after Cornell

this time there is a hotel from my dreams
it is pink, has five stories & three major
wings. it could be a museum surrounded by birch
trees in winter and it could be night time the pink
like the pale flesh of an ex-lover before the day
turns everything normal. there is a frame with corners
rounded into the scene. the frame itself
is dark with a glittery, starry decoration. I have
roomed at this hotel, in uncertain night.
The street outside is dark with dirty snow.
are there people in the foreground,
the size of insects, or are there specks of dirt
at the bottom of the facade?


There are other parts, done trying to find my way into several of Cornell's boxes. This was the only one mildly successful. Cornell was a twentieth century artist who composed paintings/sculptures by putting objects into small boxes.

Typography

garamond my old friend you come to me
in these hours holding your promise of an elegant grace
out to me as if in the act of finding these letters
I could define the world in a way that makes
us all beautiful and not just corrupt.

The Hunchback & the King, circa 2005

many men are falling where you promised to stand guard

the liar's devices in beautiful symmetry
mirror image deceit, one's color is the other's
distortion somewhere in the paradox lives
the original decision the motive's baby logic
bringing him to the disturbed edge

recanting this year's joy-deceived scandal
regarding the end of justice flip in his
presidential beatitude he knows what he knows
as long as he knows it or if he doesn't know
it it never was it never could have been he
doesn't figure in these calenderic focused
numerically specific trains of events, driven
by that which exists outside of him, or not. Does
the liar then grasp the nature of his lie within
himself? deceived, personally, he may
become God at some point, though
too humble to do more than believe it is so

some point guard in the latrine, karl rove
perhaps. makes notes hurry away from
this god thing do not speak of memory
in his presence.not only is this a revelation
it is in his dream like candy shiny and
circumstantial. do you see through his deception?
and at what point do you betray the man for
his lies? the hunchback, in his office, spins
the truth for himself, spinning. Looking
at the words crawling across the bottom of
the screen, or on the great bronze bell, he
cannot tell anymore which letters are
approved and which have been commandeered
by the evil twin the boy hidden in the sub-basement
the boyking playing war along the sandy
shores ten thousand miles away.
who is standing guard, Karl?
Your deformity hurts you but in some way
it makes you pure. It gives you a reason for
this necessary betrayal. The culture will not
thank you. the dreams become a white
hot vision scorching away the neural
cells with their sweet immoral acid of power.

will you save the republic? & George,
seeing the gun, doesn't even know his line,
et tu, brute? Rove cannot escape.

The Seeker

Apologies to John Ranyard

There were many different days between us
Each characterized by innate optimism
I remember the pool table at John’s apartment
In the building that is now torn down on
Cass Street and the people from the museum where
I would later work. He came to live
On Scarritt, another itinerant writer boy,
Known as Root, he wore his knives
On his belt, storied sexing a raccoon
Dead in the water more than a week. Later
The boys, Banjo Gary and Kurt Shoggoth,
Lived in John’s parents house for as long
As they could all afford it, (too many rooms
To heat), the pool table occupying its historic
Space. I remember the ancient foreign cars,
Beautiful and fast John piloting the backroads
Around Lake Springfield. Banjo Gary & Kurt
Deserted Root abruptly that winter.
It happened again, that sudden wheeling
In the heart’s wind: in Tennessee his
Archaeologist-wife’s abandoning note, his
Hours gone with the stereo, the typewriter,
No more target shooting, no more poems
Of this loss. No point. I knew inside his
Water-brother body, toned and sun-painted,
The need to survive and find the truth
But do we grow undifferentiated by
The losses? Oh yes, Bruno the Pissfreak
Mamboed through that living room scene
Ned Riseman flashing his indifference
I might’ve taken that shot, but John just
Found his calm and only imagined the fatal blow
No need to take sad survivor of his
Mother’s holocaust to task. Ned never came
Back; Pat told him he would have to
Write and read. She did this for Our Boy
John. The only time, that anyone
Was sent away. And even to this day
Ned has his mother tied to him and he to her.
The slip knot of the secured child. A
Moment passes. In Hermosa Beach, not
Far from the Lighthouse, I lived a few months
With John and his little brother, Brucie,
Blonde jesus skinny with a broad smile. John
Grew a thick bush of cannabis, distilled
The buds to oil. JR rarely even drank, but
Little brother had to crawl from the wreckage
Of that chemistry, and did so, thank the Lady
Infinite now. (I remember) Lying in the living room loft,
Listening then to the Pacific. A scene of
Random beauty. It started to rain hard and
I left, saddled as I was with the damaged girl
From Rochester.

So many things to have
Left out, this late in this decade: He made
Puppets, marionettes. He started a
Free school. He counted single-celled phonemes
In a Petri dish, channeling all the collected
Wisdom of post-Darwin and the cancer doctors who
Sought funding or at least a path through the amino acids
He walked away from that room, left
The others waiting on the purple couches. I
Called him, some time during the moments
My second wife had tried to kill me. & he was
A counselor, someone with the right words
To say to me. Released, suddenly, by his memory,
His whispered graveled voice on the telephone
Those nights of severe betrayal, his knowledge of this pain
How to turn to this to music. And then, again, 1995
I danced that sad dance with the lawyer’s wife
She abandoned me, after she escaped him.
My lawyer beat me up one Wednesday night. & I called
John in Los Angeles. Once again, someone
To save me from the river, to pull me
Out and help me find the air.
We watched the Richard Pryor show together.
John turned the world into a suggestive metaphor
There was a passion there, the mind an
Intricate puzzle. Swimming in the dark waters.
Still living, imagination his only defense
Root canoes the western waters, writes his papers
Sends his dreaming on the arc that is
The Lady’s doorway. Fibonacci constant, he
Has seen the moment that turns,
Bruno becomes the conduit our chemistry
Rides the waves incoming the great liquid
Pleasure She gives us
−He still seeks the one true sign.