for J.R.
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
     It is easier to be impressed than to be instructed.
                                       -- George Santayana

      

                     -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

An Index of First Lines is at the end of the file.


	1

Henry only hankered for the starch.
The heavy house, the pavement weekend leaves
were no promotion;
nothing served for him but the commotion
of the two-backed beast in verse that heaves
his mother's arch.

Ill he labored underneath the bough,
wine-friended, tenting for the war
with the Dark Ages
that gruesome, faster than his meager pages
left his fingers and his noggin sore
enough for now.

Who came to visit never stayed for long;
they had no use for language or penury,
desiring death;
Henry spoke with lilac in his breath.
Salvation they all wanted, power; Henry
gave them song.
..12/5/03

	2

Nuisance value.  Atropos their boss,
let Clotho knit them song.  But with her feet.
What will they hear
who hold the Crown of Heaven at the ear?
who will not taste a single thing they eat
and always floss?

Soap, said Henry.  Proper paint for lives
who n'er raised fist to storm nor brow of priest
nor prick to love;
I dust to dust, The Baby from Above,
prefer for company the piss of yeast,
Muses for wives;

the bedroom is no place to get a child,
soap-and-nylons, soap-and-Nyquil sterile.
Still, the starch,
broke once across the mountains' central arch,
was quite enough to drive young Henry feral
rather than wild.
..12/6/03

	3

Thunderfucked, poor Henry did blue grass
on strings gone slack at jaw; starch only smiled,
but kept the pomes.
Not even Hitler hammered in such homes;
what chance had he to keep the bitch beguiled
with what warmed ass?

O warm her heart he could, until her brat
(the small or large) had *need* of her again:
the songs and prick
that had her panting like a maid in hick
destroyed all sight that she was good for men,
and that was that.

Uncounted, Henry sank into his slob
with each more-polished song, and louder sang
of every tatter,
'til song rose Large while Henry sank to spatter.
This is the way Luuve ends:  not with a bang
but with a Saab.
..12/8/03

	4

Sylvia-slapped, poor Henry howled alone
at mooning midterms students never read,
let alone pomes;
the ancient promise even void of gnomes,
one may as well just flat the learned head
or leave it bone,

for who will care to live without his witches
among a monkey that, you raise the bar
they stumble right under
uprightish, though born to crawl?  or "wonder"?
And just who do these copouts think they are,
the sonsabitches,

Socrates to Sexton, Chatterton,
who wear our laurels now for sending
the Dummy home early --
"smart lads," to let the gray out through the curly?
And who, can write him such a splendid ending,
compete with one?
..12/8/03

	5

Henry, given a bikini string
between two jugs of meaning, wondered long
was it the arch
or did he really hanker that the starch
admit him to a much more pious song
than he would sing?

No explorer reeking dragon, he,
but dragging bags of disappointments passed
for condiment
on every meal the starch and lace present
grew old more swift than socks, a dull "thou hast
committed me."

The starch took off that Henry could not don
left him a gasping monkey wearing cow
supposed to sing
Hosannas to a higher sort of thing
than drink two jugs were writ beneath the bough
for moving on.
..12/9/03

	6

The heavy bear that Henry wore to bed
waltzed in his dreams, but dreams will ever leap
without inertia;
coyote falls are never going to hurt ya
for going too far, but then you fall asleep
and wake up dead.

There was the Tunnel, darkling on the cliff
beneath the mountains:  all who enter in
abandon hope.
He rush headlong?  Henry muttered "nope,"
the bird got clean away beyond his sin
to worlds of If.

Lilith to Gods, did he teach monkeys worth
but saw his names for things less shilled
than any priest;
inflation and the student load increased,
indifference multiplied, and Henry filled
the face of Earth.
..12/9/03

	7

Your face broods from my students, Suicide,
to mewl that soft Christina rose starched Chris
up from that coffin
and all the dirt sealed with her by the boffin
to guard her sleep from any random kiss
quite failed the bride.

Sharp sticks kill vamps, their evil with their bones,
but bones persist to hang the species on
like other homes
that priests adulterate with ancient pomes
monkey-pronounced, Eternal Polygon
in sonnet tones.

Kill Henry?  You can't even kill yourself.
A stretch, an arch, and Mr. Bones has spit
you right back out
from darkness free of knowledge, free of doubt
to rise again from every fulsome tit
and each bookshelf.
..12/23/03

	8

Things fall apart, said Henry; Mr. Bones
laughs last, like scraps of pomes in vacant lots,
and who's the fuel?
We gathered Henry, though the frost was cruel,
burning libraries to warm the snots
with Christmas tones.

Max purity of product is that of
the dirtiest ingredient; Mr. B.
reached for the starch
whose Bones were strong enough to buck and arch
him off the Earth he didn't want to be
or not to love:

as well to bury Man before he start
when Mr. Bones is bread and recipe
as well as cook;
a book of verses from a bough that shook
leaves maggots wondering just whom to B.,
and if it's smart.
..12/24/03

	9

So don't be, Mr. B.  Or, not to B.,
replace your Mommy with another starch
not made from bread,
for bread is shit, and only wakes up dead.
The tit rise to your hand a buck an arch
be all your see

and paradise enow until the bar close,
sing, but do not sing of you or me,
but only starch
(no matter that the pebbled sonnet parch),
or who'll believe the Boners that we be
when we shuck our clothes?

