POETRY: gary gets with it

the world tonight  is denied    

only i

confronting me

only me here to hear my thoughts

                                        but i suckered you in –

                                               [you are reading

                                                the stinking blog]

    —–        —–

smoke seven

cancer heaven

i know it is vice

          but

that is all the more reason to embrace it.

         —–        —–

shreds of tobacco

linger on my t-shirt

wondering why

they weren’t

good enough;

wondering why

they

were left behind,

purpose

unfulfilled.

coffee five           (must make more)

what is this?          . . .   a cough in the continuum  . . .

lack of topic is topic i suppose (worthwhile?)

  what else can be said?    – we are all belated poets

    we were born too late in time to ever create anything

      the entire literary discipline is now nothing more than

        regurgitation interpretation hindsight and mutation

         of existing ideas existing stories existing characters

          existing metaphor existing conflict tension—

            nothing left to say or do       all i have now

               is nothing to say but i say it anyway

                  and that’s beauty too but even this is repetition

                     John Cage already said what i am saying

                        and i could claim ignorance

                        i could claim to have come up with it

                                                      on my own

                                        but no one would believe me

                                                             so

                                             there really is no point

                                            but all i know and love is words

                                                                  so i’ll carry on

                                                                  with my pointless cause

                                                                 (let them laugh    let them scorn

                                                                           and   screww    ‘em

                                                                             cuz that’s already been done too)

coffee, cup four

1/4     1/2     1/4     1/2

there is no meaning here

                       none there

                       or anywhere

                                else

               so quit trying to make

               every minutia mean something

             —–         —–         —–

cigarette six

sex   sex   sex   everyone loves it

or so we suppose we are supposed to feel.

sex   sex   sex        how  About  Some?

                          and how

                             About    mmmooorrreee  ???

                 sex sells we love to buy in

            —–            —–           —–

                 &%#’gfhj *,,,

                  ( B U T   W H A T   D O E S   I T   M E A N ? )

third cup of coffee        ///      smoke###5

burned skin     raw  red  back      $70  in dirt-stained jeans

this is work / this is life / this is toil / this is reward

this is summertime violent sun / this is bare-skinned sweat

and blue-collar   manual labor   circumstance

burned skin   back afire   irritated by shirt-friction

this is no complaint

this is gratitude

for health

and opportunity

to work.

(and now money means nothing this typewriter is reward enogh)

-(aware of typographical error

     but confounded as to why it may cause concern)-

                   infer

                   anything you like,

                   music is my only benevolent addiction.

                               mosquito dying

                              slow contortions of   old  age

                           writhing   injured      end

Michael hands me a coffee mug that says

         vote republican

and my only silent response        is the phrase

                                        i don’t vote.

                ——               ——–             ——-

the wind speaks in short, grunting gusts

                                and prolonged silences..

                  the message here is that

                                        silence

                                    is    superior

                       and i am a failure because my storm

                                             never stops blowing,

                                             my wind never ceases…

                               serene rain sings sleep, peace, calmness, beauty

                                                     and i am

                                                    a hailstorm,

                                                    a violent cacophony

                                                    of cluttered   contradictory   w o r d s .

                                     much better if i learned the stillness

                                                        of mute   autumn dusk.

second cup of coffee           fourth cigarette

the turtle that carries the world

will someday grow tired

and beg for relief   but no one will answer

no one will take up his burden

and     it     will     stop

and no one will remember.

the turtle that carries the world is weary

wanting only to withdraw into himself

but he honors his duty

he adheres to the wishes of the Old Ones

wearily     wearily

dragging his own house

which is our only reality

but someday Nature will bring an end

and the turtle that carries the world

will have only one instant to smile

one instant to feel satisfied

before he closes his eyes

and greets eternal sleep,

his only reward.

stream of consciousness experiment     seriousness

finality   absence of frivolity   no jocularity

nothing obscene or grotesquely exaggerated

stream of consciousness experiment  /  experience  (a journey

hardly aware of its own happening, ignorant of structure

or shackled forms)

not even knowing where or how it began

only that something is going going racing forward

not blindly not pretentiously but just going

                                                           going

                                                           forward

stream of consciousness/unconsciousness/sub-/super-

                                                                         imposition

                                                                         of    id

              the watery reality or unreality

                the correlation or lack of              the non-motive

                                                                       the non-specific

                        the unmitigated motion the inertia

                        of incomprehensible somethingness

                          the tribal beat the talking drums

                          the language of instinct of primeval

                                                                           fire —-

                                 the non-stop

                                 the insistency of the moment

                                the only thing i can almost own ..

                                                                            .. this moment  /  this

                                                                                                         small

                                                                                                         monument.

first cup of coffee

beauty bitter beat     man,  nothin  to  eat          no matter

bitter beauty is the onlythingineedseenowhowispeed

third cigarette

buddy miles     miles  miles  miles

miniature eons of memory

curling   smoke      how many times

                                 have  i  tried

                           to capture you ?

           (and   you

                                                            always  elude)

                           in forests

                           free of politics and lies

                                      i only know

                                      the scent and sight of life

                                           emanating

                                        from true wisdom’s boughs

shadows subterfuge elegant mystery coiling in smoky trails

upward shadows history misery only falls grace does rise

the crash of swarm of words that fail flailing futiley

all the ideals of ages swallowed by tides of blood

of holy wars  (the most insincere of terms)  the dead

philosophies the worn footpaths of sandaled feet

all shadows lovely dark recesses in unconscious

manifestation flying forward now breathing

flowing forth ah Beauty oh mistress of sunset

the shadowed hours stretching time of cool

moist winds of sand scattered by barefoot

lovers oh Love ah Pain     where has

                                     Misery gone ??

                           (how i miss her anvil touch)

light second cigarette

(but darkness is never dark and stars can never be seen

 only the memories of them only glimmers that are

 light-years old)

and pain is never entirely painful always accomp-

anied by sweetness of longing by comfort of

soft but steadfast self-pity

pain is only a mirror

illuminating the gentler side of the storm.

9:15 pm

light first cigarette

but i thought we two poets were alone

i thought we were filling an absence     an   emptyspace

but strange attachments are always at hand

no matter

no matter     only emptiness

only to be filled

song  of  an  aging  man

song  decades  old

dusty  typewriter       smoke

coffee  brewing              all is empty space

feel the river     the deep currents of unspeakable———

feel the forces flowing

the awe growing the dusty mind groaning

the electric light glowing faint and slow

the harmonica

in aging hands

feel the breath of heroes

expelled

knowing the ancient is eternal

and today is only

someone else’s           history