Linden

off the right of the fork, if you hang left,
return to the road w/ kill that marks the passage north to Jersey and New York
but this is not about either of those cities

continuing further, w/ ample bike paths and the field w/ its majestic lights
hosts a multitude of sports during the spring and summer
from my rooftop, that my father built access to,
w/ my little assistance,

watch
the games that brings the vans in droves, in front of the drive
way, not mine, my father's,
and this field, adjacent to Dagwood's that I've yet to enter

the long wood   brown,
lacquered surface of the ancient bar,
and the questionable crabs, perhaps,
but only a few blocks down from my house,
from the field there, still king of the skyes here,
expanding ever higher
                                 oer the corners of roofs,
oer clouds into Jupiter and its icy moons

a chopper's roar which makes the acura scream too,
the dogs next door, and the cat that has claimed
my territory, hiding in the daytime amongst the large fronds
that return each summer,
the long narrow strip of earth where my father,
who had only the best intentions, wanted to place a gate,
and our wintry neighbor who refused because it was legally her land
but it was on our side of the fence
here,

deep sludge concrete
the immense
tow truck to tow
the cement truck,

me, young, then, palming a twenty into the driver's hands,
or was it my father?

eight giants w/ their shining helms
standing guard, casting their lights
oer the darkness of the Delaware

long in the chance of plenty

both pens disappointing
my last night of the hostel, arms covered in the green sisters and tape
slapping my warm boss's back, boss I called him always

outside on the curb of Bank st one last time having two cigarettes,
figuring the future   fighting again, out here, now, the grey spring

10th & Arch, where I was a boy w/ a bowl cut w/
my mother and sister and Babe the pig, and the uncle that my father dislikes
waiting,
            again the anxiety, for one thing certain--

getting my glasses tightened, the lab opens at nine and I've got to use the bathroom
so coffee is out of the question, for now, yet it is readily available on the corner.

Which perceptions will go into the toilet, directly and immediately   the manifesto
teaches me, and I absorb obediently
I look up at the red lights and the swaying trees where A1 used to be,

red sash
strong, dense
thigh muscles
of yesteryear

in the time of plenty
                                                             order,
                                                    in the time of comforts,
still now, continuing,                               mother,
o, mother up in the mornings
and back to the sink in the evenings.

Going hard nothing, piles wait for me at home,
mansion of byproducts of lazing about,
drawers, locked, full of my works,
the manuscript which is forever a manuscript,
cat which will never be mine

and I, softly
watching in the dusk when I approach,
mewing, will never be its master

black hair, police interceptor that creeps
up behind, scorching red of a pedestrian,
the churring and grinding of truck gears,
the impending siren which brings me out of it,
   
     back to Arch st, growing ever more real,
the emergency quickly approaches, again, a child   perhaps
man w/ cane

interview

look at the people, yo
we were on 10th & waverly drinking sour beer
& petals & sunflakes & dirt
from coffee cups that the girl once tried to charge me 50c
for   to which i gave her the ol 'nvm' and she gave in, and it up

reading old poems & notes out of the little fat book
until the owner of the house finally goes out for the day
and we hop the fuck off his stoop & apologize
only to sit right back down when he's gone

i was in cherry hill earlier that day interviewing for a job
john davis, who didn't create garfield, called me 'keen'
but only because he didn't know how to pronounce 'quyen'
i really didn't want the job anyway and somehow the conversation turned
to his girlfriend's hideous paintings on the wall of his office;

two football players' heads filling up the sky over the ben frank
as if gods, in full uniforms & helmets,
and the other, some black & white mess

the receptionist, who was 100% irish, she said,
asked what I did over the weekend   I went to a coupla bars in fishtown
for my pal's bday, the barcade for example, which I tried to describe to her
'so, you mean like a dave & buster's?'
'no, nothing like a dave & buster's.'

i'm from philadelphia, she said
o? where?
well, outside of philadelphia, she said
it was actually king of prussia   like a day's travel by horse to philadelphia

old txts

- "Where u at"

- Fran is
in the
park

- Texts Q
"wsq park"

- Q Monologue
"decipher" wsq
"west-south quad"
"I'm so smart"

- going to all
parks in abc
order

- ends w/
Q in pennypack
(has sword
in belt loop)

Mural Notes

mural depicts
scene of protest
camping signs of

'no prisons in ctown'
'better homes for ctown'
and
'homes not highways'

shows migrant railroad workers
3 people drinking tea,
ironing clothes
workers leaving farms
and pregnant wife
behind in china?

