More stars than Earth

1

something about the birds, on fire
remembered
falling, into, strange mix
"the world is a sewer..."

in cartoon bubble
"and we live in hell"
that deep, the depth, the deeper
deep, to emergent, bubbling--
any figure’s depth,

like this crisp rising shape
now, the Surface!, then fragmented--
some how, in cycle, no one reality-- knows
all the new worlds of flowers, stars
his Pennsylvania, my India

the father seemed the reality--
death, he was reading
Fate and Power, deeper
between the classic surfaces
of blue Freedom, of indifferent sky
marching Egyptian fate, the stars

Western dream and
Asian meander
dark propelling light
“go on, wandering--”

2

lost, distant
the inevitable fall back into dream
the heights abstracted, distance
he fell into October
evening passed to dark

interminable stars
out there
that depth dreaming creation
the nothingness of
the everything returning

3

black, black, black
color in the dark night of stars
is the mother of beauty

the black and white of drawing
into the color of the day, the sun
the hero of DAY, the idea-- of JANGLING
DIAMONDED BEAUTY!
there! He said it-- out loud!

others could
hear, OH HEAR! it darts and stings
It’s this sensibility, this nature thing
he said it was all a camouflaged
religion of sorts

order it all from there
ordering from there--
red and yellow stripes
he’d been all over the place
had a dream

a shield and its dreamer
this black landscape
all the possibilities, weaving
between them, the light
the BLUE remembered hills, into leaves

4

made an analogy
to the world, a world

it falls and recycles
just busy work
looking like something
though-- here in the studio
a wall

repeating he became another,
a cartoon self somewhat
seeing himself in this balloon
this other-- in fallen--

what they called HERo
in his “as if--” world
made a mark on the wall
being there in the dark studio
the stars
the lack of surface--

then always still coming fore,
the he, the him
making, over hatching
here
here
the will, underlying eternal

WILL--
beauty, it lifted him a moment,
beyond, the desire
he saw it in a dream,
a lotus flower at the Botanical Gardens
it was really truly amazing

5

major trope OF
figure and ground as ONE
all together
like Pollock, they probably
would talk about it

there sober, over the table
in the cold kitchen
late at night, the stars, revolving round
the branches swinging

he'd seen the branches in the studio,
high up, in the sky lit window
swoosh, how to get

to that seriousness
THE comic tragic serious
of it all
staking one's life on meaning
some thing or cycle of being
or just the sun

light-- to dark
up and down
from out there

in here

got something to bring along
dwell there
the black stars
the blue sky
his eyes

half shut he fell
back on his heels
trying to be
there in the half light
hearing the frogs

6

He was out there
“after he was dead,” someone said
some of them kept on
he kicked around in what was left
it hadn’t meant anything, to anyone else

this wasn’t his biography or something
they didn’t know him, for he
was already dead for sometime
but he found some pleasure
in looking over there

in the failing sun
fearing the stars
but relishing their crystalline
air and shimmer
dead god being god
dead

7

a design

on a wall, the black paint
stars
talking to himself
looking out there, beyond
everyday ideal, moment
falls, no ideal but ideas,
revolving

ideal world these phases
representing the painter
painting the aspen tree
among the September
leaves

8

drawing the two together

the sea and mocking bird
stars
sprig of lilac
forever rocking
incessant death, rocking

death, and whispering
what he knew he couldn’t say
that gulping mystery seemed to
swallow him up

9

turning, turning,
in the same wind
beside the same blare, of the same
sunset, gone
into dark landscape
the space, revolving
in the thousands of miles

and hours of speed, of solar wind
who lasts? no man-- the tradition
who is that, collective
large red man reading
woman rocking--
sun and stars

10

POP!
some strange religion
of his own making
vibrant light, reflecting
between skitter and hop

here we go
between sun and flower
hero heightened
and clouds
and leaves the waves

solar hero and sun smeared villa
the red walls, dream in stars
bird flies across the floor
there then hi up--
in Silhouette

11

he needed some stars, he thought
untitled, in the stars, maybe--

Jack Frost never thought
he’d get this far,
to see them all stacked up
like playing cards
a Parcheesi game
of life, Joker sticking out behind

12

stars above broken leaves
the sunset diamonds
and aspen eye
everything together-- sunflower

seeds dribbling behind, striped

13

the experience, in the pokeweed
abstracted TO HEIGHT, what was
seen
falling back around
through, THE stars,
STARS

he was connecting all these new paintings
back around
these new walls
are exciting, HE SQUINTED at first
he was making a picture of the whole

the form of the world,
he was happy he had seen, the
fictions together, revolving
all along with the breaking
of this super man,
at hand--

the rending apart
he said
the SPARagmos, he read
was THIS-- is LIFE!

