The Trowel
Im the trowel that shapes and creates things
Im the trowel that clicks and move things
Im the trowel that plays, stops and pauses things
Im the trowel that copies and paste things
Im the trowel that generates things
Im the trowel that closes things
Im the trowel that clicks and cut things
Im the trowel that doubles clicks and work things
Im the trowel that operates things
Im the trowel that delete things
Im the trowel that open things
Im the trowel that maximizes  things
Im the trowel  like in Rome that construct things and build things without me there is nothing
Im the trowel that opens programs that run things
Im the trowel of all things
Notification completion of my number part of the building workings
The  raven that speaks of its workings

1

I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps
Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .

I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
It is my pride that starlight is above me;
I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.

I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness,
Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light.
Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen-
The crying of violins assails the night . . .
My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them;
They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange
That I should know so little what means this music,
Hearing it always within me change and change.

Knock on the door,-and you shall have an answer.
Open the heavy walls to set me free,
And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,-
And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see!
Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners,
Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown
Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere.
I am a room, a house, a street, a town.

2

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!-
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea . . .
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me . . .

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, I tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains . . .

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor . . .

. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know . . .

Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

3

I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
Superbly hung in space.
I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
I tap them into place.
But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?

These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
These stones are wet with rain,
I build them into a wall today,
Tomorrow they fall again.

Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?

Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
The yesterday he left in sleep,-his name,-
Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?

I devise new patterns for laying stones
And build a stronger wall.
One drop of rain astonishes me
And I let my trowel fall.

The flashing of leaves delights my eyes,
Blue air delights my face;
I will dedicate this stone to god
And tap it into its place.

4

That woman-did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.

But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.

. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vague god who blows like clouds
Above these dripping lands . . .

But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention?
She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way
There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . .
She must have known, and yet,-she let it stay.
Music of flesh! Music of root and sod!
Leaf touching leaf in the rain!
Impalpable clouds of red ascend,
Red clouds blow over my brain.

Did she await from me some sign of acceptance?
I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
Is it to be conceived that I could attract her-
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
I,-with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!-
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
I will delight in god as I comb my hair.

And the conquests of my bolder past return
Like strains of music, some lost tune
Recalled from youth and a happier time.
I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more;
One more we climb

Up the forbidden stairway,
Under the flickering light, along the railing:
I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more,
I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly,
And softly at last we close the door.

Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me:
It is true she came out of time for me,
Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth,
The cruel eternity of the sea.
She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence
Shining with secrets she did not know.
Music of dust! Music of web and web!
And I, bewildered, let her go.

I light my pipe. The flame is yellow,
Edged underneath with blue.
These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps,
Than thoughts of god are true.

5

It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano
Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord,
And the universe is suddenly agitated,
And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword.
Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken,
The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble.
The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation;
And I, too, will dissemble.

Yet it is sorrow has found my heart,
Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death;
And pain twirls slowly among the trees.

The street-piano revolves its glittering music,
The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn,
Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence,
They ripple and lazily burn.
The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,-
It does not move; my trowel taps a stone,
The sweet note wavers amid derisive music;
And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone.

Do not recall my weakness, savage music!
Let the knives rest!
Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters,
And the notes like poniards pierce my breast.
And I remember the shadows of webs on stones,
And the sound or rain on withered grass,
And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions
At its image in the glass.

Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music!
The green blades flicker and gleam,
The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming;
In the blue sea above me lazily stream
Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering;
The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit;
Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault
On dust and bones, and I am mute.

It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound.
They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon.
It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window
The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon.
Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain,
A long wind hurries them whirled and far,
A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened,
I hold my breath and watch a star.

Do not disturb my memories, heartless music!
I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall,
The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight,
And I watch white jasmine fall.
Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself
Drift, a white petal, down the sky?
One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence,
Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry.

6

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.

Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.

Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see the lilacs fall,
I hear the scrape of knuckles against the wall,
The leaves are tossed and tremble where he plunges among them,
And I hear the sound of his breath,
Sharp and whistling, the rythm of death.

It is evening: the lights on a long street balance and sway.
In the purple ether they swing and silently sing,
The street is a gossamer swung in space,
And death himself in the wind comes dancing along it,
And the lights, like raindrops, tremble and swing.
Hurry, spider, and spread your glistening web,
For death approaches!
Hurry, rose, and open your heart to the bee,
For death approaches!
Maiden, let down your hair for the hands of your lover,
Comb it with moonlight and wreathe it with leaves,
For death approaches!

Death, huge in the star; small in the sand-grain;
Death himself in the rain,
Drawing the rain about him like a garment of jewels:
I hear the sound of his feet
On the stairs of the wind, in the sun,
In the forests of the sea . . .
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat!

7

It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant
Above a green and dreaming hill.
I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless,
The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still.

It appears to me that I am one with these:
A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees.
It is noontime: all seems still
Upon this green and flowering hill.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky,
A cloud comes whirling, and flings
A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill.
It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings.
Amazing! Is there a change?
The hill seems somehow strange.
It is noontime. And in the tree
The leaves are delicately disturbed
Where the bird descends invisibly.
It is noontime. And in the pool
The sky is blue and cool.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere,
Something flings itself at the hill,
Tears with claws at the earth,
Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
Crashing against the green.
The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
A terror stiffens the hill.
The trees turn rigidly, to face
Something that circles with slow pace:
The blue pool seems to shrink
From something that slides above its brink.
What struggle is this, ferocious and still-
What war in sunlight on this hill?
What is it creeping to dart
Like a knife-blade at my heart?

It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil:
The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth.
The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented.
A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow,
Phrases again his unremembering mirth,
His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth.

8

The pale blue gloom of evening comes
Among the phantom forests and walls
With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums.
My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the thrum of the evening star.

My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,-
Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,-
To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
It is the eternal mistress of the world
Who shakes these drums for my delight.
Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
The delicious quivering of this air!

I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
To the one small room in the void I know.
Yesterday it was there,-
Will I find it tonight once more when I climb the stair?
The drums of the street beat swift and soft:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the throb of the bridal star.
It weaves deliciously in my brain
A tyrannous melody of her:
Hands in sunlight, threads of rain
Against a weeping face that fades,
Snow on a blackened window-pane;
Fire, in a dusk of hair entangled;
Flesh, more delicate than fruit;
And a voice that searches quivering nerves
For a string to mute.

