1481

The way Hope builds his House
It is not with a sill—
Nor Rafter—has that Edifice
But only Pinnacle—

Abode in as supreme
This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit
Or mortised with the Laws—

Thinking of rain clouds that rose over the city
on the first day of the year

in the same month
I consider that I have lived daily and with

eyes open and ears to hear
these years across from St Vincent's Hospital
above whose roof those clouds rose

its bricks by day a French red under
cross facing south
blown-up neo-classic facades the tall
dark openings between columns at
the dawn of. history
exploded into many windows
in a mortised face

inside it the ambulances have unloaded
after sirens' howling nearer through traffic on
Seventh Avenue long
ago I learned not to hear them
even when the sirens stop

they turn to back in
few passers-by stay to look
and neither do I

at night two long blue
windows and one short one on the top floor
burn all night
many nights when most of the others are out
on what floor do they have
anything

I have seen the building drift moonlit through geraniums
late at night when trucks were few
moon just past the full
upper windows parts of the sky
as long as I looked
I watched it at Christmas and New Year
early in the morning I have seen the nurses ray out through
arterial streets
in the evening have noticed internes blocks away
on doorsteps one foot in the door

I have come upon the men in gloves taking out
the garbage at all hours
plastic bags white strata with green intermingled and
black
I have seen one pile
catch fire and studied the cloud
at the ends of the jets of the hoses
the fire engines as near as that
red beacons and
machine-throb heard by the whole body
I have noticed molded containers stacked outside
a delivery entrance on Twelfth Street
whether meals from a meal factory made up with those
mummified for long journeys by plane
or specimens for laboratory
examination sealed at the prescribed temperatures
either way closed delivery

and approached faces staring from above
crutches or tubular clamps
out for tentative walks
have paused for turtling wheel-chairs
heard visitors talking in wind on each corner
while the lights changed and
hot dogs were handed over at the curb
in the middle of afternoon
mustard ketchup onions and relish
and police smelling of ether and laundry
were going back

and I have known them all less than the papers of our days
smoke rises from the chimneys do they have an incinerator
what for
how warm do they believe they have to maintain the air
in there
several of the windows appear
to be made of tin
but it may be the light reflected

I have imagined bees coming and going
on those sills though I have never seen them

who was St Vincent

592

What care the Dead, for Chanticleer—
What care the Dead for Day?
’Tis late your Sunrise vex their face—
And Purple Ribaldry—of Morning

Pour as blank on them
As on the Tier of Wall
The Mason builded, yesterday,
And equally as cool—

What care the Dead for Summer?
The Solstice had no Sun
Could waste the Snow before their Gate—
And knew One Bird a Tune—

Could thrill their Mortised Ear
Of all the Birds that be—
This One—beloved of Mankind
Henceforward cherished be—

What care the Dead for Winter?
Themselves as easy freeze—
June Noon—as January Night—
As soon the South—her Breeze

Of Sycamore—or Cinnamon—
Deposit in a Stone
And put a Stone to keep it Warm—
Give Spices—unto Men—

i see graves in centrifugally waiting
faces
     of vain.

    mortised to sleep, somnambulist
   of this prickly road,

   i kneel to pick flowers
   and throw them
  onto the face i long for
  understanding my eyes
     my mouth
        my body
          steelwork of soul,

   tossing as if a toast
     to our end-fate afloat
  in a raven's wingtip:

      we are all deaths
         wa
     iti
         ng.

we are each to ourselves, selected amongst the few –
yet you cannot help but
be mortal.

you, mortised to sleep.
I sick behind white walls that will never
bring your laughter
back to that small frame in front of picture windows.

I look at the world around me
reduced to a grey-faced elbow room,
as the flickering lamp lays out
all the sorrows we forget in our sleep.

who are you?
I pucker up and pull this bottle
snuggled in my clenched fist
and I cannot help but think of any other
thighed upon the cold brink of this bed,
I cannot unthank the existence of flowers
that refuse to bloom in the Sun,
all the more the birds so clearly far better fate
than this enigmatical.

we are each to ourselves and selected amongst the few –
I am the same bar-drunk soul
you met years ago, and will perhaps be
that in all the hours that lay before your callow eyes.
when it is time to draw
the knife,
blinded by the glint of your bones,
wired to the same mind that has once
had me tippling over furniture.

you are this very distant portrait in the
mausoleum that I told many people about,
wanting to go there but my feet can’t – there is a slender
thread eyeing in itself a margin between
the two of us.

and now you turn in your great wave of motion,
next to me, pressed against the sheets
far from being tossed out of sleep.

and along with you, the wind drags a cold, lunar tail:
they are marvelous in their slowness,
and the dark grows more immense than the probability
of you sinking and I, emerging,

turning, turning,
breathing,
so much the turning
and never staying still – there is inimitable life
in this dreariness,

half an elbow,
knees pared to moons,
collarbones and all that music
hung on some frail home,
sovereign of nose
and that whiteness to a paling mood,

almost at the verge of leaving
but cannot because there is conscience tossed out of sight
like a living work of guillotine

immortalized in this sleeplessness that begs
for more waking hours,

continuing in darkness, your eyes close and close and
close like the many doors
that have disappeared
    before me,

     and the frailest thing that
we have
       almost, if not always
loved.

