust down the chill corridors of days
that turn to weeks that turn to months
and years, that changes everything
into something else,
everything
except
that
one perfect
most beautiful
butterfly
that flies
behind the
glass
forever.
Reason to Be
How came I here?
To stop and ask the question
is to be washed up
on the present moment
like a castaway --
with all before
too tumultuous for tales
to be believed.
ahead: all new
and this at any given time
So many friends
and mentors have not made it
to this pass --
remembering them reminds me
that no act of love
is ever wasted
To love, to create,
to fight to be free of fear
I knew,
yet to act with compassion
was long in coming
life at times
was a cold cliff face
at others, fields of flowers
I floated through
indeed, I am rich
with both suffering and joy
and as for reason to be,
I have found none not to
The Task
the task now:
to accept the burden
as the way
to become lighter
to become like a feather
to bless the labor given,
it is the door
to welcome the darkness
in which one can finally see
to seek only to learn
and teach thereby
to trim the warrior's fire
to glow of love
so that to this
all beings, flowering,
may turn.
And so the skills he hones
are quiet and within.
Knowing now the world is golden light,
he sits in a chair by the window,
and lets it flow into his lap.
Chrysalis
There are those
among us who wait
with impatience
for the world
to begin.
They feel buried already
with ubiquitous artifacts
and a few quaint cosmologies
some of them surfaced and windblown
bare bones to the sun.
They have waited
but the world has not begun,
nor will it begin
instead is daily deferred
& cannot.
Barely emerging, we turn
and retire
part way within
small gods
and ideas of self
to create
in furious alchemy
to worship, to fear
and to bind.
A face worn by a man
must be worn by a nation,
in our great numbers
each of us small and alone.
On the long bridge
from matter to spirit
from ape to god
from one person to another
all behind is destroyed
all ahead is uncertain.
Might as well step up and claim
the mantle of our angelhood now:
In a primitive century,
it's the whole house of cards.
The Skinny, Crazy Kid
He was a skinny, crazy kid
so skinny he could crawl
up into the ice machine and send
the big blocks sliding down the chute
to his friends on their way to a party.
He was a very skinny kid
so skinny he fit through the vent
on the boss’s door
and copped the bottle of whiskey on his desk.
He was a wild boy.
He drank too much
and drove like a maniac
walking away cheerfully
from cars spun off straightaways
and rolled on curves.
He was a lucky kid, too, ya gotta say
He was a scrappy, skinny kid.
He didn’t want you to think that
just because he was a little guy
he couldn’t kick your ass or
give it a real good try.
But, too, he was a sensitive and dreamy kid
who looked at orange sunsets
and heard baroque trumpets in his head.
who read Leaves of Grass
on his basement bed.
and dashed into the alley where his buddies
worked on their cars, to read his latest poems to them.
They lifted their heads from under the hood,
they really didn’t know what to make of him.
He stepped out into the world
like the fool over the cliff
smiling and with a sunny nature.
He loved music and danced as if
his head were in flames.
He stuck his thumb into the night and the day,
open to everyone and everything
He was terribly romantic and loved
the idea of love
He burned through decades:
Catholic school, the neighborhood, the dirty avenue
war, bars, streets,
islands and coast
desert, mountaintops and cities strung
like strange, dark pearls
on the night’s black highway.
He lay down to sleep by the river
and let the voices in the river sing
him to sleep.
He stared at the stars until he became the stars.
He followed the track laid down by Kerouac
he rolled down the road of Rimbaud
Before a strong woman brought the earth to him
and set it firmly under his feet.
As long in coming as that was
It was still a long time ago.
He’s an old man, now
looking out the window
with the same crooked grin
at the sunlight on the leaf,
the drifting cloud
He takes it all in.
He knows you don’t go down this road
without breaking a few hearts,
but clumsily or not it was love,
love that he was spreading after all
and so his own heart is full.
He is in no hurry, anymore.
He will step into death
the way he stepped into life.
and it’s cool with him
whether or not
the universe spins around
and spits him out,
a skinny, crazy kid again.
