;.cPoems, 1/96--6/97 
;.l1,3,63,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l4,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
;.l5,30,75,192,2,127,30,0,
;.l6,12,90,192,2,18,24,127,12,1,
;.l7,17,125,192,2,26,35,127,17,2,
"BRAVE MECUTIO'S DEAD"



Selected Poems, 96-97






          "I could tell you all about it, but it ain't no use"      American folk song, heard at Old Joe Clark's, Cambridge, ca. 1958









.p

*
Senlin 961225

     "...not created our portion like theirs ..."
                    (Alenu)

The Baptists in the flat next door
did Christmas feast a spitted bore
I wake 'fore dawn & sweep the floor

Jesus left here long ago
despite what Bibles tell as so
reborn as Santa, in the snow
Japanese know.

behind the eucalyptus tree
full moon on the Kineret
is it pale green or pale blue
above the cliffs of HaOn
                          Golan 

		in a convoy of cormorants
		none named Hamlet

the mourning star sits
on a bed pale of gold

Hebron again a cut-throats' den
The wolf behind me
is unquestionably now
merely my neighbor's dog

"but 'twill serve"


                                   15 Tevet 5757
                                   25 Dec   1997
===============================================================
.p

Young doctor with younger Siamese 

Bosh Benedict had a cat
the which was wont on her return
to retroactively debate
that day's agenda.
	She said:
	am I obligated 
	to come home to be yelled at? 

---------------------
.P
PERSONAL EULOGIES


*
why, now, do you come by
as I am old
and you are dead

                       Susan Lee Harrison, z'l
                       Cf.: "so, apart from you I know 
                             no
                             nor simpler beauty
                                        (Placitas ca. 71)
-----------------------------

*Finding myself, unexpectly
thinking of a love
long lost
I write to her family home
and get back a prompt reply 
in that name
from her father
who tell, in some detail
that, 2 years past, she died.

------------------------------
.P
TRAVEL:  DRAGON

*
This year's dragon
sleeps under the stairwell 
like a banished dog 
drooling fire
only when I try to go out


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

Once went mad againe
& gave my grubstake to a  dragon.
Now, like a banished puppy
he sleeps in some dark corner
and barks only
when I open my door.

-----------------------------
.p
TRAVEL:  RHODOS AND GERMANS

after all it's
unredeemable
(ie the
 past)
 more
 apples & oranges of
 
 Revenge on
 Libra's incomensurable pans:
 everyone cheats the hangman.

                       (Rhodos, Spring 96)
----------------------
*Too  politely 
Good Germans
themselves into our only home invited have
to fix history
sit lugubriously
drop couple coppers in the poor box
mutter muttering danke
softly          softly  

                                Rhodos 17.09.96
after Jerome Rothenberg; "Black milk of the morning" (City Lights)
--------------------------------------

Christians spreading love like plastic lacqueur graciously havethemselves invited into our only feast.

Cf. Agnon, Days of Awe:  "Who will give me another day like "

-----------------------
**Luxury Cruise Take 2

Oy
    ye    lucky few who now
          got what bucks can buy    aye
    all                             but time
                                    to  pray
vey.
	

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

The Hustler

Graham Greene's comedians
eg W.C. Fields
knew the grace of it;
Werz too:
requirements  of kindness
or Rexroth, impeccably  urbane:
"a bohemian is one who,  to afford the luxuries, will do without  
 the necessities"
eg honesty.
                         
                        Pireaus-Patra train, 6/96
L7
COMMENT:
This is one of several attempts I have made to belatedly pay due respect to Bob "Werz" (Armitage), z'l, afounder of New Buffalo, who at his request was buried there, near the top of the property, below the upperroad, on a ridge above an Arroyo.
	He was a gentle man, who always tried to speak kindly and helpfully to everyone, or almost everyone.

------------------------------------
L1
.P
*  The Poet contemplates the Bridge of Sighs

In grandeur did the Doges do
whatever dogges do
while floors below the cold stone walls
remembered but a few.

or:  Western Civilization Reconsidered:

----------------------------------------  
.p
    ISRAEL

* Shlomo said,
Well, if you've got a place to go to
might's well go there.

---------

*Tourists at the Western Wall 

Knowing fresh water
preferable to diamonds
they come to take home
photos of our water jugs.
                                      
----------------------------------
OK Ok, a nature poem about Israel:

no more rains
chamsin 
green hills turn brown
	smoke by day, fire by night
glare of air
smothered in dust,
	one had forgotten how difficult it is

--------------------
.p
ISRAEL EULOGIES:

*
Just another eulogy:

"Mother, son killed in drive-by attack"
                           Headline, Jerusalem Post, 12 Dec 96

Yesterday the mangy dog with drooping teats
took her puppies out of the brush
into the sun.
This evening they're not there.
She barks madly.