Pedestals are TrVth.  To write of Rocks
will only bring the girl a lump of coal
for Jesus' Birth;
compression, polish, are of little worth
to one who prays you feed the Daily Hole
to wet your cocks.
..12/24/03

	10

How do you do when Hades spits the bones
and covers them with handy tits and ass
but not one word
reports a single thing it ever heard
but just repeats?  And then only in Mass
that spits the singer from its choir tones?

He wanted starch be something but a lie,
false windmills struck from his clock-wracked horizon,
dragons only;
war be enough that any know of lonely,
cartography the mitzvahed soul relies on
stand between the earth tones and the sky.

Bones sneered.  What lie detector tells the breath
so hated heaven that it let it breathe
it drew the map
all fallen off the edge into the nap?
The dragon seen, what better place to sheathe
the head cried give me honesty or death?
..1/1/04

	11

Brief Henry put eternal friends away
until he felt like being Henry more;
they swelled with dust,
but iron in their voices did not rust
and scaffolding performed its wanted chore
when Henry meant to brave another say.

Then Henry saw the starch, its folds converge
on stately pleasure domes, and twice five miles
he fertile ground
and took to song, and that is when he found
his tongue was good for certain kinds of smiles
or had to help them sing the same old dirge.

How could he be her bookshelf, who still bled
and clouted every squall he scribbled out
as only his,
stretch having blown away what time it is?
All starch to ravel in, he craved the clout
of being dead.
..1/12/04

	12

With vase to make him tock, young Henry wound
beyond the hours of starch to worlds of if
that found him dead
for ticking past to be, and him not read
to be no more:  he'd hurtle off the cliff
no matter what what /Pinta/ told him round,

eternal dark without that holy arch
that kept him off the Earth, his ego freed
from dustied hands
the pillars of his bones from chirping sands
did Henry in rut float on her laundered creed
not merely white but holied with the starch,

then:  Fraud! roared the maddened Henry for instead
of starch were sewer pipes and needles to caress
and tattered soaps
and rich men passing through the eyes of hopes
and Mr. Bones affrayed of mortal dress.
I'll show you where the Rocks are, Henry said.
..1/17/04

	13

One attribute would Henry not inherit
when Bones spit monkey and the starch redressed
no Emperor,
for starch dressed Word in Forms he could adore
and speak in turn that children be impressed,
Word without merit.

The play their thing, told Henry filled the void
with angels moving through the empty head
to miracle
as filling more than thought's shrill ear-ache'll
when starch will not accompany to bed
what birth destroyed,

And none taught he with all his polyglot,
for no amphibole would learn to read
who saw spots run
to fetch what meaning dressed them in Dad's gun
and him a disarm of that couch-cloned breed
watched tommy rot.
..1/23/04

	14

Propped in his Throne, his orders figured out
by That Which Comes To Cleanse Me (Ever Starched),
as far as Perth
could he fall from such Grace, although the Earth
held sour Temptation in its doorways arched
to study clout.

And he advanced to school, where all his cup
was Words were Written, maps with Dragons he
need never ride
did he but not presume to play outside,
and all the Men he would be seen to be
by dressing Up.

A word and a word excused him of the chore
to push his Rock to see where it might roll
part by itself
and were too many saints along the shelf
to redress right, for Henry would construe
no Emperor.
..2/18/04

	15

He wore the ashes who had never burned
for ironed lines, whose one great love had raved
like sticky snow
to clump and cover all that lay below,
who bought his ice-cream soft, and never saved
a penny learned.

Not would young Henry calibrate the phizz
from what it kissed:  an all-but-unbegun set
that woke up as
the appetites and fears a gullet has,
he rose who sees the trees on fire with sunset
and he with his,

nor wool and Vap-O-Rub put off that cold,
nor all the starch one angel pressed to tempt, he,
Henry knew Death
in entropy each drawing of a breath
that drew no Joker:  though he woke up empty,
he woke up old.
..3/18/04

	16

While Henry found the powers in words Divine,
to walk on Water only made him wet
behind the ears
and wanting rescues too beneath his years,
the grapes of Rock that were all he would get
just made him whine.

Grown unmistakably to Daddy's Clothes
(so all along had said his only mother),
Henry regretted
those bone-cold Rocks seemed somehow to have vetted
the competition, hard to outvote other
boys and moths,

and so he wore his smallness not like Frost,
clever in ant's crater, back-door thorough,
but Luther King
who took a Father's name, inheriting
all duties Mommy had throughout the borough.
And still both lost.
..3/18/04

	17

"What we have heah," said thinning Mickey Rat,
"'sa failuah tew ca-Mewnicate.  It's like
you are this high,
you get to pay for all the Rides they try,"
but Henry did not want to quit his trike,
and that was that

until new mountains beckoned under snow,
so Henry got de Bergerac to sing
beneath the rail
then sent him off to sanctify the Grail
while he made the collection plate to ring
and knowledge flow.

