In the air, floating just next to the window
solidly constructed
as sure as the golden highway
stretching from Frisco across the Bay
looking square
as the acres of boxcars
north on the interstate
on the south side of Chicago,
it's all atoms...

This morning my son postulated to me a so-far unrealized condition
relating to matter transmitters and, probably, hyperspace. "What
would happen, " he asked, "if some guy transported himself inside a big rock?"
Indeed.
Putting on my ears, I considered the situation.  Would the hypothetical solid mass of rock give way, shudder just enough to allow the insertion of a soft, squishy human being?  Or would the spaces in their respective atoms--rock's and human's--intermesh neatly with each other?  Molecular integration?  But such a challenge to the atomic bonds holding the things together might result in a nasty atomic accident. Would that leave a human-shaped void inside the solid rock, a mold exact down to the finest details of skin texture and even eyelashes? Imagine the crystal-filled waters seeping down to find such a hole--Behold!! Geode Man.

Holding my silver pen extended
like a rapier before me,
I dissect the wispy chunks
of smoke. The balance of air
that gave them form
is destroyed.  They are
no more.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
   est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
   palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
   goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
   countess passed on until she came through the
   little park, where Niobe presented her with a
   cabinet, and so departed.


Burbank crossed a little bridge
  Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
  They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive music under sea
  Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
  Had left him, that had loved him well.

The horses, under the axletree
  Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
  Burned on the water all the day.

But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
  A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
  Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye
  Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
  The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.
  The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
  Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends
  A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
  She entertains Sir Ferdinand

Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
  And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
  Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.

THE CALDER TREE
( for Connie )

The tree stands
naked

against a sunset
leafless.

She cries for the tree's
lost leaves.

I tuck her into bed
promise to make her

a tree
a la Calder.

Dawn sees the tree
adorned

in mobiles...wind chimes
where leaves should be.

The tree sings
the morning.

Mobiles sings the day
that is

to be.

The Calder tree
orchestrates this Thursday.

Birds are
our choir.

She stands under
understands

the moment
as it

sings.  

She the one "stabile"
beneath the cascade

of wind chimes & mobiles
that the morning plays.

The tree
forever planted

in her mind
now

all of her
outstretched

as she listens to
Time singing.