a k a

Macabre Palaver

Jack-o-lanternnimble, jack-o-lantern quick,it seems Jack has swallowedan old candle-stick.

Jack has a holeon the topof his skull, sono one knowswhy his toothy grin grows.

Long nightÕs crypt ticktocks closereach time; makea wish on the wick:mysteryÕs hermetic.

Jack-o-lanternnimble, jack-o-lantern quick,poor JackÕs smashed to bitsby a pendulum-stick.

Starling Shout-Out

Drilling the mulch with its yellowprod of a beak, gimme that, gotcha

punk with short-tailed swagger and swankan iridescent sheen on basic black

unctus oils spilling the spectrumin the right light more, ever more, over

the whole continent from first clawholdjust another New York City migrantÑ

as American as you are, chump,& donÕt you forget it, anything

can make a nest, even trash, omni-vore and scavenger, take that! $@#%~!?$

plus a knack for bone-grinding sounds,such pops & scrunches from its

masticating noise-maw youÕd thinkyouÕd got a glimpse into the raw where

speech come from, buzz-soundsbreak it down to pips and quawks

the tags & undulineaments ofall thatÕs new

Ghazal

—in memory, Agha Shahid Ali

Into English comes a migrant new form, the ghazalIf Time gives you drink from Eternity’s well, guzzle

Diasporic diapason, dissonance made consonantA form like desert water, or a rainbow, never fossil

Can braid in anything—politics, historyLove’s thorn-tip and prick, the layers of our riddle

Full of gutturals and star-light; leaps likeEndangered chiru, bongo, or gazelle

First name means stone so though flowin’ in freestyleI offer you this soul-glow, opal ghazal

common whelk kenning

end if

flume

spirit-

whelkÕs

gray

of a

whorl

the

inside

spiral

if

ink furl

Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy Painting (1897)North Africa

A walking stafffor the desert roadtoo precious toungrip in sleep

night-longpause before thebeastapproaches

tail alertand eyes like coalswhiff of lionÕsmane nuzzles

the dreamerÕs dreadsand then her earsending a deepecho knocking

in the belly of the oudwhose strings whisperaoouoddouooa

while the moongazes awaywith asheson her face

and insidethe drinking gourdstars tremblegently on the water

how muchin the morningwill feetremember?

Produce

To water South Jersey beans, tomatoes, peppers, and whatnota large hose with a cannon-sized nozzleis sometimes wheeled out between the rows and opened up.

At the base of the nozzle is a long metal armattached at its middle, with a weighton one end and the other end spatulate and spoon-like.

As the water jets, this thing-a-ma-jig floats like a see-sawuntil the spoon-y end swings from the sideand suddenly thwacks the water as it shoots from the hose.

The spoon-end is then thrown backwards until the weightat the other end makes it swing slowlytowards the jet to crash into it again. WhatÕs it there for?

To nudge the waterÕs angle steadily to one side?For the hose spurts water outat regular intervals, moving just a little to one side each time,

until it meets the limit set for its motion, when it quicklyswoops back to its starting position andbegins again. But there may be something at the hoseÕs base

preset to handle this, to wet solely the right segment of field.Maybe the thwacker gizmois there just to change the way the water spreads and falls,

so the jets donÕt uproot the crops. It strikes the spurts justat their base, making the spray spritz.But the spouts would soften anyway, never pummeling

the plants, for they lose motion swooping to the end of their flightand fall gently in silvery sheets and veils.Maybe instead itÕs there to spray plants near the rainmakerÕs base,

while the nozzle douses those at the far end of the arc,rain for one and rain all around,neither too little nor too much, no hail or lightning,

no stalk-twisting gusts, just a shower on wheels,though not for free,a port-a-storm complete with a watch-a-ma-call-it mister,

Produce 2

a clanking cumulo-nimbus cloud towable by tractor.The produce takes it all in.Soon there will be containers stacked at the end of each long row,

long hours and sweat from nose and chin watering the sandy soil,quick wrists and espa�olrising and falling, row on row, dolores para d�lares,

while it all becomes someone elseÕs store-bought bountysprayed in front of mirrorsand bushel baskets as if it just spilled over.

photo: Scott Killeencar: Õ54 Plymouth Belvederecustomizer: Troy Trepanier

To the Dead Beats (Male)

ÒWhen you donÕt have this dying and becomingYou are only a sad guest on the dark Earth.Ó

ÑGoethe, quoted in Burroughs, The Western Lands

ÒBeatitudeÓ you said& Òbeaten downÓbut you forgot to mentionwhat you really craved wasto be the countryÕs beatand riffs, alive with envy over

YardbirdÕs bop

Searching Ònegro streets at dawnfor an angry fix,Ó evenÒleaping on negroesÓ like someRimbaud on his mission to Africainstead you sent suburban hipstershowling to the city for a shitty

high

All of you weregypsies from good migrantstock: you had a loverÕsquarrel with Americaand hunted BlakeÕs sunflowerin rusting railroad yardsor ozone horizons & the epileptic

