Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

77. 'A BROAD DAY ROSE : MICKEY BLUE EYES : AUTOCRAT AD LIB : MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN TOO':

"I am sorrowful and sad and broken by the wheel but what can you give to me in return ? for I have sought to heed all commandments and rules too but it has brought me nothing : a rain still runs in my gutter and small birds come to drink THAT MUCH for sure I can say but there is no butter on the bread nor is there ANYWHERE any music pleasing to my ears Oh Lord ! can you hear me ? all things are fakery and soiled imitations and disposable wants and artificial needs : and I am speechless again and sorrowful and sad."

I read the story of Jacob and I HAVE read the same story too but it makes no sense of time or drama for me to know what I've read - nothing is as it seems and nothing is as it is and that paradox belies the entire underpinnings of what else there is GOD at first reluctant to get involved but then GOD making man to prove his own worth.

And I knew a man who knew a man who knew a man yet all together they could get nothing for their eyes were shaded and their cloak was DOUBT and all they consumed were the most bitter of roots and reeds so that NOTHING ever satisfied and they were never SATED nor sedated either and everything together had led them to believe in nothing and proudly too - so that one day the bridge beneath them - modern and strong and serene - just collapsed of an instant and they all fell to their deaths.

Far down below - far up above - it is ALL THE SAME in the instant of last movement and all things which are to come shall come in due time. And that is the message of blood and that is the message of fame so bury your heart where the best wishes blow and you too shall stay there forever. (And that is the end of this message).

76. AT THE NEW GEM MUSEUM I WANDERED AT WILL:

Lines of rocks and gemstones and such are on display as people look at them stare down at them and really really don't understand a thing : chalcedony carnelian jasper chrysoprase talline quartz-quartzite flint chert sard crhysoberyl spodumene garnet zircon malachite obsidian turquoise calcite feldspar hornblende pyrope tourmaline porphyry arkose rutile : even the very names are nice-sounding regal strange and pleasant to say : the rare metals : lithium cobalt beryllium mercury arsenic molybdenum titanium barium : and the basic rocks : basalt granite gneiss limestone sandstone marble slate gabbro and shale : these are all I guess 'REAL' things real as in LIFE having a composition something tangible something positive that one can touch and feel and rub and throw - these things are the basic similarities of everything else in life I suppose : stuff we hear of and know is there by assumption or by the fact of schooling or knowledge or experiment but mostly just with the idea that whatever's said to be out there is actually out there - somewhere to be found or contacted THROUGH experimentation and these rocks and things are like the most basic and oldest portions of what it is that we're told LIFE is made up of - the Earth Universe Reality Sphere we live in - soil stars dirt water rock fire and all the rest but we really don't 'KNOW' these things and we are only aware of them by what we're told about them.

75. 'VISITATION' - The Native Poet, along John Street Woods; June, 1807. Recollected from memory.

'The true poet always has the advantage of sensuous reality over the false sentimental poet by setting forth as a real fact what the other aspires only to reach and SENTIMENTALITY here in writing is the offspring of retirement and science' and I thought to myself WHEW! I didn't want any of that - sentimental foppery being just what I hated the most - the faction of the wet-eye the moper the crier for God and his works the helpless the broken and those who can do NOTHING to advance themselves and their thought so to the rest of the world I said 'be damned' and meant each word of it too and it was Andrew Marvell who'd written in 'The Garden' - 'annihilating all that's made / to a green thought in a green shade' and then I looked up and saw two black men silently it seemed sawing a tree and for whatever reason I couldn't understand what they were doing until I realized the time and the place and saw they were servants or slaves at one of the advancing mansions along the way and they'd been out collecting wood for fires and stoves and their two carts seemed quite full but apparently they'd had one last opportunity at an attractive tree or a situation of a tree needing trim and so they were doing it as they closed the task and I went to them and said "Sirs sirs excuse me but what is this night and what day has it been?" and apparently my calling them Sirs had caused confusion for they seemed flustered and stepped back hurriedly and replied "we's only doin' what's the rightful task and so when y'ask us such a question we'not be unda'standin' what ya aksed us" and I said back "no - simple though it is I really want to know where am I" and they laughed and said "why's you'se here to be sure o'that and this is Master Henry Morton's wagon crew settlin' fo' this night - jes' we two nig'r's gittin wood" and I said "OK OK thanks for that" and knew I'd lost the game but still was hopefully sure of illusion only and not much else - for how was it I could be unattached to the fabric of both time and place and still inhabit both a lawn and a street together - these were things I did not know but wished for knowing.
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And then again I saw only the trees and the pathway which wagons and horses used - the itinerant walker such as myself between places going whether north or south or east or west had his vantage points aligned for in each direction there ran paths and waterways and the not exactly level land rose and fell with the same pace and movement as the waters which passed and here or there a broad vista stood out from some slight height while in other places the descent brought the path down to a hollow or a low spot collected with water and fens and bogs where people dwelt - tents and shacks and piles of things about and the closer to either shore one got the sloppier everything seemed to be as debris and belongings seemed scattered about for no one early on really had specific places to live or stay and the earliest of the property claimants always did have a rough time claiming their stakes and keeping what they claimed - outside of the small circle of land they actually DID inhabit - and everything else outside of that was constantly under discussion and up for grabs for there were as yet no rules or established formats for claimant and holder for those who simply passed through or along and those who settled in and the only things which made ownership were the buildings and homes one inhabited and the farm-fields which were cultivated but the waterways and low-spots and ponds and lakes where cattle roamed and wild things stayed all these were part of a strangely evolving common-weal for the benefit and use it seemed - early on at least - of anyone and all as traces still lingered of the indians and tribes which had just as recently been scoured and driven away themselves - yet it was their paths and their places far outside the walls and ports of the edged settlements which were still in flux - sunrise sunset winter and each other season bore with it the wild cock-crow of nature the uncorraled and loosened animal and everything else out on its own - including people - for no definitions were yet set as rule and law and statute and whatever came to be had best come to be only by establishing for itself itself alone and it was quite some time before real governance came to be or was recognized to be and that time - when it came - put a stop to much of this and activity was then structured and formed and limited and ruled - (and by this time) I stood OUT of time myself - as previous once before I'd written of John Street and all of that strange atmosphere and activity - and I shook myself back and said 'I really must retrieve and find anew all these things EVERY ONE and bring them forth to mankind NOW - before this present day we view wanes and fades away to nothing more than dream itself.'

74. WALKED A HUNDRED ANDES MOUNTAINS:

I have lived a miserable age - have endured something somehow beyond endurance too - walked a hundred Andes Mountains and noticed birds and vultures hummingbirds and flies and every living thing made better sense to me than me or anyone else for that matter and we put the lights on with flames in little tents and we stayed up nights on rigid stone-topped hills where the only company were the local native girls who had swabs of menstrual blood in their hair and hooped rings in their noses and ears - but no matter for that - and we were their way out of something as much as they were ours : storybooks by the gallon have been written of this stuff and someone's had to read it all whether to children as make believe or to new age gurus as gospel truth - for we flew literally past the ages and through all time we saw spirits in smoke rings and the far sides of our minds we communed with the Heavens and saw Gods and Goddesses too - everything worth to mention and hundreds more and at dawn we worshipped the rising sun the Sun God of All the Osiris of Ever the basis for all religions world-over the primitive side of Mankind's story the great Unknown the great Connector the HE who makes all things real and with all eyes past the East we found all the new directions in places no one else had ever heard : Seriaside Opturu and Megoyna : the spinners were the operators and all the hands were on the walls and the flute players came down from the nearby hills shouting some awful name and playing deathly games - rocks round as balls shot hard into people's foreheads as we watched as they died in rivers and pools of blood - this vicious sport for pygmies the Amazon deathlust for living through death the sanctioned voices of unknown Gods ranting about things without foundation or reality - just beyond the pale of vision sense or sight : I turned to King Minah who was seated beside me and said quite simply "Great Sir take me now from this place - for I am both finished and done" and he nodded apiece and had me carted away in a wagon of lead and gold - airport-bound I was left on the ground and flown back (before I knew) to Cherokee Place and some East River Drive where I stayed for a week drying out coming back to my senses and cleansing my system of all I'd imbibed : but wonders such as this become memories forever and I'd been designated to speak again.

73. SOMETHING LIKE THIS SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED ('my father was a sailor', pt. 2):

"And Jacob once the tomb was empty what else was there to do except believe in something miraculous and the bones anyway the bones never showed up and that was the simplest thing - all the authorities had to do if they wanted to stop this crazed band of nascent Christians was to produce some bones - in fact ANY BONES would have done - and disprove in their way the occurrence of which everyone spoke but nothing like that ever happened nothing of the sort occurred and they let it all keep running on and eventually PERFECTLY it fell into place into something and neither lions nor martyrdom nor slayings and killings and ostracism and outlawing could put a stop to it as it grew fingers and added doctrines and made its rules and credos and new beliefs over old beliefs and before it was too far on the everything about it had become everything else and political power and secular rule became its order of the day but JACOB again NONE of that would have happened if they didn't will it to and that's the run of the world today - that's what we're left with the remnants of all which occurred and every offshoot from that which still exists today is what we're still fighting over and there will be no loving end to anything of this sort but any fool who fights for God is fighting for a DEFINITION alone - that and nothing more can you understand that Jacob?" and Jacob said "why do you believe everything you read and what if it never happened like that ? what if this was all made up in say 719 and they added AD to it for credibility and the entire backstory of all mankind can be adduced to be fictitious and without any basis in reality - have you ever considered that - and perhaps you're nothing more than - as all of us - a captive complete and total to whatever they've told you occurred" now I won't go on to say this conversation was something I wanted to listen to ad infinitum BUT it was interesting enough and these people were characters in the way that fiction makes characters who embody concepts which the story needed and that's probably just as artificial as anything else since - using myself as an example - whatever I was told when I was young I've since later found out was wrong incorrect lies and crap the stuff like 'statesmen never lie cops are your friends the priest will help you do this for your own good' and a million more things I've wrestled with mentally but never talked over and (as I recall) the last friendly conversation I had with my father was as I drove him home from a problem and all the way home he talked about the moon and everything about the moon and who'd been there already and who really made it there first and what the Russians (he called them Russians not Soviets) were planning to do and it all made little sense to me because I didn't view the moon in his terms - as if it was some form of political real estate that someone had to inhabit just to show who was boss - and the entire framework of that thinking and that thought was bogged down in nothingness and we never got anywhere with that one : but anyway I'd have rather talked with him IF I HAD TO about the beauty of its light and the odd regularity of its passage and waxings and wanings and what it all meant for those before us and the eons of time it was seen from the sea by sailors with nothing else to do or see.

72. MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY DREAD ALONE ('My own madness'). Caravan Dawns, pt.2:

Ishmael Nothing you can call me : the ART of serenity befits me - ('amidst an outsize ego in a town of superegos' but I think they meant super egos (two words) as a (one word) superego means conscience which is somehow from the Latin combination of con (meaning 'with') and science (meaning 'knowledge') and if that goes together than most anything else does too) - furthermore they say 'sex between old people / ick' and if that's the case I hope they either never get old or never again have sex when they do...but that'll all be their problem thanks...I've got my hands full : - in 1939 Pepsi's 12-ounce bottle was twice the size of Coca-Cola's and was being marketed exclusively to Negroes mostly the poor who clambered for the opportunity to get twice as much product for the same nickel and 'Pepsi survived the Depression by appealing to Negro consumers' and maybe that's true but it no longer matters and there are fifteen other sorts of people these days and we no longer have 'Negroes' and NO ONE resembles a poet as much as another poet which means (I think) that the competition among poets is fierce and fast and furious too and even Robert Frost had written about 'the exception I like to think I am to everything' : 'SEEK first in poetry concrete images of sound/ REALITY is the cold feeling on the end of the trout's nose from the stream that just runs away' and 'an artist delights in roughness for what he can do to it' (monarch of a desert land I could devote and dedicate forever to the truths we keep coming back and back to) - 'don't you know he's just bustin' your balls talking big and stupid like this as if he really KNEW all this shit and what it meant but actually he's a crafty little urchin trying out tricks and I know for a fact that he once went up to a woman on the street and started spouting Verlaine 'here are some fruits some flowers some leaves and some branches and here is my heart which beats only for you' at which point he unzipped his pants and presented her with an organ quite different than his heart...and she screamed and ran off and he was quickly arrested for indecent exposure - to which he said 'well I don't know - I always thought it was pretty decent' which didn't add to his reputation either' - but in Paris the truth is that Notre Dame stands on a place of Druidic sacrifices and pagan worship and long into the 16th century was the site of an orgiastic four-day saturnalia often ending in murder and group sex so so much for history and what we THINK we've seen - and as in Bellow Herzog says 'if I am out of my mind it's all right with me' and then goes on a five day flight from his disintegrating life and on a spree writing letters to everyone - newspapers friends relatives people in public life and at last to the dead to his own obscure dead and finally the famous dead : Randall Jarrell on Walt Whitman (which I oh so much want you to hear) - 'an author who is a world and a waste with here and there systems blazing at random out of the darkness as beautifully and astonishingly organized as the rings and satellites of Saturn and we cannot help seeing that there is something absurd about any judgment we make of its whole - for there is no 'point of view' at which we can stand to make the judgment and the moral categories that mean the most to us seem no more to apply to its whole than our spatial or temporal or causal categories seem to apply to its beginning or its end' and 'what the hell you talking about you gimcrackery piece of garbage?' (some guy said that to me at the train station while I watched the prisoners get walked by in chains - three prisoners all connected to each at the wrists and ankles by some weirdly expensive seeming length of chain and in addition some over-sized white wire-ties at their wrists and the whole thing made me think of an automobile - with chains on the tires and wire ties holding clumps of wire like on some tired old rust-bucket just trying to run at a trickle down the street) and I turned back and said 'ain't saying nothing just thinking of things' and hoped that was that with nothing more to be said : but I sensed that the conditionality of the human situation would bring me nothing but shame pain and grief no matter what for in any direction as I looked there was nothing but annoyance - three paltry nuns the Sisters of This or That in procession and childlike passing and one with a small suitcase intending to board a train to somewhere trying to look angelic but their concerns could never be mine nor the innocent emphasis they made on goodness and prayer and all good intentions but I knew their worldview was as twisted and wicked and evil as any other and if they could not time-travel and only needed a train then I washed my hands of them too and the short round fat Pakistani woman whose skin was so dark as to the color of brown leather but in no way black she looked surly and soiled trying to sell candy newspapers cigarettes and trinkets and her insane newsstand was fitted out like some housetrailer of the mad leaning sideways with an elevated platform from which she dispensed her change and kept a wayward Paki eye on the shit-head Americans passing her by BUT IT WAS like that everywhere amidst the stench of commerce and pain as each day darkened and broke to night and re-opened again in caravan dawns where no birds would alight - travel and structure and food pain and hurt - collapsible men pissing before urinals like altars with mop-wielding acolytes passing around and the genuflecting ladies keeping their own doubled time before their holy mirrors too but no one could speak a sensible tongue for all language had been debased and nothing worthwhile was found to say and the whole dark human race was dwindled to its desperation seeking rain or wind or snow SOMETHING to enliven their days (and all I heard were odd cliches) : 'I am escaped with the skin of my teeth' /'in skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed' and most amazingly 'my decision to go by train today is confirmed by the crash they had last week which will make them more careful in the immediate future'...and then of course my own reply to all of that (somehow from Robert Frost again) : "I HAVE BEEN ONE ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT.
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'The winter evening settles down / with smell of steaks in passageways / six o'clock / the burnt-out ends of smoky days.'