My life is uncompleted: and yet I hurry
Among the tinkling forests and walls of evening
To a certain fragrant room.
Who is it that dances there, to a beating of drums,
While stars on a grey sea bud and bloom?
She stands at the top of the stair,
With the lamplight on her hair.
I will walk through the snarling of streams of space
And climb the long steps carved from wind
And rise once more towards her face.
Listen! the drums of the drowsy trees
Beating our nuptial ecstasies!

Music spins from the heart of silence
And twirls me softly upon the air:
It takes my hand and whispers to me:
It draws the web of the moonlight down.
There are hands, it says, as cool as snow,
The hands of the Venus of the sea;
There are waves of sound in a mermaid-cave;-
Come-then-come with me!
The flesh of the sea-rose new and cool,
The wavering image of her who comes
At dusk by a blue sea-pool.

Whispers upon the haunted air-
Whisper of foam-white arm and thigh;
And a shower of delicate lights blown down
Fro the laughing sky! . . .
Music spins from a far-off room.
Do you remember,-it seems to say,-
The mouth that smiled, beneath your mouth,
And kissed you . . . yesterday?
It is your own flesh waits for you.
Come! you are incomplete! . . .
The drums of the universe once more
Morosely beat.
It is the harlot of the world
Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums
And disturbs the solitude of my heart
As evening comes!

I leave my work once more and walk
Along a street that sways in the wind.
I leave these st

A trowel and an infinite supply of spackle. Leave me to work, friends. I perceive your cracks, everyone, every one. Canyons, hairline crevices, they trace your backs like rain down windowsills. I've never quite been able to predict where the fissure will turn.

A trowel and an infinite supply of patience. Leave me to my duty, friends. Let me fill in your fractures, I can saturate them to their basin with reparations, reconciliations. I will breathe forgiveness, companionship, love, whatever you need onto my mendings, they will harden. Paint over them what shades you will, I’ll hold your hand as you hold the brush.

A trowel and an infinite supply of compassion. Leave me to my compulsion, friends. Maintain my repairs, I beg of you. You let them become brittle and they flake off of your faces like paper Mache masks. You, let the paint fade. Your work, our work, to fix the fissures, it’s crumbling through your fingers, outstretched, dumbfounded you stare. Pick up the trowel and spackle your own canyons. Spread the fleeting putty across your faces till your eyes cry dust when you blink.

Oh look, upon your left eyelid. A fracture. A trowel. Leave me to my love, friends.

Daves trowel has a hickory handle,
With a blade thats broader than most,
It could cover the **** of a Tipperary mare
Going down to the Steeplechase post.

I spin it around in my palm,
the trowel . . . not the horse,
Its old, from a bygone age,
When skill was the poor brother of force.

Now its weatherbeaten and corroded,
Every cut and nick still lingers,
Daves trowel shines as bright as day,
Im talking about my fingers.

1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;
Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . .
Has no one, in a great autumnal forest,
When the wind bares the trees,
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown?
Has no one, on a mountain in the spring,
Heard Senlin sing?
Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,-
Riding alone from the deep-starred night.
Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,-
Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.'

He lights his pipe with a pointed flame.
'Yet, there were many autumns before I came,
And many springs. And more will come, long after
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Become an ancient forest. There is no sound
Except where an old twig tires and falls;
Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls;
Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground.

Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin?
Is Senlin the wood we walk in, -ourselves,-the world?
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer,
Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . .

Yet we would say: this is no wood at all,
But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall;
And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair,
Lights his pipe with a meditative stare.

2

Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms
And turns his head to look at walls and trees.
The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter,
The lights are jewels, black roots freeze.
'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these,
Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain
To seek, in another air, myself again?'

(Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks
Behold a bewildered oak
With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.)
'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing,
That crept from the rocks of buried time
And dedicated its holy life to climb
From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain,
Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep
Into a hollow gigantic world of light
Thinking the sky to be its destined shell,
Hoping to fit it well!-'

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind.
Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand
Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand
We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin?

In the desert of Senlin must we live and die?
We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders,
Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry.
'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence
Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky.

Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all,
Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall
White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze,
And Senlin turns his head to look at trees.

3

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening,
By a silent shore, by a far distant sea,
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.
In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately,
Stars hang over the purple waveless sea;
A sea on which no sail was ever lifted,
Where a human voice was never heard.
The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water,
The silent stars seem silently to sing.
And gravely come white unicorns down to the water,
One by one they come and drink their fill;
And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill.

It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening
The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light,
Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still.
The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness,
Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground.
The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf,
Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound.
Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight
And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing?
Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows?
Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . .
White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass,
Singing maidens are buried in deep graves,
The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . .
And solemnly one by one in the darkness there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.

No silver bells are heard. The westering moon
Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea.
Wet **** hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools
Left on the rocks by the receding sea
Starfish slowly turn their white and brown
Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown.
Do sea-girls haunt these caves-do we hear faint singing?
Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing?
Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles
And fallen softly back?
No, these shores and caverns are all silent,
Dead in the moonlight; only, far above,
On the smooth contours of these headlands,
White amid the eternal black,
One by one in the moonlight there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
The unicorns come down to the sea.

4

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Bending his small legs in a peculiar way,
Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe.
His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,
He is happily conscious of roofs and skies;
And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes
To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse.
The sky is brilliant between the roofs,
The windows flash in the yellow sun,
On the hard pavement ring the hoofs,
The light wheels softly run.
Bright particles of sunlight fall,
Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn,
Honey-like heat flows down the wall,
The white spokes dazzle and turn.

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Regards the hearse with an introspective eye.
'Is it my childhood there,' he asks,
'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?'
He taps his trowel against a stone;
The trowel sings with a silver tone.

'Nevertheless I know this well.
Bury it deep and toll a bell,
Bury it under land or sea,
You cannot bury it save in me.'

