http://gjkpoems.wordpress.com

for my new and more coherent poetry site.

by the time we hit the menominee county countryside

i had let intuition take over and the vehicle

was more or less driving itself. a missed turn

off of 557 was either due to fog

or the fact that i wasn’t in the present

i wasn’t in control

i was in the past

in thrall of the moon.

in the buick with the moon nearly full,

i was in mind of me with michael

me with maus

me with lanuh

me with whoever

wherever the moon led.

i lost sight of you for a time

but our path was righted at G-08

where other faces came to mind

then faded, leaving only you and me

and by then the fog had lifted.

it was, after all,

a midnight drive on a work-break.

there wasn’t time enough to get as lost

as i used to with those young men

who i loved and still do,

but i didn’t marry them.

i married you

and 41 carried us swiftly

to home.

GJK

25JUL10

the world tonight  is denied    

only i

confronting me

only me here to hear my thoughts 

—–

(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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.