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LIBRARY 1
Michigan State
University

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

A PORTABLE HOTEL

presented by

William Allen Kincaid

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

MA. degree in English

Major professor

May 10, 1989

 

0-7639

MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

PLACE N RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before one due

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II II II————II

MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

A PORTABLE HOTEL

by

William Allen Kincaid

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

1989

507917?

ABSTRACT

A PORTABLE HOTEL

by

William Allen Kincaid

A thesis of original poetry, A PORTABLE HOTEL contains four parts
that attempt to throw light on diverse aspects of the mind and its
mental life, in the same way that rooms are set aside for different
functions within the same house. The mind wanders from room to room,
seeking to express itself in a personal mythology of idea and image
derived from many sources: Homer, the Bible, American Indian and
Asian Indian mythologies, Villon, Whitman, Stevens, Wakoski, Philip K.
Dick, and the worlds of painting and film. The mind's struggle is the
constant search for personal truth through unflinching scrutiny of the

mental life.

"One would have still to discover. Among the dogs and dung,
One would continue to contend with one's ideas."

-Wallace Stevens, "The Glass of Water"

Copyright by

WILLIAM ALLEN KINCAID

1989

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my wife, Osiris M. Cornejo.

She not only believes, but also knows.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To all my teachers, especially the poets. In particular, Diane
Wakoski, who taught me to listen to myself with a critical ear. Also
to Osiris, without whom it would not have been done. And to my

parents, who made it possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE: MAKING UP MY MIND .

Love in the Seventh (for 0)
Changing Color . . .
Self Portraits .

Being Here .

Debt .

Voyage of the .Plutonian Boatman into a Panama of the Mind

The Astonishment of Commonplace Memories .
The Light in the House .

Playing Games .

Making Up My Mind

The Heat of Saturn .

Crossing .

PART TWO: FUN WITH DEATH

Fun with Death .

Film Noir .

For a New Testament

Name .

The Rest of the Satanic Verses (for Salman Rushdie)
The Book of Truth Is All Lies .
The Last Party .

Blood

PART THREE: TALES OF WESTERN ZEN

The Amused Muse .

In the Long Line at the Supermarket

Five Women Inside the Room in My Mind

Walls Are Thicker in Spanish Castles . .
The Same Wind (for Marcus and Dianne Cafagna)

vi

. 28

. 29
. 31

37

. 40
. 43
. 45
. 47
. 49

. 51

52

. 54
. SS
. 58

59

PART THREE, continued

For Sisters

Healing .

Holistics (for Philip K. Dick)
Ancient Iowa Sonnet . .
Sharp Ice . .

Ars Philosophica . .
Kick- Aha and Other Dog Tails .
White Knights .
From the Diary of a Dipiomat .
My Comic Career . . . .
Tales of Western Zen .

PART FOUR: ILLUMINATION .

Across the Bay . . .

The Alchemy of Translation .

The Truth in Iowa .

The Lincoln Tunnel and Other Time Travels

The Half- Life of Great Paintings (for Sue Barton)

Edges .

Illumination .

Rain .

The Earth Turning Gradually to Moon (for 0)

vii

. 60
. 62
. 63
. 6S
. 66
. 68
. 69
. 7O
. 71

73
75

76

77

. 79
. 82
. 84
. 88
. 90
. 92
. 94
. 95

PART ONE

MAKING UP MY MIND

"I can't get my mind to work."

from kin U M Mind

LOVE IN THE SEVENTH (for 0)

love has more innings

than any crackerjack ball game
when i get good wood on it
her pitches are corkscrewing
me right into the dirt
sometimes

but i get up dust off

and dig in again

‘to wait for a sweet one

right over the plate

when it comes

i lay into it hard

swinging for the fence

until i can see that

old pill disappear

into the bleachers

i drive home every runner

and steal a base or two

until she puts her foot

back on the rubber

and throws me the high hard one
in this game of pitch and catch

1 return her throw

with something extra

when she bats, it's simple

a home run on every pitch

we both end up winning

1 love a good game

after the seventh-inning stretch
i'm playing this one

for keeps

4-7-87

East Lansing

CHANGING COLOR

Turquoise looks good on her

the color of the sea

she calls it aqua

i wear black better

even the blue

of the navy, marooned

in ships off some desert isle

she wears the blue of the air force
flying high above the green earth
radiating blue light

i had in mind a different tale

when i started on colors and how they fit
meaning to sing their peculiar notes
into a rainbow above strange clouds
the sky is earth

when you're upside-down

running jumbled images through

the brain skewered by juxtapositions
Neptune driving his chariot

across the capricorn green

the inexorable pull of surf

salt lapping at sand

erosion is such a neptunian thing

with eyes closed

diving through sacred water
trapped in this poem
radiating blue light
fragments of poems

float to me

i cannot write them

now even the sea

is changing color

4-14—87

East Lansing

SELF PORTRAITS

When I could still draw

and paint, before I ran out of
light and easy patience,

I drew and painted colors

on everything I saw

and every picture told my story
frozen over and over.