But even sirens pall, three-headed curs,
and sheep but hide the hero in their herds
until he stand;
it can't be said that even Henry planned
that one, dark way to duck the dreaded words,
"the cup is yours."
..3/19/04

	18

They say me ornery, Horatio,
who say my story, but they say not me,
they mirror pain:
"What poet ever had else on the brain?"
Or let them holler them not meant to be,
the rot but grow

before their Yorick's planted, nay Ophelia
elbow grief aside for something planned
to clog heart felt
that would not stoop to lift her garter belt --
Horatio, it's to play what goddam hand
the Joker deal ya,

for if, forsaking all to scribble hobby,
you stare at nothing on the tower, sky,
they all look up
to miss no drop of nothing in your cup
and crush to touch the cleverness and cry
you "Kemo Sabe."
..3/20/04

	19

As many times as Henry had been born
he knew the current crib, not much of that;
it left him bored
he said, and his opinion always scored;
he needed no Big Bang to press him flat
or keep him worn

though he was tired of being worn the once;
no use for Limbo, nor return a dog
to a dog's life
(how would he know), brave Henry tried a wife,
but she was someone else's.  Still, agog,
he wrote her stunts

but she conspired with roof and children, snored
to wake the dead (except what he had been)
until he woke,
and he did not appreciate the joke
even the once his current Natal Sin
had left him, bored.
..3/20/04

	20

By coffee do I second that emotion,
by the Juice of the Bean do thoughts acquire speed
and keyboards short
as yet another artist stoops to sport:
O where in a sloppy world is one can breed
my high devotion?

And Bones, you bastard, what good is an art
gets brushes dirty (hands, Bones, see? my hands)
enough to wash?
And pass the hat?  I'll Authorise the cosh!
We are no craft whose membership expands
for any fart.

I am what their Degrees are all about.
I was Confirmed, and won the county Cup,
so fuckez-vous.
Use eye of worm and wing of spider, too.
(Goddammint, Bones, I cannot keep this up;
they will find out.)
..3/22/04

	21

Tell forest fires.  Or tell it to the moon.
Insist destruction, repetitious rock
are purpose.
Pray their guts or passing birds usurp us
human, tell allegiance with the cock
or to the loon,

let none unequal Henry in his school
nor quisling deal beyond the normal curve
for heresy
sets no one but the lone blasphemer free
and nothing's wrong with those who only serve
just so you rule.

Save those who walk on Water, but dispose
to tell none where the Rocks Are (it will best
but piss them off);
write special hells for any who will doff
to naked emperors; true Emperors are Dressed
in Mommy's Clothes.
..5/11/04

	22

He dreamed continually of those who were truly great,
the young in one another's light-downed arms,
until the cock
slew Peter severally, but no Rock
to stand on sirened priest-waxed H.; alarms
his dreams soul fate,

he stumbled through the litanies while saints
slept sound between their covers, spoke not to
who had no ears
for stopping them with promises and tears,
taught "We, the Pe," not "We, the People, do,"
and worshipped paints.

Rolled out of bed cold-shouldered by the cat,
the hills break starch into a man-hard ridge
and Ludlow Fair,
and having left his necktie God knows where,
passed Ernie's hunt, Sylv's supper to play bridge,
and played it flat.
..5/14/04

	23

		Three Generations from D-Day

His slack-time visits to the violent dead
picked at their brains with black and carryon beak
but grew no word
to flesh to dwell the squabbling absurd
or tell it somewhere else to take a leak.
He shared the bread.

But he not live so happily ever after,
for none who see him talking on the water
kiss dat much frog
when god provide dem sunlight on a log
but no bunned fishes for a bitchy daughter
now him gaffed her.

No trigger-bone connected to de head-bone
but only him saints' noises on de breeze,
Henry succumb
an' spend him birthright trying to make dumb
who dare enough he draw de cottage cheese*
from orange stone.
..6/6/04
__________
* See note to #24.

	24

And who were we, that singing on the beach
should be, Bones, more remarkable in song
than one brown hare
who also wasn't going anywhere
that he, or I who sing us, could belong
or out of reach

of dog or sucking entropy?  What truth
was uncontested bed or bread to us
who talked the sand
or these invasions all those others planned?
And where are they?  Is more to fear from pus
or pouting youth?

Five yelling men, three Maidens breathing Rhine
and whining Gods to tell what Ricky saw,
when yellow stone,
not Gold, draws cheese* that makes a man his own:
"forge rings," the Poet sings through empty jaw,
but what refine?
..6/7/04
__________
* 23, 24:  "cheese" = "cottage cheese," "klabber brew,"
 Anglo-Saxon calerbriw.  The reference is to the
 rope steel of which a sachs calerbriw ("Excalibur")
 is made; the differential steel composition looks
 rather like cottage cheese.

	25

Good soldiers always got him gold, then gold
got Henry, picking at their awful brains
like lima beans,
his voting punch scratch what a mudpie means
when starch serves empty teacups or it rains
reminder mold.

