P art Two:
1. New American Gothic
2. reflections of you / divine cartography
3. winter blockade

New American Gothic

1. [EXACTLY ONE WEEK AFTER LAST TUESDAY, END OF SUMMER]

Rice and peas&corn and onions&green peppers and sorrentos
are not so rejuvenating
as I had hoped. Apartment’s
a mess. I’m a mess. Last Tuesday,
my old age was born
in the bend of my left knee
and the only time it doesn’t hurt
is when it rains.

Dirty dishes, beer bottles, and used coffee grounds
scattered on the kitchen counter. The cat ignores me.
His preferred food is not in the pantry. The sky outside
is overcast and the breeze is cool. My knee aches
in anticipation of the rain clearing out by rush hour. What’s worse,
the sun will dodge the clouds
and once again
your face will shine down—

one more reminder of things I can never finish.

Some days I wake up angry
unable to remember my etiquette lessons
lash out
like the hurt animal I am. Because
I cannot face down God,
I will make tears in the eyes of his image.

Resilient echoes
of Sunday morning television hucksters
sermonize at my cerebral cortex
to simply believe.
Belief is easy—

but grace is impossible. Some falls
are forever and in the end,
we find Hell
as we expected:
in a dry township
where all the taps pour sand from our graves
and for all our anger
we can’t give it voice
since our ears have been dissected in the name of Science
& National Security.

2. [DUMBFOUNDED]

So, what’s left after letting go
after assimilating angst into longing
when all the memories become shaded,
somehow graffiti-like in the middle of the night
by those vandals in the spleen crawling up
the wide yellow boulevard of my back
to mark over the years
I swore I’d never forget? Those nights
when it all seemed
so important
that late into Saturday night
I sat up wondering why Sunday
was so damned complicated, why
no matter what, the sermon never applied—

just one more failed child of the American Dream
fat with the possibilities
of Regan’s Cinematic Manifest Destiny
a reconstituted republic

in the image of our fathers
constructed out of old bones, newspaper mache’
and those midnight emissions we were raised
never to discuss in the open
We
the prototype image
of the New Millennium mega menga junkies
the landscape so different
from the one our parents built.

We
the deadpan progenitors
of the New American Gothic
on the cusp of Midwestern sensibility
sans the stretching cornfields
& silos
& tobacco barns
& slaughterhouses
searching time in a linear fashion
using the Scientific Method
for those stars denied us
those stars
we dared to dream on
in the dead eyes of all those heroes
from public service messages
between Richie Rich and Looney Tunes
& the flag draped coffins
on the evening news.

3. [BREATHE—]

Across the bridge
acres of forgotten boondocks are burning
bold cold feet broken
caught beneath a capsized boat
just an inch too far
from kettles of limp noodle soup
unfinished catapults made of
cardboard
used candle wax
and crinkled aluminum foil
next to the flattened rats
beside to the great goggles
of a forgotten statue
given to us
ground into memory
as more googols of useless knowledge.

The smoke house smolders
like cooked roast beef
too dry to grind
too charred to eat.

4.

They labeled us
so we’d fade away
in the wake of fashion trends
and market strategies… history demonstrates
people will fight the Army
and back down the National Guard
but no one
no one can fight 30 second commercials on perma-loop
with the appropriate sound track.
The pursuit of the ultimate CD collection is key
to keeping the masses silent:

ears covered in headphones, drowning out the mayhem next door
where the neighbor lady’s daughter
is repeatedly raped
in ritualistic fashion
by sadistic city planners and marketing VP’s
while we all shuffle on, mummified
with cell phones that do the talking for us—

5. [HISTORY LESSONS]

You can see by the architecture
it was built to be a Grand City.
Each brick (they say)
is hand made by indigenous peoples
lost to history.

In the face of this failure
we can only look back and wonder
if the blood trail was worth it.
Left to the cold calculations of tin-skinned accountants,
the cost distribution, in the end,
stands for nothing. The mathematical mean
always deviates, the columns
are recalculated each hour
but there is never time to check the work
against the answers in the back of the book.