All stories were the same

and you couldn't see them.

All my art was self-revealing,
self-inflicted.

I painted clowns and summer
shrubs, I drew merciless
creations of the night,

all projections of myself.

Every portrait was me,

every rock, every car.

I wanted you to look at them clearly.
I wanted you to see the me in you
lying in a ditch beside your house,

I wanted to walk to you screaming
because you gave me no applause,

because I couldn't reach the me in you.

I wanted life to be

like looking

into the mirror and seeing
somebody else's face

for the first time,
knowing that everything I made
was inside me,

knowing that what you saw
in me was you,

some part of you,

sensing it way back

ideep in the farthest part

of the mirror,

not necessarily concave

but caving in on me

like the glass

when a vacuum bottle breaks,
until the pain of not seeing
forced me

to transmute myself with words.

5-4-87

East Lansing

BEING HERE

in the living room

a cool May breeze

flows through screen windows

the train has come and gone again
they always come and go these days
i'm listening to the song of clocks
that hum to you in your sleep

the clocks are set to different times
your daughter has her time, you yours
and i remember that somewhere

long ago i once was dead

once was dying inside

a badly furnished room

where time was the same

day or night, until another

empty bottle forced me out

to walk to the store

back and forth 1 walked

like trains on a circular route
never arriving, never departing
always on the way to somewhere

i always wanted to get on one

and ride to the end of the line

i always wanted to be someplace else
not here

and now i'm writing again

listening to the magic

sounds of an occupied house
listening to people breathing

and the sound of friendly clocks
soon i'll finish this poem

and slip into bed

trying not to wake you

before your time

i'll listen to another train go by
that i don't want to ride

knowing trains can't take me anywhere at all
knowing anywhere i go

begins with being here

5-7-87

East Lansing

lO

DEBT

the syntactless music

of metal rusting

in the shiny water

couples with the beat

of birdshit washed from the
bodies of the wounded

in the shower

traded for muddy

teacups toasting gypsies
and other liars

enigmatic erections

as I carve all your faces
into my own personal totems
the heavy rains begin

to hide the bottles thrown
round the campfire

these memories survive
like trees that line

the water's edge

calling us to remember
like children

stumbling with each discovered step

ll

climbing
understanding no music

until we hear the rain

6-7-87

East Lansing

12

VOYAGE OF THE PLUTONIAN BOATMAN INTO A PANAMA OF THE MIND

After I had stepped off the plane

and the last savages had retreated

from the twisted paths that coursed through my mind,
I saw the ghosts of what we all might have become
if the runways had not been laid down,

if the jungle had not been beaten back,

if the course of these mighty waters

had not been altered forever

by the sheer weight of human avarice

disguised as an expression of enterprise;

And I saw those same ghosts take up lonely outposts
guarding the edges of my mind

from the villainous ruinous exposition

and expansion that I had seen from the air,

the mobile upward instinct defined in steel shafts
rising and thrusting a City toward the sun

and towards the night.

I saw my place on the edge

of the abyss, ready to plunge.

None of the ghosts could dissuade me

from this ruinous beauty,

the sing-song bell-like sound of speech,

the patterned chaos of vegetable markets,

13

the smell of gossip on a helpless summer day.

I thought of you making your journey the other way,
and my escape opened up to me.

In a dream, I saw the ghost

who writes prayers for our tears

and I took the time to smash his face.

If I come to Panama in another life,

I'll only bring what I can take away.

7-2-87

East Lansing

 

14

THE ASTONISHMENT OF COMMONPLACE MEMORIES

These memories fall,

shards of fired clay

scattered on the tarmac like drops of blood.
Like the common crockery,

cracked and faded, used by my relatives

to serve the austere lemonade

underneath the sumac trees.

I have sat up all night to escape

that smell. Fresh asparagus stalks

cling to tastebuds like the straining

hands on the edge of the lifeboat.

The sight of a moon half-risen through fog,
eyes aching to recover the embryonic sightlessness.
I am nailed to a mast, a Christ

impressed into a navy built for barbarian Greeks,
hands lashed, nails bitten and rebitten,
bleeding in circles through the swamp.

Eyelids burning with the stitches

where they've been sewn open,

eyes burning with the endless sun.

I am Odysseus, king of kings,

nearly omniponent to my men,

sweltering in an abundance of obedience,

15

released into a vision of disease.
Listening to the horrible beauty,

I see the course behind me,

the wake where I have come from.

I wrench my neck around to look ahead--
long ahead--

farther than I've ever looked:

mobile hordes of locusts gnaw

at my stomach lining, at my intestines
while on my head rest

butterflies and caterpillars

with their brocaded silk cocoons,
performing intricate movements

without intelligence

without pity

I welcome the unconsciousness when it comes
to fall into dumb sleep

to forget the wreckage of the clotted clay

to let my mind escape like after-dinner gas.