It is as if his soul had become a city,
With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets
Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . .
'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head.
But is that Senlin?-Or is this city Senlin,-
Quietly watching the burial of the dead?
Dumbly observing the cortege of its dead?
Yet we would say that all this is but madness:
Around a distant corner trots the hearse.
And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight
Happily conscious of his universe.

5

In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden,
The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots
Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture.
Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits.
Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone!
Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain.
Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim?
Delicate blossoms opened in the rain,
Black bees flew among them in the sunlight,
And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird
Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit;
And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word.
. . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone,
Observes this tree he planted: it is his own.

'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree
Utters profound things in this garden;
And in its silence speaks to me.
I have sensations, when I stand beneath it,
As if its leaves looked at me, and could see;
And those thin leaves, even in windless air,
Seem to be whispering me a choral music,
Insubstantial but debonair.

"Regard," they seem to say,
"Our idiot root, which going its brutal way
Has cracked your garden wall!
Ugly, is it not?
A desecration of this place . . .
And yet, without it, could we exist at all?"
Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me
To make their apology;
Yet, while they apologize,
Ask me a wary question with their eyes.
Yes, it is true their origin is low-
Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true
Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know
The leaves less cruel-the root less beautiful?
Sometimes it seems as if there grew
In the dull garden of my mind
A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves,
Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind.
Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me
That I myself am such a tree . . .'

. . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words
So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree:
And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds
While cruel roots dig downward secretly.

6

Rustling among his odds and ends of knowledge
Suddenly, to his wonder, Senlin finds
How Cleopatra and Senebtisi
Were dug by many hands from ancient tombs.
Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds:
Delicious to see our futile modern sunlight
Dance like a harlot among these Dogs and Dooms!

First, the huge pyramid, with rock on rock
Bloodily piled to heaven; and under this
A gilded cavern, bat festooned;
And here in rows on rows, with gods about them,
Cloudily lustrous, dim, the sacred coffins,
Silver starred and crimson mooned.

What holy secret shall we now uncover?
Inside the outer coffin is a second;
Inside the second, smaller, lies a third.
This one is carved, and like a human body;
And painted over with fish and bull and bird.
Here are men walking stiffly in procession,
Blowing horns or lifting spears.
Where do they march to? Where do they come from?
Soft whine of horns is in our ears.

Inside, the third, a fourth . . . and this the artist,-
A priest, perhaps-did most to make resemble
The flesh of her who lies within.
The brown eyes widely stare at the bat-hung ceiling.
The hair is black, The mouth is thin.
Princess! Secret of life! We come to praise you!
The torch is lowered, this coffin too we open,
And the dark air is drunk with musk and myrrh.
Here are the thousand white and scented wrappings,
The gilded mask, and jeweled eyes, of her.

And now the body itself, brown, gaunt, and ugly,
And the hollow scull, in which the brains are withered,
Lie bare before us. Princess, is this all?
Something there was we asked that is not answered.
Soft bats, in rows, hang on the lustered wall.

And all we hear is a whisper sound of music,
Of brass horns dustily raised and briefly blown,
And a cry of grief; and men in a stiff procession
Marching away and softly gone.

7

'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin,
'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden
Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?
Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly
Above those stones and times?
Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows
Between to massive boulders of black basalt
Year after year, and fades and blows?

Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,
Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame
Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.
Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?
Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,
A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,
Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice
With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.

Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder
Rung by silver rung,
Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow
Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?
Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length
Trying his futile strength?
A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?
Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?
Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,
Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,
And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,-
A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.

8

In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise,
One yellow star sings over a peak of snow,
And melts and vanishes in a light like roses.
Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow.

The clouds flow downward, slowly as grey glaciers,
Or up to a pale rose-azure pass.
Blue streams ****** down from snow to boulders,
From boulders to white grass.

Icicles on the pine tree melt
And softly flash in the sun:
In long straight lines the star-drops fall
One by one.

Is a voice heard while the shadows still are long,
Borne slowly down on the sparkling air?
Is a thin bell heard from the peak of silence?
Is someone among the high snows there?

Where the blue stream flows coldly among the meadows
And mist still clings to rock and tree
Senlin walks alone; and from that twilight
Looks darkly up, to see

The calm unmoving peak of snow-white silence,
The rocks aflame with ice, the rose-blue sky . . .
Ghost-like, a cloud descends from twinkling ledges,
To nod before the dwindling sun and die.

'Something there is,' says Senlin, 'in that mountain,
Something forgotten now, that once I knew . . .'
We walk before a sun-tipped peak in silence,
Our shadows descend before us, long and blue.

it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
the next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I'd take the window
back to the glass man.
I don't remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer
      and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.

I don't care like I used to; I lay bricks straighter than I
      used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons.

When the sun is in my eyes and the ladders are shaky and the
      mortar boards go wrong, I think of you.

Now that people are becoming more aware of my poetic efforts, interests are being expressed regarding the background of my poetry - in addition, to my spiritual muse. In this installment, I share the background and poem "In Remembrance of Grandma".

I recognize that most of you reading this article will not know much about my maternal Grandmother, other than what you're able to glean from this page. However, there are universal lessons that need to be shared. This poem was originally written for her funeral.

For nearly forty years, I was blessed to have known my grandparents; blessed - because many people don't have the opportunity to know their family history personally from those who came before them. Within about one decade, mine were all gone - with my maternal grandmother being the last one to die. Of the four of them, I had spent the most time with her. My grandmother had moved to Portland, Maine; this came about as the result of two significant events in her life. First, her husband Al ***** died unexpectedly; second, her oldest daughter (and my mom) had gone through a divorce. So they decided to purchase a home jointly and move on with their lives. Also living with them was my aunt Tina, my mother's younger sister.

My grandmother was an intelligent woman; she was one of those people who completed the New York Times crossword puzzles - in ink and usually in under an hour. And she grew some of the most beautiful roses in her tiny backyard. It was wonderful to see the joy in her eyes when it came to her flowers. The problem was that she was heart-broken when Al passed away; for decades they would go dancing at night, just to hold one another more often. With him gone, she stopped living for herself. Less than a year from his retirement, her husband died on the picket line at work. Although I can only imagine her grief, it was difficult to see the affects of this tragedy slowly eat away at her soul. She rarely left her home, with the exception of going to Church, the grocery store or some of the neighbors' homes a few times during the month. She and Al were to go to Hawaii for a second honeymoon, but she could not bear to go there without him. In The Word, we are essentially reminded that "people without vision perish" (and yes, I know that there are variations of interpretation of this concept). Despite our ability to absorb pain, we must learn to move forward in life and not let the pain consume us.