Our Fall led us here—
this place we’ve not thought to name
this landscape without trees;
bare rocks record the myths
of eon old cedar and fir and algum.
Even the redwoods our grandfathers swore on,
they are gone. All the creek beds are parched
overflowing with the decomposing bones of children drowned
by their parents out of love and desperation. Too weak
to find death themselves, they sent the babies first
& survived on blood and salty tears
mistaken for grief.

The first name of this place,
unpronounceable by our tongues,
loosely translates as Holy Place;
to speak it means Spit on the Ground.

That first name died
with the last breathe
of the last baby suckling sour milk
from the used breast of a woman
no man would call mother.

Beneath the old subway tunnel
there’s a mine leading to the heart
of the ancient city. In the plaza
stands a grand monument to forgotten days—
the Anno Domini eroded by time and acid rain
the sculptors hands encased in a diamond box buried
10,000 feet below. We whisper at the silent the grave of our children
that the worn face belongs to St. Alice
who flew to Heaven one day
on diamond and Plexiglas wings,
showering shards on the gawking bystanders,
blinding them forever.

On that day,
10,000 prophets were born
blind seers who wandered the streets preaching
& healing disfigured children
using the blood flowing from their vacant eyes
asking only for loose change
& sour wine.

reflections of you / divine cartography

I watched while she looked for herself in mirror every morning
on those days she decides to wear make-up. She was beautiful…
nothing so exquisite to me
as the sound of her breathing
the warmth of her body in our bed & the dreadful weight of her tears
her fears which reminded me
I was only a man.

During those Insomniac Hours I hoped God forgave
she loved me too much to see my heart
was not enough against the divine logic hounding me.

I only hope God forgives
I love her too much
that her heart is sacred earth
that even while she searches her reflection for that girl her heart recognizes
in my eyes there is no reflection but the host of heaven
resting in hers. Her kiss on my forehead
& I am released—

the last sensation this body feels
is the deluge of hypothermic fits
the chills that make my hands shake
makes these lines run forever off track in poetic irony.

When the damned pray
they pray for hearts like hers
to stay alive a little longer. When I pray
in the verse of the damned, I pray
your heart is strong enough
for us both. Idolater that I am I pray to your reflection:

your face in the mirror
your face etched into my eyes like primordial memory
when all words are unnecessary
& the soul speaks of centuries
beyond crude syllables & loose interpretations
when the language is so pure
to listen makes these poor human ears bleed tears of cranial sadness
in the knowledge that all our beauty is false—

you’ve been in my bones
since the day I was born. Unexplainable warmth / divine fire from the firmament in your eyes
the touch of your skin
a Pentecost in my soul
& all that is good in me transmigrates
leaving behind this weak & wicked reflection.

winter blockade

1.

This morning, the words are coagulated in my fingertips; frozen by the gray cement winter outside. Every enclave is a blessing. The original city planners designed it to push wind out like a large funnel; the future back then was in science… an entire city built to harness the powerful wind off the mighty river and blow it east where the moneyed investor’s class sits chewing on turd-shaped cigars.

I am tired of this prosthetic reality. In winter, particularly, it’s easy to see the linkages holding the whole kit and caboodle together.

The last honest man I knew is dead
buried under the eastern mountains that birthed him
without his consent.

[But that is, geographically speaking, centuries away]

Here,
pollution rises to the top of the frozen river, impervious to the cold
dredging up with it
the bones of all our children, most beloved pets and evil memories, ex-wives,
cheating husbands, deadbeat fathers and drunken mothers.

We’ve learned not to notice.
Not anymore. Better to keep our heads down
lest he arctic wind snatches our souls from our nostrils.

A leading authority has suggested
the increasing number of winter deaths
is a direct result of exhaling at the wrong moment.

People have died
suffocating themselves
trying to keep it in.

Great mystic nihilists use pillows,
having learned to ignore the unconscious drive to survive,
holding the goosefeather down on themselves.

