1996 Road Movie Back East

1996  Road Movie  Back East  

The profane world is the subject 

what we can see, and buy, that’s trouble enough,

forgetting that inner space 

although it is obvious 

that it is becoming the only space 

Left, the new West the reaches 

of the Romantic inner distance, 

the debased art, the empty church

everything for sale, 

in the what’s new

next economy, picking through for Poetry, 

“negotiating rapture” I’ve heard it said.

beyond innocent transcendental reach, 

my poem repeats,

original thought

if this was all there was, I’d end the poem here--

in desperation

add glamour to that despair

of never reached reality, the ordered poem 

what Long Island had been.

Looking for new poem, to keep going,

flipping through the fashion magazines, 

having replaced art becoming the art, 

next thing, 

my smallest creation, 

I revel in this, change--

the same bare place, becoming 

transparent eyeball, I am nothing 

I see all, this crystal death

the loneliest air, not less was myself, 

the compass of that sea 

tossed about 

beyond what I can stand,

these are the words that save me

defeat into victory, I go on, I was the world 

in which I walked

I found myself more true, 

more strange, beheld 

her solitary there, 

for there she sang, the innocence

the maidens song, could have 

no ending,

I sing, beyond.

What transcendence? wholly critic

body fluttering,

wholly body

empty sleeves,

constant cry,

the old mother--

what is this spirit?

for it was the spirit 

that we sought--

and knew, content to know 

our element, is of ice, 

a wintry air sighs for me, 

night wind,

shouts for me loudly

Dazzling and tremendous,

how quick, 

now and always, the sunrise 

would kill me, if I could not 

now and always

send it from out, from me

The Sea!

A power

over the sea,

The poem,

a forever cycling power of the mind

over a universe of death

the blank, blocks the new world, 

the poets mind

over death,

it was her voice, 

that made the sky 

acutest, at it's vanishing, 

beauty, Oh, blessed rage 

the order, the maker's rage, for assembly

the scholar of one candle, 

he opens the door, (the reduction fails)

and he feels afraid, 

• 
  

Thrilled beyond belief, to be alive, 

Greeting the dawn, 

Come with me--, I’m full of it!

Achilles to Crispin, 

into the classic space.

To modern Cartoon, Davy Crockett, 

Raccoon hat, into the hills, 

Hopi way

must, keep up 

the Indian design, 

The flute drifting through crystal space, 

unending, wind of my soul, 

of our souls

walking in beauty

broken pieces

in my eye

the Hopi way

the mystery of that eye

high up in the wood

glinting-

alive

my own-- clearing the space

to see-- choosing sight

keep on with the dream

I’m off--

before the sweeping tide of reality

the politic of resenting

belief, 

against the desert

That oldest self, before an even older god

the aesthetic dignity, a covering angel

of the terrible beauty

NECESSITY

I stopped, once--

twice, the bird

I saw an eternity

in both 

stops

in the music, that eye, 

the bird, I thought  it watched, me--

cocked its head.

I trying to understand? it flew 

through the stream of sun

paint flooding through, 

a rhythm of mantra

revolving.

Woven varied design, blown apart,

the center will not hold,

over again, never quite right,

shards of Indian way,

each year it was harder to make the painting 

that would lift one out of despair, 

• 
  

on to the es--Studio! there the work

of the WORLD, to be done, 

set beside EARTH 

--to keep ones feet planted 

within the place, revolved, 

YES, telling some story!

yet unclear. the Indian (ME) 

native to us all, American, 

Beauty in the face of death, 

night and day, 

revolving a mantra

the colors, the shapes, and line

the different shapes these fragments 

thoughts come in relation

perspective, context, changing

light

--now, swerve

the hero reaching, from inside, 

sight on distance

coming together, crashing loud, 

sound and push

• 
  

There is much cynicism in these pages. The poetic what some think of as Academic to me Sacred— meaning well formed thoughts and poetry, is reached for.

That reach is justified by the pessimistic attitude of the fallen art world to commercial interest.

It is an unseen irony of my art. Reaching out from a world that had become fallen to disorder.