All those ghosts have come
and gone again
they took a taxi
took a train.
Just some city somewhere
with someone in it
Just some cowboy
bent over bullets
welcome home
fire of pain
Just some Indian
got it in the back
speaking to Wakan Tanka
keep company with smiling wounded
inhale the wafts
of perennial flowers
roots all washed in sour blood
Just some sidewalk
like a list of names
those ghosts have
come and gone again
My friend is a blank book
looking back blankly
Ain't no sugar
no need to wash the spoon
sugar in your hand
rose of dolor in your mouth
Just some lesson
to be unlearned again
just some soul
on the knife of rain
Just the wind
blowing through a screen door
let it blow!
picking up dead leaves
and laying them down
in their brittle veins.
The wind is gone
the eye remains.
Clear thick window
man standing
Just some raven on the wing
just another dollar bill
another five, another ten
all those ghosts
have come and gone again
Just some singer
radio, sing me in this room
a sky of stars of sand of flame
another ticket for another train
just another star and cactus
vision in the street lamps
sad bags of letters sent
without addresses
singing on the cool whistle
when the train has gone
Just some clumsy boy
with a string tie
salvation army suitcase
waiting
just another lifetime
just another horizon
laughing.
Valley View Manor
80,000 cars a day thunder, pound
wrest in their furiousness
from the beaten tar a pallid miasma
of weary dust that rises
swirls with noxious fumes
mingles with the clouds
to fall and settle on the houses' roofs
where babies are awakening
to yell with lust in the houses of life.
Amid these tabernacles of flowering domesticity
hard by the freeway
under the dusted roof of Valley View Manor
whose blond bricks are shaken
by the adjacent stampede for lucre,
for advancement, for survival
everybody hanging on,
there dwell those souls flesh shocked;
preparing to shuck the weary flesh,
they turn from death's threshold
to gaze at long life's kaleidoscope.
A thin hand upraised by white curtains!
They to whom some sentience remains
gather daily about their special table
and glean what levity they might
from memory, shared misery,
and caring still shining in dull,
encroaching night.
They fence with life's horrors
with the foils of humor
in the same manner as people everywhere
all times, from the playground on.
And all around their tiny island, Lord
the fog of death floats above
the sea of oblivion, obscuring it.
The return is imminent.
The unravelling is at hand.
Are these then the councils of the wise,
where youth hears not the words of age?
Sequestered, cloistered,
they lose their psychic edge.
Treated like helpless children,
helpless children they become.
Their keepers, heavy-lidded, legs hall-weary
deny them ice cream.
80,000 cars a day!
May there be a just man in one of them!
A thin hand upraised by white curtains. . .
Let us Continue
Let us continue
our incredible dance
let us live madly
and love
and never cease
to wring joy
from the plummeting earth
with our pounding feet.
Even now
amid carrion screams,
the black-wheeled coming wagons
and the remote ice voices
of clear intent,
let us sing.
Now loudly, now softly
the maddest,
the most joyous
the most
ancient songs,
and let us continue our dance
and let us
never cease.
Streets of America
I.
We finger with delicacy
the streets of America
after the motorists have driven through
on their way to somewhere else,
something else.
We allow them their dreams,
content with small, allocated parts
in their furtherance:
someone passed on a street corner
who remains to number
the dry sticks of few choices.
The trashpicker never takes a day off;
out in the blizzard
or cutting through sleet like a ghost.
Now the sun lays its feverish blanket
over stillborn dreams and songs
and it's all the same clacking metronome
of empty mailboxes and just a few eggs.
We are the jugglers of days
and small hopes
and we finger with delicacy
the streets of America.
Into our eyes is beaten and forged
a certain patience. This only
you may see and mark strangely:
the gaze from front steps
or from behind blind windows
pierces the transparency
of yesterday and tomorrow.
You cannot read our eyes.
II.
Now in the cool evening
the machine has shifted
to its night frequency.
Motorists have passed through
arterial streets
and left them cooly humming.
They're esconced in slots
of consensual making:
alarm clocks set
for a riot of repitition.
