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Native Sons Three fisher's sons sailed to the east where the sun would never rise instead they found the thunder's sound and lightening in their eyes then the waves rose up and wound them in a trap net not their own and the lake leaped up to grave them and so save them from growing old No, not just boys but brothers wrapped now in cold water's folds Seined salt warm from the same father's veins today they would be still living never walking on water unforgiven had the judas sea not betrayed them to become a fisher of men | ||
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AMORTE con FLAGRANTE The usurping season where leaves seize the yellow fever of the sun and failing to warm with quick, deceiving colors fall dry as the brittle porcelain smiles of tripped women who promise painted feelings from empty brushes Oozing a studied heat that belies the coming bite, they combine all colors to white with an underlying kiss of winter So, eager to be fooled, we shuffle agape through once dazzling piles of such wasted messengers listening to their induced whispers watching pirouettes of the now brown wind puppets descending into futile pyres sacrificing themselves for warmth in numbers begging new flames for faded flamboyance while our acrid eyes watch earthless wishes eddy up in null smoke | ||
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The persian pawed, soft-furred passage of glacial legions Each unexampled flake scented by reactions of chilled minerals frore and skirr flurrying before their own collective exhalatations, and pause imperceptible in their descending purity | ||
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A locus of occurrence
in the mind with no words beyond
Nonentified, illucid
Checkrein of razors
and uncarved quietude
Adumbrating, emprising,
aeneous
Adventitious to thought, but not being | ||
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and ironic deflation of communism. This red drama had degenerated into a hasty footrace by the educated and intelligent toward the relative freedoms of the west, while their martinet managers were busy being marrionetted on the stage of their own black comedy. Those disimprisoned were not technically dispossessed. Their previous lifestyles eschewed materialistic accumulation to the degree that nothing was worth bringing along. Oova typified his fellow dwellers by exhibiting an oxymoronic spineless arrogance. His noble, if profligate, ancestry profiled by a prominent Hapsburg lip was unfortunately undermined in an atavistically receded chin. His incongruous features further admitted of an emaciated frame combined with an overcompensating loutishness. He was the chief mechanic at the Cold Bowling Centre by day, a position which allowed all the respite needed by a nocturnal bar keep. Juan, called "Joe" in deference to the meager pronunciation skills of his Germanic employers, worked in the long afterglow of a 60's pot head. He would eventually be deprived of status and deported for mixing his mestizo heritage | ||||
THE BRINGER Berlin is full of low sub audible sounds reminiscent of continental walls grinding upon each other or of subways deep underfoot. Such tectonic stress manifests itself in typical tunnelled, Teutonic fashion. The big cats in the Zoo endlessly pace. Their language is a distorted echo of the guttural grumbling of a displaced populace whose space is continually and glacially eroded. Slugs, disturbed by the continual vibrations are dislodged from their subterranean bunkers and ooze bewildered through parks. While basement bowling lanes blast out Van Winkles ten pin symphonies to pass the time, restless Guardians of Freedom in green confined to the quarter slots chimp between machines, conditioned to respond to rolling bars and cascading coins. Berliners facially reflect this aural aggravation with the bulging watery eyes and drooping lips of grumpy gold fish. Now West Berlin at this time was a city in ferment. Refugees were sieving by the thousands through a rusting and rent iron curtain that served no longer to cordon out decadent western ideals, but more as a dramatic backdrop emphasizing the sorry | ||||
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with schnapps and demolishing a German elementary school. He was earnest but laxidasical in his unimaginative job as day stock supply clerk responsible for ordering packets of ketchup and other condiments, as well as prepared fast foods such as French fries, canned hams, and burger. Needless to say, there were always inconvenient shortages. The blimped bevy of loutish, loud black girls loosely in charge of the concession snack bar continually complained about the new boss, Don. He was a sallow caricature of Humphrey Bogart gone to seed. Polyester plaid pants, sleeveless cardigans and thin dank hair. He was burdened with a continually hunted jackal personality. Ron, his Uriah Heepish assistant, aspired to his position but, as those overly ambitious and without prospects for advancement are wont, resorted to regular wheedling to ensure his chances. Robert, short order fry cook/ Doctor of psychiatry seemed to need the escape from his own demons boiling oil. Slim was the pencil thin non-male manger of the sporting goods outlet who catered more than bowling balls to a | roulette of preferably black players. The star in this lack luster operation was Claudia. She, despite a recent spate of hard luck with a rather juvenile husband who had left her with two very young boys because she didn't have "big tits," was an amazingly striking woman: petite with green eyes and tawny hair and movements. Feline without the aggression of a lioness, she was recovering from the bewilderment of rejection to realize that at 25 , her early marriage at 16 had left her ill equipped to provide for herself, let alone a small family. For a time, her drive would have to suffice in lieu of the more extensive education and sophistication she desired. Into this melange of misplaced persons, was hired an "intermittent mechanics assistant." He was new to Berlin and was eager to explore the character of military life and its privileges. His job was to empty the dregs of beer bottles, ash trays and garbage containers ( kitchen and otherwise), to drag/dust the bowling lanes, to spray deodorizer and fungicide into returned bowling shoes and "all related duties." Obtaining this post was really quite a coup. For though the labor is menial, the | |||
