Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

54. FOUGHT AND TWISTED TOO:

My life had become a lance in the turtle of time and I had become the turtle also - the hard shell protecting everything inside but the head and limbs tucked in too and withdrawn for protection though the lance had somewhat broken through the shell - I was wounded and bled and staggered a bit but was able to forthfully proceed and go on and dreams and the mists of memory in their vague and distorted ways still moved me along - chasing the tramp steamer of time watching the supple small waves of the Hudson's west piers and the slithery oils of the East River opposite that and from both directions I ran and singed with the fires of curiosity and passion every page I could find : meticulous movement of great arc'ing Heavens the glimmering saddles of the stars and the moon as I could find them and in each direction I went I found semblances of humanity tired and dragged and found people in each degree of wealth or degradation worth something - whether small or large or broken or whole : those such as Tony Main for instance (who'd said 'you can't be waiting forever for what you expect is going to happen because that's when what you least expect grabs you by the balls and yanks') were found to have value and intensity to me in some means of excitation and energy which let me see things as I'd never seen before and I scant listened to anything but that which would bring me lessons as I realized how sacred and graceful was the moment EVERY moment if you'd just separate what it was from the dross around it and sanctify your attention to greater things - there were words and events and people and points-of-view all around me that I'd never even thought existed while I'd lived the sore and sheltered life of some stupid suburban homeboy growing up and by those means I began to detest all those who'd given me that (in some twisted obverse way of hating that which had protected me to grow) and wondered how and why people such as my parents and the rest could have retreated to garbage heaps of newly built and cheap suburban tracts in places where no man belonged and how and why AFTER a war which they'd somehow fought to stave off Evil it had turned all wrong and there was no Evil like their own and the Evil they'd chased was a manipulated fabrication anyway and the very Earth because of it all was coated in filth and coated in the shit of lies and twisted truths and stories would be surfacing of horrid punishments and experiences and all the Eichmann's of the mind were brought forth for further torture and toil but nothing so smacked to me of the very same Evil and Deceit as what had gone on before as the calm and clear acceptance of crap like Anne Frank's Diaries - insipid vapid tales with an agenda produced by her nasty and cranky father for gain : and the fabrication spread and everywhere golden doors opened and leaden doors were slammed shut as lucre and money arose first and the world had FOUGHT for Jews and was now again TWISTED by them too - and there was nothing to do about it but go on or shoot back - and no one did a thing this go-round over...

53. GO WILD LIKE AN ANARCHIST:

I’ve always wanted to go wild on some count or another like an anarchist in a gun shop or some crazed stranger on a train but it’s always seemed anarchist turns soon enough to antichrist and that becomes the end of it and there’s nothing left but the legend and the storm behind it so just like that we’re here too in the middle of something "the fires are still smoldering underneath everything and the white heat smoke can still be seen here and there pluming up as water jets continue to douse whatever’s there and beneath it and one month to the celebrated day they still talk about something something else some other evil about to befall and while they talk other places bombs fall to no avail any avail but the semblance of justice prevails all the travails and it appears that newspaper after newspaper still runs the little stories and vignettes of the dead with the postage stamp sized photographs of some something other person from another day SMILING from a honeymoon a cruise or some nutty backyard picnic which they yearly ‘loved to throw’ for the half entire neighborhood and "surely goodness and mercy shall follow them" like Rabbi Martell or Father Ricky James or anybody said anywhere even the very tall lesbian Episcopalian minister woman administering to the flock and it is sometimes said that nothing good can come from death but it already has I say for at least we are thinking to each other about who and what we are and what we are for or against as if the little philosophical differences we make matter and it’s those things which allow us to go back over the pictures and talk rationally about choices and what remains and look at the ruins from along Vesey Street to try and witness to try and find something to say and the old faded lettering of the shoe-shop wall has no meaning now nor does the blunt edge of the broken stop sign the shattered glass panes of stores and offices the old entryways to the many small bars and dens and eateries which once went along the sidestreet to nowhere between office and lunch and ten thousand coffees everything everywhere has decided to change RHYTHM TRAFFIC LIGHT WORDS AND TALK and now only the fearsome are afraid of fear for we all now live within it relentless in pursuit of its furtherance and deliverance and APPARITION (‘yet my religious man no one has yet seen the Virgin’s visage in a window or the face of God on a wall or the fallen waxy beams in the shape of a cross NO CLOUD FORMATION SAYING REPENT no vagrants yelling THE END IS NEAR ! the end is truly near’).
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And yet I truly wait for that for that something to arise for those Lazarus letters to come knocking from every well-written tomb the tattered cloth and robe of the man speaking in tongues with no tongue the fellow from Hades or Heaven (‘ya see buddy at this point it wouldn’t matter a‘cause no one would believe this stuff anyway – like some crazy old dream you have over and over about someplace some old address you haven’t been to in twenty-five years see that’s what a vision’s like’) and anyway I’ve been in this city fifty years myself seen every angle of it from upside to up to downside down and can recall for you pretty nearly everything that’s no longer around even though they still call it some big deal famous city it’s not really much anymore all slabs and big buildings built up to the sky for to be a ‘city’ like this used to be it’s row after row of something that’s alive and real and small enough to make sense if this is today then it’s like we’ve been taken over anyway ourselves by something and that something won’t debate shit about itself but just keeps bragging about its freedom none of which it has IT'S A FUCKING OCCUPATION ARMY we’re arguing about my God don’t you see and anyway bitch ‘I WANT TO COME ALL OVER YOUR FACE’ that’s what a prophet would say today and that wouldn’t go too far now would it but the mental man is written in the trees and the stones and the rocks that we walk like the only place worth anything maybe now is the old wall along say Central Park West where you can walk along on one side and see light and dream and air and the other right on down from there to there Natural History Museum to bullshit Columbus Circle and above and below too where reality lies and my God does it lie !