Word

~~~

One a drunken William Tellmaking his wife a cut-upthen flying away to Tangierswhere brown cock was cheapa trust-fund calculationmachine become a virus:ÒThuggees & Deceivers

in business againÓyet inside your violencewas a frightened tendernessyour hoarse monotonesoft to the touch as shed

snake skin

Dead Beats 2

Another a gone angelshining through dark Canuck eyeswho agreed with Baudelairethat beauty was an accusationEnglish as a second languagehelped you hear its chunky musicthough as each year passedyour wings grew harder and harder

to liftyou wrote ÒBop is the languagefrom AmericaÕs inevitable AfricaÓbut your groupies thoughtdharma bum meant

white and maleand with your Òconquered lass,the blacklash lovelyÓwhat really turned you on wassoused & subterranean

ÒjungleÓ amours

Then thereÕsthat poet who lived as if Meshugahwas a missing Book in the Torah scrollhalf Jeremiah, half Hanumanin Uncle Sam tophat, rabbinical beardwhose vortex sutras of anger and lightcut tornado swathes through the

countryÕs heartlandbut Godfather Walthaunted your every chest-baringmove and you never could quite matchhis twenty-eight young men by the shorehis democratic vistas and

lacy jags

And everyone madeguilty by Bob KaufmanÕs songosÒVOOMETEYEREEPETIOP BOP BOPÓbeaten up in one cell and thenanother for peeing on a copin the Coexistence Bagel ShopÒbrief, beautiful shadows

burned on walls of nightÓthe ancient rain is fallingthrough SRO hotel infernos

Dead Beats 3

pages singed and soaked butsafe inside Moroccan leatherDuring a vow of silenceyou dream of the day you return

to Òcrackling bluenessÓ:ÒA pay phone rings as I pass iton the street. ItÕs Jean Cocteauwith a collect call for meI accept but all he says is

Ôthe blood of the poet.ÕÓ

~~~

Dying oldor young, you all succumbto the vices that made you proudthe only one who actually got richtends a growing Buddha belly& becomes a sound-check tyranthosts must verify again and againyour voice will carryto every corner of the hall

if not eternity

At the end of the performancepoems that were your livesyou were forced into heavenagainst your will andsuddenly stardom was not what youwanted: restless again on your spirit roadyou traverse the night

& moon us all.

Dead Beats 4

Notes

Ginsberg: Howl, I, lines 2 and 58; ÒWichita Vortex SutraÓ

Burroughs: The Western Lands, pp. 4 and 122

Keroauc: ÒThe Beginning of BopÓ in KerouacÕs Last Word: Jack Kerouac in Escapade, ed. Tom Clark(Sudbury, MA: Water Row Press, 1986), pp. 33-34; The Subterraneans, p. 25; Visions ofCody, pp. 38-39.

Whitman: ÒSong of MyselfÓ; Democratic Vistas

Kaufman: excerpts from ÒCrootey Songo,Ó ÒBagel Shop Jazz,Ó and ÒThe Ancient RainÓ (CranialGuitar, pp. 74, 108, 139), plus stories collected by David Henderson for his ÒIntroductionÓto Cranial Guitar, or told at the Bob Kaufman memorial, St. MarkÕs Church NYC, April 17,1996. Cranial Guitar: Selected Poems by Bob Kaufman. Ed. Gerald Nicosia. Minneapolis:Coffee House Press, 1996.

Thanks also to Patti Smith, ÒRemembering a Poet: Gregory Corso, 1930-2001,ÓVillage Voice, 1-30-01, p. 75, for helping out with the last line of the poem; Callaloo 25.1 (2002), the specialissue on Jazz Poetics edited by Brent Hayes Edwards, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and MariaDamon; Daniel Belgrad, The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in PostwarAmerica (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998); and Peter Schmidt, Very Large Array, @www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/array/array.html

At the Sound and Word WarehouseÑPhiladelphia Fringe Fest, September 2002

Poetry readingon an empty stage,

drumset asleepin a corner of the room

dry words soon upstagedby a tropical

downpour clamoringon the roof, calling

a milagrito down,a line of drops

tap tup tappingprecisely on timbales

ÑI tell you no lieÑ

this fringe eventsuddenly more

experimentalthan even the author could hope

wordhouse cargo becomeconjunto y descargaÑ

çndale todos!put that spring back in your

poemÕs sprung rhythmÑ

milagrito: little miracleconjunto: musical groupdescarga: discharge; slang for when a musical performance moves to open improvisation�ndale todos: (slang): keep it moving, everyoneSpanish and English may coexist without italicized borders making one language, English,

the Roman-ized dominant power. Exception: italics used to mark passion.sprung rhythm: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Not That Easy Either

nightmare rides mehead-first down a tunnelarms pinned to sidesand grit in my mouthÑthink of people

exploring a beach at nightflashlights pokinginto darknessÑwe seek shelter in a caveof comforting lightÑ

off the stone jettynight fishermen flingbloodworms and phosphorfloaters on the wake ofa heaving black swell

cigarette pinpointsglow then fadeÑa buoy tollsits mourning bellÑcome day, offshore,

a dredge goes downand, hunkering,does what dredges doÑto be liquid sandin a dribble castle

Not That Easy Either 2

or a glowstickin the hand of a childÑif you want to seeAndromeda betterlook a little away from it

and donÕt miss Dolphin archingher back beside the Milky Wayor OrionÕs hearthfire nebuladangling between his hunterÕsthighsÑliving on the light side

and then on the darkof all our boundaries isnot as hard as movingat the speed of lightÑbut not that easy either

ÑTodo �ste, es un chiste, no?

ÑTal vez. Pero quiz�s sea tambi�n una ristra.

[ÑAll this, itÕs a joke, right?]

[ÑPerhaps. But maybe also astring of chilis drying in the sun.]