Pilgrimage

For eighteen straight days, I left
for the love of another woman.
For eighteen straight days, a man
paced and talked alone. Silence,
for eighteen straight days.

For eighteen straight days, I have seen
pictures that would weep out masters,
images which speak in the only way
things can speak. With wholeness
and with outness. Without a legend,
without design, without clarity in design.
But not without wonder and color and space.

For eighteen straight days, I’ve watched you
emerge from the ash pit. The ash pit black and dirty.
For eighteen straight days, the tongue has waited
and risen
and waned
and waited
again
for eighteen days.
For eighteen straight days, the circle is
unbounded and open, and opening
still
now.
In eighteen days, a man’s mind can change.

For eighteen days, born. To awful birth.
For eighteen days, mourning the loss of pessimism,
for eighteen days, defensive posture,
for eighteen days, forgotten strategy,
for eighteen days, motive and reason.
For eighteen straight days, I have made
and been made
to art,
have been introduced
through art,
have been in love
by art. By art,
I have been loved for eighteen straight days.


For eighteen straight days, I wondered how many days.
For eighteen straight days, certain that today I failed.
For eighteen straight days, success. Eighteen days.
Eighteen straight days of mind. Eighteen straight.
Eighteen straight days of vision.
Vision, eighteen straight days’ expression. Expression.
Eighteen bodies. Eighteen. Eighteen sobs
and eighteen shits. Eighteen drinks
and eighteen caps. Eighteen. Eighteen straight days of this.

Eighteen days of celebrate. Celebrate people.
For eighteen straight days, my friends are famous.
For eighteen straight days, I held a ticket for Greece.
For eighteen days, eighteen times, I asked should I go.
For eighteen straight days, I went—while waiting for an answer.
For eighteen straight days, I am going still.
For eighteen straight days, I sit for the first time.
For eighteen straight days, someone knocked on the door,
pounded the door and pleaded to come in.
For eighteen straight days, the knock was from the inside.
For eighteen straight days, the mind doors burst open.
For eighteen days, there sits an ordinary man.
For eighteen days, the light out-shined his face, blurring his face from behind.
The man appeared for eighteen days with doves.
For eighteen days, I watched them let loose.
For eighteen days, I named them in poems.
They flew for eighteen days.
For eighteen days, married on the same day.
For eighteen days, the doves whispered their names.
They spoke different names to each of us. But for eighteen days,
we saw them together.
Symbols in the sky, so many symbols, everybody’s symbols,
with people inside, for eighteen straight days.
In eighteen days, the doves are crows twisting against our shadows
in furrows of blue.
For eighteen days, we wondered when to land, waiting for land.
The pasture is a symbol for spring, newly sprigged in green.
For eighteen straight days, we made it.
We landed.
Here we are. For eighteen days. We yawn. With sighs
held in
for just that long
and taking
just that long to come out. For that long,
we held our breaths.
And now, for eighteen straight days, we breathe without them.

Things on a Door Jamb (P Dub Mix)

I see my perception.
I smell my breath.
I feel my body.

From a culture
unlike any other.

It’s like after the picture
is taken, things are missing
from the scene.

It’s like committing suicide
and being alive
at the end.

Battle 300 by Henry Darger

Quote

"The human mind is fruitful almost to the precise degree that it is not compulsively trying to get useful results.

Useful results are a by-product of pure play, pure imagination."

—Alan Watts

Things on a Door Jamb

I see my perception.
I smell my breath.
I feel my body.

I didn’t drool.
That was soup
falling out of my lip.

It’s a truly unique beer
from a culture
unlike any other.

It’s like after the picture
is taken, things are missing
from the scene.

It’s like committing suicide
and being alive
at the end.


composed by
B. A. W. R

Eyes for Cracks

We survive on the remains of what once
sustained us, digging interstices which appeared
invisible before. Sometimes genius is made
in a playful acceptance, the willingness to seem
ridiculous. The will to be, delightful.

American Jesus--Resurrection in Joy

He’s beautiful, isn’t he? There’s so much
in a person’s eyes. You have eyes
like Egyptians. Unexpected but welcome.
Like cowboys on acid. I can’t see
my eyes. Black eyes. Dark endless eyes,
I’m told. There’s always one aspect
of this you can’t see. One turn.
The one who’s looking back into you,
and back into the surface like moonlight,
the gulf waving in the dark,
inviting you in to see what you are
missing. The mystery. Tenderness.
Disarmed, I dance and fight the current,
muscles strain. They say, when you’re drowning,
relax and it will take you and leave you
up the sand a ways. Walk past the lovers
in the dunes. Keep your head and eyes
moving, not listening to what’s spoken,
but watching how they react to what
you give them. Give them little truth
with many lies. Why do we always come
to this kitchen? We kick so hard
we knock the pilots out. The way is lost
for a while. We wait and move in the dark.
Wait for contact. Would you lead or follow?
Yes. You should. Just touch her
and you will know which way to fall.
She goes limp in my eyes, relaxing
like the disobedience in the street. Refusing
to be carried away easily. My dead weight.
I brace myself as not to bruise her more.
She will entertain you, if you will
let her shout. We hunt loud and late. Like sirens
spreading into the bush for hidden lovers.
She sits at the desk and scissors paper
into different shapes of hearts. Our bursts
cancel each other into silence. Just listening
to the waving of naked and blue. The broken
cross remains behind us. My remains,
at who the black sparrow will stare
until convention becomes unconventional.
Paper is everything. And the body is there
on top. The flame burns invisible to us.
Let’s trap it in the bottle like a message
cast out to just about all those left.

With Simic

[Question?]

No, you prefer writing about the bloodstained past. “The butchery of the innocent never stops,” as one poem begins, although your work also offers consoling images of domesticity — your mom in “her red bathrobe,” your grandmother ironing, a lover who “stirs the shrimp on the stove.”

[Answer?]

It’s a kind of feast-in-time-of-plague poetry. I always feel like if I am sitting here having a terrific meal with friends, yes, there is someplace else, not too far away, where something awful is happening.

Find the rest here, if you're lucky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/magazine/03wwln-q4-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

They're More or Less Talented Slackers

Yes. They are smiling so real.
I am not quite that real.
They are so real, smiling. Yes.
I am quite that not real.
Smiling yes so real. They are.
That real. Quite I am not.
Real, yes, smiling they are so.
Real, quite, that I am not.
They are yes. Smiling so real.
I am real. Not quite that.
Smile. Yes. So are they real.
I am not quite that real. Yes.

Afterwords:

Real real?
Yes real!
Are not.
So not!
Real that.
Real yes!