For many years, she smoked cigarettes and was unwilling to give them up. She did so eventually; my mother moved out of their house, Tina got married; she and her husband lived with my grandma. Tina and husband Greg started their own family, raising three boys - thus giving her the incentive to quit. As most everyone knows, smoking increases one's risk of having cancer. My family were under the impression that she had managed to escape the misery of that disease. Less than two weeks from her death was when most of the family learned that she had contracted cancer and emphysema.

Although I understand and appreciate the need for privacy, it was selfish of my grandmother not to share the condition of her health. Her justification for not telling anyone, was that she had decided not to go through with the cancer treatment. By not telling us, she figured that no one would be given the opportunity to dissuade her from her decision. After all, it was her decision (and rightfully so). Before she died, Tina started quickly gathering information about cancer - to better learn about what to expect regarding the few remaining days of her mother's life. One cancer brochure shocked her; as a result of reading the material, she was now having to deal with guilt. This particular pamphlet laid out symptoms and patterns of human behavior of those suffering from this fatal disease - stuff that Tina had observed, but never realized the meaning of until it was too late. So in effect, my grandmother caused her family more pain by not sharing. In addition, not everyone who cared about her, had enough time to say good-bye (while she was alive).

Although I had time to compose this brief poem in her honor, I did not have enough time to process my grandmother's death fully (prior to the service). I was supposed to read the following poem and share a few words. To my surprise, I was choked up with immense grief, which kept me from delivering my eulogy; my wife kindly stepped in and presented the poem. One of my brothers was extremely upset for my inability to talk on behalf of my grandmother; so he spoke on my family's behalf. It's one of my few regrets in life; however, she was the only grandparent of mine that got to read my poetry manuscript. Less than two months before her death, she had taken time read my poetry and was pleasantly pleased with my efforts. During her appraisal of my work was the first time I learned that she wrote poetry - as of today, I've never gotten to read a line of poetry that she wrote. So it breaks my heart not to know what she composed, as well as not being able to share any more of my writing with her. And so here is my tribute for her...



　

In Remembrance of Grandma

A manicured garden
of colored, cultured roses
now goes untended.
For Marguerite has been freed
of all mortal constraint;
left behind
is a silver trowel
and dancing shoes,
as her spirit flies
to the Hawaiian shore
for pirouetting barefoot
on the seashell sand.

Goodbye Grandma *****; I miss you already.
(18 June 2006)

The urgent care is the nursery
Where I choose my seeds with thought.
The doctor is the gardener
Who knows how to fix what I’ve wrought.

She sows the seeds inside my skin,
Yet not with a trowel or ***.
She uses a needle and surgical thread,
With budding knots lined up in a row.

Then she leaves me with my tidy ground
And some knowledge on how I should care
For the lined up plot she’s left to me,
Whose potential I’m required to bear.

The deep rivet I slashed into my skin
Is where the seedlings take root.
The blood from my veins keeps them moist
As the new blossoms stand resolute.

But when the weather grows dark and dreary,
My sprouts need cover from the cold.
So I bundle them up with jeans and sweats
To protect them and let them take hold.

But despite the layers I pile atop,
The small spiny blooms poke through.
I run my fingers back and forth,
And marvel at how fast they grew.

Then after they’ve grown for fourteen days,
I return to the nursery at last.
The gardener plucks and prunes and picks
‘Til the wounds and the blooms come to pass.

So now the perennials have passed us by,
And the sprouts have been taken to bin.
The wound that watered my seedlings’ through,
Has left but a scar on my skin.

I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
Superbly hung in space.
I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
I tap them into place.
But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?
These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
These stones are wet with rain,
I build them into a wall today,
Tomorrow they fall again.
Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?
Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
The yesterday he left in sleep,--his name,--
Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?
I devise new patterns for laying stones
And build a stronger wall.
One drop of rain astonishes me
And I let my trowel fall.
The flashing of leaves delights my eyes,
Blue air delights my face;
I will dedicate this stone to god
And tap it into its place.

Aroused and angry,
I thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war;
But soon my fingers fail’d me, my face droop’d, and I resign’d myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.

1

First, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!)
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.

2

Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading;
Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city,
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth,
With her million children around her—suddenly,
At dead of night, at news from the south,
Incens’d, struck with clench’d hand the pavement.

A shock electric—the night sustain’d it;
Till with ominous hum, our hive at day-break pour’d out its myriads.

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways,
Leapt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.

3

To the drum-taps prompt,
The young men falling in and arming;
The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s hammer, tost aside with precipitation;)
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court;
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly down on the horses’ backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving;
Squads gather everywhere by common consent, and arm;
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their accoutrements—they buckle the straps carefully;
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels;
The white tents cluster in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise cannon, and again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;
(How good they look, as they ***** down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and knapsacks cover’d with dust!)
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere;
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother;
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;)
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way;
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites;
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over the stones;
(Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence!
Soon, unlimber’d, to begin the red business;)
All the mutter of preparation—all the determin’d arming;
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines;
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere parade now;
War! an arm’d race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away;
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an arm’d race is advancing to welcome it.

4

Mannahatta a-march!—and it’s O to sing it well!
It’s O for a manly life in the camp!
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold—the work for giants—to serve well the guns:
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely;
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding.