Thunder made lightning in the hand of Zeus,
the Word made fat so easily misspells
"In Gold We Trust,"
damasks the cheese beneath a little rust
as Henry learns to reparade his hells
to good excuse,

lying of silver to whom sweat for brass
to watch the soldier and the faucet drip
for want of solder
once solid us until the master dodder,
succession opting for the shorter trip
in a pig's ass.
..6/10/04

	26

No drums, no trumpets, Henry counted rows
of words less neat his priests designed the fence
of stars and crosses
keep the poet safe to mourn his losses
on the Dow.  If management was dense
and came to blows

with every white man's burden white man bore
for fun and profit not appreciated
its own country,
oil for toilets, sweatshops are effront'ry
to clean sheets in classrooms, as is stated
in section four,

and Ernie Pyle leave stomachs in the lurch
with ruined starch when emperors grow rabies
Henry fix
his broken pets in rows with two crossed sticks,
told every year that death performs for babies
by Mother Church.
..6/13/04

	27

Above all, Hopeful Henry want be nice:
give book only what song will pay for; dead
don't want no Rocks
be interfere no bread-of-angels crocks;
Coyote-busted don't get no one fed,
Some say in ice.

Get some one turn de Water back to whine,
be have you Reading like a twelve-inch hinge
wave him at flies:
it be more Higher to de lesser guys
can do de same, den dey chip in de binge
'cause you be cry'n.

Dat cat in the hat cud pass de thing is why.
You litters de house wif babyshit enough,
make Laureate,
cleanup be magic, starch fill all de plate.
Don't worry none to touch dat Earth an' stuff;
it takes you die.
..6/13/04

	28

My voice crack?  Sure, and if it isn't mine.
It only takes the loosest sort of nut
to be the part
that critics all award the highest art
for seconds; the director hollers cut,
be back at nine.

Who then could Henry be dark three a.m.?
He dropped the Clothes; the grooving Rocks mooned him
and once too often;
Museless planet, deader than a coffin
that, at least, had entertained a whim
of B.E.M.

He descended into Hell.  Third day,
guitar still stopped with aspirin branch,
he lost the girl;
Gods sniggered, giving her another whirl
and her eternal parcel of the ranch,
plan layaway.
..6/13/04

	29

What Muse there was dissolved in donkey-work,
giving and getting, arguing the count
with every child
thought he could slay him better in the wild:
if not bright leopard, elephant amount
would fall and jerk

to his mere twitching of an index finger
after a twitch upon the Fruited Plane.
That mile-high club
could Henry never hope to join or snub;
it paid his supper, Water in the main,
and debts will linger;

memory of debt is just the worst.
The Buddha begged, and died pretending pay;
Zen stared one Rock;
Art never got the Table out of hock.
Muse Starch, can Henry come on out to play?
Moaned he, I thirst.
..6/13/04

	30

Oh, Henry did not have to touch the Earth
for Starch dressed up Korzybski and decreed
that every word
was ultimately defined by another word
(it doesn't even scan!) and Henry freed
from counting worth.

The King's law writ, the Cardinal but squalls
that lead the bitch to suck his circumstance
'til printed lead
buys not one Athos of the millions fed
and Henry found he could not muster France
's ping-pong balls.

"Sing," magicked Harry; "Heil" the masses swore;
Home Land Security blanketed the store
where had been steel
but gathered faggot church to cop a feel
and feel cops swaggering together wore
no Emperor.
..6/22/04

	31

And Henry's friends kept leaving him, the bastards,
no more to say that Henry could be seen
propping the Clothes
heavied with Question, stained with all the throws
of composition for who wanted Clean
to keep their mass turds

easily recitable by youth
and on the curve, now from their life support
untimely ripp'd,
becoming the elite before they dripped
with bodily decrepitude, God's sport
ain't it the truth.

Unpropped did Henry fall and fall and fall
from grace and Eden's mountains ridged with starch;
alas the shocks
life built into his head were less than rocks
demanded from the middle of the arch,
and that was all.
..6/22/04

	32

Fame?  Who would be so fondled by his junkies
as the fix makes them important when
their mirrors won't,
their time and trigger-fingers out of joint
and never to be set to right again
by sucking monkeys?

Sir Henry will the dragons slay, of cuss,
and so no matter how we say it, we
who see spots run
win either way without we squeeze no gun
makes us the author of the blood we see
redeeming us,

and share the standup for one half the wit
that dare not rearrange the Rocks for bread,
and eat the Hen
we rewrote so that she could not say "when"
while thermodammics jokes that "Well, He Said..."
just yields less shit.
..9/9/04

	33

But blood in a bag and foul smell cannot sing
though they may eat the singer and the song
to prove they can
as dysentery eats the bag of man
to prove that bag and bug somehow belong
to the same thing,

and that be Bones, to hear them make excuse.
Side effects will often include nausea
so say your prayers
or be accounted not quite one of theirs,
and you know all the trouble that will cause ya,
and misuse.

