bricks, not so anonymous, 1982

there were satellites
before you were born
there were signals from
thin air & presley in black and white
there was me breathing
unfound carapace soft and jello
in the magnetic fields
the things I didn't know
the things I don't know now
still there were chances
for you, redrafted bird
in my air

***

there are a dozen or so stories
in the first quarter moon of her lovers
and her users and the spoons they ate
from the saxophones, both metal and flesh
the worst in small showers
the night moon of schizophrenia, boredom
wordman clever in his utility freud
working on a failure ~ some nameless
honcho that took her cherry, buried
himself in suicides & her sanguine knots
tangling in these woods ~ I could remember
all this, never even seeing it.
Lindell, and John—your Gino, that
round robin of Mike and Neil and Ron and Ric
and back again to John, jazzboy from
Rosiclaire.

***

so/turn her on the fire
one time turn her
again her flesh seared
by memory, embarrassment
dense and deep in the wild
pragmatism so attractive
and deceptive. So/unmarinated
she is inedible~quiet,
hiding juices~she is restrained
when she should/would be free,
and giddy when she should've
come down from the spit
cleansed by the shadow
of hungers she could not sate
the meat beautiful and passing.


Pieces from the notebooks, 1981-83. This is the early period that I lived with Becky Bradway, breaking up with her, over and over again. To be with BB in those days meant forsaking any frame of reference but her's. You simply could not communicate with her unless you granted her her definitions. I fell in love with her, not just with her writing, which she has often accused me of doing. But I did love her and attempted to give her the opportunities to write that I felt Pat had given me, and that I felt guilty about, having left her (Pat). In any case, those years with Becky saw me write less and less and there was never a question as to who's work was valuable and worth the time and money to support. There are a large number of these poems in the notebooks, that I hope to work with in these next weeks/months. Hopefully there is much that I think is valuable here.