-----------------------------------
*3 women at T.A. Cafe
"fair of form", young with child
killed by a suicide bomber
with a bag of nails.
Baptists say, 'It's depressing.'

                21 March 97

Ref:  Genesis [Pharoh's dream]
-----------------
.P
ISRAEL POLITICS

*
Who sold the land
& betrayed its people
are condemned now
no more to walk alone upon it
nor among us.

                   Jan 21, 1997

---------------------------------------------------------------
l7
*When the intifada began
I was residing
amidst the foothills of Jerusalem
in a prune shed.
In response, I promptly assembled all the necessary ingredients
to make a Bloody Mary:
Worcestershire, Tabasco, lemon juice, celery stalks, ice cubes, tomatoe juice, & a dash of adequate vodka.
l1
-------------------------------
.p
ISRAEL -- KIBBUTZ

*Baptists bag up the trash
set it out on the lawn
for the trash-collector.
Cats dogs & birds pick up the trash
and set it back out on the lawn
for an ecumenical  buffet.
Baptists say, no problem,  
it's been saved.

                   HaOn, Spring 96
------------------------------
The kibbutz celebrates Purim
with a clown.
Clowns are very dear
on Purim.
so the kibbutz celebrates Purim
the following Saturday. 

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



*Religious Pluralism Reconsidered

3 nights before Purim
the kibbutz kids take first fruits
from the neighbor's kumquat tree
and throw them at my door
at midnight.

-----------------------------------
*The kibbutz feeds us steak
on Independence day
This Independence day
at noontime
the chickens laid eggs
sunny side up
and the kibbutz fed us steak.

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

Weeds are high behind my flat
I chop them with a sickle
so may fall all my enemies
and all those of Israel.

--------------------
.P

JUDAISM

*Yehudi Menuhin
who could run down a thousand steps
and call forth shtetl souls from lost winds
got knighted and said
my name just means 'the Jew'.

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

*& Zalman said
more than ever before
I'd like to fly
like Shlomo
every day
all over the world
to wish you well
each and every one
	helping a little bit here and there
the spirit is eager
but oy, the kishkes.

	N.B.:  An imaginative elaboration of a brief remark oncemade,, ca. 1980s? -- or maybe Freedom Seder, Jerusalem --  by R.Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

-----------------------------                             
Hanuka again
dark of the moon
dark of the year
that spirit last burst
of candles 
which never last long enough
      
---------------
.p
HIPPIES

*Having discovered
said Justin Case
that, while looking for his whiskey,
I had just drunk Laird's kerosene,
I immediately sat down
and smoked some of his hash.  

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




   HOW TO DO EVERYTHING

Advice to the Chickens

Do your duty 
fill the box   
Farmer's got  to work too.
And the weasal might get in.
			
---------------------------------------------
			
*Safety procedures for technical mountain climbing

"What happens if the leader falls?"
"The leader doesn't fall."

                    (Ann Berens, Oberlin/Colorado 1959)

-------------------------------------
.P
    PHILOSOPHY:

*I hired my donkey
for a deacon
After dusting all the pews
with his tail
he goes to the vestry
and poops.

--------------------------------
*
Don Quixote   a/k/a    Mitty
               vs. 
             Entropy               

----------------------------
*a 'suspension of time',  my mother said, 
which one finds, eg, on trains
     as if, some say
     the pendulum, at its apogee
     must pause
     to decide
     what best
     to do next

	N.B.:  'some say' is, of course, a reference to lectures byPVK.  In remarks aimed at a more orthodox Jewish audience Isometimes use the phrase, 'others say'

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

*I cast my bread upon the lawns
for the song-birds.
Crows eat it.

--------------------------------
*Selective Surfing Circumcision

I bought a used video player
and found a used video tape
about genetalia.
Once they gave me an Uzi to carry
with 2 clips:
	a superfluity of opportunity
	to undo.

------------------------------------------
*Ok, once more:
before the door?
	and the door to the door to the door
	and the guard to the door to the guard to the door
The story knows -- 
nothing
but stuff of the mind.

---------------------------
*& Zalman said
'what do the old priests do' 
what can they do 
`they teach

PVK said:  if you find your life's not worth living
	      live for the rest of us' 

 No problem, says I, & wrote 2 books
 But nobody'd told me what to do
    when you FEEL your life's not worth living
    "Tempest in a teapot"  "Mountains out of molehills"
    Tell it to the ant
----------





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



.p
RELIGION:

*
No problem, nigger,
said Pharoah,
We'll let your people go
into the desert.
Now get out.
	On second thought, said Moses.

	Refs:  Shemot: Shemot; Shemot:  v'amor: of uncircumcisedlips"; but Cf. Rashi's argument that this means 'closed'.

