Safari
(from the tape-recorder)
3/7/15
Missed the dawn in one direction
this promise they spoke of,
mysterious invitation
so glad of a you–
its persistent revision.
That is the promise they spoke of
Gallatinville
such is the mysterious offer
three hundred years it took to get my thoughts straight
primitive sight distance
crow reportage
Hilltop Road
and it flies in the dark
not knowing what
fulfills.
But that it will
three hundred years it took me
Hilltop Road
blue of my thoughts
from it from sepulcher
blue whalebacks
and the light
lies
a spring light.
The crow of unsure light
climbs toward its reflection
the light’s redoubling answers where it may.
Sun hidden behind clouds
blue behind blue
I‘ve forgotten my waltz.
Gunpowder plotter lurking in the woods
I’ve forgotten my promise
back to the
just enough to be believable
the lost woods
it has been so many years
land of white
Celtic snow
Friday
remind me.
Nine Partners Road
a juniper to the right
stepped from the woods.
Pumpkin Lane
such curious fears magic us
you’re going faster than you thought
fast as thought goes
facing
that is the face
Hephaestus
knits
we figure malice
and are
the undoing
of physical distance
we are trapped in
lovers.
Hibernia Road
Pleasant Valley
I answer.
In my lane.
Millbrook:
that’s the place I’m not going.
Lazy lover.
Town of Legrange.
Unreadable notices on the trees.
No Turns
Deer prophecy.
James Baird State Park
Restaurant.
Eat what you find there
Haruspex or haggis
this is our fallen rock zone
trees broken by the wind
from where I was born
how many reminders do we need:
deer leap out from yellow.
Sylvan Lake
Looking for hamadryads.
There’s a man hiding inside the clock
persistent with romance.
Carmel
Fishkill
7A for i-87
Correctional Facility No Stopping
light-glow over the mountain
Beacon One Mile
The Hamilton Fish
Moodna Creek.
Whaleback
and a fire on it.
The smooth taught earth.
Its word bunched up
a little mound.
Franklin Lake.
Drawn out westward
light lingers
weightless
blue rising from the ground
fog area
fog backed up against the horizon
Wanape
the water tower blue
blue letter
steps forward.
Elk lodge overlooking highway
Who is the lord of Pompton Lakes
Who is the lord of this wreckage of land
twilight
followed from malice
go faster than you think
Morristown
Perth Amboy
Dover, where are the pleasant Hessians.
Sylvan Way
pleasant enough.
Better in the mind.
There is no record of denied permission.
Sword in the Stone
Rabbinical College of America
Washington’s Headquarters
Sour smell of steel
phragmites
brown snow
Bernardsville
Baskingridge
Jockyhollow.
I’d say so.
Great Swamp
The place is lost, the little
actuality surrounded by
so much untouched
Deadminster [?]
Puckman
exit 21 B towards Eastern Pennsylvania
WEST from New Jersey
into the sun
that is a danger
but little more than a voice
telling us
how to say it.
Arrangement of vowels
Dvorak’s
hocus volga
(?)–ton
Northbranch
the sun still sets
ravenous from eye-passing
so much
unmasticated.
Whitehouse
Reddington Diner
Tewksbury
the mauve sky
is a child’s bedroom
it is the hour
[?]
answering
Cokesbury
tired shouldered
Lebanon
you find it everywhere
where Silo’s and cows
slow-march into the sky.
Annandale
mountains are going flat
the sun sits in a cleft of cloud
setting above the land
Flemmington
Clinton
Washington
What is this prophecy
who are these
I jumbled my set
Pittstown!
Fines doubled
Town of union
Pennsylvania Place
No Turns
Phillipsburg
Ruffles Road
Not even a forgery comes to mind
Shell gas ahead
this is Jutland!
where the record skips
this is land jutting into land
the imposition
snarling houses and mean pizza
Westportal
Cattenburg
Fines Doubled
refraction
the double glow
atmosphered
Pennsylvania pale blue
sun adjacent unset unseen
in the blue of the land hides
no turns
Schenectong [?] River
Alpha
Phillipsburg
Sun shining blue down the leaves
missing through the rest of the alphabet
Quakersteak
Allentown
exit 71
to PA 22, nope
PA 33, North
Lost River Caverns
visit Aleph
seeking the
ice caves
Stroudsburgh
Skipped across three lanes
exit
something Ave
Someone’s memorial bridge
trees break
the skyline
where we left our bodies
US 22 west toward Bethlehem
meaning what
some memorial
Perkins Restaurant
Nazareth Pike
Moravian College
the old dream of giving up completely, drinking
Saturday Night Dance Party–
That’s tonight! oh to be a frivolous snob
in Nazareth
the sky dark overhead
some road you didn’t follow
Historic Bethlehem here I come!
Leigh University, tell me about the promise
Coca Cola plant
Schulyersville Road
I should never have gotten off here
Pole Star
hung on the distance
this is not the real Eighth Avenue.
*** (Red Roof Inn, uttered in bed)
What was uttered in the silences. They say the utterance flanked by its silences constitutes the universe of discourse. What they don’t mean is that the silences come along, and what we thought was yelling was just a distraction from the silence. That’s not what they mean that’s what I mean. The talk is a bluff. The talk is wired to the mind of unconvention, bearing away from here, what makes here. The thought does not know to what end it is, but is a temptation from outside. The Question needles you with answers.
***
3/8/15
Falling Rocks
Quakertown
Neopagan
what do we have but the names
Buck County
unturning
Pyramid of salt
no shoulder next quarter mile
why build it here
someone else’s utterance
rattles away
shoulder closed
fallen rock
scatters our heaven
no pyramids but the constructive
oh slaves
I would rather not be going 90 mph
exit 16
Bryn Mawr
missed my exit
glad to be out of this mean place
miraculous turnpike radius
exit 16 again
Philadelphia
sour steel
emergency stopping only
the ice caves remain explored
furtive
Saint John’s University
Manayunc (?)
Roxburough
Lincoln Drive
Kelly Drive
***
Mixed Columns in the four-way center of Government Administration. Doric and Corinthian, looks like Albany, look of the beautiful state that built the churches facing backwards; the column decides. Decides your direction from the four domains of the heart– decided perhaps by that furious god of Rodin, hanging over all the doors in the museum where you stare at your feet. Let him decide. Whatever you are I follow to Rittenhouse Square. The pagan Administration guides these chambers too, another set, the web rises in the mind, someone walks their dog out of my life forever, a can rattles in the alley; lions turned out untame face obstinate directions.
(Rit.Sq.–written)
***
3/9/15
Heel-toe
eight more exits
already
at dawn
because when I saw
when I saw my mother
hand in hand with my mother
lovely polis of it all
all we’d like to be
– to be with
that passive verb
middle-voice invitations
Schuylkill river
Sour red clay
and iron
Herod Town
Bethlehem
wafflehouse
chophouse
-these lures
I entreat the promise
enter paradise
get gas
entering the Borough of Alpha
three vultures
flying backward
contour of this utterance
I think that means three days
divisible into parts
but not hours
can’t help but think what
someone with a weaker bladder
might be doing
in my little water-bottle
but we are so careful
going 80
it is within a law
we misbehave
the unnumbering begins
with the first thing you know
and unravels
a vowel within vowels
Hollow Road
Salt Point.
