Born Twice

For Ross Hulvey & Gary Adkins

Orson Welles Picking His Nose:
"Who shall we eat today?"

The boy
wore his overalls, covering up
the semi-instant possibility of an endgame.
His fevered selfishness disguised
moments of mendacity as just a fey
tic. On the widdershins of this seamless
life came that ship of days; a buttload
to be precise. & suddenly out of the
beaded player arose Orson Welles,
with an eye on a blonde or two, and
a parsimonious rap, waiting to be
absorbed by the dark sorceress.

How many days do thusly pass?
Enough to anchor the seamy memory
of what was that girl's name again?
Heidi, and her father who denied him.
While we watched bad television,
smoking endless amounts of cannabis
on Pat's dime, & Our Boy
consoled himself with thousands of $s
in electrical toys and books and records
far beyond a normal appetite.

Mata Hari, she styled herself, joked
about his "Toy." She, not quite right
herself, ran the silver insult like a
stream of honey down the days. No
escape, like Shelob, she removed
what juice she liked, and handed him
over to the bookstore girl. Not as
kindness, but as placeholder. Dark
lady she reached over to his old friend
and gave it a little tug. & that & a
perk or two took care of that. Left
him in a similar cave on Lowell

with a wife & stepchild
& ever closer to the widening
gate that had once closed
before him.

Photos man! Beowulfian friend!
Co-owner of the Red Star! Amazement
at the spiral of the hours! See you
in its contemplation! You who
were once so close! You who
kept track of your single shrimps,
afraid of being cheated! You
who taped all the movies on SLP
so no one's eyes were undamaged!
You are the last edition of your family now,
no fourths in sight.
nothing in the record, a Fug's discography
the story about consuming
an infant in the united kingdom
passing passing passing

now, slouching off down the road to the underworld
not persephone no, rather
a monster, coveralls muddy
and ripped. Hands empty after
so many seasons, taking nothing
photographs abandoned
the screen empty now
an honest self evaluation

brave smile

I always wear the brave smile.
So you go again, Gary. He goes, Hulvey too.
They went. Somewhere.
I feel constantly abandoned, finding corpses
in my papers in the basement. Finding
my limbs removed and replaced with metal
fixtures. I always
make those excuses.
You pay the rent.
She writes occasional letters.
He helped me once.
He said I wrote well.
I live in fear,
waiting for the next one gone.
I smoke too much drink too
much can't remember
dreams, good & bad. I
crave unnatural sex as a way out
of this haunted house
pretending to be a writer
almost daily.
wearing that brave smile
dreaming of cutting
your silly throat
I always
end up a coward
in these sheets

it's not liberation folks,
its expiation
and finally redemption
I need another chance

the path home

small privacy in a late May evening
at an Exxon station somewhere near Roanoke
an unhappy infant cries
I wait for Sandra and her lover
the florescent lights glare; the people buy co-cola
and leave me on the curb
counting minutes like jackstraws
scattered in god's chaotic way

seven hundred miles distant
Illinois breathes on
serendipitous in her over planning
there are stories there
stories high as the sears' tower
stories as long as the Illinois Central
stories sad or tough
or mugged by their inconsistencies

its a velvet night, just chill now
maybe warming—I cannot tell
I have just arrived from another starved winter
the chaldean girl sits like a stone sparrow
in disquiet—a boyish blonde absorbing
my losses with no seeming loss, herself

I live with another old friend
in only some discomfort
the object is: to make a life
to tell no lies
to hurt only carefully
so the dissolution is slow
although certain

this is the path home

Written in the spring of 1980 when I went to Virginia with Ross Hulvey to attend Gary Adkin's wedding. I ended up staying with Sandy Riseman because Ross could get a room in the dorm, being a Hollin's grad, but I couldn't. I thought at the time that he and Gary could've asked Richard to find a place to put me, but they didn't. I turned out to be just another accoutrement to their lives. I understand now that Ross was afraid I would charm the ladies at Hollins. I honestly had no recognition that people felt that way about me until Becky Bradway left me in 1993, telling me that I dominated things and she thought she should be the one dominating things. I just wasn't aware of that, surrounded, as I thought I was, by deft and interesting people. Well, Ross was a shy doofus, that is true. But Gary Adkins seemed to play the charming card quite well. Now I often hang with Dan Keding, and he is even more the center of attention than I am. A fair thing, I think.