14

old poem

that suffices, back in the library
asleep, through the years, revolving
stars turn dipper dipping
all forward motion, it seems
can't step into the river twice

but if one ran far and fast
enough ahead one could
see it coming
his, dreams in white shapes
he’d seen before
in deep space

14

they evolved into
the distant, sun
maybe too exuberant
falling in flame


the ship in the night
massive, dark
silent slivering, that Greek
severity of line
history's weight
of wrong--
Short shank--
was light weight

even
a little carried away--
prone to, to become
well, transported!
spirited away
what was!

happy he did
he would get through the night
morning always came
he always felt like going on
he supposed,

15

out there in the blue sky
wind whipping

sierra snow still beyond,
those daisies were waving
the red Pompeii like reality
heightened to diamond
from sun-- flower, blue

clouds puffing to thunderhead
in eternal height tinged
turning to evening
slate and yellowing to stars
purpling and the black dome closing

round dipper star
heaven lit
star, figure representing whole
that's it--
at that moment

that which was gone--


from Back 2 the StudiO

Poem for Earth Day

Using the search function on my computer to find, Earth, in my new poem, Back 2 the StudiO, I came up with these 4 fragments.


from Back 2 the StudiO, in progress

Poem for Earth Day



1

the returning
violence
re--
birthing, of
new worlds cycling

wheels and wheels
circles of hell and earth
and extension to heaven
he shivered, he heard a rustling
there in the aspen woods

as he painted
that light--
he didn't often talk of that kind
of light on the trees
the yellow gold,

shimmer shake
a shiver
daimonic eruption
allegory of otherness
slipping through

in transparent mirror
the cycles
showing each
in turn, the nothing--
arriving to a surface

reality represented
THERE! THE REALITY
Here, feel it, the older
god, this recognition--
Ha!

the bird flutters and lights
upon a branch, there—




2

the stars revolved round
even behind the blinding blue
movement, signaling change--
how can the earth be whizzing
at 23,000 miles an hour

the spirit that occupies everything
SOME WHERE AROUND HERE
another part--
wind in the hair
"no clouds in monument valley"
but still as he said

all those times before
"beyond remembering"
the splendor of--
Koyanisquatsi blaring--
there are more lights all
the time in the valley

the dogs barking, all night
the something off in the darkness
bringing back the boon
they keep him awake
now coyotes join in
night journey

but the, the making
and, life is just as mysterious as death--
THIS NEW LAND
made new--
New Orb Aloft!




3

the old sun and stars

the planet on the table
the earth in blue
spinning
sun, stars earth, revolving
the parts, that whole
feeling

in the studio
he kept coming
back to that tent idea
black drawing into idea-- the shield
red and yellow
Buddha colors
ideal beauty from death

the idea, beauty, order
all this as an after thought
"a poem" he said and backed away
the studio-- red, red reality
he was talking of irony

presence and absence
da forte
a copy of the original
all sounds like, evasions of

--god, again
or reality, big deal just
everything there is, out there
thrown in, to--
definitions crumpled up

thrown in, to--
all a good story
I HOLD THIS fiction
UP AGAINST MY DEMISE--
that is Eliot, he was just
going to say it simpler
his lie against time

a shield
going back, laying out the string
back into
the death like dream
and seeing what sufficed
IT

to keep one there
a SIMPLE surface
maybe diamonded design
what we called reality, to be an
adequate, representing--
the building is underway
"THE new TEMPLE," Jack laughed




4

they were of the earth
he loved

packing the truck, carting it away
WITH hired hands
art is what’s underneath
that irony,
thinking he sees
his life here
at the crossing--
New Mexico border

scribbling life’ on dashboard
through Virginia
Tennessee and Oklahoma
into New Mexico

he said to himself
that he was doing the right thing
rolled up paintings
like dead bodies in the back
he thought of that time
carrying them up the stairs
at 68 Jay Street
THaT different war
its like a heaven here, maybe

he was gone,
gone and gone
arriving to these clouds
Crystal sight
he'd remarked before-- always did
arriving
to these clouds