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hours inopportune and co-workers incompetent, the privileges of an I.D. card holder in a martial city are magical. Working through the paperwork of a tripartite military system is an Augean task at best. The experience and credentials one brings to the position count for naught. What is important are virgin, unstamped passports, host country work quotas, whimsical Non-appropriated fund administrators and a burning desire to get another job. For, it seems that unless one starts at the lowest dollar paid job for a minimum of 3 months, they are ineligible to apply for the employment for which they are actually trained and suited. In other words, artists, teachers, lawyers, nurses, psychiatrists, all must intern as waitresses, recreation assistants, cooks or intermittents before actualizing their chosen occupational opportunity. Bringer subscribed to the oriental philosophy that being fluid and transparent is an inherently more desirable method for effecting change than fame or power. To the others in this immediate scenario who subscribed to the latter forms of influence his involvement was a frustrating enigma. Each personality offered its own face as | value even if its owners were unaware of their real motivations. Bringer accepted them all and brought each their voiced desires; not to use or manipulate, although this was sometimes they only way they could inadvertently repay him, but to fulfill them. No job was demeaning for him, no problem too grotesque, no emotion taboo. After all, it was they, in the end, who asked. He was a tangible mirror, a sounding board. Because he had spent years growing up in Detroit, the black girls took him to heart. Boisterously singing soul and talking trash during the cleanup times they would infuriate Oova who frothed about the "schvartz nigers" being lowly forms of human antecedents and "how could one who aspired to being a full time mechanics assistant exhibit such behavior?" But Oova's affinity for Bringer's mechanical aptitude with the delicate pin-resetters over came his prejudice and he enjoyed the time they both spent in stocking feet, crooning fifties ballads while meticulously prepping and polishing each lane in the alley before the brigade-wide tournaments.
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Bees in the mead pester churls at churn watching earls in armor tilting by turns Abbots in habits of earth brown and ermine dispense indulgences with fervor and frowns to sack clothed serfs from walled in towns In halls smoked with rush light luted airs fall on ears dulled by feasts of roast meats and beer Ballads of damsels distressed and fair minstrel's lays of lances and princes' valiant dancing swords | Jesters in patchwork jape and caper mocking sorcerer's gestures and wizard's spells An age, though seemingly so dim to remembering can never be harkened as dark. | |||
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WOMAN AT THE WELL WISHING FOR THE ECHO OF UNSEEN RAIN TO JERICHO DOWN THE CANYON CRUNCHING SWEET AS PASSIONFRUIT SEEDS SLIPPING DOWN THE MOUTHS OF ARID ARROYOS SCENTED WITH JACKPINE, MANGO AND MUD BUT, EVEN UNLACED LEAGUE BOOT LIGHTNING, HOPPING FROM BUTTE TO BUTTE, CANNOT FLASH OR FLOOD THIS WATER WOMAN'S WELL | ||
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Pagan pavanne a forest of orgies and Ungentle pageantry drawn in fawn's blood at dawn relish the raw flesh the struggle and chase with the glee of the goat-horned the baseborn, unchaste no eyelight hinders the keenings of lust at the sight of the hind worrying the throat at the back of our mind that keeps us from seeing ourselves as we must | ||
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ON A HIGH BLUE AND OVER WINDED DAY FALLEN BLOSSOMS FORM A SILHOUETTED SHADOW SETTLING, PASTELLING TREED ROOT FEET INTERRUPTED CLOUDS PUFF PAST LOUD AS SNOWED SMOKE SPOKEN SIGNALS AUDIBLE BAUBLES | SYLLABLED BUBBLES SURPRISE LULLABIES AND WELL TRAVELLED WORLD WISE BALLADS FOR~SOOTHING THE YEARNINGS OF EARTHLY FOUNDLINGS | |||
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Au pair with relations tidal bathed by waved aubades of emotion always at sea but beached ever above the levels of the night before | ||
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The spinnaker moon ballooning through the midnight blue soon to fly a full circle sail then strike the brigadoon veil on your pared nail ship | ||
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Boys waving at the train same train same time one thrill a day who cares from where it comes or goes along the way Don't need to board just feel the rushandspeed Now-men waiting for train time try to flag it down too late left behind only one a day sidetracked missed the chance to play Conductor or engineer brakeman or Pullman all a head full of steam Can you drive the train? IthinkIcan IthinkIcan Can't you whistle for a stop? Can you pull the weight? or will you hop a freight? | or ride the rail rolling only rolling only straight | |||