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


.P
AGING

Friday afternoon blues

Growing older
my father wanted a new car
rather than just one more first-rate used one.
Short range
one fumbles and fails
eg, dreams and the nation.
A new car never needs repair.

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

Last week I looked in the mirror
and saw an old man.
A few days later
it was still there.
---------
*
nobody's fool
nobody listens

           :"Si le jeunesse savait ..."

----------------------------
When war came back
Dayan went out to the desert
and said to the troops
we old geezers
will keep meddling in
until they stop us.

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

I see it says
in the mirror
I've aged

	explains the empty bed 
	I reckon
                         
the world by now has had
please
enough changes
in operating style
and of ways to process words      

blossoms fall from my tree
garbage on the outgoing tide    

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

.P
MISCELLANEOUS

USA Today:  "There's no there there."
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

------------------------      
*AMERICAN HAPPY ENDING

Up to the age of 92
my Daddy never forgave me
for something he could no longer, if ever
quite remember
and which may have been all about him, not me
though he could no longer remember.

Then I flew across the Great Ocean
and over the 7 Seas
unto the land of Israel
and we had a reconciliation.
My brother shouted distinctly
into his hearing aid
and he told me
or told him to tell me
OK, I can not forgive you
but I will accept you.
	Then I went home
	to plant raddishes.

---------------------------------
.P

Erev Pesach
Cassandra runs out of her house
into a chariot
"to hell in a handbasket"
back to the closed ward
with a mixed multitude.

-------------------------
**//: discussion groups

speaking, nowadays
as a ghost
to ghosts
	subvocal astral


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


*Having past 50
bewailed a collapsed liason
with lady ungullible
I spent the summer of '91 tramping English towpaths
and eating out
of dustbins
as if seeking confirmation
that something in the universe
would still give me presents.

     :Poet with limited-access trust-fund
--------------------


*Portrait of the Artist as Freir

Today I paid my overdraft
with the rent money.
Though I don't feel holy
it was a great mitzva
for the bank.
                                 
---------------------------------------
Pre-written epitaph for the Summer of 97 

*So OK, Shiva can dance
"for the g-d, it's as easy as flying" [1]    
anyone normal
would have had a nervous breakdown
or several credit cards

    Rilke, Duino Elegy #______ "fur den gott, ein leichtes"

--------
the problem of packing  
is always the attic

too many unused gifts
politely filed
demand urgent action

    :Epitaph for a Breakdown
-------------------------


.P
PARODIES

Fragment: "On the Tip of a Q-Tip for Picking your Pupik"
                                 (Sam Orbaum,
Wisdom's Childe
th'inevitable hour hath beguil'd

-------------
.P
SELECTED WIPS & FRAGMENTS


 The well-bred child can't comprehend
    nor undepend upon 
    the randomness of strangers.
         'Actually, ' said Jerry, 'nobody gives a damn.'
		or Bosch:  "like drunken children" -- Blind Man's Buff
	Fortunate childhood, unfortumate life.

         or, more nobly, HIK:  Drunken chldren, Blind-Man's Buff
             Bosch's Carnivale.

-----------------
Fantasie on a cluster of concepts by PVK


It all boils down to invariants
Einstein says.
eg Bach, or throwing out trash
Sisyphus vs. Entropy
tydying up, to find things, when wanted, directly in a properplace
achievement as heroic coherence
sandbars in the stream.

No; Rewind. (Pace, Pound)

Eg, 'excellence':  any tool that does what it's supposed to
                   a bit better than expected.
     Stars
     Standing in today's place in the constellations of parshiot.
     Babies don't equivocate
     Adam demands the definitionally Good Old Days; Hadesh yamenuk'kedem.
     The honesty, however misplaced, of love
     Human decency.
     Sometimes a family will do.  
     The fleeting reality of women.

     I would have sailed across the Kineret
           For some reason they don't do that nowadays
     Nor walk to Jerusalem; too many brake shoes.                    
     
When cobweb lies of herbicide cover the land, violation unceasing
we must leave
finding, finally, no more place to stand.

Knights, they say, play fair; it's the name of the game. 'Elegance'.
Even 'magnanimity':  relinquishing to those weaker
                     what they need and one needn't.
                     
--------------------------------
REVISION 

*"The sky will get him by and by"  (Millay)

As I from grotto'd nymph did fly
(a bit involuntarily)
a gypsy camp I did espy
and thought: `I'll get there bye and bye.' 
The roadside trail did sweetly smell
of island herbs and gypsy turds --
        Quandry:   Boundary.
I thought again: 'Might just as well
go chug a beer at my hotel.'                       
quandry: boundary

I thought
I might do just as well
to drink a beer at my hotel.

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