5

And you, Lady of Ships! you Mannahatta!
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frown’d amid all your children;
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Bending his small legs in a peculiar way,
Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe.
His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,
He is happily conscious of roofs and skies;
And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes
To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse.
The sky is brilliant between the roofs,
The windows flash in the yellow sun,
On the hard pavement ring the hoofs,
The light wheels softly run.
Bright particles of sunlight fall,
Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn,
Honey-like heat flows down the wall,
The white spokes dazzle and turn.
Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Regards the hearse with an introspective eye.
'Is it my childhood there,' he asks,
'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?'
He taps his trowel against a stone;
The trowel sings with a silver tone.
'Nevertheless I know this well.
Bury it deep and toll a bell,
Bury it under land or sea,
You cannot bury it save in me.'
It is as if his soul had become a city,
With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets
Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . .
'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head.
But is that Senlin?--Or is this city Senlin,--
Quietly watching the burial of the dead?
Dumbly observing the cortege of its dead?
Yet we would say that all this is but madness:
Around a distant corner trots the hearse.
And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight
Happily conscious of his universe.

Hands  formed into a fist
her jaw, set..

****.
She's gonna slug me

     "You opened up a thirst in me, Paul.
      Are you going to see it through..

           or just stand there?"

Her war-torn, Mesopotamian spirit
Bringing fire to those beautiful, Baltic eyes;
A direct descendant of all things, Telmun
She is waiting on a Pearl
Waiting,  for the Pearl

     Archipelago of Virginity
       --Beautiful girl is the Pearl

After gazing at her stunning beauty
I turn back, and resume the task
of digging with a small trowel
into the  dark, loamy soil

She slaps me on the shoulder,
tears  streaming from those  dark
sky-filled eyes..
              "..I  thirst"


Ladles   are made for love;
In abundance, they bring drink
to those who sojourn,
  those,  who wait

   And it  is  I
who have  allowed  myself
to become distracted,
  as of late--

Holding out  for beauty
When all along,  Beauty

Has been holding out  for me

That woman--did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.
But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.
. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vague god who blows like clouds
Above these dripping lands . . .
But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention?
She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way
There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . .
She must have known, and yet,--she let it stay.
Music of flesh! Music of root and sod!
Leaf touching leaf in the rain!
Impalpable clouds of red ascend,
Red clouds blow over my brain.
Did she await from me some sign of acceptance?
I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
Is it to be conceived that I could attract her--
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
I,--with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!--
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
I will delight in god as I comb my hair.
And the conquests of my bolder past return
Like strains of music, some lost tune
Recalled from youth and a happier time.
I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more;
One more we climb
Up the forbidden stairway,
Under the flickering light, along the railing:
I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more,
I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly,
And softly at last we close the door.
Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me:
It is true she came out of time for me,
Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth,
The cruel eternity of the sea.
She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence
Shining with secrets she did not know.
Music of dust! Music of web and web!
And I, bewildered, let her go.
I light my pipe. The flame is yellow,
Edged underneath with blue.
These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps,
Than thoughts of god are true.

She was stark naked
I could see her ****
And her boyfriend had
Quite the **** on him.
His meat should have
Made him quite proud
And the lady’s ****
For crying out loud
Were perky and prominent
And quite nice to see.
Both of them seemed
To be pointing at me.

And I seemed to be
Eagerly pointing back.
They both very obviously
Aware of that one fact.
She smiled openly
And the guy broadly winked.
I started asking myself
“Do you think? He did wink!”
So, I winked and smiled
And let them see my bone
And hoped this meant I
Would not be alone.

I hoped they’d invite me
To sit on their beach towel
To slather sunscreen on them
Like a human mortar trowel.
There are not many things
There are few better for me
Than hot mixed couples
Into some fun bisexuality.
I have games for both kinds
And genders of human beings
All based on the stimulus
Of what I’m feeling and seeing.

Generally a single man
Is not lucky at this scene
A common concept that I
Always found to be quite mean.
I understand about jealousy,
An emotion foreign to me
So, I usually keep my distance
And behave circumspectly.
But when I get the go-ahead
I never hesitate very long.
How could something this good
Be considered bad or wrong?

Colourless, white and grey
The snow,
Outside, cold, blinding, unfriendly.
Inside grey.
Grey walls, grey floor, grey ceiling,
Grey faces, grey eyes, unfriendly grey
And cold.

Four a.m. breakfast.
Porridge, fish broth and bread.
Judges, priests, high-ranking officials,
Jews, writers, dissenters,
Now a series of numbers,
Queue wearily for their food.
Work Team C.S.S. Building

They eat, without sound, without taste, without pleasure.
Grey soup, grey porridge, grey bread.
The priest mumbles some prayers,
The judge sits upright – elite.
The two Muscovites talk politics.
All Citizens of the Socialist State.

Four-thirty a.m.
Twenty degrees below freezing,
The work party is counted out,
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty...
Citizen Guard count carefully now
....twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five...
Count one short Citizen Guard
And you’ll fill the gap yourself.

Eight guards, armed and warm,
Two dogs, hungry and wild.
Five abreast we march,
Hands behind backs, eyes forward.
A step to the right or left
And you’re dead, shot
Or torn to shreds.

Five-thirty and we arrive.
It is the site for the new power house.
Counted again, guards posted
And the team leaders take over.
Citizen guard discards his cigar ****
And two men fight to retrieve it;
The snow claims it first.

Fire made and water boiling
We mix the mortar.
Building blocks piled high
Trowels at the ready,
Work rate fixed, we begin
And heaven help the man
Who fails to pull his weight.

Trowels glide over steaming mortar,
Just a thin layer,
Put too much on and come the summer
It will all just melt away.

More mortar, more mortar for number two.
More water! Hurry man, hurry
The boiler’s running dry.
More wood! More wood!
No, not coal,
We want fire not smoke – no wood?
Then pull down the stairs.

The sun is overhead.
It is one o clock.
I remember reading where the Americans
Believe it is Twelve Noon when the sun is high!
Ah! If the Soviet Government says it is one
Then by God, whilst you’re in Russia
It’s one.

Time for rations.
It’s a good job the porridge has no taste
Because it looks alarmingly vile
But it fills your guts
And while you can feel it
Weighing heavy as you move,
You’re contented.

Of course there’s no nourishment
To be got from it,
We’d be better off eating grass!
And so we would,
If there were any.
I’ve lost three teeth in eight years
Through crunching this bread.

Break over, back to work.
Stoke the boiler,
More wood! More water!
More mortar for number one!
You lazy sons of lice.

It’s getting darker.
The wall is now at chest height,
We’ve done well
And we got good rates.
It’s getting colder now,
The nightly lowering
Of the temperature begins.

