A Baseball Poem

baseball was meant to be enjoyed on the radio like this
rippling across this ocean spirit we called America once
waves grow from wheat fields outside Kansas City
pick up antenna speed flush out against mountains east and west;

have a beer for me and slowly edge the volume up
it's the end of the 11th and this thing's got legs to go into the night;

Kansas City isn't Iowa it isn't heaven but it's sure close to both

Lamb

you there
with the basket,
slinking in alleyways
between siren
street lights

turn your head to this unfeeling world

there's no reason
to do what we do
to have to do what you've done
go on home
rest your eyes

we've come this far for fields of green
wasted all our trees
killed all your sisters brothers mothers we

don't hide your face
under florescent bulbs
I know who you are
but I won't out you

we are both on the lam
you turning the corner
me here
immobile
silent

waiting to be slaughtered.

Kiss my life

yesterday
leaning over bar
I played the
lonesome traveler
peering over pint
of oyster stout
silently brooding

'in heaven we will all be safe,
          there will be no reality to bear,'

in private libraries
I read alone
another night leads
to another day and that
is gone from me already
already I am older still
slower still stiller still

yesterday
in auld forgotten faces
I got the usual in a place
I'd only been once
two weeks before

a delorean revved its engine
across street to cheering crowds
another celebrity out of time

the sun was set
the night lingered
bits of orange
tint of black
purple bruises

yesterday
I limped home up Ode St.
caught each transfer
perfect red to yellow line to 16J
fed my cat
showered
turned off all the lights
kissed my life farewell
fell asleep

Katahdin

(Written between October 16-18; Completed October 20, 2015)

1

Flash by Lowell in the Autumnal dawn

            Pink blear of morning

Rush goes the mighty Merrimac

            In Kerouacian mist of pawtucketville ghosts

            Turn go the leaves
            rough characters at gray full up stations
            waiting on breakfast lines

            In rearview mirrors of the tired mind

Red Massachusetts lonely

Golden in the night

            Like earlier darkness of Philadelphia

North Philly streets

            Shrouded Stranger

            Appear in faraway view

Flows cracks on long ago pound streets

Mystery of flowing cape

Gray gray gray gray

Lurching

Phantom of mindless fear

Great death chasing

            Out of the past

Or hero of wandering fools

Regardless

            A great horror thing

            Lost in break light red

            Big northeast leering eyes

And finally left behind

Become nothing corporal

            Omen harbinger spirit herald

Portent

            Friend—

2

Snow on Katahdin

            False peak faced north

Obscured by foggy gusts of zero degree chill

And somehow this clears at night

            To star filled starry sky

Night night milky night &

            Milky Way rush of constellations

At midnight

Untied boots and thermals

            Standing in clearing

            In dim light years

            Behold! Moonless night

Coal black night diamond forged

And

            Thoreau wrote from Bangor

From foot to wheel to backpack

to Millinocket

To Katahdin to stream

            & where are the primal spirits

Rage over mountain top

Immemorial

            Crag of split rock & kaleidoscopic tree leaves

Of fall’s ebb

            Inimical & endless forests 
of the mind
            laid out

Spread unbroken to Kanady

            To artic to frozen circle

To grim desolate wastes

            Of tundra north

3

And in morning

            White skies

Icy hands

            Warm steam of mouth

Smoke of fire dawn

            Rustle of tents

Acrid scent of flame on my beard

            Ceaseless cascading stream

My dreams

            At 4am

As temperature dropped for snow

            Lift my lost kitten

            To the moon

            He is lost

            I am lost

Oh Night!

Thick on my eyes

Someplace long ago

            Voices telling me

            It was okay to let him go

Drift from summit rock slide

From bone of holy oly peak holy

            I am cradled in the night

            Fetal

            By icy root of tree

4

Root of tree

            Wreathed through wet ground

Bedded with leaves

            Twisting branches overhead

The tent

            Shrouded in its shadow

Final thought

And now morning of the mind

Awaken

Wakefulness

Task

            The first snowfalls on Maine hills

            At edge of trail end

There’ll be 8 inches or more

On mountain paths

            Whooshing waterfalls

Cough cough arctic lung

            Tip tap of large flurries

Weigh trees down

So leaves like windshield wipers

On car windows bend over road

            Baxter through Lovecraft

Lakes mist on lapping water

Pebbled shore

            Stark inky and gloom

            Heart of the northeast

            End of the world

            Millinocket Lake

            Off Blackcat dirt road

Not far from Togue Pond Twin Pines

Log cabin coffee at River Drivers

            Snow falls on

            Cold cold cold Maine

Morning

Lake effect

Swirling flurry winds

Gravel path from window

Fireplace

Katahdin invisible

Opaque whiteness

Great white north—

5

South in the October foliage on 157

            Medley at I-95 back to Bangor trek

The farthest reaches of

            Hi-way gore

To seek the Atlantic now

            Cap’n at the wheel

Light with ginger beer smells

            Old world puritanical spell

Carved wood at the

            Cross stitched lamp of the world

In motel now

            Tents clothes bodies eyes

            Too wet for another elemental night

Dry on the furnace of mankind’s

Innermost Acadia Gateway hotel

Caramel brown ale smell

            Ellsworth Trenton toothpick toothache

            Too true Trenton

Of no this isn’t New Jersey

But gauntlet to Bar Harbor Acadia cliff spill

In the Great North

            In bitter wind

            In winter’s great American shore

Come morning

            A brush across the bluest waves

6

 Blue waves

            Fishing boat fisherman’s life

Wool caps thick beards barrel chest

            Desolate but beloved distance

Beloved lighthouses

            Cut & cold hard

            Icy of heart

New England ah

            Call of gulls

Burn of engine fume

            Rock & mast

Red painted rails

            Cast against heaving sky

Glory sky

            My visions in the cool

            Blackness preceding sleep

            What sunrise would bring

            What next?