Those who remain at the fringe
in the center
casually drink the colors
of evening
and are come into their own
for what it is worth.
The whore or maiden of night
settles with a sigh
on a creaking divan,
hardly daring to lust after dreams:
a nocturne dimly sounded
like a slender abeyance.
III.
The twilight takes hours to pass
so subtle the flow of its change.
The city's hum grown softer now,
few cars pass on Grant street.
Only the sparse heel
of an occasional walker
can be heard.
The cries of children sound far off,
diminish.
The statue of the Virgin
in the convent niche
raises palms through wrought iron.
Her hands are white
with the blood of the moon.
Los Ricos Y Los Pobres
Los ricos tienen mucho,
Los pobres tienen poco.
Los ricos son pocos.
Los pobres son muchos.
Misfit Cafe
In the little cafe
on dusty old South Broadway,
I join the other misfits for breakfast:
the old man with broken shoes
reading tomes on the history of the world,
the woman who rides up and down the street
on the trike (the one with the basket and umbrella),
the guys who don't have to be at the office, ever,
the women who don't belong to anybody.
Outside, the world roars by,
afraid of being late,
but I can relax in the peacefulness of this place,
and its feeling of timelessness.
This is the America I love,
where with dedication, and a little orginality,
you can still lose on your own terms.
Bang, Bang, Yer Dead!
If yer talkin' travelin'
around in the bars
or out in the street,
you got yer derringers of course
but check this out.
It's small and light
.22 magnum, nasty bite.
Bad thing is it jumps
you got to bring it down
or use two hands
to keep it in line,
but it carries four rounds
like I say.
Two shots ain't enough.
You can't think in terms
of one assailant, man,
you got to think in terms of two.
Two shots yer lucky to take one out
and wing the other
and if the one who is wounded
is also armed
then to have wounded him
will not have been enough.
That's why this baby is nice.
It's concealable. .
good gun
for a lady. . .
Now a man,
especially in winter
when he wears a big coat,
wants something up under it
a little more substantial,
say a snub nose .38.
Some file off the spur
of their double action
so the hammer
won't get caught
in the coat.
You don't need to pull the hammer,
just the trigger.
Automatics are flatter
quicker, carry more rounds
but there's always the chance
that they'll jam.
Not likely if they're clean. . .
still, always a chance.
To secure the old home front, now. . .
you got yer .357s yer .44 mags
heavy duty hand artillery
hit a guy anywhere
he's out of commission, at least.
But we're talkin' home protection, guy
let's not fuck around . .
We're talking' shotgun
automatic. . . short barrel
for a shorter arc.
Shift yer weight
to the right foot
like a boxer slipping a cross
and just squeeze
and keep squeezing
spinning as you fire
in the general direction
that's all you gotta do!
Yer dealin' death now, brother,
ain't nothing left
but for the mop
and the bucket.
A Little Healthy Competition
After the enemy is beaten
you can see
he's just another guy,
more or less
like you,
uncomfortably enough. . . ,
As he packs it in, he looks weaker,
smaller and vulnerable in a way
that makes you want to touch him
somehow. . .
which his game face, retreating,
would never permit, so
the protest is registered
and remains silent
in the throat
as usual. . .
Later, dully, you ponder
how even victory leaves
a hole in the heart.
Inevitable, it would seem,
in a world where one is always free
to choose compassion, yet
even when within arm's reach at times,
can no more change another's path
than, by throwing a rock in the water,
move the course of a river.
A Little Healthy Competition
After the enemy is beaten
you can see
he's just another guy,
more or less
like you,
uncomfortably enough. . . ,
As he packs it in, he looks weaker,
smaller and vulnerable in a way
that makes you want to touch him
somehow. . .
which his game face, retreating,
would never permit, so
the protest is registered
and remains silent
in the throat
as usual. . .
Later, dully, you ponder
how even victory leaves
a hole in the heart.
Inevitable, it would seem,
in a world where one is always free
to choose compassion, yet
even when within arm's reach at times,
can no more change another's path
than, by throwing a rock in the water,
move the course of a river.
