Sunday, April 4, 2010

He'd filled it uP part 3







3rd part... he'd filled it up

It was about putting
it all together
again and for all
it was the quest itself
he thought, everything leant up

against the wall
and the flags were waving
Fate, Freedom, and Power--
those idealisms all waning in the sunset
He had by now some philosophical

idea that seemed reality
a progression was involved
It was a making of a he or self
he was resolving an older order
the "new" ideas were not what he needed

though they kept spinning round
presenting themselves
in negative and positive interplay
he'd seen it now long ago, the


reconciling of the opposites
it made sense of it all
this idea attached to a shape
to a surface
he gestured with his arms










it was all a narrowing down
we were all running fast not looking
down to see, but there was no net, no
nothing beneath
we were only human

the sad fact
we hid as well as we could, that
we died, that--
though it all had died long ago
in the winter mind, floating

through, he felt he knew a thing or two
that trancended or lifted him up
enough to keep on
a comic cycle into
sublime and falling

we used to just yell up--
then that wasnt so cool any more
on the now busy street
Roy got a bell but it never worked
I was saying to him I wanted to try the imagination

to draw just from there, his head
he made it up--
we used to say, the clap of hands
was like the surface, truth, there!
Why had that meant so much?










the outline, a shape, a stripe
"I see what you are trying to do," Alex would say
a kind of abstraction repeated, and repeated
the blank in our eye
we denied

a blind man seeing for the first
would mean something--
seeing black
an irony
we struggled beyond

a can of white and a can of black
was all he had
a new beginning, again?
new modern--
the new, seeming glut

of post-
he dove in , was soaking wet,
with his shield
on his arm he emerged
he was still searching

for this abstraction, he decerned some
mideval abstraction-- carnival color
waving, dance
from a deep space to a thing itself
"and would find myself more strange in it"









and clear
seeing in a new way
with no cliche
but archetype, I guess a cliche itself
they were all having dinner by now

business was being discussed
we were still at the bar
and soon gathered over at
Bill Wilson's.
Agnes Martin died yesterday

I came back my own hero.
he said, "back from war", would visit the Modern
Chapel, he stepped aside-- to let them all pass
mom died and the dream
and what does that mean

being saved-- I'd never have put that on you?
Yeah, yeah, and then go have a few beers in the parking lot.
she said, "I'd be a very unhappy boy asking all those questions."
though I've asked all the questions

they were in touch with the earth, at least
had no questions, just work
I read alot, I said
there seems no sin in this poetry







he was in the dark dreaming his name
the poem was like strata of earth
the guilt of living
too well
too much, another layer

1st and now 3rd part put down
like refuse and bones
layering
a drone over and over Mantra
repeating forms

of life and fragmenting to release
a new life from dream of winter
shimmer, shake
there was a hero that cried that
he was dead, that his adventure had failed him

and comedian genius
cartoon character
and hieroglyph
Oh, glad to be back out here
in the SUn

snowing, no clouds
stars bright
enjoying a quesidilla and jalapeno
over kitchen sink
constellations revoving round










out the window
thinking about the size of the painting
that last judgement
thing, he had on his mind
the final reality

nearing, he hadn't been up to the
prayer flags in a while
he watched the health
of the tree at the center
he stood up there reading his poem

the snaking river below
the cycles would lift him above
he was thinking on beauty
he was thinking on death
it was his mother

he thought about.
he was wobbling down
the lane on his bike.
Another painting ahead--

It was gobbling him up.