Did you ever take a word to its utmost? Poem VII reminds me of the tale about the guy who went into a restaurant and ordered a bowl of pea soup: they brought him a bicycle…
We don’t usually get into interpretation, but (in poem IX) the singing is funny if not somewhat ironic- I haven’t worn underwear for decades.
I’m gonna warn you: if you haven’t thought about what a thought is, you’re in trouble.
PACOBOOKS
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
December, 1997
I
I’ve got your money
You might as well watch the race
I saw the shadow behind your face &
I know I told you to go for Place or
Even Show but stay away from Win
Win so easily breeds anger the
Horses talking among themselves about
Who got the needle that day
Winners from previous days look like
They’re ready to vomit
Acrid green aroma split by sunlight
This one horse had never liked the looks of
Barns stables & the like
He’d run over the hills & meadows
There was no time or gravity
Bind him in any way & he’d just stand &
Stare at you
They renamed him Ferdinand & envied
His freedom
Take a good look at your stubs
I may even owe you a little
The horn’s hot blade lifts us off our feet
Sand’s everywhere her mouth is on his neck
He’s oblivious staring at the running flesh
His Cowper’s activation comes from that
Until the race is finished he’s forgotten he’s
Married.
II
I see what they’re doing I
Have this dream & even awake I
See what they’re doing
These creatures from down back
When
Unconscious tabloid as it were
I wonder if I need words at all
As I see the crushing & the bending the
Making of a rack the wanton humping
I watch the movements the things the
Joints do limbs of all sizes grabbing one
Another wrapping around
It’s a lovely bed that I have made I
Have my eyes at the level of the soil I
See the new noses nick silently up
I take in my own pictures I
Want them to give me the sounds that
I can go to sleep to
Sounds like in music & images for
What they’re worth
Curious stones on the graves of words.
IV
Can thought go down on paper
If they’re lovers
Don’t do that
I’ve put my thoughts down here
On this paper for you & all the others
To see
I just see words
Thoughts made into words
Words turds I want to see a thought
I want to see one somewhere outside of a
Head
You transform the thought
Screw that I want to see before not after
There must be a good description somewhere
Okay okay someone pinned it a long time ago
Some are only images understandable & not
Some are sounds & impulses that become words
In the head or as they strike the paper
Wow I didn’t know you knew this kind of stuff
Where does it come from
Simple answer is coming out the mouth &
Going back in the ears
I’ll stick with that
You better.
V
Suck a dog with a
Red dick
Suck a dick with a
Red dog
Dick with a
Red dog what
Perversion
Is this
Drinkin a beer &
Lippin away may be an
Answer but if you
Ask me
It’s a nasty with the
Devil in command
Back up now there’s
No mention of sucking a
Dog’s dick
But if you have a
Dog with a dick &
There’s no companion
Handle him carefully
Go as far as you want.
VI
Look I bought the Fifth Symphony
What you’re crazy whose Fifth Symphony
THE Fifth Symphony asshole after what I paid
For this there can’t be any others
Someone’s sold you a Brooklyn Bridge
You wouldn’t know the difference between a
Bridge and a Symphony would you
What did it cost
If you must know it was well into the
Five figures
Ye gods
Swear not earthling I have here in this case
The masterwork of the future
Okay if it’s a symphony I want to hear it
Well that’s the problem between us Carl
You’re all ears and I’m all eyes
Look at this first page you get no thrill from
These notes got they double me make my aura
Turn in then you leap on me for sensation &
When it’s through go out somewhere to
Listen to music
(Weeps) I’m lost I die
I’m going to paper the bedroom with this
God yes do it do it can we have one speaker
In a corner
You bet if we both like him.
pacobooks 