This Train
I hear that slow freight train
rumbling in the night
destination certain as the rails
engine: inevitability
its whistle my marrow scream.
The train runs from Colorado to California
Mexico Washington Idaho
This train's runnin' in the dark
this train's runnin' late
slowed by the heavy freight
above the rods of time past.
This train carries Ireland dreaming,
the round sun of Spain rides this train.
These wheels drive sparks like stars:
no fire no warmth cold night.
This train eats its track
this train carries eyes of hopeless love
closets full of useless clothes
bodies packed with muted souls
this train carries whores of gossamer
imaginary lovers of steel
this train carries phantoms to ultimate
unraveling
this train carries dreams denied
cars of my needs bones bleached and broken.
The train dreams itself
This train runs one way only
This train this train
this train
goes nowhere, really.
Mad Malloy #1
In the bathroom late at night
interrogating myself
under phosphorescent light
I was caught by a spider walking up the air
and it seemed that all
the truth in the world were there,
for another's empty form
swung from an invisible strand
while a third awaited close at hand.
Time! spoke the spider
and I went out,
my skull ringing in the magic time of night.
And time, creaked the snow
in the night's empty streets laid shrill
by the cop's first gear growl.
And time, spoke the drink-crippled Indians
crossing streets unsteadily
with bags of white bread.
Time, spoke in unison by the grey heads
floating above the bar's plane
in their miasma of age and drunkenness.
And thus sang the young also:
the oglers and the splutterers,
the squirters in the Big Con void,
the diers in the neon dreams.
Pell-mell, like iguanas over the falls
in all their colors
rushing and dancing down to darkness,
they go.
Thus the noiseless metronome intoned,
and so sang my heart
settling its seed in the dust.
And thus rang my mind,
leaping from lace to lace
configuration.
And so sounded the dark beat
of the heart's wings in the purple light
even as promises unfurled.
And so spoke the smiles and oranges
so I wrote poems on wings of butterflies.
If I Knock at the Door of Your Heart
If I knock at the door of your heart
it's because I've stood in the wind
and the wind blows darkly, dear lady,
full of snakes, dismembered limbs
and blackened teeth; please let me in.
If I pry at the lock
on the chains of your arms
it's because I've stood by the sea
in the night while the angry sea curled
and the sullen froth crushed
the bloated dreams of men on the sands.
Undo the lock of your arms
and give me your hands.
When in the shrouded night
of swirling dark forms I knock
at the door of your heart,
rise, light a lamp, let me in soon.
I've come from the road in the forest
where the trees hold strange fruits
in the light of the moon.
The Workman's Song
We live in a zoo world, my friends,
and the keepers will have you walk on all fours
like a pig or a dog to prove you're a man.
They themselves are vipers,
they do not understand.
Cajoleries, banalities, insincerities
drip from one fang
while imprecations form on the other.
Would you fly like a bird
in a sky whose color you choose?
Fly swiftly, brother, sister,
their guns are aimed at the sky.
Would you have wings pour out of your mouth?
Would you dance your brains to flames of flowers?
They will shackle your wrists to wheels
whose turnings are hours
and your days will descend
one upon the other
like hammer blows.
No wonder Nietzsche went mad.
I tell you, the same man
is beating the same horse
in the same street in the same way
everyday
all over the world.
You know this,
and I know this:
The world itself is balled into a fist
shaking itself at the heavens!
It is no great matter,
the heavens answer.
Stasho in the Station
In the heat of a summer Sunday afternoon,
hot and sultry after mass
the family went in totem
to a carnival of priests.
And there moved slow footed, dreamlike
through the yellow shafts of light and dust
among the many booths, the strange raiment
of the diverse priestly orders
following and followed by other families
slow moving,
speaking and reading slick brochures.
And with these seeds engendered
it so happened in the sudden resplendent autumn
that my brother stood forth among the family
and announced that he would be a priest.
His soul had been fished and he would be a fisher,
saving the heathen in distant lands.
Elated, vibrating with pride and excitement,
Mom bought him a fine trunk.