--school children
   flying kite,

large figure wringing
out wet cloth
which becomes
a river ->
a dirt road ->
        concrete pavement
        ->
        book of
        a student & his
        father:

Old Poem from Fat Notebook

I have a little fat notebook which I used for a variety of purposes. This poem was the first thing I wrote in it, about four years ago:



I'm prone to forgetting, if it was one last item to be thrown in the bag

paddle case, the only two notebooks anyone would ever need,

a Chinese pear and a banana got to be one of the most important
a license for the drive there and back.

So leaves are scrambling like a forgetful fool in front of the Temple
guards, though they have very nice manners
and will let you enter with a smile and a signature.

I enter halfway blind but handsome,
and sit next to the blurry profiles of women, eating yogurt and wearing sweatpants.

She doesn't know that she's being written about and the same goes for her yogurt.

I'm alive-tired and so goes my eyes saying "where are the looky glasses?"
Stop being so dramatic and let us watch your front!

you do need us, yes, but not to write down in my little fat book.

I let the n/right si/ong [love] on but am in need of a change of place.

The benches aren't thick enough for me, even with my narrow butt!
What is this flat plank here at the windows? Which blocks all potential suicide jumpers? 

or base ones?

The sky is still pink, the Escalade on the Girard exit is still flipped
on its side, I'll bet, and the cops are cold.

Third page already? I'm not that creative ...  my head itches.
Professor Altimore's door remains closed as if it is still break
and January hasn't started, and I'm not yet twenty-one.

The sky now pale--whatever. That stupid, fat Escalade is still rolled over on its heavy side.
Speak of the angel, Prof. Altimore just stepped out of hibernation,
I like our awkward small talk.

Would you like to see how two people, one, a sociologist (I guess)
and one student of the subject, engage in the art of small talk?
Surprisingly, the same as everyone else would engage it.

At last I get a comfortable break--I mean--chair!

I need ambiance to stay awake, and for the pen to awaken,
and not hang so droopy. This is where the poem gets to be long-winded

and wastes an extra break--I mean page. God, how distracted I must be!
My gusto has busted:
This isn't only a book of fat poems, but of fat doodles! ha!

[here, a doodle of a very wide pig]

the glasses

the glasses, the glasses! again the barbary
this sure one of mine lenses came off
or jumped with
me during aerodynamic
which shook me into immediate sobriety
this night we moved into the territory mob deep
taking trunk shots (amy spilling tully all over my american anthology
but was eager to mop it up

in the cold the stale sweat on my back the artificial
fog, the green piercing lasers
one of me, who was on hands and knees frantic
blindly grabbing feet for the feel of plastic ($600
I, now, in the gray northeast morning came to accept
the full meaning of the $5 stamp "hands and knees"

my beb, cold, without her sweater, consoled me with her warm body and mewing
I had fully removed myself from the pit, the stench, black red brick, the pit!
Swinging tires round 'bout the Delaware, we got out of there, to Broad St. Diner,
(she had convinced me within one block
of the hunger, the uneasiness that took up the space in my stomach,
Tiffy, our red waitress, beb, with a water, dave & amy, with pepsis

I, with my black tea
summing up the night,
w/ slices of pink tomato
while the others tried their luck.

fake poem

By the slightest movement of the pin in the air
I was travelling to a gorgeous mathematician
to chat over her kids, this time a third
columns of sleepless boys, by 9 o'clock already
between her thighs with a cry
making her slight sounds, inexhaustible patience
Let's see, said the woman
But I cannot.
Body tilted slightly forward,
I told you no. It's damp there.
They came
                     to bother us
Pleasure! I love to kiss you, but what?
I could not cry in the act.
Emptied myself by the phone that night, next
She takes her bath to ready herself
I spent on a bottle of wine
"You knew it all the time."
If I came, to explain, it would do no good
The graven image on his own back
Brief attention rising
gracefully the inevitable where I carry you
Inescapable motion of her breasts
I see your face litter the room.

three poems

The smells of oil from the clack machine, clean, the lines, and
the binding sound of the ding, dinging and the just-cleared
space where I am making many noises
alone in along time, with a beer, here, in the white noon
after stalking, unplugged and looking for a match-maker
to sell off the possessions of my co-worker
the one who sells herself too short
too short, or average-below   a cohort silent on the other side
of the city





                     slanted from the other side of this city
a fire-rock amalgamation, eat earthen cowboys green slicked
oily touch to the heat of the palms and molded
the gut, the heart, the moral fibers of the head, black
faded to the much-touched, i wear a hat this hot day
and further on I see the same big plateau on which I had kissed
and took a pic, and make--what I made of this, I need this