52. INNER PEACE:

I went to the haberdasher’s house in the rain and walked right through the door’s glass pane hoping to hurt the one who came back from Aruba with much to gain - the swiddle the swaddle the effervescent surge and they started speaking near me of oil and birds and the tanker which crashed and those tides that surged but the last amalgamation I’d ever heard was the one where the wind earns points for taking a turn and the one guy with the bladder stared and said : "we’re oilmen son and we'd just as soon instead of talking be hard at work at some rig some dolly some huge piece of earth and it’s out upon the sea where the real money’s made don’t let them fool you no matter what’s heard FOR HERE on the land only small people dwell" and (just like a chorus they sang) ‘THEY CAN ALL GO TO HELL!’ but nearing the end of some Chapter Fourteen the drinkmaster came by with a lovely young teen – some able bar-girl from the Bay of Fundy and I thought to myself ‘perhaps this is my day’ but it wasn’t it couldn’t be for her mom was along – she was ninety-two and sang for a song – but one look at her and I lost all my lunch but regained it quickly on one brand new hunch so I began speaking in tongues and put one down her throat and luscious as ever the daughter was smote and the next thing I noticed AS I RAN PAST THE SWAMP was the measure of madness that grew and the pomp that so many girls seem to just love to see – the roses the gowns the candles and me – but nothing was harder than ten peas in a pod ‘INNER PEACE’ someone yelled so I jammed her real hard.

51. 'ENTER THAT LIFE-THREATENING EXCURSION KID OK BUT BEWARE THE SIX-LANE HIGHWAY':

And what I found was nothingness in the center but complete possibility all around it like the old broken wharves where there is no longer any connection to the sea and where there hasn’t been any cargo handled or delivered in thirty years but the old pilings still stand and slowly so slowly they rot away but it brings forth one thing what are we for what is the work of man that he should prosper and herewith is the tale of everything the key to unlock the door the opening of the end THE VAST UNSILENT MYSTERY OF THE OLD COSMOS unolding itself – the idea I call – ‘Memory Catching Up With Itself’ and just standing here watching the cars and people roll by I think of the word ‘chief’ as my father would say pulling into any old Texaco station "fill it up chief" like he was about to be given a ghostly dose of light and grace and wisdom FILL IT UP CHIEF for sure old Nobodaddy was listening one would hope and then the charming effusence of meadow and field and that pristine rural quality of ‘Allthattheworldoncewas’ that Eden that place we all came from that ever-evolving over-arching symbol of time and energy within us making us what we can and are the magicians of ourselves in fact the stupid stage illusionists of the world united could do no better Martin d’Aigle David Copperfield Kreskin whomever over and over pulling the rabbit out of the hat but WHO pulled the hat out of nothingness ! who made the rabbit understand it was in but a hat ! who brought that wondrous woman back from the dead…WHO!!