1
in the middle of the music (meaning
this little patch of time I
happen to pass by in
Imagine a space vehicle manned by Name Alone
I have forgotten the number they gave me
and now my name becomes vague to me
I try to catch it as it passes
in a costly limousine
The clothes I wear won't give me away --
the voices I muster to speak to the master . . .
2
These people are cats
at the door all summer
seeking
status among the other
cats that
LIVE here cats that
know that they belong
and the evening
sky's hay colored light
glowed in the sheep's coat
3
In a party of friend's and acquaintances
suddenly a small
cat comes
close to me and
starts to speak.
It says that I
have been mistaken
about its nature.
Of course cats speak.
I try to tell everyone
but obstructions
block our conversation.
u
A long necked cat accuses me.
There is scratching and cat meowls
of a violent and distressing king:
cats attacking human throats!
I am a Cat Killer
and one of the worst!
(People will know I am crazy
but there's no escape
from cats'
howling, scratching
and speaking in terrible whispers
all night
everywhere
4
The sound "ite" as in "bite"
now.
Bite now.
u
I threw the black crow claw away, hating evil --
not even wanting
to possess the tainted object
And therefore request
a settlement regarding
the lexical item "BEYOND" viz:
That posit that acts as a gland
to secrete our secrets.
"Beyond the nature of the giraffe
a beast with just that nature
lopes towards sundown."
"Beyond the causes that conspired to bring us here
a living monument to its own exclusion
flames at the heart of the day."
And no boat exists
to skim the quiet harbor surface long enough
to skim the quiet harbor surface long enough
I have good teeth.
They shine like mice.
Giant Noises
hide in the Toad's Sky
5
That
dog
is
at
least
one
half not
dog
6
That
Ape
men thought
to talk
sign talk to
thought him-
self a
man to
talk to
7
The cat at the top of the stairs has
a serious look in his loungey eyes as
I climb the stairs and confute him.
8
My hat had vanished.
When that cat that
sat up looked straight at it,
that hat had had it.
9
Moments of mind reflected in moments of language
scorching white paper --
"The Language of Lights"
and the world.
(Your reading so massive and curious--
white doves spring from your hands)
And did I detect a tremor in the voice of the wise one who whispered:
"It does not die"?
The dark halls
pure as space
horses
marching across Paradise
and the marks left by their hooves in the muddy turf
were "read" by the sages of that area
And we stood by
and we ciphered
and we watched the vivid creatures
cross and cross again
and our pleasures passed into the manifest universe
10
I wanted to attempt
"fresh textualities"
even to let got
long enough to arouse
the flaming letters
along the perforations
wearing clothes of the wrong sex
being a tiger
in one penetration and being
mice
later
skating across the balcony
first I was just you
walking
backwards
somewhere
very hot. The city of Corinth does not
exist exactly. Nor Thebes. Blank trees
in the areas designated by those names these days.
It was impossible to retain the use of the car.
I was ill until fresh passengers relieved discourse.
The place I retain in your heart is small consolation
for the loss of essential services.
The margins of our thought had just been shifted
that much further onward towards oblivion . . .
11
"The Cat Forgives Its Phenomena"
The light goes off
but the cart remains.
I lose
my place
in my mind
and a light goes on
at the edge of the botched mentation
such that at last I can see
straight
into the world:
Sunlight
shining
on water
people swimming in the pond
Savage Beetles sail Across The Dunes
12
All the things that cross the mind -- don't think of these.
And all the things we feel and wish to do
even in a few moments from now
after this brief exercise has come
to its allotted terminus
and the world goes on --
And all the associative links we know --
don't link them now.
That mind I own
deep in the sockets of the skull bones --
the thoughts that think themselves
running amok in those sockets
trying to shake loose of the effort
to achieve a paramount stance --
an exercise so intimate and obtuse
to the local chatter that
it rides on Nothingness alone!
(thinking the mind
is not the mind
but somebody else . . .
13
An Ideal Object
produced before
the world.
A look
coming out of a head
and a bird
shooting across space
interrupting that look --
(An entire life has just gone by)
In front of a large audience
the magician does
a truly impossible
thing:
He produces an Ideal Object
before the world.
14
Does logic
compel
the thought it owns?
No.
We
compel
each thought.
And who are we?
Since
the world
began.
15
And now The Vessels break
and ruby juices splash on the tiles.
A crowd with tapers makes the midnight crossing.
The giantess and her consort, stashed beneath bed rock,
trying to become an obstacle ignored till now.
16
I am taken
for the power
I desire
(people think I'm real.
I am not real.
I stand on the roof.
I vanish.
I see
the sleeves
of my selves
grow dim on the plane.
17
An old hotel
my house had been
I happen to be
living in
on
the banks
of what used to be
a river . . .
This piece of paper
goes on forever . . .