They count us out again.
Why I don’t know,
Where would we go?
What would we eat?
You could walk for a week
And still see nothing but snow;
Like as not you’d be dead by the first night.

Isaac is limping.
I saw him earlier,
His big toe was swollen black.
I saw him lift the trowel
And heard the dull thud
But I couldn’t watch.
Crazy Jew!
He’ll get ten days if they find out.

Ten days! That’s a laugh.
Two out of three die by the first night,
They just freeze up
Like wet sheets left out
In a frost,
Stiff as boards.
Crazy....

Now we’re running!
Are they mad?
Why are we running?
Copjezc, why are we running?
The maintenance group returning?
God no! If they get there first
We’ll get no supper tonight
Ruin you *******, run.
A night without food,
Half of us will be dead by morning.
Run! Run!

I hear screaming.
It’s the dogs,
If I turn my head
I can just see without slowing down...
Isaac!
Crazy ******......

Come on feet run, run,
Run or be dammed.
We’re going to make it.
Poor Isaac. Still he’s out of it now.
Come on citizen guard
Count us in – we’re hungry.

Ten o clock, supper.
Fish broth, porridge and bread.
Red faces, sparkling eyes,
Tired but warm.
We worked like hell today
And been fed three meals.
Time for a smoke.

All in all it’s been a good day.
I stole an apple,
Found a piece of metal
From a guard’s buckle,
It’ll make a good knife.
Yes! If the next five hundred days
Are no worse,
I might even start praying again.

I've worked with shovel and
trowel half of my life but right
now if I could recall the hypo-
tenuse of a right triangle I'd
try another angle for putting
those tools to use digging a rect-
angular hole so neat and six feet
deep then sew my mouth shut
just so I can't tell the devil where
to go when it's cold and I'm sleeping
with white slugs behind my ears like
big Beltones so I can hear the mock-
ingbird sing those words on my stone.

I found you

lone brick, of a million, one part of a mortared whole

your brothers now buried by time, without benediction  

progeny of clay, shale, you were born in a kiln as hot as all creation

dragged to this plain by spoked wheel and mule--sweat of the honest illiterate

long before the dusters blew the crops to hell, and Tom Joad's kin to the promised land

the mason who laid you in a proud straight row is now in the ground too

not a mile from you, where the county put him the hot Friday a man set foot on the moon

the bricklayer’s days with the trowel long past, his memories of you, your place in all weathers interred with him  

I found you , and you are the man’s legacy, he yours

Put this matter with trowel and ***,
Into the dark and fertile ground,
With each hit, he loosed the soil
A once happy man thou condemned to uselessly toil  
His claws, cracked and broken shells
Jaundiced with the duty long days that did require
Lamed by grief and forced to work
Here, till the end of days, within this garden, this mire.
Deep does a ****** live here, past the clay and bedrock
Like the pride and valor and resolute spirit of the domineering ****
Or so her mien, it does beget
Or some other erroneous sentiment
That she, not he, were to bear this labor.
Within the ground, he did remember, in his spritely youth,
He planted, and thought none of, but a seed,
Into this verdant splendor, which bore that infernal ****.
And, thence, thereof came a fruit,
Of malignity infinite,
All the while it poisoned the ******’s white and water’s pure,
As its eerie little spines proceeded to take root.
Her garments poised to emulate white, instead
The ******, to him, had lost her white
Or never had white at all,
The ******, to him, had lost her white,
To him, the ****** was dead.
The fruit and seed, effulgent and pretty, to those who saw them bloom
Attractive were they so to them, irresistible to behold
That they, to him with great chagrin, did immediately consume.
“But the ******,” he cried. “The ****** has poisoned them!”
Yet they continued to eat.
“We do not believe you,” they replied, and slept ceaselessly on their feet.
One by one did they all collapse from the toxin of its juice.
The ****** watched and laughed, of caution was there no use.
Powerless and sullen, he stood, for remedy was far passed.
The ******, now regarded with delight,
Has he, poor, poor man, to tend to his blight.
The garden gone, its cleanliness perverted,
His words were ignored, and thrown wayside,
His admonition he so heatedly asserted,
The ******, her words never to be trusted
Had won over the people, whose homes she sought to entreat,
And with her rite, so treasured, so adored,
They enslaved and force him to his mire, to tend to the rag and filthy lands
Where he would remain with the garden
His words, his skin so like the sands

.of all days, but esp. a day such as this,
so little must happen,
  but at the same time so much can happen,
and it did, later in the day i watched
the magic at wimbledon: cori "coco" gauff
went into the 4th round -
     clinging on to reply with 2 match
points against her...
    coming back in a tie break in the 2nd
set, winning the 3rd 7 - 5...
    and... as ever, of all the grand slams in
tennis... wimbledon is always packed...
fancy seeing a full crowd at either the u.s.
open or roland garose...
   which makes for ****** viewing...
you really do need the crowd there,
the commentary doesn't really matter when
the crowd is there: the crowd and subsequently
the atmosphere... which is a delight
for t.v. viewing...
       but prior?
               the unadulterated pleasure from
physical labour... notably gardening in this example...
mawing the lawn...
  and then cutting down my grape vine:
poor ****** died somehow...
  many a good bottles of wine it did provide...
i'll miss making my own wine...
              but more importantly...
a rekindled sensation i once associated with
physical labour...
   after the work was done...
to sit, smoke a cigarette, have 3 sips of coffee...
and just feel a full-embodiment
without any necessities of thinking,
of the mind,
    to have invested so much much in the body
and so little in the mind...
   physical labour has to be the most
gratifying aspect of life:
    i'm jealous of the men in trades where
physical labour is required...
   how they can block thinking,
while perfecting their physical deeds...
an act of physical labour eventually outstrips
any gratification from that mollusc
    slouch into intellectualism:
esp. if there is no worthy opponent and you're
performing "intellectual" deeds solo...
what permeates from physical of labour
is a clarity of mind,
   esp. in the realm of horticulture...
       but i remember it was the same after
an honest day's work on a construction site...
there is no superior feeling:
not even during or after ***...
                           the body disavows the mind,
it disallows any bothersome minor existential
crisis to enter the foray of man's immediate
circumstance...
    almost all "intellectual" excursions can be
so ****... unsatisfying -
                   it would appear that physical
labour is more rewarding than any
intellectual "labour"...
                         since after the work is done...
both the body and the mind rest...
     unlike the opposite:
         where the body is perhaps at rest,
but the mind continues its "perverted"
                         distaste for a sense of completeness
and its furthered inability to sway
away from prodding abstracts or concrete
observations;
shame about the grape vine...
     making your own wine is probably
the most rewarding part of life -
   well... it was for me.