Others have their mouths and noses surgically sealed—
but that’s mainly on the west coast
according to a special report on 20/20.

Sex and asphyxiation clubs are forming in high schools
all over the Great Midwest, while here,
in the Great Valley, senile riverbed farmers watch
while their proud sons’ daughters
wrap their legs around their heads
and crawl back up the birth canal.

2.

December is the sleepy month—
season of the automatons, day after sale,
special markdown,
lowdown consumer confidence
the only reliable indicator
whether god is laughing and it will be a good year.

Numbers are up—
though no one is smiling
(smiling is not an objective indicator)
but analysts are pleased. Graphs appear optimistic,
and just one more juggling of the numbers
will prove unequivocally
the system works. To celebrate,

the City Alderman has ordered closed
every homeless shelter; sent the bums packing
and the nuns are now serving Jesus
one John at a time.

/His announcement caused the market to jump 3 points./

From every pulpit
on every street corner in the city
sanctioned megaphones proclaim the departure
of al true prophets, soothsayers, and storytellers. They packed themselves up
in 100 mile long caravans headed for the West Coast, New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia

because they pay more per syllable.

3.

The nonstop sounds of commuter traffic
of trains, of planes circling from delayed landing,
of barges filled to the brim with bones, follow me
into m dreams.

Even sleeping is no escape from December.
Winter’s settling in early this year. Not enough hot toddies
and rock salt to keep the chill at bay. All the bartenders sit,
reading yesterday’s newspaper while one lone crier sits in the back
at the piano trying to play a funeral dirge. Half the keys are missing
the rest are out of tune
or held on by broken strings.

4.

Today is wrapped with inevitability, mummified
disguised as winter snow. We settle in waiting
(always waiting) and stocking up on liquor, bread,
wine, and tobacco for the long season ahead. Rationing coffee
and dried apricots for every breakfast between now and the end of the world,
while the television informs us
of our own recent demise.

Houses caught fire, the souls of thousands evaporate like steam;
meanwhile, in the downtown business district, men and women
in thousand dollar suits jump from 40th floor windows. Paramedics say
they are falling missionary style.

Today
we travel out
to bury out honored dead.

It’s nearly Christmas; time to crucify out daughters
on perforated plywood crosses,
like they made on that PBS show last Saturday. We’ve taught them
since before birth not to cry—

no point in seeing that mess, too.

Childless couples desert the suburbs
for the rural counties of their birth
only to find it smoldering… thus is was spake
in the days when giants walked the earth,
cursing us to watch the apocalypse through puffy eyes.

Hermits shut up in long deserted libraries
solving puzzles to stay the execution
one more day.

5.

Dreams have been disturbing of late. Always, the sun explodes into paper mache’ shards. Then, in the darkness, blind hands stumble upon me, tearing my skin and eyes and tongue til I can no longer scream.

6.

How do we carry on like this? These tears frozen round our necks like chains
keep us bound to the earth… grounded even as our wings pull themselves free of our backs
leaving bloody scars like tire tracks?

7.

Even the buzzards know
this meat is too rancid for eating,
and moved on
to less blighted lands.

Rusted, empty troop transports keep the peace,
while the cops crack down on single mothers
and street preachers on the orders of the City Alderman,
calling via satellite from Palm Springs. Turned out by the thousands,
teenage mother feed babies with one exhausted tit
while servicing entire squadrons with rest
(coming 2 by 2)
making sure to leave a little blood aside
for the weekly tax collection.

Section 3.71456, part z75
The new law:

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING IN its PLACE.

Enough to make
OC housewives smile. They walk the streets
with rags and cans of Lysol
disinfecting entire city blocks in a cloud so thick
even the cops won’t go there, and the gov’t pays a stipend
for certain petty tasks along the way: infant assassinations
pay triple.

Those of us left
survive on moldy bread
and our envy of the dead
while all our embalmed hope is rolled away
destined for another anonymous grave.

Yes. It may be time to break again for the mountains.

>>>Continue to P art Three: