from Turn
3
I arrived at Pavel's building at 6:30 on Saturday evening, which was our usual time. The doorman recognized me, and told me that Pavel was dead. I asked him what happened, but he would only say that he was forbidden to talk about it, and that I should call Pavel's wife. I went to the park, to this bench I would visit when I was early for my sessions with Pavel, by the shore of a small fetid pond. Smoked a couple of cigarettes and finished the flabby novel I was reading that week. Stared at the overgrown algae on the pond. Gnats and late summer mosquitos hovering over its surface. Watched a young boy trying to skip stones which were not flat and plunked to the bottom pronto, his dog endlessly scratching behind his ear, death around the edges of everything.
A few weeks later, a modest gathering of Pavel's clients met at that same stinky water hole to share grief at his passing. His big dog came over and licked my hand. I decided to skip shrinkage for a while. Take a break. Break the surface of the soil
geen things rise up
out of the ground
lots of fucking and giving birth
happiness sways endeavor.
The Queen of Wands presides
over early Spring
and kindness
sympathy.
Rest and movement agree with each other.
Early bloomers bloom
projects completed,
Water of Fire.
Momentum takes over worry.
Air of Earth has to do with
development, stability:
things going right when they are supposed to
in the same way, Fire of Air
regulates duration through failure,
the long hot summer
pearl grey
no rain in sight
Just lots of hot air.
Water of Water rules the heat
ruin, love and abundance
the way dead things nurture live ones,
lay of lakes.
Air of Fire meaning strife,
the large eat the small
or on Wall Street the small eat the large
an hysterical application
of the same principal.
Fire of Earth as in earthquakes,
petrol and lava
leads to the Queen of Swords,
ruler of widows and hurricanes,
and under Air of water,
disappointment and nostalgia.
Fire of Fire an illusion.
Sharper angle shorter light
Bright colors give way
to brown shoes and rusty blouses
ubiquitous autumn colors.
Hedges out back trimmed
one last time before
frost sets in.
One more picnic.
One more barbeque.
Cold-pressed apple cider
(noting the skull in the tree
in Furtmeyer's Apple as
the tree of death and life).
Songs loaded with sunsets
on the car radio.
The next song is an island
breakfast in the dark
digital watch on the nightstand.
Debris, all unconscious aspects of the interest maintained by everything in the world, the muses, what they rejuvenated. The obvious but trite form of the dreamers are crouched getting stoned drunk.
The duck population notices the bread that has been flosting around them for hours, dissolving.
The language of essences
undresses the perfection
of red autumn hills
into the glad
dark browns with gold.
That which is fierce now passing through the silent filter of exxageration.
How wonderful.
This is what I wanted to hold.
These are the tracks
and all the lit up fantasies
that is not blue sky
too hard to carve
out anything.
Birds fly South or get ready to.
The sky gets greyer and greyer.
Oppression of Winter
change and cabin fever.
First snow.
First freeze.
The real revolution is the poem.
To act not react.
To demand to see Fidel
eyeball to eyeball
scuffed bark on the estuary.
Please pass the relationship
down here on my mattress
open from the inside out.
Gestures of tireless calm
blaze clear where I can see them.
Not to look away.
And if that means putting horns on yr head
or smearing your face with ketchup,
then by all means
put together a rock band
and record it all furiously
cool farfisa organ
in the background.
Or cut a big hole in a cardboard
box and put your head in it
maybe covered with aluminum foil
like Captain Video.
Devise a memory system
based on numbers like
Dr. Bruno Furst,
where 0 = icehouse; 1 is seesaw oasis; 2 is sinew; 3, asthma; 4, seer, sour; 5 weasel; 6 usage; 7 soggy; 8 ossify; 9 is soap and then read out your friends phone numbers as sentences;
so that Joe and Ann can be called at sinew usage icehouse asthma asthma seesaw oasis sinew.
Line up the ducks
and fire away
fire for good.
4
Lorca said to Neruda, "Stop, stop,
I'm letting myself be influenced by you!"
It was drizzling.
In Winter there are three for a dollar
edging off into
mouth to mouth
bullhorn opinions
no longer focused on the road.
After chopping off arms
wire them together
waiting on a movie line
perfecting these moves.
Inert not blown
tunneling through
tourist dollar traps.
Paper whitened by light
so that the inside could be seen
transparent and fluid.
A storm blows away
my first and only cure
border erasure
too tight to breathe
but grow with it
(I repeated myself).
Make sure the words step on toes.
A void ricochet.
O small notebook.
After the dinner dishes are cleared.
Reflect you back.
The last time I saw Elio was at the farewell reading for Bill Luoma who was going off to Hawaii. We were promised free admission if we were wearing loud shirts. I put on the loudest shirt I could find. Elio was in a button down white shirt. He looked a bit yellow around the edges, pupils fully dilated and a small film of sweat rested on his upper lip. He said he had just returned from a detox clinic in Europe, that he felt he had his addiction licked and how much he wanted to get together. He slurred his speech slightly and wobbled as he walked. He asked me if I was walking his way after the reading, and I said sure, but after the reading, when I looked for him, he had already left. I saw him a block away. We spoke on the phone a couple of times after that. I could feel something rise in my throat when I lifted my alotted corner of his coffin, how light he was. Harris said Elio's death had changed him. Change again. Changes everything. Does. All the time. Me too.
Sunlight shrinks
and people shop for
Christmas, spending money
they don't have
in stores playing Elvis' Blue
Christmas and Bing Crosby
and David Bowie singing
Little Drummer Boy on and on
from Bloomingdales to K-Mart,
until the sun dies and is eaten up
and reborn on the solstice.
Page of Swords
Queen of Coins
Devil and Star
come into play.
Dealer takes all ties, reshuffles the deck and deals again.
Asthma usage soap asthma seer sour ossify sinew.
Language and number:
Fat banker fascist
flung like a brick
to let the staleness out.
Criss-crossing letters
emptying and breaking
where glands open.
Next hand on top a face
too much whiskey
for harmonious numbers.
Small is beautiful
except for the part about
metal threads.
Next hand a good night to stay once every ten years.
Dealer's choice.
Old thought.
Impulse blur.
As usual.
Turn it up.
Turn up the light.
Turn up the stove.
Turn up the coin,
Take up the opposite side.
Turn up on a warm table,
eyes filled with goop
and a tiny footprint
some kind of injection
The light seen for the first time
beautiful hands and feet
crying no tears yet
Milk milk and more milk.
Everything a first for years.
Gas, sleep and pleasure.
Turn up at the dividing line
of a new millennium
politics hopeless and desparate
and due for a rehaul
which will happen
because it always does
because it never did
because you distill and burn
the first matter to ashes
because love and light
penetrate hate shit every time
because the bad guys always win
because the good guys never win
and they are due.
Because the body is naked
and beautiful and luminous
and perfect.