Peter has gotten a new job
as a bookstore clerk from one to ten
down by the river
in a sunny little house.
I've come to visit and I'm thumbing through
a book of poems
by Robinson Jeffers' brother.
Incoherent but
more interesting than this.

Out of the river rises a *** of a blob
dripping with water and begging a yen.
While he shivers
I call him a louse
and say This isn't Nippon, you!
So off he roams
probably back to his mother.
He was a nut
because he wasn't a fish.

A man and a woman are living
in a jungle. The man has lived there
all his life but the woman is new
so she's scared. The jungle is full
of snapping turtles and they are hunting some.
The man knows how to hunt them
and he kills a huge one. They drag it home
and leave it on a wooden table
in a clearing overnight. He says to the woman
Tomorrow you will clean it and cook it
in a soup. This
will accustom her to turtles
and make her less afraid.

The next morning they wake up.
But when they go into the clearing
the turtle is gone
and there's a trail of blood
leading into the jungle.
The woman panics with terror
but the man is no longer
concerned with that: he grabs
his weapons and follows
the blood into the forest.

Something created. Does the creator think ahead
or spill a storm. Rain happens. We supply the
reasons. Evaporation of water collecting over
huge expanses, condensed and pushed as clouds
over the land. We say it makes us sad or depressed.
We want to cry.

You describe the America you know and if you
are ashamed of yourself for what you see, you lie.
Or don't look. Loud noises of automobiles and
fumes. Today in Riverside Park, leaning on a rail,
the dead leaves and snow reminded me how far
from nature and life I am. The snow blew
in from the west. People passed in a smooth
slow line in front of me. Dogs trailing one
another. People hiding until crises bring them
out. Their dog smells another dog between the legs.
The master runs over to stop him. Maybe he
thinks they're going to fight. Doesn't want his
big German shepherd to hurt her dachshund.

Guy runs past in gray sweats on his tip-toes.
Glances at me. Another passes in blue sweats. Looks
longer. They think I'm a mugger. They are not
sexually attracted. I'm an opponent. I want something
they have. I look surly. Why aren't I out
running, disciplining myself, making myself healthy,
doing something. What brings you out here. You're not
doing anything but watching us and staring at the ground.

            Walking down Broadway I realized I've never lived here and still don't. Two women window shopping is strange to me. They talk about the clothes. They are friends. I slow down, I don't feel so cold. Stroll, looking at people is like a sunny day and it's a carnival. Streets different in different weather. Rainy nights are good. Cold rainy nights. Bars filled and warm. Streets empty and cold. People pass and look as members of a fraternity. They need someone and don't hide it. They will try anyone out for one night. They have tea together. They go for a drink in some neutral place. They go straight to bed in the dark. They can't see the face.

New York City is where people who are
disappearing go. It is very quiet
here, silent. A man and woman
made love below me. I could hear
the bedsprings ringing and the
woman singing in sensual pain.
My thoughts sped up as they ******
faster. Everything is dead in my room
except me and my plants. If I keep
on identifying my feelings with the
feelings of things, I too will be dead.
They are talking and laughing now. His deep
voice vibrates the air. Her laugh
is like water.

thesis: strength endures voids and emptiness.
strength constructs no homes (antithesis:

if your house leaks then on swollen days
in sullen seasons there is no home for you)

there is endless repetitious strength
enduring endlessly there is this paradox:
strength is the void endured and consequently

synthesis: enter everybody's anti-hero cross-eyed,
sees crossed eyes cross-eyed but looking in his eyes
sees straight, sees sick, sees something monstrous
something insect, sees this philosophic frippery:
that is sees man

endures in his mirror that is self-doubt,
his left arm being his right arm
his left eye sees his right eye
and no eye sees his nose right.

synthesis: enter naked the hero's fists blazing
won't put up with that mirror is laughing
smashing his left hand smashing his right hand
breaks his wrath--

enter the dumb smile of blissful blindness or
dumb sadness belting down a drink
enter an angel's colorful rags and bells
enter a man in colorful sights and smells
enter blonde beauty dragging a bulging ****.

there is the entrance where they enter through
the black hole with crescent thin edges
the animal den the fish smell the ocean motion
there is women's strength endures the stretch
forty-eight hours of warm pain
two hours of sharp pain around mid-night
last sight the tippy-toppy veins of its head
bled and blood and body and push push Push -

and the tide goes out,
enter sleep.

You are a cockroach

you are a big cockroach crawling up a pegboard
the kitchen light suddenly shines
and you must get through to the other side
but testing every evenly spaced hole you find
your shoulders will never fit
and to get away you've got to fall.

                                                          ­    fall
or refuse to crawl and wait motionless
until inspiration with an overview filters through
or you die of hunger, lack of love, fear of death
or the outlandish hands of another angry animal
with a wisdom wiser
but infinitely useless as your own.

so you die. but now the big hands are gentle
and you receive a respite of thoughtlessness
and the garbage grave has warm chicken bones
and you don't care what happens to you
or the oldest species of proud recalcitrant insects
or procreating it or foraging a grubby kitchen sink

for food. the joy of making life is new. let go,
and through the night be carried carelessly along.

i like to dress for an imaginary girl
(we will meet each other soon)   by putting on
a silk tie with subtle Chinese birds
sewn in.
she may be picturing me in her mirror
as she applies exactly the necessary line
of mascara to lengthen her lashes and darken
her eyes.
whatever begins as a mystery ends as a blind,
the nuances so well known
that birds chirp violently at their mirror images
but the pools
as they are revealed in the sunlight of
every accidental nod of the eyes remain
calm as a mirror in which there is no
image ever seen.