And into this trunk
went his sad clothes of youth
and everything that he would need
for his journey
and his long stay
away from home.
And one day quite soon
with the grass still green
under the gold and brown leaves
and the clouds white
in the blue sky,
we lifted the trunk high
onto our shoulders
and down the stairs transported it
to the car's roof
where we lifted and laid it
and with strong rope tied it
with the other, smaller bags beside it.
And with all secure
and everyone in the car,
the old man turned his eye and his pipe
over his shoulder
and backed into the street,
and we set out on our strange pilgrimage,
uncomprehending.
Of that long ride, little I remember
only the vast spaces
and the thick, sullen necks
bearing bovine faces that slowly turned
to gape at our entourage in dim cafes;
and the rising smell of the earth
as we descended to the east.
But our arrival leapt into quick vividness
and I recall the verdancy of that place
and the riots of its trees.
And I recall also the quiet, robed men
and the strange boys gliding or chattering
among the ponderous buildings of onerous stone.
These were to be his mentors and companions
and there we left him.
And on our return Mom tried
to keep up our spirits
but Dad was red-rimmed and tight-lipped
and spoke little.
And I, too, stung
by the separation from my comrade
and brother wept quietly and to myself at one point
and out through the windows
into the pounding of the purple plains
in vast night
my grief choked to the surface
and took silent flight.
And once home it was strange
after the journey
everything subtly altered,
with the old man still moping,
the food in the refrigerator looking different,
the basketball hollow sounding
on the driveway court.
In the room next to mine
was a neatly made bed
where now no one slept.
His statues of horses, tasteless,
which once I detested,
I now loved.
But soon, in three days
the phone rang: It was Stasho!
Stasho in the station!
A perfect young warrior of fourteen years,
he had rectified his error
and struck out in the night
on a train through the strangeness
of Missouri and Kansas alone!
And now he was in the station
and Mom darted all about in franticness
from pillar to pillar seeking him
but not seeing him.
But he saw her from where he stood
silent and cool with self-possession
by the tall columns of the station.
And then he was home
and we wasted no time rushing out
and the sidewalk greeted our feet
in joyful familiarity
for the old neighborhood in those days
was like paradise.
But everything was somehow changed,
not quite the same, perhaps better,
but changed,
for though we knew time but little,
we knew it now a little more.
The Butterfly
He did not seem to hear
when the others teased him
about his socks or his pants
he was just
gone
down the alley
and didn't seem to see
the hollyhocks sway under
the bees or the neighborhood apples
coming ripe, but only
the butterflies
for which he quested with
his net and
searching eyes.
And yes,
he fixed them wriggling
but in a solitude that seemed
to transfix them, these
transient ephemerals,
into permanence and the essence
of the beauty they could represent
only temporarily in life so brief.
They came to be their own symbols
under his hand, in holy sacrament.
One day, when autumn had come
and the butterflies no longer
blessed the streets
and alleys with their lightness and their grace,
they boy was walking to school when he noticed
the largest, most beautiful butterfly
he had ever seen.
It had, of course, not survived the season,
but had left its perfect form
in the auto repair shop
trapped between a pane of grimy glass
and a can of cleaning solvent.
The boy was too timid to approach
the tall forbidding men inside
to ask if he might take away
the beautiful thing in their dim territory,
of which they were so obviously unaware.
Each day he passed it
once on the way to school
and again on the way home.
But each day failed to bring
the courage
he needed to match his desire
to its acquisition.
The boy asked his parents to approach
the mechanics, but they refused.
They said that if he wanted the prize,
he must be willing to take the risk.
And one chilly morning, the boy decided
he would do it. He gazed at the butterfly
for a long moment, then rounded the corner.
Two men stood outside
on the grease-stained concrete,
talking and laughing in their dirty, dark overalls.
One turned his head to spit
a great gob of black tobacco
and saw this boy standing there
just looking up at him.
What the hell did he want?