Bones aren't bones that do not dance:  they're rocks
that leak their lime into the limestone sea
where carbon lies
until the trees have sucked it from the skies
and spinach turns it into you and me
and red-tailed hawks.
..9/17/04

	34

What use teach babies, Henry, when they Bones
imbibe they being well before they born
of Air and Water
because de Air in Lilith's bastard daughter
by flounders and swan, by rib, by unicorn,
give her God's tones?

all chase each other in dat Broca's Bush
ain't no dog follow no dam' pussy through
to touch they worth
for none has got de leastest tint of Earth
to hole a fellow up like me an' you
but jest go sploosh?

How they gone write, who wear the Empty Black?
How anybody always suck his thumb
gone lose de self
in order be one saint sit on de shelf
when all he taste his God is always dumb
or on its back?
..9/27/04

	35

"De dream no good; you gots to make you fuss
where all de people careful sit de same
at de same time
and render unto gods dere daddy's dime
for watch one parks de fifteen seconds' frame
in front de bus.

God stunned de dirt to noise that doubly can
dang dirt for singing or be what am dangst
or tell you lovin'
by leave de reader sumpin' in de oven,
but lesson dat drink last, you back-row angst
be just re-publican."

So thought and thought and thought to undiminish
dread obscurity and Henry too
read in the black
could he but drink two quarts of pure shellac
and turn what were a dismal ending to
a lovely finish...
..1/17/05

	36

From this brief jubilation Orville flew
until the tubing tangled with his guts
but here we saw
that carbuerettor vanquish pious law
to fly above the yelping of the mutts
and old age, too.

"You call that jubilation, Ludwig smirked
who saw spots run until they made him hear
who was stone deaf
despite that both extensions to the clef
played ping-pong in the sanctum of his ear
while brain just jerked.

And so he saw him dying like a dog
which was unfortunate for so did they
and sang to him
the terminal demise of every whim
which caused poor Henry rue and curse the day
he left the bog.
..1/20/05

	37

"This loving should he carve in stone," he said,
but he had only pencils, and the steel
stung hand to claw
before stone spoke the valleyed starch he saw,
and who compel the ages cop a feel
with Shakespeare dead?

His doom cracked at the word so often prayed
for seeing Mr. Bones not still the starch
but kill the dead
who clamored for a garret in his head
to finish what one stumble on the march
had so delayed

that Henry's leg must set against the crib
to carry a baton that started with
the Biggest Bang:
"That is no country for old men," he sang,
"whose mothers fed them on a vacant myth
and starched the bib."
..1/21/05

	38

Friends pre-embalmed and Sylvia half-baked
was Henry held to draw his breath in pain
to tell his-tory;
watched he goodly kingdoms fall from glory,
states rise skyward in the naplam rain
while dandruff caked

and Bones took men who took one step, thirteen,
or warfarin with equal registry
or sent them back
to try another way into the Black,
a few more stanzas crab they would not be
those they had seen,

the primal hatred of the primal fault
(for starch came running hail the baby whole
in Daddy's Hat)
left Henry writing furiously that
though he cry over it with all his soul
the sea stayed salt.
..1/22/05

	39

Not for the poet does the stellar jay
leave single feathers of the final flight
stuck to the glass
but each explosion or the distant sass
but only minds him there was such a sight
one awesome day.

Unable win the starch unless he bet
what in his case he has no longer got --
virgin belief
that in one heartless play but came to grief --
he raves his Bones are now in every pot
without his let,

his every contract niggered by the shades
of former friends whos duty was to keep
Henry in love,
the world in starch, and God in Heaven Above,
and sudden finds each little heart he peep
outbid by spades.
..1/24/05

	40

"/Hast seen the whale?/"  And sun gave it a glance,
and Henry, and his trowel a harpoon
in its white gut.
And sun moved on.  And Henry, sort of.  But
one did not shovel discontent so soon
to piles of dance.

Not tangled so in such a sheer expanse.
Threatened it to so besiege his brow,
drag him too down,
he swore he'd settle for a little brown,
a dry oasis would receive his plow
and press his pants

and if not help not hinder his advance
across his own heart's monitor, cheep, cheep,
page after page
'til Henry in a rit of fealous jage
pulled his own plug.  The sun refused to weep
or look askanse.
..1/24/05

	41

Fallen from starch, the loving of the meats
that wallow in their dark, he had to wife
mere nouns and verbs
that cherished him like Bosnians and Serbs,
but he they too, and so he spent his life
jealous of Keats.

O, that he had died of his great fall
from those Twin Peaks late youth essayed to clamber,
for he pined
a Joshua tree at Yeats' slow redwood kind;
O, that his brief youth had balmed in amber
rather than gall.

But Humpty would not rebound, nor quite spatter,
and Henry could not get his shit together
even by force
though he enlisted several kinds of hoarse
at fickle Death while whinnying the weather
was no great matter.
..1/25/05

	42

Tired of the meat and jealous of the bone
confessed he all, but not the smallest prayer
was he assigned
by those he tugged help his salvation mind
while every wrinkle in the singing hair
turned him to stone.

Took he to charging students to be he
but bombshells only rearranged the rocks
in Whichistan:
ground plowed with asses seldom grows a man
though thou mayst hear the several sounds of cocks
amid the scree.

Love he demanded, love he would not give
though copied he its bits from this and that:
not one duet,
leave add the muse and noise into quartet,
did Henry holt, 'til he had screwed him flat
enough to live.
..1/25/05

	43

Barf Later sees at last the Game of Death:
his one foe fallen, friend on friend on friend,
"Now /I'm/ the Master."
O, be one then, disciple of disaster,
and ADD will trip on ways to mend
on crystal meth --

and trip he did, to piles of ruined stone,
blood dried in dusty streets, the highest view
our /drang/ had quit,
and none could change a single note of snit
for baseball gives the poet something to
be better than

when bluejays prove too blue or merely fleet
to bring home in a jar to light the word
away from night,
brief Perseids arrive to sting the sight,
or Death has made the salty tail of bird
just too damned sweet.
..1/25/05

	44

Hated he those he learned for being first
and worshipped lists of those his worship kill,
saint or no saint;
God, too, who cursed him with the awful taint
of loving those he could not match in skill
or even thirst.

Met, hated he their putting on their pants
or lighting their generic cigarettes
with counter matches;
a different wise man taught him sleep in snatches,
and Henry did, waking with the sweats
that end the dance.

So told he kings as kings all wished to hear
'til faced he last at every classroom bell
the drooling dogs
awaiting gongs from their paid demagogues
and finding at the seventh ring of hell
the breath of beer.
..1/26/05

	45

When all else fail can Henry brag his martyrs
whom no baptism taught to love this world
their God named Heaven;
empty tubes without one germ of leaven,
digesting nothing, meals by asses hurled
and just for starters,

for Henry's hate is not as great as theirs:
booze keeps him hope, and pills him coming back
to swear himself
to one more missive on the college shelf
and one more miss 'twas darling to attack
by splitting hairs.

For him who could not polish up a stone
nor draw sword from it, were there paper hearts
with whitest lace
all stiff and stiff without the telltale trace
of starth that stiffened Henry's private parts
right into Bone.
..1/28/05

	46

Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, O what Pain,
but who dared throw him a parade with not
one elephant?
All marching noises found he rather scant
and pain art's instrument him standing Spot
out, out in rain,

waiting for His Turn, an empty street,
a pain not quite so difficult to follow
(too many notes),
at least less tattered in its mortal coats,
meanwhile being careful not to swallow
anything sweet:

Henry stood in fog at half past three,
their echoes stronger in his staggered mind
than all his song
that even alcohol could not make wrong,
enraged the empty street they left behind
was only he.
..1/31/05

	47

No "/rectum roseatum meam/," sod
Henry thought condense passive aggression
into passion,
it being all the rage enough and fashion
and plenty of reward to aim each session
to blame its God;

for all who died he had no living use;
our sacks of Bones were always to his glance
long in the tooth
no matter they were lately or still youth
when starch knew every need and ignorance
was an excuse;

recited he the names of Frost and Keats
if not the breath, but growled that he must live
his Mammy's choice
for none would yield that name his living voice;
One, Two, One, Two, he scalped himself to give
us the best seats.
..2/4/05

	48

His dreams too drunk to drink in his own tongue
writhed on the floor but were ashamed to lay
there any love
while Heaven with each thought grew gray above
for only those forever empty stay
forever young:

though nothing is empty as the infant soul
and shapes of clouds the only sort of hoard
so safe to save,
so fast did breve accumulate to grave
that all his universe was speeding toward
a Black Whole

would not retain his scent for all his whiting
and when lady Mother was laid bare
it came as sin
that Great White Starch display a dorsal fin.
Henry announced him in complete Despair
and went on writing.
..2/8/05

	49

Tried he to sing the tatter in the dress,
make light of the time that only felt the shove
of God's First Fit
and time of light, but all the little shit
that let Yeats roar and Herrick tinkle love
left him a mess.

Not Henry First but Henry fuken I
married him widows did not care to say
he am, he am,
but dressed their children in the tattered scam
and needed him no longer, having they,
though what a guy,

the young in one another's arms would not
admit of Henry to their post-War land
above the dead
congratulating choice of birth instead
in proms and hallways of skyscraper-flawed
shrill simiglot.
..2/11/05

	50

One learned his name and that was one too many;
left he those round-eyes and he still might sail
his way to art
for starch was stol'n and Troy had taken part;
dreams he of Kalypso and the Grail
for gettin' any:

five-witted Henry steams full flank in fog,
ears waxed against the Siren call of Earth
whose beckon mocks
the victim myth lured leaking onto Rocks
and him with all the breadth of view and mirth
of a mad dog

as crew by crew they bale and leave him stare
at empty seats (and still the vortex feeds)
gripping his mast
but he will be if he can be the last --
raves he his coal-fired golem further speeds
and anywhere.
..2/12/05

	51

The dead and frozen world again to mush
one tulip sneers him on among the weeds
a little ways
out of the whited sepulchre three days
then back to Purgatories of seeds
and him to lush.