what made the Freudian question more penetrable is
what made it obvious - asking the same question
whether a housewife needed a kettle
was like asking a bricklayer for trowel -
only the rich payed for the meaning
of dreams... ****... the poor were just given
the fact that, we do, actually dream -
unless it's some over-worldliness or
exacting the unconsciousness of the heart
keeping rhythm to the brain's break from
thinking in the cranium cinema -
ah yes, hierarchy; hierarchy hierarchy hierarchy,
no Saddam Hussein then to bother?
ah ****, there was. too bad, make more mistakes,
that'll be a fine excuse for being human,
given the fact that when waiters make mistakes
we turn blue with rage and call for a happy meal -
i don't know what women want,
and to be honest, i don't care -
if a house is an extension of a woman i already know
the perks of wants presupposed -
man wants sea, Norse, man wants desert, Arab -
there's nothing worth noting for him to
simply settle down and watch television or
become a gamer - there are dinosaurs about with
that theory - beware.
Big Benjamin will be hushed for a year -
just recently renamed Tower E -
but what's that? glory be to Darwin in the highest?
championing Darwinism to simply speak
a valid point will make art suffer -
it's not longer Charles II with a cravat but
fur - plus it's impossible to start from there,
better to start from a deviation like from ****** into
wholehearted matrimony - choose a negative and
improve on it, why bother a positive chimp variation?
what progress comes from that? Gorillas aren't exactly
harassed by felines in the thick jungle, or if they are,
no more than Africa-Americans in their own cars
without guns but with gun permits - which means that
Americans are more likely to own gun permits than
passports, forget the fables of ***** Dancing and
the hopes of a Roman Holiday... it's Iowa-time right now...
gonna get smaller by the day -
existence via the bungalow - and a society where there's
a friction concerning not-having-read-philosophy
and having-read-philosophy, but it won't change for either
faction, both will be diagnosed as mad for the sake of
leisure activities continuing and pharma selling.
Denmark will flourish and Iceland and
what Darwinist scientists should have concentrated on:
shorter time-frame, evolution of Scandinavians -
what the Chinese already done and the Blue Indians tilting
the earth's gravity east with their 'made in China' #madeinchina...
but in a country that regards reading Kierkegaard
as allocating the diagnosis of schizophrenia...
you beg to differ and turn dialectics into warring -
this is England 2016 - by god man, don't read
books! read seagulls regurgitating chip-mush via
the media! don't you read books in England! don't!
i warn you! and remember that the internet doesn't
exist for journalists, esp. those writing opinion pieces!
it's not reality for them (the content) - a computer is
real, but anything on it isn't - thank you very much
for the social aspect of the internet coupled with
globalisation and the non-existent village or neighbour -
thank you... it's just a defence mechanism,
the internet is without authority - the printed press
has authority looming over it - the best time to write
a load of ******* not bothersome about money.

p.s. i hate the argument from the perspective
of exercise... i see exercise as pointless...
working, doing something, goal orientation
within the confines of one organism to another,
losing weight is such a vain goal /
purpose to execrise and all that scientific jargon
about releasing your... this receptor,
that receptor, this chemical that chemica...
*******...
     mawing the lawn and cutting a grape vine...
exercise... but more importantly:
a very organic end goal.

Children, watch me eat suns. Hello, darkness. I have made peace with your caress. Forgotten leaves falling from the tree. I planted you. With my bare hands I dig away at the black earth flesh. A place to bury you and leave. Beneath the porch I rest panting in the noon day sun. I listen to the children sing and play on the old piano in the house above me. Will you love me when I am rotting here flies and sores. I listen to them stomping on the boards and electrical chords installed buzzing blue colors when I chew through the rotting floors. Until I see the sun and the dining room table she sings and plays the old piano in the corner. Her voice buckles the beams and hearts tumble in the chest of her guests. Though she has been uprooted now. I dig her up with a stone trowel. Whistling as I work. clank against her skullcap. Pulling her up and onto the dark dew covered grass. Her eyes stare endlessly into the star blanketed sky

It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant
Above a green and dreaming hill.
I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless,
The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still.
It appears to me that I am one with these:
A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees.
It is noontime: all seems still
Upon this green and flowering hill.
Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky,
A cloud comes whirling, and flings
A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill.
It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings.
Amazing! Is there a change?
The hill seems somehow strange.
It is noontime. And in the tree
The leaves are delicately disturbed
Where the bird descends invisibly.
It is noontime. And in the pool
The sky is blue and cool.
Yet suddenly out of nowhere,
Something flings itself at the hill,
Tears with claws at the earth,
Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
Crashing against the green.
The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
A terror stiffens the hill.
The trees turn rigidly, to face
Something that circles with slow pace:
The blue pool seems to shrink
From something that slides above its brink.
What struggle is this, ferocious and still--
What war in sunlight on this hill?
What is it creeping to dart
Like a knife-blade at my heart?
It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil:
The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth.
The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented.
A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow,
Phrases again his unremembering mirth,
His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth.

Pompous:
"Oh God, no, not another shallow rhymer,
fitting each word to its neat little place.
Oh God, no, not another painterly composition
with planal directions going round and around or leading that way and this.
They did that in the past; get to the new.
Make sure the reader or viewer knows that the masterful
knows more than than the masterful lets t/h/r/o/u/g/h/  out.
Disdain extenuating weakenings caused by straining for clarity
or unnecessary exertions in expressions of cohesion.
Words, though plain, arouse astonished wonder by nonchalant impenetrable shufflings.
Be clued-in, be bold, be tough and show it when you sculpt the clay.
When shaped, use your trowel to scratch the surface, evoking even more obscurity.
Toss it off in broad strokes of masterful negligence.  
Be above the miniscule.
By these means show in shadowy hints the profundity that winks beyond merely ordinary restrictions.
Break the barriers, fly the constructive. Those old shackles lie about the world.
Show you ain't no conforming *****.  
Display in impatient referenceless strokes
Your forceful awareness of the world as known."