In any case the chaldean girl in this is once again that blonde honey from Springfield's dark catholic side, Alison Clare Gaughan. She was laughing at me, those days, from the deck of the destruction of my weird love affair with the too young blonde.

If there is a lesson here, it is that you need to pay close attention to the details. I have been checking the numbers on this blog for the last two months and it is certainly an educational experience for me to note that I am the only person who comes here, at least for the last couple of weeks. I average one person a day. Of course, I come every day. There is a lesson here people. No one is interested in this poetry. Nonetheless, I keep putting it out there. Perhaps, sometime after I am gone, somebody will stumbled across this stuff and find something useful enough to keep in it. I hope this is so, but I don't expect it. But I leave my children, with at least fond memories of their father. Well, maybe not so much Joel. Hard to say from this end.

Adkins, Mapless

It's all lost
as Adkins said, it's all gone now
and in a new year
we will celebrate all those unheard voices
who thought
they might have something to say

we knew better
all along ... knew it was hype
& some of it hope ... things
we wanted for our own reasons
things we thought
might be important

and I'm in for a big fall
humpty dumpty on Scarritt
wondering if anything
is really important

it's all lost, Gary.
You're not here. Maybe I'm not either.
I am tired of my excuses—this,
I presume, is me.
What else can I think,
this cold awful day
with the voice of suicide
singing of hope & fear
though it's perfectly obvious
fear is the trump card

for gary d.

old friend you do not write me
you do not show me your books, anymore
Jim is not here to share my stroh's
Ricardo has gone to Sterling for two weeks
but he did not tell me last Thursday when we talked.
Gary went to Chicago today; he made his apologies
for the retreat. He is lying to himself
about Anita. But it is an old lie that
we all survive.
My child has gone to Oregon with my ex-wife,
the marxist, and I have not heard from him
in the last month.
I do not write Janne, for reasons she refuses
to admit; and of course, she does not write me.
Ross suffers in his understanding
but has made a place and will live nowhere else.
That it cannot include us is only normal.
This list goes on, as you know. But it has no actual
point. It is only to say how dark this room
has become. No one answers my letters, but
I will not threaten suicide to evoke a response.
Instead I spend the days questioning myself,
wondering what are the errors.
Knowing this is only a normal human concern.
Old friend, you do not write me.
But this is not asking you to.
I am no longer surprised by the world, just confused.
These words are splits of wood on the fire,
creating light and heat, just as if you were
actually here.


A poem from the late 70s, speaking to my friend Gary Davidson, after the disillusion of the first Scarritt group. I needed response in those days and sought it, extravagantly. It's a good thing I got over that because there is less and less response to my words as I age. Of course, I'm not as much fun, nor as sexy as I was in those days (I'm sorry Paige, but it is the truth.)

no communiques

winds of these prayers
paint the flatlands of my father
my words chill me
and no one comforts me
keye luke has returned to mars
and the lunar was explored
last year
there are no angels
in the snow of my front yard
and only a photographic
image of her wings
my hands are pale this season
there are no excuses for drowning
the noise has become interference
it has lost its white purity
there is no wisdom in the static
no messages from the yellow man
on the red planet
the plains spread away from
this door forever
no moon, no stars


More private language. Besides the Keye Luke figure this poem also uses the reference to the Lunar Explored, a manuscript of poems written in the mid 1970s. The lunar in the title referred to the female principle, the moon being the ancients direct icon for the female. For me there was always a sexual, or at least genital reference in the word lunar. The snow angel reference is once again to a poem of Alison Gaughan's about making snow angels ("our angels never touch"). Later Gary Adkins used it as the title for a novel he wrote that took the Maltese Falcon story and retold it in contemporary Springfield, using Bill Lambrecht, the journalist, and his partner, Sandy Martin, as two of the main characters. The reference towards the end to static and wisdom come from my first novel manuscript, It Seems So Long Ago, which is set after a nuclear holocaust in the american southwest. There is a character in this book who watches the static on his tv (no broadcast signal) and imagines he can see things in the snow that give meaning to his existence. You can see the cross reference to the snow angel at work in this. I had a period between the first and second Scarritt groups where I felt completely abandoned by my friends. This piece comes from that period.