Each springtime taunting him a little queerer,
lone letters not enough help him abide
the life of death,
thought he plant Henry to eternals breath,
stark mad to find the monkey that could hide
behind the mirror,

but each Brunnhilde glowed with ringing wit
and enemies that would not even move
to stab in back,
so soldered he on, uncertain of his lack:
though Henry shone, his ring could never prove
their counterfeit.
..2/14/05

	52

Though he was troubled by a thought of fandom,
he's no profit and his choice of names
was no great matter;
shot he a nickel, dropt another platter,
drinking fellows went on playing games
that scored at random.

To write cliffhangers needs one have a cliff
and Henry had, but it was such a drop
could use but once
for he was no Coytote, merely dunce
who'd need more training if he thought to top
a practiced stiff,

so postured he around the burning beer
where love lay dead or possibly but slept
but took a prince
with sword of meat and mettle to convince
the ringing curse disperse, while Henry wept
starch into smear.
..2/15/05

	53

Worshipped did he the dead for being dead
(no other reason that he cared to sing);
he'd heard that God
kept Place for /him/, not mud piled on a hod,
to crack this cup by touching any thing
his greatest dread;

he had a full set of the Rules' excuses
collected and traded; time and more than time
to trade them in
for place down seven bolgers of Chagrin
where he'd have ridicule, and fire, and slime,
and other uses,

which, by God, meant they must pay attention
every weakness in which he was versed,
especially him
(he knew his starch, if memory grew dim);
so of his service Henry only cursed
every extension.
..2/17/05

	54

Praise is nice, too, especially when it ceases
and leaves the worth with nothing but the chill
amaze of drink;
old Bones left Henry with the need to think
but he found nicer and amazing still
that starch had creases.

Not so good while it is going on
of course:  long empty hours between the pats
water the specie
with sweets beyond its good and evil; Nietzsche
said so:  said, and further said that that's
All, Folks, while John

said all that taste was God and every taste
was bred for him alone, was all the Laws
and all he got,
but Henry succoured in the snort of snot
prayed fast that starch invoke the Santa clause
and laid to waste.
..2/20/05

	55

It is no martial art to break a board
with poets' heads; that breaks with pencil and
a crosscut saw;
he had the pencil, but the starch of law
he could not break with either bouncing hand
nor reach accord

quite strong enough to dangle more than fish:
law cut off only that same infidel
he'd need to write.
Remained the Fall, but Henry wanted height
that raised him from the starch he loved so well
too far to wish.

Oh, could one dive into that Princess mouth
(but how could anything that wasn't fop
survive the teeth?),
transit the time warp to the Holy Wreath
and, floating off his time in Limbo, pop
out further south.
..2/21/05

	56

The winter sun was well too low for sight:
a blunt Gestapo searchlight on a tank
or helicopter
made deep shadow of the place he'd dropt her,
press'd him to the exit of the bank,
obnoxious light

did not so much illuminate as blind
white worlds already made the eyeballs burn,
the glare of skin
tell everybody that his hair was thin
and that they knew already every turn
that he could find.

So seeking only to escape the worst,
Henry fled fakes to find that he fed flakes
and sucking fry
that left him all alone to wonder why
Ten Thousand frozen Minnesota Lakes
would quench no thirst.
..2/25/05

	57

Palm slapped to forehead, fingers tongues of flame,
heart hammering behind his pentecost,
poor Henry gaped
at how and yet again he had been raped
by Voice or foot of God and wandered lost
while no Bird came

with Angel wings or even yellow starch
and bearing him Permissions to observe
(and dearest backup):
questions accumulated into crackup --
Boss, let this chalice pass, or let me serve --
and thirst to parch

while they accused who soaked the shoes to fit
and wore the lawful mile while he sat gumming
what they said;
how dared so many resurrect the dead,
make such words flesh despite what a cold coming
they had of it?
..2/27/05

	58

Ha'ng scared his shadow, Henry sought to hide:
he did not care for six more weeks of Nixon;
who slogged ashore
no longer rose to live here any more;
the Puritanest starch peeled down to vixen
mouth teeth and wide

getting and getting laying waste his power
'til little he had of anything was his,
more would not happen;
but he could jump before his landing, Cap'n:
starch said somewhere he was quite the fizz
if whiskey sour

and so he piddled at his Magnum Opus,
demoting "r"s, promoting "s"es, dry
syllables putsched
'til even Twiss' golden twesses butched,
for he'd not see, did he but never try,
Gestapo grope us.
..2/28/05

	59

Amid the alien corn sat Henry, ruthless,
would not love a line while all those others
got the clap
who might be rednecks if a chair-leg's gap
bookended Shakespeare or a bachelor brother's
dog was toothless;

loved he the Crab for being parsecs off
but not the sun for that the selfsame gases
shone on him:
Fraunhofer lines refuted every whim,
pronouncing neither any Higher Masses
nor /mazel tov/.

