still dragging Hektor by the hair
around the arena,
except for the meaning in the word,
life had been such a glut
trying to be beyond
17.
that weariness of the next,
walking Jackson’s beach
and it was strange
the real rag weed there in autumn
sun setting on Louse Point.
He bent down
and the crickets became large
and the noise deafening
became the stars and
the crickets in the grass
blared Pollock’s tinny voice
saying, “ the Maud--ern artist--”
Whitman would hold his own,
Paumanok, Heaven
here in the rustling long lines
vanishing--
the hatch and over hatch
the cricket--
the aurora of the ever flashing
mystery, the net
over everything
flavoring reality
the gems of the moment
flashing
at Mountain height on his Box.
18.
His arms upraised
He felt alive
the overbrimming ideas that
came from following the orders
and the side road’s
meander
the drawing recognized in a dream
drawing everywhere in the Subway--
a language developing
in hieroglyphic form
might well speak
what was this reduction saying
he tried to protect this radical from
decoration, that’s what he
meant by the tourist
how could they do that,
weren’t they worried
by the square miles
of dead trees,
a part of ourselves
a cycling then
as it falls
comes round
a necessary
fragmentation
a beauty
in the system
the beauty of it
Crispin said,
Yes, it was enough in the
field catching the butterflies
though it seems a joke to Jack now
at this embarrassed distance
We didnt do enough,
Jack packed up the paint box
that bird at the top of the tree
grasped that moment
and it did-- all exist, turning
to Katsina Face
Picasso owned
he was there at Chimayo too
copying the Christs
he made Gertrude from that
Jack wasn’t sure he ever would
she never sat still enough
Crispin thought the landscape
looked sad
there is a strange silence
20.
in that heat
the thunderstorms rumbling
still far, the lightning
in the darkening sky.
silently skipping
compared to that memory of Susie’s
snowflake in the air shaft
a bluebird flies through and
a leaf twirls between fingers
amazed
these metaphorical gods
all Crispin had-- or wanted
ThE BluE GreeN OrB
what more?
in the eternal zooming of space
racing ahead to look back at the
steady blaze of exuberance
here on the edge of wild
Jack hiked up his pants
His soul
yet undefined like a poetry
comin’ by in revolution
slow and speeding to perihelion
gone and into stars
He still liked the idea
of golden future an ideal thought
before a night of dreams
rising hope of morning
one more
Summer moment,
image or metaphor
to compare to the low setting sun
each day, was enough
it’s own memorial
3.
Jack was reading
of the shaman skipping
and jumping, across vast spaces
to Siberia and back
over the positive and negative
magic of pottery shard
labyrinthine maze of life it mirrored
spinning mandala
You have no use for.
This is, where, the, serpent, lives.
In the constellation turning above
in the dizzying moment
of thought turning
in the green orange purpling
to dark
Vermont was green hills and
black eyed susans bobbing
Jack saw Alex everywhere
the black tumbling water
Crispin would describe it
in a similar language
he was from the same place
and interior wood
RoarinG
through Kansas
the ScareCroW crossed his ArMS
pointing every which way
Jack was making it all up
He wasn’t even sure if Crispin agreed
knowing damn well Achilles
certainly would not
he was still still dragging
his foe
around by the hair
he didn’t even know why
at this point
it was the Rage
at his own death
ahead on this
wonderful road
he saw that
the cool air,
Childlike Achilles
ideal,
Jack guessed
was the flOweR
PrizE,
how he kept on
the profane having turned
to the opposite
garbage metaphor
standing in for
confused time
it is all guarded by a copy
of ourselves!
the minotaur
out to destroy
he is us
he creates and destroys
our soul to keep
the blank in our eye
black and white striped
whale descending
and through bubble wake
ascending to poof
in Sun
and flower motion
and golden-rayed flowers
and distance from flower
to ash, and night
and day, were and will be
the WorldS
back around
like “the EartH
from space.”
spinning
circuit, turning
SurprisE and ExageratioN
Pleasure in the AbstracT MinD
and BeautY, the Black and death
and WinteR mind of
seasonal Mythos
explaining this
Change which equals
our own--
and reconciling,
these opposite colors
of Black and White
and pigment paint--
Jack as plain as America,
presented itself, and
made a World.
It would be enough.
The Earth.