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London Derriere fruits demure you are much the merrier when winking less than pure | ||
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I took his toothless wisdom and fanatic eyes advice "SEARCH OUT THE BAZAAR AND CHANCE THE SPICE" overfilled sacks spilling saffron and oozing frankincense incense voiced vendors drowning common sense reOrienting, insistent twisty, tugging hands night soil, new blood, silk, old milk and myrrh all murmuring: "amber ambergris amber ambergris here, touch this, hear, smell this"
amid the hiss of royal cats and eyes of Horus: oiled innocence old, pyramided in myriad, unkiltered passages roiled, in a Niled maze where nothing is worth its first perfumed price | "Buy excitement for your wife..." He appeared later again (I think by happenstance) saying: "I see you heeded me" but I did not need his urging, burning glance so lost was I in life by chance | |||
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Naples: skinned dead goats hanging before neon outlined shrines to Gesu infanta butchers playing life threatening cards in store fronts heaps of garbage in the labyrinth streets walls of fallen stucco patched with layered political posters volcanized | THE BIRD MOUTHED BOY BURBLES "I"ING THE WELL LIT NEW WORLD OWLISHLY AFTER SCREECHING A BETRAYED FIRST EXIT BREATH FROM THE WARM CORDED TUNNEL OF LIFE WHO? WHAAY? WHO? WHY? TAKING A TWO FISTED INSTINCTIVE GRIP ON LIFE LIPS PURSED FOR LAPPING THE KINDEST MILK HE SIGHS, THE CURIOUS CONTENTMENT OF A FEATHER MOUTHED CAT WITH A BIRD'S EYE SEAT ON THE WORLD'S WELCOMING ROCKER | |||
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The stereotyped sterility of winter the dwarfed depressing days of blankety blank where went the heartsong the happy art of thrashing off the swaddling coverlets of the self laid bed and finding the trade off sleeps fitfully in the money made | ||||
The high upsky moon crows Clock-a-morning with parallel light under bird wings and on horizons Blow like crazy blue/red Daylily dawn glowing over slow-shouldered comber's seagull epaulets and butterfly bed beaches with all the wisdom of babe's breath | ||||
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Hissing, the tide neaps the beach with clear cappucinoed kisses while plovers puppet for coquina plunder, egrets stilt to stiletto invisible kill Tang me too sea breeze zephyrs until all my silent talk is rimed with salt | ||
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Matching the evolution of mare's tales to the williwaw dispersion of minnows Watching the creative flashes behind the low brows of backlit anvils like lake agate lace capable of conceiving a second thought | ||||
blizzard waltz ballet alembic lyric, distilled inuendoed idioms deeply woven polyglot gavotte parfait tapestry double tempoed wooed and willed ill-timed intemperate endured entendre crocheted cackling with a coven's covenant turning the phrase lathe til the word wood shapes | ||||
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Falling birds follow flocks of leaves all their fluttering breasts daubed with life's last color a valley of V'd voices lament the lack of choices between instinct and extinct | When each finds another's piece perfectly puzzled to their personality it is fitting that the indistinction leaves no room for argument in their married minds duetting their caduexcius compliment to enduring Love's entropy | |||
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I am not myself today past acts no longer define me fleeing dreams to be where eyes march not succumb to the long-toothed hounding whiz dumb begging for time from those on watches too long who I am now has no consequence the question is who shall I be for nonsynchronous tomorrows | Serrated premonitions fawn suspicions of a Superstition dawn shawled in rare rain and snared fog earringed in azurite lightening scarved in scudding thunderheads each range ranked with pointed questions inverted summits or upturned cups for rain? small spired doubts soon evaporated by the clarifying sun in boxed watercolor canyons draped with folds of ruffled rock silks hats for hoodoos | |||
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curlicue horseshoe bends serigraphed steeples aspired peaks see sawing for dominance in the balance of distance a lost art that cannot end | Lost is the lilt the stately cadence of melodic epics the elation of oration obliterated by gray arrhythmic rote recitals monotone monologues catalogs of mundane dilettante details a wishing for possession by association nun's clappers knelling to hell's belles over earnest repetition simplification of poetry's power and passion | |||
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At sea she softens the sheets full winds the sails stays the spar's unbending curves the prow to the waves curl and stern to wake easing each strake over breaking foam toward home | What calls us away from fall to fall drawn to the southern drawl by shorter days wild coroneting fowl following unharvestable leaves lost to looming moons all green gone mown sent to seed feed for the glacial greedy spoon careless ice lace curtains interlaced limbs winter's crewel work accruing light in minute increments toward the elipsing eclipse until the constant comet relights the planet's orbit faux thaw where understudied leaves | |||