Their eyes met for the briefest second,
and the boy was sent whirling
down the street like a dry leaf
in the cold, stiff breeze of autumn --
in that wind that blows the leaves
to dust down the chill corridors of days
that turn to weeks that turn to months
and years, that changes everything
into something else,
everything
except
that
one perfect
most beautiful
butterfly
that flies
behind the
glass
forever.
Reason to Be
How came I here?
To stop and ask the question
is to be washed up
on the present moment
like a castaway --
with all before
too tumultuous for tales
to be believed.
ahead: all new
and this at any given time
So many friends
and mentors have not made it
to this pass --
remembering them reminds me
that no act of love
is ever wasted
To love, to create,
to fight to be free of fear
I knew,
yet to act with compassion
was long in coming
life at times
was a cold cliff face
at others, fields of flowers
I floated through
indeed, I am rich
with both suffering and joy
and as for reason to be,
I have found none not to
The Task
the task now:
to accept the burden
as the way
to become lighter
to become like a feather
to bless the labor given,
it is the door
to welcome the darkness
in which one can finally see
to seek only to learn
and teach thereby
to trim the warrior's fire
to glow of love
so that to this
all beings, flowering,
may turn.
And so the skills he hones
are quiet and within.
Knowing now the world is golden light,
he sits in a chair by the window,
and lets it flow into his lap.
Chrysalis
There are those
among us who wait
with impatience
for the world
to begin.
They feel buried already
with ubiquitous artifacts
and a few quaint cosmologies
some of them surfaced and windblown
bare bones to the sun.
They have waited
but the world has not begun,
nor will it begin
instead is daily deferred
& cannot.
Barely emerging, we turn
and retire
part way within
small gods
and ideas of self
to create
in furious alchemy
to worship, to fear
and to bind.
A face worn by a man
must be worn by a nation,
in our great numbers
each of us small and alone.
On the long bridge
from matter to spirit
from ape to god
from one person to another
all behind is destroyed
all ahead is uncertain.
Might as well step up and claim
the mantle of our angelhood now:
In a primitive century,
it's the whole house of cards.
The Skinny, Crazy Kid
He was a skinny, crazy kid
so skinny he could crawl
up into the ice machine and send
the big blocks sliding down the chute
to his friends on their way to a party.
He was a very skinny kid
so skinny he fit through the vent
on the boss’s door
and copped the bottle of whiskey on his desk.
He was a wild boy.
He drank too much
and drove like a maniac
walking away cheerfully
from cars spun off straightaways
and rolled on curves.
He was a lucky kid, too, ya gotta say
He was a scrappy, skinny kid.
He didn’t want you to think that
just because he was a little guy
he couldn’t kick your ass or
give it a real good try.
But, too, he was a sensitive and dreamy kid
who looked at orange sunsets
and heard baroque trumpets in his head.
who read Leaves of Grass
on his basement bed.
and dashed into the alley where his buddies
worked on their cars, to read his latest poems to them.
They lifted their heads from under the hood,
they really didn’t know what to make of him.
He stepped out into the world
like the fool over the cliff
smiling and with a sunny nature.
He loved music and danced as if
his head were in flames.
He stuck his thumb into the night and the day,
open to everyone and everything
He was terribly romantic and loved
the idea of love
He burned through decades:
Catholic school, the neighborhood, the dirty avenue
war, bars, streets,
islands and coast
desert, mountaintops and cities strung
like strange, dark pearls
on the night’s black highway.
He lay down to sleep by the river
and let the voices in the river sing
him to sleep.
He stared at the stars until he became the stars.
He followed the track laid down by Kerouac
he rolled down the road of Rimbaud
Before a strong woman brought the earth to him
and set it firmly under his feet.
As long in coming as that was
It was still a long time ago.
He’s an old man, now
looking out the window
with the same crooked grin
at the sunlight on the leaf,
the drifting cloud
He takes it all in.
He knows you don’t go down this road
without breaking a few hearts,
but clumsily or not it was love,
love that he was spreading after all
and so his own heart is full.
He is in no hurry, anymore.
He will step into death
the way he stepped into life.
and it’s cool with him
whether or not
the universe spins around
and spits him out,
a skinny, crazy kid again.