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

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.