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Logging Time: East by West - West by East After

       Rauschenberg: A Retrospective

The Man With His Back To The Room
Improvisations  and   After Goya
Intimacies: Prose Poems & Stories
To This Country, Your Suicide & You Who've Come To The Gate (Now combined as:

The Man With His Back To The Room

Improvisations II
After: 'From The Waist Up' No Stars Please Music by The Trummerflora Collective

After scrambling for the last breath after chasing the last fix after wailing at the wailing wall after the big man threw the first punch after the small dark girl began to cry after all the money was gone after stumbling through the park after vomit & blood in the eye after the car left the station after crawling through snow after sleeping under the porch after the cat shit on your head after birdcalls & catcalls & sirens & cops after pistols & whips after no witnesses after a star fell after you missed my call after I sent flowers after you missed my call after I took another drink & another & after the bottle came the hovering in the calming sea after swimming into the sun after all.

Improvisations III
After: 'Nonet 1, 2 & 3' No Stars Please Music by The Trummerflora Collective

There are days when running is all you know when running is all you will do & into the night running & gulping for air upstairs & down...

There are days when the bells are insistent & never stop & there he is humming to himself & all the kids laugh & he stumbles & cries openly &

there's the dancer with one good leg & her mother who pushes the cart & Andy the clown in his big blue bubble blowing balloons &

there's the time I met her in the attic & she played the trumpet & made me lie down on a board of nails & she walked on my chest &

I remember the heat of that July night when fireflies were everywhere & Rachel held me close & we told stories about wolves & severed hands

& there's the auto wreck & the sinking ship & a rattler in the basement & a dead dog in the closet & white rats & a can of kerosene & a match &...

take a closer look - this iron key - take this bag of clothes - our last hour take this open palm - my cock in your mouth...

Improvisations V
After: 'Punch press pull' No Stars Please Music by The Trummerflora Collective

Can you remember that first drum, the one with the metal rim & those sticks with their cotton knobs & how you proudly marched around the living room & the freight train that whistled by at precisely four thirty every Tuesday & Julie's eyes which were alternately blue & green & how she taunted you across the fence & her dog Buckskin who howled into the night & running home to mom with a broken tooth & no one home & blood in your mouth & the long climb to the roof where he was hammering away at his homemade boat & Jeremiah practicing his saxophone & the sun heating the tar to soup & that time Andrea fell through the skylight & had to be stitched quickly & butterflies on the milkweed & the sheriff coming after you with a warrant & everyone staring & pointing their fingers & turning away & how you left town & hitchhiked to Canada & the waitress who thought you were from California & offered her bed & stole the money from your boot & the last day of July when you won sixty on the slots & caught the bus which crashed in Detroit & the war games with live ammo & a jazz band on a flatbed & the B & O which ran all the way home & no one there to meet you except a guy playing bongos on a bench & a small girl asleep in his lap.

Improvisations: XXVII

“Oh, suck my breasts,” she said & when I did she shuddered & a light sweat broke out on her forehead & her lips quivered & she spread her palms on my neck & spread her legs under me & waves washed over us & the sea took us to an island on fire & placed us in a cave above the flames where two waiters, one black & one white, opened a magnum of Champagne & served us oysters & muscles & shrimp in a light curry sauce & a blue moon descended & wrapped us in its cool light & we awoke in a village in Mexico where we found ourselves sleeping against an adobe wall & a yellow dog licked your face & we flew over the roofs of the town like newlyweds in Chagall’s painting & someone was playing a lute & another a saxophone & you said, “Take me with you” & I promised I would & we met again on a street in Florence where a young boy was selling watches & another his sister & we took both & found ourselves in a pension where we could finally tell the time & the three of us bathed in the common bath & lay in each other’s arms until the morning sun slid across the wall & we heard a lone guitar – a flute – a mandolin . . .

Improvisations: XLVI

He tucks The Morning Line in his hip pocket & begins the long trek home.
There’s not much time before he must leave for the south.
In Alexandria there’s a woman who sews & embroiders silk shrouds.
They are her gifts for all who have ever passed her door.
We encounter him after he’s lost twenty pounds & wrestles drunks behind
a rooming-house in Baltimore.
Those who’ve been chosen are unaware of her special gift.
When it’s their time it merely appears on the desk of their town magistrate.
The postman arrives at his door to deliver the letter from Prague & is met with curses & a cocked pistol.
In January. In Paris. In a small bar. There sits a man without a nose sipping from a cup of absinthe.
The woman who sent the letter to Simon has recently inherited a million dollars from her son’s estate.
His daughter sits cross-legged on the floor tossing the dice he’d whittled from the hip of their dead cat.
From Baltimore it’s a quick flight to Philadelphia where a man everyone calls a hermit has built a shrine to the ‘god’ he calls: EX.
She informs Simon of the need to reinvent her life without either of them.
There’s a banknote for a thousand dollars enclosed.
If you choose to visit Philly you’ll find my Aunt Esther selling tickets but you must not buy them from her – especially, not from her.
When the dice come up red & black you have a stiff shot at success & if they are both white you will invite your own death.

Go back to your car & west to Pittsburgh where the money has been well laundered & the steaks are flown fresh from Missouri.
Never play too long at the same table. You are well-known here & the trackers will find you soon enough.
In the south. In a hotel run by a retired mortician. There lives a woman with one golden eye.
Go to her. She will see you now.

AFTER GOYA 

Francisco De Goya (1746-1828)

Barcelona 2006

Hola! Old friend . . .You, whose vision I’ve chased for years . . . As one from the plains who bears witness with his hands & blood in his throat . . .who speaks of the evil that men do & of the caller who knocks at every door . . .

Each day the donkey bears its burden of greed but  here  in Goya’s ‘night of the soul’

the corrupt haul each other on their backs & hurl their spears & pierce their own plump cocoons &

the dead will carry the dead / here  where his monsters gorge on the torsos of kids & his priests walk a tightrope between their lies &

elegant women tease & flirt & are wrenched from their mother’s tit & here   a raging stallion tears her flesh &

she’ll wear a mask to hide her scars & the hag will follow & sweep her up on a broom & sail over night &

here  she’ll feed on dragon’s blood & dung &  prefers a goat to a man & have him mount & . . . & here  

the war tears out the country’s throat & mutilates & castrates & ties the bleeding parts to a tree . . . & here

a women who plucks the teeth of the dead & dogs that gnaw the guts in the pit & here   the headless corpses rot . . .

& Francisco de Goya will not be satisfied – here . . . & neither will we turn away . . . escape

the gapping & the gawking mouths . . . the grisly . . . hush.

Fundacio Caixa Catalunya [La Pedrera]

An Exhibition . . . June 25, 2000

The Disasters of War – 1810-20

Excerpts (first 4 of 25)

On his knees the lone man begs to be led away. His wide white eyes stare into a sky all mottled & black. He knows

the future holds no salvation in the swirl of gas & scarlet rain.

Spitting blood but still with his knife he rushes the guns & gunners oblige with bayonets & shot as they’ve done to the dead & dying scattered below & beyond.

The ax-man hacks at belly & bone – his partner straddles another driving his blade deep & down that grizzled

neck.

& now . . . The Women roil in rage w/thrust of sword or pike or the heaving of stone – they joust & claw & bite, gouge

eyes from the skulls of the fallen.