I started writing in second grade and couldn’t spell, but
I tried to be honest about how I felt that
the world seemed just a little too unfair to
consider God
really had the best penmanship.

Because etched concrete contains my family picture, now.
And a day won’t pass where you don’t hear how
somewhere else someone else is just like you but
also just a little worse off.

I felt it first in the floorboards
as voices gave a steam-engines warning.

The wrinkles on this page weren’t necessarily acquired over time
But through frustration from lies and
that day someone said to you things were just fine
when
I felt the splinters forming in my spine, digging-

I was holding
on to rotten
ply-wood, cracking
Fingers
Nails
Digging-
Breaking.

The vacant house now has a yard full of dandelions
but I hold my breath

as I force a poem
from rigor mortised fingers:

What doesn’t **** you
Will only leave you

i.
on such frigid atmosphere lay,
a serene fugitive.

do not look at me with such lithe eyes:
the sepulcher is only starting
       to begin.

your sleep's regimen twice-folds
origamied on the quiet cloister,
hang there, puts to test the unblinking
certainty of we who bear no retrieval.

ii.
remember when
    all the fish you gut and all the *****
      you cleave were all but meaningless
       fill?

a mutiny of stench is released,
as men continually purged you of
your poisons — us mortised to this
vague mandate.

i have wished for them to miss the mark.
i have longed for them to mime only
  but your placid face.
they have ransacked the quarry of flesh
  flashed bare against mirrors riveted
   to split-seconds of hours.

iii.
when i was young,
much sleep was needed — a noonday travail to all fretting but a dream of dogs.

now this thump of quietness
may mean no recovery.
the speculations to gnaw for sleep are
lost in a blink of an eye:

the blanket that once smelt of camphor
now engulfs in a single blast of cerement.
        — this scrap of a thing that we
             almost have no use for.

iv.
a furious consideration of roomfuls
   disallowed by a heady ruling of
   emotion's precision.

that, of the most difficult choices—
knowing where to fecundate rest.
your body heeds
            no metaphysical reckoning.
  the preordained space for you to occupy, this unwanted silence that keeps
   on renaming things we cease to forget.
a sentence seized by a clause of wood.

  all too soon to wave as a single beat
  is thrown a hundred ripples into my
  eyes, dragged along and trundling there,
     left lengthening to leave, never to wait.

not with time, nor with a touch we choose
to contest — but an eyeing space,
   a moment to attract transience.

v.
i will only look at you once — lacquered
   with solace.

no ellipsis of breath could continue you.
no paragraphs would forgo of your
   punctuations. i deny my defeat
against one who brooks with victory.

    no hint of other chroma.
    a chiaroscuro of beating petals,
   left only to thrive and not swing
    with verdurous display.

how to tell if this is true?
i touch myself as words gyrate
  in the room that received your body
  like the lighthouse that feeds the sea.

—  or maybe sheathed with the untruth.
  this enigma yields no revelations.
  too late to ring yet still continuing on,
    an early drop of dew.

death is my paramour, opening up my agèd door
the fish are upside down, a portent for what’s to come
she takes my hand so slightly, takes my soul most nightly
drink up my darling girl, its not just gin or ***

my body lies in mourning, the day is still just dawning
all the eyes are crying, no one shows what’s real
spinning ever faster, life is one disaster
after another one, i dont know what to feel

splinters beneath my nails, this coffin never fails
to keep my body from decomposing every time
eyelids rigor mortised, all i have accomplished
flashes ‘fore my eyes and doesnt even rhyme

say hello to my sadness, my wholehearted medley madness
lying in the dark with no light to show my way
death is my one love, sent from those heavens above
this is out it pans out, my lonely passion play

in Pennsylvania will begin at 2:00 AM
on Sunday, March twelfth
and moost likely will impact
min-née-ute effect on me
a run of the mill on the Floss
amazingly gracefully aging
long haired pencil necked geek,
who welcomes increased photons.

Just moments ago, a dawning realization
arose within this sol son begat
from ma late mother
and then (when following poem written)
octogenarian widower father,
(me papa passed away
since date this poem written)
oh..no nothing cat
tuss strophic, boot merely the revelation,
how fist bumping
dee clocks hour hand ahead
remembered by dat

dog gone refrain
spring ahead, and fall back,
this unemployed chap
doth down play eclat
attests that his quotidian
schedule minimally affected
holed up here in Highland Manor named flat
roomy enough for thyself, the Missus,
and buzzfeed ding fruit flies
each fuzz beating insect
approximately the size of a gnat
a minor nuisance, though tolerable
within this appealing habitat

where minor inconvenience experienced
by this Schwenksville, Pennsylvania resident
cuz as a recipient
of social security disability
(social anxiety) this psyche didst get rent
which fixed (unearned) income budgeted
and predominantly costs
of living money spent
hence no need to arise
bright tailed and bushy eyed,
a freedom akin

to festive folks camped out in a tent,
which exemption immunizes
this doodle ling middle aged
muddle brained chap subject ranting
early morning drivers,
who angrily, frenetically,
and splenetically rant and vent
thus, the tendency, piquancy, and lunacy
to twitter (for the Yardbirds),
and keep company
with night owls, who went
a hooting for all the world wide web

to hear, whence straw dawgs Bach,
the exact number of hours, yer oblivious
to the tight rigorous mortised schedule
manned by Mister Clock,
essentially foisting on bread winners,
an abstract artificial construct spurring
madcap commuters to scurry in the rat race,
lest tardiness could cost
more than ham iz zone whole paycheck
(to ap pier with permanent dock
hue ment aye shun),
an unwonted blot add hock

king worry about getting canned -
i.e. on permanent furlough,
perhaps forced into a life of crime,
yet if caught...
courtesy strapping ****
wasting away in a jail cell
as warden turns the lock
one redeeming factor,
would offer opportunity to mock
management, and more pertinently
mandate to rock
and roll to the incessant muted,
yet devastatingly loud tick tock.

stationary flow
brings
stagnant growth
causing
frozen metamorphosis

crystalline liquid
conveys
regressive expansion
birthing
rigor mortised evolution

impotent energy
deposits
deadend prosperity
delivering
impeded progression

In 2024, daylight savings time will begin at two o'clock ante meridiem on Sunday, March tenth. That will mean losing an hour of precious sleep and moving the clocks (around your house, and sundry frequented places) forward one hour, though your cell phone, computer, and television plus other electronic devices will likely automatically adjust. The sun will appear to rise and set an hour later.

Father time evinces spectacular robustness despite weathering setback of countless finagling representation viz Chronos (/ˈkroʊnɒs, -oʊs/; Greek: Χρόνος, [kʰrónos], "time"), also spelled Khronos or Chronus, is a personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature. Chronos. Personification of time. Time Clipping Cupid's Wings (1694), by Pierre Mignard. Symbol.

Though crafted a few years back
jet lag effect affects yours truly
twice each year when schedules
within body electric
such as circadian rhythm
dislocate psyche
analogous to seismic shift
NOT attributed to global warming,
nor aeronautically bound sky high,
but linkedin to hour hand
on analog clock
set ahead or behind one hour.

Just about a bajillion moments ago
(from date/time
I wrote these words),
a dawning realization
arose within this sol son begat
from ma late mother
and (initial commencement
of this poem) while
then octogenarian widower father,
lived at Normandy Farms
Senior Community

in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania
(he since passed away
October 7th, 2020)
oh... no nothing cat
tuss strophic, boot
merely the revelation,
how fist bumping dee clocks
an hour hand ahead
remembered by dat
dog gone refrain
spring ahead, and fall back,

this unemployed chap
doth down play eclat
attests that his quotidian rising
schedule minimally affected
holed up here
in Highland Manor named flat
roomy enough for thyself, the Missus,
and buzzfeed ding fruit flies
each approximately the size of a gnat
a minor nuisance, though tolerable
within this appealing habitat,

where minor inconvenience experienced
by this Schwenksville, Pennsylvania resident
cuz as a recipient
of social security disability
(social anxiety) this psyche didst get rent,
which fixed (unearned) income budgeted
and predominantly costs
of living money spent
hence no need to arise
bright tailed and bushy black eyed,
pea yon sought freedom akin

to folks camped out in a tent,
which exemption immunizes
this doodle ling middle aged
muddle brained chap subjected to ranting
courtesy early morning drivers,
who angrily, frenetically,
and splenetically rant and vent
thus, the tendency, piquancy, and lunacy
to twitter (for the Yardbirds),
and keep company
with night owls, who went

a hooting for all the world wide web
to hear, whence dawgs Bach
the exact number of hours, yet oblivious
to the tight rigorous
tenon mortised schedule
manned by Mister Clock,
essentially foisting on Bread Winners,
an abstract artificial construct spurring
madcap commuters
to scurry in the rat race,

lest tardiness could cost
more than paycheck
(to ap pier with permanent dock
hue ment aye shun),
an unwonted blot add hoc
king worry about getting canned -
i.e. on permanent furlough,
perhaps forced into a life of crime,
yet if caught...
wasting away in a jail cell

as warden turns the lock
one redeeming factor,
would offer opportunity to mock
management, and more pertinently
mandate to rock
and roll to the incessant muted,
rhyme without reasonable schlock
yet devastatingly loud tick tock
analogous to stir fries
noisily prepared in wok.