Have I ever been profoundly lost? Yes. Railroad tracks and a river wide as the Amazon, yet lost. Living in the intense sunshine of northern New York summer, but lost in the shade of a gazebo. And here? Here I am enclosed in a tomb of porcelain machinery. With another winter passing its calling card in at the window. The warm steam no longer cutting the rough edge. Wearing wool sweater nights. The freedom of summer gone and only one ****. What a nightmare, what a strange dream, life on planet, winter all around.

            A system, they call it a system. I call it an evolved anarchy. Repetition, never. What do I know. Repetition, every two thousand years. Coming of a frost, coming of a fire. When nature proves furious beyond remembrance. Polar bear mugs wino.

                               --------------------------------------

                         ­               *******

                            Tall, attractive, talented WM, 31,
                            trumpet player, takes pleasure in
                            performing ******* with clean
                            attractive women. Age, race, marital
                            status no object. All replies answered.

            Here is where it started, amusing myself in an undisciplined manner in the playpen. Being rude when interrupted. Height of bad taste hitting the wall, what's he talking about. Marlowe went to bed. He had a headache. Used an empty bottle for a teddy bear/sap. In the middle of the night, three secret men approached the rock he slept under. They did not see him there, the fire had long ago gone out. But they'd seen it across the valley, and tried to estimate. They were close.

            What do I care. They did this, he did that, they did this and this and that. He used his feet, took off his shoes. It mauled him to death in two minutes of the first round. Would have been better for him if it happened faster. Never got his knife out of his pocket. But he lived, with one eye after that.

                               --------------------------------------

                   What do you do with a drunken sailor early
                               in the morning?
                   You pull that sailor out of bed by his hairy
                               moorings.

            Why should anybody believe this, this tiresome outpouring of old moans and groans, grumbles about loneliness of life and dominance of telephone. This gamble on print, above the spoken, sung word. The meditative call to inhabitants of planet to kneel woefully and pray. No, to chant as if the planet were mending.

            Mending rhymes with ending, why not. And television, radio appreciated. Drugs and *****, jagged bent faces, black wet rock. The mantle of moss ripped away. Period. Amen to men. Absolute magical ripcord.

Sunset, quiet, except
for happy birthday to neighbor's child,
virgo, and all that means, purity
of morality, inability to scheme,
whatever else the stars dictated.

Woodpecker climbs oak, Connecticut.
Not ten years ago this mountain was
completely forested, untouched
since early arrival of Europeans.
Now my parents' home and others stand
in new clearings. The birds
do not seem to mind. Sing,
and deer occasionally visit, from where?
Out of the pre-historic past.

That I must die
is my every third thought.
On my hands and knees, cold sweat,
my own body murdering me.
I meet death with the philosophy
I lived in life. Acceptance
of the loneliness, the unregarding
beauty. There is that shoreline
along the straits to Puget Sound,
in mist, the generations
of sea birds nesting on the water.

1

Last night dinner
with four couples
points out the difficulties in living together
and apart.
                    Even the
son of a wealthy doctor, disdainful of
inebriates more artificial than the moon,
full, full of joy for humanity
and life
                 suffers deepening depressions
like the mist outside a lamplight.

It was a good restaurant
expensive but comfortable
in the alternate life-style way
the cook was a hairy
talented clown
and we clowned though beneath each
facade
was turmoil and decay.
                                           We lay
beside each other like bones
in a boneyard
and find joy (I do anyway)
in the bone dance
to bone music.
                                
2

Without a thought for slash fuel
or deer, the mist
deepens and deteriorates upon
the mountain. The mountain
completely unaware
of its greenness. The ice
is centuries old.

A red-tailed hawk
floats above the unit
observes what small mammals, birds
are in the clearcut

Awaits
the moment
to strike

or fades away almost
silent as the mist. I dream
of it, though I am awake
among my co-workers, the bullet
system zinging cut logs down
to the road, bones.

3

Pardon
me you mountains
for coming to the edge
without mystical knowledge
or belief, only love and wrinkled
eyes for the women and men who
light the fires and wield the chain saws,
drive the cat, swing the ax, I

completely laugh among them like a god
yes, although my face is a mask of hate
and pain, what god does not come to this field
of flowers out of fear and confusion and chains
product of the hot anvil and hot engine
of human history.
                                                
This duality, these bone-breaking dualities
this volcanic eruption erupting from some
confluence of beheaded forces, one
powerful with eternity, one
blinding with intensity, meet
and in the middle is me.

It’s slicker'n two wet snots out there today,
my crew boss warns.
Life bests my best synthesis of it
so I begin to pray
for a happy combination
of sun and mist.

Monk's shaved pate
thick pelt around edge
leans over book

                              leans over book above river
reciting lines, reading scriptures, preparing
first for his personal salvation, then
for those of other men.

                                                 He prays, sweetly
                                                 serenely, steadfastly
                                                 participating

in the broad rhythmic thrusting of the river
and the earth.

                        Completely exposed
                 to its vibration
         he vibrates passively
yet passionately

putting effort into remembering some
        of the ancient, past taboos
                and practices
                        Performing

the art of total presence
and abstinence.

                             Absent from worldly
                                         life, abstaining wholly
                                                     from touching
                                                        ­         the black girl

                                                     becoming
                                         part of her beads
                             her sweaty underwear

commanding a full dress view
            of her stimulus,
                        her honey.

How far from nature and life it is
the gray clouds, airplanes in them
the night cooing and pigeons roosting
Sirma's garden gone to roses and seed

                        That airplane overhead!
                        pointing the way
                        pointing to war

War being an aggravated condition of what
we already know

                        Flowering beneath the noise
                        of yet another jet passing overhead.

                         --------------------------------------

Why this much sadness in a world so beautiful?
We are sad for the weariness of everything, including earth
(that will go on tropically flowering long after we are gone)
we

            who are nothing
            in powerful time's
            grip

history, passionate history, coffee between
neighbors.

                         --------------------------------------

            Enter into alliance
            With the sweet darkness, night!

            Night and day, day and night
            Everybody knows when the moon is bright.

            We dance by the light of the moon
            All night.

                         --------------------------------------

We dance by the light of the moon.
We dance by the light of the moon and setting sun.

                                            We drive
                  we crow and call
three pigeons!
                  and make the world alive
                                            even bricks.

                                            Jets
two pigeons!
                  Milk-skinned doves
                                            enmesh

Two gray-skinned sharks, jets,
embrace in the sky, a blue green oil truck takes
the hill, cobblestoned, in low
steady gear.

                         --------------------------------------

Zazen position
      to remain so
            unmoved
                  yet moved
                        by the stillness

the movement of the car uphill
      part of your system of beliefs
            unmoved by it, parked
                  necking in the front seat
                        hawks diving for pigeons' eggs

and so you are compelled to move
      by the force that created you. but
            you impose your own small order
                  departing from traditions
                        human history understands

                  a mutant

such as those currently developing
the human mind beyond its past capacities.

                         --------------------------------------

                  Two straw sandals
                        blue jay call
                              two sea gulls

                         --------------------------------------

The jets return
      flying low.
            Laying low

and breathing low
      mists
            of pure noise.

Tired body aches. Long walk on starry night -
ears attuned for bear at creek, or cougar.
Nothing, not a doe.
                                    But that afternoon
came upon a healthy young buck in a meadow.
High up. And a hawk left a feather for me.
Old, old stands of lodgepole pine, grey bark
like wrinkled hides of elephants. Thick carpet
of dead needles.
                              Thirst. Sit at snowbank
for an hour eating snow. Burn tongue.
To soon after stumble upon a pond and the place
that a creek springs from the mountain. Water
indescribable. Eat ravenously and drink deep
gulps.

Climb highest rocky peak at dusk. Razor-back
ridge. Mother hawk scream nearby. Must
backtrack and then go straight down near dark
feet fall through layers of scrub pine, hands
grab for the live stalks only support against
broken bone.
                          Choose steep narrow bed of loose rocks,
surely waterfall in some other season and descend
on *** and all fours, feet first always fearful
it will end in an uncontrollable hundred foot drop.
Trickles of water nearing bottom.
                                                         ­  Cracked hands, raw
behind, cross final snowbank and attain road
along Snake Creek.

another day in the woods. on Strawberry ridge
looking out over undulating green hills to
the next great wall ridge of mountains. the last
morning clouds left from last night's storm
hanging in the valley mistily. the sun eventually
burns them away.

the respect between old Paul Karlsen and I continues
to exist. even though he's a Mormon and I'm a fallen
New Yorker. the work is comparatively easy, lifting
hundred pound bags, so you can just imagine what
we do other days. in fact, it's fun, especially for
young Bates. we get all white (and our lungs dusty).

on the way to and from the work site I read
in Silent Spring, the chapter against herbicides, gathering
inspiration for the upcoming controversy. in the end
perhaps I'll be fired for refusing to lay down Tordon
beads. realizing this, as I drive with Bates,
I see the dark green conifers and begin to miss them.

                                         Rocks and rattlesnakes, bluebells
and mountain daisies, grasses and cactuses, mahogany
bush, lodgepole pine and quaking aspen, lush forest
and dry sun-tortured mountainside, wind and seed
carried by wind, ants, streams, hummingbird
and hawk, deer, badger, ground squirrel, wolverine.