First Sin nor error washed clean by the blood
thundered his ears, obscuring every Voice
that god presumed,
he drank to starched Eurydice exhumed,
inanimate, and loved could only choice
but shed his mud.
..3/1/05

	60

There is no God of Silliness, he noted,
counting his lady's blackheads in the crisp
eye-hurtful dawn;
we'll worship that oursel's until we're gone
with all of it, whose least and lacy wisp
leaves God outvoted.

Then how, Thou Hard, he have his Henry hole
below the cliff when Thou climbst Henry out
like any crocus,
sentenced to time in cribs that will not focus,
starch compelled to wipe away each pout
would guide his goal,

him white of every who he ever was,
Pure Gift of Purer God conceived of woman
untimely ripp'd --
You Put That Back!  All muscle limp, slack-lipt
and slinking past the monuments of human,
he does.  He does.
..3/2/05

	61

The Land of Sky-Blue Waters was dead gray
sicklied o'er with a polluted pea
and stank of fish
and Henry could not even write a wish
without some crying that's what they could be
if he'd go 'way,

so Henry studied how to make them happy
enough to plink his plate when it was passed
a laureate
being bound to make no Child feel not quite Great,
nor praise him slow nor fast but just half-fast,
not average crappy.

Thrown on his head along the road to campus,
his linding bash of flight now roamin' creed
'twas Pauline peril,
Henry could love provided he were sterile,
that greatness known could leave in him no seed
to counterstamp us.
..3/3/05

	62

Prokofief and Bruch in Auden Pound
in Eliot O all the pointing parts
go glad to war
along with making them two decades' chore:
Bellow, shriek, and roar are all their hearts
and so the sound

will feed no unicorn on what it dim
or lead it to the water there to parch
and fine by us
but what of Henry dares nor wish nor cuss
but wants the unicorn as white as starch
in love with him?

Or let the willow stop the aching harp,
soft fingers make the gutty strings go numb,
there be no song
returns Eurydice's faint will to wrong
Atlantic Adam's horny rib be dumb
as any carp.
..4/27/05

              -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

            Index of First Lines

 27  Above all, Hopeful Henry want be nice:
 59  Amid the alien corn sat Henry, ruthless,
 31  And Henry's friends kept leaving him, the bastards,
 24  And who were we, that singing on the beach
 19  As many times as Henry had been born
 43  Barf Later sees at last the Game of Death:
 11  Brief Henry put eternal friends away
 33  But blood in a bag and foul smell cannot sing
 20  By coffee do I second that emotion,
 35  "De dream no good; you gots to make you fuss
 41  Fallen from starch, the loving of the meats
 32  Fame?  Who would be so fondled by his junkies
 38  Friends pre-embalmed and Sylvia half-baked
 36  From this brief jubilation Orville flew
 25  Good soldiers always got him gold, then gold
 58  Ha'ng scared his shadow, Henry sought to hide:
 40  "/Hast seen the whale?/"  And sun gave it a glance,
 44  Hated he those he learned for being first
  5  Henry, given a bikini string
  1  Henry only hankered for the starch.
 22  He dreamed continually of those who were truly great,
 15  He wore the ashes who had never burned
 48  His dreams too drunk to drink in his own tongue
 23  His slack-time visits to the violent dead
 10  How do you do when Hades spits the bones
 55  It is no martial art to break a board
 28  My voice crack?  Sure, and if it isn't mine.
 26  No drums, no trumpets, Henry counted rows
 47  No "/rectum roseatum meam/," sod
 39  Not for the poet does the stellar jay
  2  Nuisance value.  Atropos their boss,
 30  Oh, Henry did not have to touch the Earth
 13  One attribute would Henry not inherit
 50  One learned his name and that was one too many;
 57  Palm slapped to forehead, fingers tongues of flame,
 54  Praise is nice, too, especially when it ceases
 62  Prokofief and Bruch in Auden Pound
 14  Propped in his Throne, his orders figured out
 46  Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, O what Pain,
  9  So don't be, Mr. B.  Or, not to B.,
  4  Sylvia-slapped, poor Henry howled alone
 21  Tell forest fires.  Or tell it to the moon.
 51  The dead and frozen world again to mush
  6  The heavy bear that Henry wore to bed
 61  The Land of Sky-Blue Waters was dead gray
 56  The winter sun was well too low for sight:
 60  There is no God of Silliness, he noted,
 18  They say me ornery, Horatio,
  8  Things fall apart, said Henry; Mr. Bones
 37  "This loving should he carve in stone," he said,
 52  Though he was troubled by a thought of fandom,
  3  Thunderfucked, poor Henry did blue grass
 42  Tired of the meat and jealous of the bone
 49  Tried he to sing the tatter in the dress,
 29  What Muse there was dissolved in donkey-work,
 17  "What we have heah," said thinning Mickey Rat,
 34  What use teach babies, Henry, when they Bones
 45  When all else fail can Henry brag his martyrs
 16  While Henry found the powers in words Divine,
 12  With vase to make him tock, young Henry wound
 53  Worshipped did he the dead for being dead
  7  Your face broods from my students, Suicide,

              -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-