discarded identity

Now.
(______), you primal sad sack, bald,
still married to the adequate but barren girl,
(barren by choice I am told)
inhabited by what fear she may have known
early on your life a dream of golems and
girls both elvis and lied von der erde
the subtle march of our own deceptions
hacking away in the forest of subconscious
memory who you once were and who
I still am and who twice-born though he
may be is the great wellesian actor who
has claimed your hours as blood across
the decades. Chump you are and, truth now,
did you fuck the witch? and does
your woman know? How many hidden
things are in this picture? Where's Gary?
For one. Where's the monument to the
house burned down on second street
perhaps for fun He played that banjo
badly in that time now he feels the
keyboard swallowing up the remainder
of days, thinking hard about not thinking
about those disappearing leaves of
his previous life. All over, all done now.
Placed in the wooden box, the river
water seeping in, the scratchy pages
not quite right the one on top the Great
American Highway Speech oh the cassette
of that on the back porch on Washington
Street in the spring of 1979 I can still
hear your drunken syllables calling out
for patriotism and fun for the glory of
an American scientist and engineer
as seen from space well you would
know about that wouldn't you? Once
the leader, the maker of decisions. Now
the shill for those who run the business
of education and in this slightly comical
state in this latest absurdist version
of the good old usa. How are you
going to find your way back? I know.
You're not.

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.

Born Twice

Orson Welles Picking His Nose:
"Who shall we eat today?"

The boy
wore his coveralls, covering up
the instant possibility of an endgame.
His fevered selfishness disguising
moments of mendacity as a fey
tic. On the widdershins of this seamless
life came that ship of days; a buttload
to be precise. & suddenly out of the
beaded player arose Orson Welles
with an eye on a blonde or two and
a persimonious rap, waiting to be
absorbed by the dark sorceress.

How many days do thusly pass?
Enough to anchor the seamy memory
of what was that girl's name again?
Heidi and her father who denied him.
While we watched bad television,
smoking endless amounts of cannabis
on Pat's dime, no doubt. & Our Boy
consoled himself with thousands $
electrical toys and books and records
beyond a normal appetite.

Mata Hari, she styled herself, joked
about his "Toy." She, not quite right
herself, ran the silver insult like a
stream of honey down the days. No
escape, like Shelob, she removed
what juice she liked, and handed him
over to the bookstore girl. Not as
kindness, but as placeholder. Dark
lady she reached over to his old friend
and gave it a little tug. & that & a
perk or two took care of that. Left
him in a similar cave on Lowell

with a wife & stepchild
& ever closer to the widening
gate that had once closed
before him.

photos man! beowulfian friend!
co-owner of the red star! amazement
at the spiral of the hours! see you
in its contemplation! You who
were once so close! You who
kept track of your single shrimps,
afraid of being cheated! You
who taped all the movies on SLP
so no one's eyes were undamaged!
you are the last edition of your family now
no fourths in sight
nothing in the record, a fug's discography
the story about eating an infant in the uk
passing passing passing

slouching off down the road to the underworld
not persephone no, but
a monster, coveralls muddy
and ripped. hands empty after
so many seasons, taking nothing

Folk Music

the redheaded kid
in his banjo'ed rhymes
met at the apocalypse
or maybe appomattox
one or the other
free willie the bumper sticker said
the kid ran the story where
the witch had left him. amazing promises
none kept, some distorted.
his courage was an intricate vessel
shaped by someone else's hands
on the spinning wheel of his
betrayal, left me and the sand
of the timelessness in the wordlessness
of boredom and bureacracy. all
stories inhibit;;;that's why
he juiced his last newton
flailing in the monster world
shoggoth's a motorcycle betrayal
down the beach up the establishment
some pretty disturbed numbers
being rung on the wheel of deception
hey gary how are you now?
just about dead in the water.
right? I found that Madeline
L’Engle book the other day,
with your inscription:
friends forever artists
in America. a snow angel
in my memory.