Neil my friend practicing his many monologues like marlon
lacking the genius of him but still, with true conviction
and the manifesto a la projection, by olson, of which I gave to him
in front of my old work Amada, and the young man who was homeless
and wanted a cigarette, I gave him that as well as my zippo
a royal flush concealed by the thumb, one I had found in the hostel
lost-and-found, he found that too gracious, I needed a crust
my columbo coat and our acting husks
father needed his car back for the morning
Neil left, we switched parking spots
I work
I go to work on the tiny street next to my old work
and think of the young homeless man who sleeps on the other
side of the block
clicking that zippo throughout the lonely night
and the fuel, the fuel was running low for both of us
he needed a crust as well, Neil! though! speeding up kelly dr
almost home, me, the hobo, the young ones, us three!

The Night Petal's Edge

"Improvisations"
Brightening the foot, the sound mack making--force
the urge to slow down in the modern data
electric the finger that shall not quit what it
has been accustomed to--this You and I experienced!
Blo tted out round the fields over there--a many
with honest force, swigging upstanding words of many
Go where you get off

The icebox world   the sucker husband
is frightening   killing   the length
Sunday is no park. Outing.
Still sex she lay,
Putting dukes up, pouting.
Big, greasy mouth stammering
white football practice

Tom-toms guffaw in the dusk there
where there is no edge
(stop for your beer)
big breasts with make-up
sloshing hurt

What; the use of the graph
swinging the butts, my dear
The baby leaned over and I cannot put my name to it.
Now you are gone devout of heart at the bridgehead.
Now you are down the spine, raising the skirts.
Now you were the duck-pond, the Evangelist shouting sharp.
Culture of the rich exceeds lines of chestnut.
He adds poetic difference, churring, hear the rattle
of the torrent already at work
a satyric play dries up my cataracts.

Whether I make or take the words   intoxicates eastward
a cock of sunshade devote to fruitful time
labor aided by various muscles
narrowness of the garden--my lover legs gone beneath me
apelike
on all fives

Two Generations May Kill a King

Mere existence the wing-to-tip of birds, mere brandy in the sun
air, crystalline abstracted wings for an old band
Great scutterings of the flutter-wings from the darkness

Here between her fingers no pasture
It is a novel without progress, a past without position
the modified great picture, here, the great picture reawakened
flagrant stabbing, more killing, the absence of desire, grabbing me
from the criticisms of companions

Cold dies waking water
inner-self in flight
beyond the brambles
no medical discipline here
the battlefield sound of adventure above
when my marine will call me in the chance night of song
who in buddhahood creeps through the grass
A scented sunday, with seeds in his mouth
and a gun for a kiss

This is the hurt that we do not kiss
being black on the page that we do not encounter bliss
sharp clicking of my eye in November
I drop all my lives from me
in a grave among dogs and chickens

A particular wooden bench that I came to know through
my lips, her lips, our reasons, our colors, our exceptions
colossal, a seemingly absurd path of sorrow
We are fools that mean nothing
with names worse than murder

I get to my place ten minutes early
when a young woman took me away.

Fifty Pound Flank

(here-among the tosses we begin a new work of the morning
the new fruit of the evening, the fly reaches the bread edge
never sorry for itself, as because it is a wild thing.
Frightened throngs the rest of us, nothing, nothing
 Quivering the wall, I was most afraid to lick her lips
the paws of the lion, of the skin, hollow, nothing
palisades in the park stars where the minutes racketeering
pee on your flowers   hat night, on 9th st. where the mexicans sell
beers. difficult, the wallmakers that hide the good ones there

I marry, no chance of a well-shaped nose
Looking me straight to dry it up. couple of hours here
and you'd be more than snuff
acting the car shoulder some extasy on that bus which
I found it was a fake pill
and rode listening to regular music without the effects
maybe blind now. maybe the effects have faltered herd
Lick it up and now you are gone, learn some Chinese song in China
no spasms in the anal reccesses, extra C for you
lucent, beautiful, breathy, Her, Him, that wine on the carpet
that stain of semen like a moanful novel
into the billions of pores
I stroke the pinches; waking like death in the happy lands.

Lust--come and go.
I, broken, bought into it a long time ago.
the truly unknown turning my footsteps
repeating the phrases of the measures of a romance
I shall trample your garden plots, which is well on my way
walking backwards dja' hear me?
in this unusual world?
where you stroke our nether hides
on a concrete sketch, on the highschool steps, the journey
on the couch, the girlfriend who repents, who picks up, after YOU.
The science of caring for the few
The End of it, further from foam she has us and is willing
like most times, to feign an illness, and is free from hob-nobbing
clean, she, in an empty dress.