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impostor sparrows in the wings uncued actors waiting for the cold curtain call past grass thatch braids with the garlic of wild leeks Sun ups the flowers sky highs the birds all of us warbling palindrome words champagning promises of Spring the oriole's chanterelle bosomed chanteuse shashays singing among the box elders disguised by branches | swaying brazen as her breast clear as a bell she taunts the ball of the tanager sun who glaring envy sets snaring summer from us all startled south scatter shot starlings catapult from the corn as the seasons somersault waves of Fall's summer assault serif well-muscled cloudscapes on the sand the singsong of children mingles with signals squalling gulls | |||
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the goya sun foreshadows our elongated steps toward the automatic scarlet carpet Frostfire lights the forests crisps, crackles and falls discriminately the deciduous trees Fog Masques as smoke screen over the fraud inferno of girlish birches golden locks grayhaired hills grieve for leaves lost to the scalpel frost numbing their | barbered skulls ice bites with tonsured light longing the nights toward the inverse of winter white no longer embarrassed in bareness limbs embrace candied landscapes of cottoned woods ermine muffled firs mantled maples caped and capped in drifted wraps sugarcoated to quiet for the long silent night | |||
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The last of the maple's dry winter tonsure stirs with the robin's chirrup the dawn alarum of morning doves cooes us from sleep the bud's prick perched ears and champagne jejune green shoots whose shouts summon the sun gunmetal sky trespasses the rightful green and the insidious lake's forget-me-not sprawl under the inversion of summer storms thunder twists the leaves matte reverse insisting autumn on the anniversary of July | gone with the geese whose quick release from numbered days is regimented in wavering 5th column ordinals fallen Romes and Spys from traitorous trees away with out leaves rooted in defeat their turned coats scorch the earth but offer no warmth to succor summer from her seasoned enemy she suffers rooted in returned defeat Pencil yellow willows stencil April on artery red alders old leaves are impressed | |||
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into snow molds by the still cold sun as sketchy trees charcoal longer days in melting light a coda of shadows soons to Spring | Under a waterfall's insistent glove of pressure that incessant crushing inundation of deadlines will the cascade's wordspray ever pond us away to pool our thoughts pondering beyond the deadfall deluge to a placid surface mirror before they join the millrace where rivers never wait | |||
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Clock a morning up sky moon light under bird wings parallel horizons slow shouldered wavelets butterfly epaulets blow like crazy bluered daylily dawn | The standing stones of Cullerie menhirs of imposted mystery the circled cairns buried cists of burnt Celts bronze age cremations celebrations of past calendars hallowed beds of flint eyed brazen heads | |||
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My seven sea soup's been simmering the billion year boullion's aboil salted with earth and a universe worth of Brownian mirth the celestial stove keeps it aroil the first course crawls out for a first breath of day the appetizer is fresh fertilizer for the forthcoming entre | ||||
By centuries of seance the cactus corralled and miraged the mountain spines mensating moonlight serrated the range ridges repossessed the mesa and butte tops while the just desert quenched all the thirst for time | ||||
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Don't order the universe with words or art Don't start it with a single spark blacken the blank spots or confuse the stars with dots connecting constellations the formless to the familiar There is no loss in chaos nor honor in exploring theory for the Laude summa cum of a science which abhors a vacuum cheapening by saming only proving human thy vanity by naming | ||||
Bucking the cross currents in the Passage Key Channel between the influence of self-made oceans and the confluent riptide of emotions I watch as birds cross the moat the easy way | ||||
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A mortal comment a morbid commentary that none inhabiting the planet has the requisite modicum of internal velocity to escape the terminal immobility of our eternally mobian orbit As we comet upon the milleniary anniversary's multitude of dwarf suns here a quantum mechanic or the odd sonneteer but no one rising star worth preaching none reaching a second coming all deemed unworthy and unbecoming guides It is unseemly to have whispered away | our big bang to have evolved to a void again embarrassed by our gleaming visitor's returning to observe only personal apogees weak apologies for the dearth of novas need to unite the earth the zero sum of all that is human at the bimillenium | |||
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Ursa Major couldn't bear it her satellites dismembered and in the red Twin Lenins are confused in all the comrades heads The cult of Stalin is remembered for its poorly recorded Marx and the Kremlin's over capitalized with loaning Western sharks every "ism" ends a cataclysm Well I prayed when I woke up this morning Jesus give me a light to see But god he must a been sleepin so I had to turn to me Lord I never been handsome never been a good lookin buck when it comes to women I rely on natural born luck | Well we all got a spirit a piece of work to behold unfold it and mold it don't let your soul get cold Hot damn don't let your soul get cold If I having lived this heaven died all the having pleasures tried and found them sweeter by your side All those treasures gladly given my soul lighter so unladen by trading wisely without for within not what was for could have been | |||