Silence

            Thunder

Tinder

            Silence

Churn

            Frush & rush

And undertow and all

Blear blast black port

Great hulking rocking bestial ships

            Silent aw silent

Mad—

7

Answer at sun-up

            Brings blue sky clouds vanish

Route 3 south

            Onto Mt. Desert Isle

Bar Harbor

            How it got it’s name

Who know? Who?

            Rocky beachhead

Shimmer under sunshine

            Without warmth

No time tho but to race around

            Start those tires roll engine roar

Chariot headed south

            Congested traffic hell of ole New York

            To bar our way

First a swing on 9 from 95 from 1

            Lobster rolls at Dock Square

End of Lanigan Bridge

Kennebunkport

And every town has a sister in Maine

Slapped port on the end

West Westport Northport Searsport Portland

            Slapped mayo or butter or both

            Grilled bread 1lbs Lobster shelled

Last day of the season

            Cold gray water

            Thick with coming winter

Scent of lemon salt water fishy scent

            Little shore towns

            Hidden from time

            All along bottomless

            US-1

8

From there now gone

            From here now going home

Day falling fast to our left

            On rushes the night 515 miles away

            Our mason Dixon mid-atlantic line

Rivers Delaware Susquehanna Anacostia Potomac

States MA Rhode Isle Connecticut New York

New Jersey PA Delaware MD

Pitch black is October night shift

            5am of morning slow crunch of time

Last days fresh

Fresh like the recent dead

Hint of decay

Memory fade

            Slide in the rearview

Alone now at destination point

Last dead drop my own

Each goodbye one less body of the whole

Of the host six souls one car one mountain

Whole of Maine

            Six directions they go

            Gabow V Tommy Joe Chase myself

I go mine

I go it alone but not alone

            Really

Toward what future may come

This is spring this is summer this is fall’s truest end

            Faced in directions south face north east west

To roam loam roam roam home roll flat burnt leaves

Vibrate soul soil soul legs hands heart wheel engine

Ancient stone forged trail in gray-like dreams

            Go Go North a vision a god a martyr Go

            Ka-Tah-Din    

            Ever always standing
            Shrouded

            Watching
Indomitable

Suburban Sprawl

We each had good, green lawns.
Well-trimmed;
manicured.

There was this bit once, I tagged myself
in a photo in front of my lawn titled,
Just mowed the lawn #housework #weekends

It was featured on my facebook page.

We each had one of those, too.
Well-manicured;
quite serious.

There was a time when I used a pseudonym
but I shouldn't misrepresent myself;
luckily facebook had me change it back.

It was the right thing to do.

We each had an online presence.
Tied to our life;
our job.

What you say or do online can impact you
in reality, it should impact how you live,
we all understand that.

It is the small price you pay for progress.

Filing Papers Away

last 10 years.
park at end of childhood street.
this morning's sunrise.

today I realized
they were the same.
today I realized they were gone.

gone and going even further gone.
gone away from me.
gone forever.
gone.

what have I done?
since then, what have I done?
where have I gone?

look back.
look forward.
gone.

today I realized they were gone.
today I realized you were gone.

today I realized I will be gone.

Parable of the park

It doesn't
require much
to be lost

to realize
that you're lost
takes even
less

once in
a park
I saw an
ant

it was
crawling across
the seat of a
bench

what's a bench
to an ant?

what's an ant
to a bench?

I sat on the
bench and the ant
crawled across
me

think about it

what am I to
and ant on a
leg on a bench
in a park?

were we not
all lost together?
can anyone
say for sure?

It doesn't
require much
to give an
answer.

Love sentences to the New Yorker

I haven't been able to finish a poem in the new yorker since 1979
          and I wasn't even born yet

* * *

Somebody might want to let them know that their obsession with the ampersand
          has no lasting impact on their cultural relevance

* * *

Remember when Bukowski wrote about all the tap tap tapping back and forth,

          did it occur to you then, or now, that he was talking about you?

Insects in the snow

insects in the snow crawling toward the data centers
     of the contemporary digital brain
insects in the snow were once lines in magazines
     now twitter and sulk on flat screens
insects in the snow feeding personal thoughts
     to four-wall unmanned fusion centers
the eye of the great surveillance wheel
     black and spinning like a .45

insects in the snow of dedicated bandwith methodology
     television talk show false flag causality
     youtube montage conspiracy screens
     SNL as a political platform voting machine
     jon stewart doing the viacom shill in plastic suit
insects in the snow buried in colorful personality quizzes online
     what do they say about you?
     I want to know

what do you know about insects in the snow
     like where did they come from?
     where on tumblr do they hide?
on some hallmark card line over ocean sunrise mountain top a forest photoshop
     how many will share or heart or like?
how many hands are red lines of ants steady crossing data paths
like insects in the snow
     unseen?

Insects in the snow as the static fades out and the white light goes
     insect like black trailing pixels cast out as typed lines
insects alone in the stale silent death
    within the inimical isolation of internet space
Insects in the snow becoming clear barren
     beginning to smear and blend
becoming obfuscated reality

to remain unfinished

in 100 years there'll be pilgrimage to Junction City Kansas
all these hyper kids on I-70 walls between them and the sea
head against the windowpane watching for that famous gray exit
there'll be a line of junk and hope straight down route 1 half-moon to L-A
visions on the shore of Carpinteria, California like Key West or Desolation peak
this will all be done via virtual reality if we're still here if necessary
when the beach as black as oil and the plains are toxic waste dumps
and I'll be long ago buried in an anonymous plastic tomb outside Camp Hill, P-A

300 dollars worth of repairs

the transistors
          the lamp posts     and
my car     too
       
          rust out in the rain