Facetia:
                "Oh?
A world which evidences no form and structure in living creatures;
no eons of effortful evolution;
Forests have no ecology, and laws of nature aren't for binding.
Mind never happened, spirit's a farce,
unions only expedient plottings.
Lessons of history describe the disruptive;
it's what you grab and who you club;
others are only take or be taken.
Show 'em who's boss,
stash it away,
it's dog eat dog until there's nothing.
Shake it all up and break it all up.
It's only entropy."

My rose is not just any rose,
It is very special, one-of-a-kind.
The keeper of the vase on my window sill

The lily that I found,
So beautiful, so delicate, so pure,
So unbelievably uncorrupt,
I couldn't pick it.
My fingers I fear,
Wouldn't fail to wither it.

See, my rose has thorns,
a tough outer layer.
The lily is so soft,
So delicate,
I couldn't risk the chance.
So I offer just one last glance.

I will leave the lily where it grows,
To dodge my trowel, and those of others.
Until it finds the tenderness of real love
to pick it from its lonely plot of soil.
Where it will sit on someone's window sill,
in a vase, thriving in all the spoils.

In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden,
The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots
Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture.
Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits.
Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone!
Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain.
Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim?
Delicate blossoms opened in the rain,
Black bees flew among them in the sunlight,
And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird
Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit;
And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word.
. . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone,
Observes this tree he planted: it is his own.
'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree
Utters profound things in this garden;
And in its silence speaks to me.
I have sensations, when I stand beneath it,
As if its leaves looked at me, and could see;
And those thin leaves, even in windless air,
Seem to be whispering me a choral music,
Insubstantial but debonair.
"Regard," they seem to say,
"Our idiot root, which going its brutal way
Has cracked your garden wall!
Ugly, is it not?
A desecration of this place . . .
And yet, without it, could we exist at all?"
Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me
To make their apology;
Yet, while they apologize,
Ask me a wary question with their eyes.
Yes, it is true their origin is low--
Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true
Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know
The leaves less cruel--the root less beautiful?
Sometimes it seems as if there grew
In the dull garden of my mind
A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves,
Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind.
Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me
That I myself am such a tree . . .'
. . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words
So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree:
And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds
While cruel roots dig downward secretly.

I'd love to be the harbor boat
That gently tugs, keeping you afloat
Or perhaps even better yet
The soft comfort of your unmade bed

I'd love to be the garden trowel
The one you use when you plant spring flowers
Or perhaps even better still
The lucky coin in your wishing well

I'd love to be the big red barn
With stacks of hay inside to keep you warm
Or perhaps even more than that
The loving purr from you favorite cat

I'd love to be your private Learjet
To take you places that you've never been
Or perhaps given half a chance
The diamond ring slipped on your left hand

I'd love to be your automobile
The comfort you feel from behind the wheel
Or perhaps to tell the truth
I'd love to be all this and more for you

It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano
Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord,
And the universe is suddenly agitated,
And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword.
Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken,
The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble.
The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation;
And I, too, will dissemble.
Yet it is sorrow has found my heart,
Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death;
And pain twirls slowly among the trees.
The street-piano revolves its glittering music,
The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn,
Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence,
They ripple and lazily burn.
The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,--
It does not move; my trowel taps a stone,
The sweet note wavers amid derisive music;
And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone.
Do not recall my weakness, savage music!
Let the knives rest!
Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters,
And the notes like poniards pierce my breast.
And I remember the shadows of webs on stones,
And the sound or rain on withered grass,
And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions
At its image in the glass.
Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music!
The green blades flicker and gleam,
The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming;
In the blue sea above me lazily stream
Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering;
The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit;
Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault
On dust and bones, and I am mute.
It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound.
They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon.
It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window
The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon.
Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain,
A long wind hurries them whirled and far,
A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened,
I hold my breath and watch a star.
Do not disturb my memories, heartless music!
I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall,
The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight,
And I watch white jasmine fall.
Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself
Drift, a white petal, down the sky?
One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence,
Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry.

Begin with my skin,
White, hairy and thin;
But for my brothers,
I'm much like all others.

Dig deeper to bone,
Europe's our home.
Trowel down to my marrow
You'll uncover our Congo.

We travailed
Down our paths,
We share the same cells,
Have the same origins,
Hear the same knells.
The one difference lies in
My white, hairy, thin skin.

I am from a Good Samaritan,
a cesarian birth.
I am from a green thumb, born

into garden gloves;
my mother’s leather hands.  
I am from Hyacinths and Begonias,

from Chrysanthemums,
and Black-eyed Susan’s.
I am from the river,

struggling against the white waters,
her hands supporting my underside.
I am from those summer evenings

spent snatching fireflies from the stars;
our cheeks glowing in their radiance.
I am from the dirt beneath fingernails,

the airless August sun,
and a long day on the trowel.
I am from pulled weeds, and those

precious things blossomed
and grown too soon.

Get the trowel out
Im piling it on thick
Sequins and the glitter
and the red lipstick.
Slap it all on
To paint the town red
When the evening is over
I shall smear it on the bed.

1 mouse lived in the forest with
2 pieces of cheese to his name.
3 days before his hole was to be dug, his
4 whiskers quivered with anticipation so violently the
5 friends who shared his burrow were tickled mad by the happenings and found
6 weasels to eat various parts of the mouse in the hopes of making still his
7 days that remained before the farmer would have killed him anyway with his trowel

How cruel the world can be to a poor little mouse.

A garden trowel in a patch of irradiated weeds

An odometer in an endless maze of MickeyD's

An encyclopedia in a pawn shop full of tweakers

A love song on a boombox with broken speakers

May I present several examples of useless things with nothing to do

Now if you think those're bad, you should see what I'm like...