Next ! 1-15-17

January 2017- New work pending-

NEXT !

(For Richard)

The Wonderful life Christmas is long over

One tries not to be depressed.

Maybe re-read Brautigans piece

From 1963

Where he and his friend were

so depressed over Kennedy’s public execution

that they took pictures

of discarded Christmas trees

abandoned in the gutter

and then proceeded to get drunk

while watching a slide show of them later.

 

I get that.

 

All those rolls of left over wrapping paper

all about the place.

The lights that need to be taken down

before the neighbors start with

the “white trash” wisecracks

 

One thing you can say about Christmas

in this post modern area,

Once it’s over.

It’s dead.

 

A lot of build up.

A product orgy climax

 

And the day after ?

Forget about you

 

The day after Christmas

is like nailing a wood screw

into the back of an old friend

Who shows up once a year for a visit.

 

And as he walks out the door.

You slam and lock it on his heels

Hissing, “and don’t come back till next year,

You pain-in the-ass bastard.”

 

Thankful ?

Sure.

This year I was thankful I didn’t end up

in the paraplegic chair

in a nursing home in Baldwin

after that nasty fall

down the Cold War stairs

back in your hometown

that ended up with you

kissing some concrete.

 

Instead I made it back here on Christmas Eve.

Just in time to have a good cry

With Alastair Sims.

 

                                                                                                  Greetings from Gridville 12/03

*

List of the End of January

 

 Snow coal cone lump ashtray pustule

shrinking in the corner of the parking lot.

(Ah….early spring)

Sound of clogged carburetor gagging on itself.

(Great…now you’ve flooded it)

Lost key trunk eyehole with yellow handed

long nick Phillip’s screwdriver protruding.

(Nope that didn’t work either…keep swearing)

False dawn slapping wind ganging away

slamming cheap tin bed frame freight train

ready to orgasm and derail.

Centipede shadow crawling measuring spoons

scurrying across the dingy white moon soaked linoleum floor

looking like a pool of quicksand.

Brown plastic garbage can rolling down the block

yawning in the gutter.

Air raid siren blast exploding

in a razor blade cable running through your ears

jerking your head off the sound sleep pillow.

(This was only a test)

Child’s dream speak night talk back lit in

orange dragon space heater steel teeth

hissing at the bars on the crib.

(Some childhood memories are best forgotten.)

Fresh crème of the New Year

curdling in the calendar’s carton.

(Who’s face is that on the side?”

 

-Another Rubber Eden 1/89

 

The Dybbuk Dreams-

(audio below text)

 It was in the first few nights of the New Year

when all promise and disaster were as unopened mail

that the past had a walk in his sleep.

 

The Dybbuk’s hands opened old draws

shuffled through forgotten pages

Pausing to repeat a line of a letter

here and there.

 

Ashes were stirred and long dormant old flames set free

to flicker. Then the night faces could dance once more.

Night faces coming back to visit shining

eyes to glow back into.

 

Another year rolling itself out like an immense black wing .

Your sleeping form swept along in this night flight,

those waking hours, now the specter, this was the soul

strolling hand in hand with the eternal freedom of

time asleep.

 

She walked once more upon the mores, in a chilly thick fog.

Here where she had always known that he waited for her

In between anger and consequences,

in this dreamscape of quicksand recall where mushroomed

marsh islands of what might have been.

 

They both returned to this shadow realm of still photographs

hung and propped in the endless stark arms of winter.

Here where the past stood naked and true.

Both came with small hands grasping deep into the heart’s

pocket. Each visited at different points

along the dream curve, with separate dependencies and

versions of the same story.

 

They left messages here for each other.

The last word over and over. The promises of reconciliation

and forgiveness. The sensation they shared of never being

able to meet face to face again, outside of this place

of half light sand deep grey pools. Always to return to

the same beaten path, in the corner of the dream.

This place where the images of each others faces

in those frozen photos snared arrested looks

and eyes of love and delight that once were shared.

 

They both returned to this place, every so often

to get a face full and

look down at the others footprints

left in the path

from the night before.

 

                                                         From Another Rubber Eden 1995