7-6-87

East Lansing

 

16

THE LIGHT IN THE HOUSE

As humor begins in your eyes,
black coals tinged with white ash,
sparks radiate a passion

tender as freshly dressed veal
ready to be stripped into a pot
ready to be chopped and rolled

ready to be laid on the table.

As breath begets wind upon wind,
currents flow as easily as time
down winding rivers that curl

into your heart like a good book,
opening channels to raise the heat
and fan the fire of each touch,

each stroke, each lick of lust.

The light in the house

begins with a small flame

growing in the shadow of the larger heart,
breathing the oxygen that flows from love

that merges all identities in healing fire

 

17

to become the energy in the sun,

to be the conflagration in your eyes.

7-9-87

East Lansing

 

l8

PLAYING GAMES

I get bored at bowling matches or
watching the president's men drown like
ducks in a pond,

locker room assassins shooting off mouths,
swimming in congressional whines.

I never like to golf; I get

clubbed by 01' boys

all over the green.

They beat me with irons and other weapons
until I can't even see the ball.

My mother ran for city council twice

in the wrong part of town.

Her slogan should have been

"a swimming pool to keep cool

and the business of business is business."
If I was elected,

I'd junket to watch the Boston Marathon;
I'd say "if you can't join 'em, beat 'em."
I played basketball in gymnasium heat

and baseball underneath the sun.

In the lazy frantic student councils,

I voted like a merry go round rider

too dizzy and sick to get off.

19

I felt each shot fired

in my stomach lining, when

I pressed hard against other bodies
waiting for the rebound.

Each pitch became a rebuke I couldn't let by;
my stick spoke when my tongue could not.
I was never entertained by car racing.
The race I drove had greater force

and power to bury me alive

among the other wrecks

and denizens of Bedlam and Gaol.

I learned to shoot pool in Bedlam

at a nine-foot table lined with slate.
The other shut-ins elected me

to sit on their powerless council

and pontificate at length.

I was as elegant a statesman

and as persuasive in my power

as any driver running from a burning crash.
If I had to pick a game to play

to take me rolling past the hill

and show me where the river ends,

I could always find my way with cards.
They speak to me of other homes.

But in the fields and courts of power,

 

20

the game I'd have to play to conciliate
my mind is cutthroat billiards. And

I would always call the last shot.

7-16-87

East Lansing

21

MAKING UP MY MIND

I can't get my mind to work.
Like an insect, a fly searching
among the garbage cans.

Or a butterfly inside, trapped
by a tall screen window before the light goes.
In the tedium of the library,

the air vibrating like the air after battle
with the stillness broken only by

the cool monotony of the air machine

and the occasional stray noises

and bits of motion.

I am occupying myself with everything.
Entranced by the hum of the machine,
listening to the buzz within me

that is as loud as the near silence

that surrounds me seated at this table.

I see the lights, frequent and mysterious.
I have as little awareness of their power
as I do of my own,

revealed to me only in the wind

that generates out of the inmost

depths of my lungs.

These breaths, these thoughts, come

22

in automatic waves that go to destinies
unplanned, unrehearsed.

Spiders dropping filaments,
paratroopers on a foreign shore.

Once the invasion has started,

my mind moves on

with a mind of its own.

No logical conclusion

can ground the flight

of these engines. No poor

table or piece of notebook paper

can hold them in contented form.

My mind is an army of ants in this library,
dragging heavy morsels of fiction
along the tedious highway,

searching for its nest.

I hope I can survive the occupation.

7-21-87

East Lansing

 

23

THE HEAT OF SATURN

I am reading a book of Wakoski's poems

that you gave me for my birthday,

while listening to your daughter

and her defiantly clean friends

talk in phrases filled with adjectives

that grind into my ears like dull axes.

The book has knives and forks as sharp as icepicks.
I like the feel of them,

knowing that the heat used in the delicate forging
of dull steel into precise instruments

is the same heat that drives these girls

out into a cool Michigan night.

I also find hot stoneware among the cutlery--
stones disguised as glasses of wine, as seeds

from fruit, as coasts and other landscapes.

I want to gather the stones on our coffeetable,

a small shrine to the new poetry,

the scale model of a new Stonehenge

fired upward as a space station.

I imagine you listening to your daughter

while piloting us from here to Saturn,

dodging cold rocks that might distort transmission,

hoping only for a moment's peace

24

while she consults her codebook.

On the rings we wait to see the sun eclipsed by Saturn,
laughing in the darkness

when your daughter's friend asks the neighbor
for a ride in his BMW

but he has to do the laundry.

I can feel the heat even at this distance.

In the heat of Saturn

I touch the book,

hot with semi-precious stones,

hot with campfires

marking strange outposts and other destinations.
I feel the pages,

embossed and raised

into a map of Saturn.

I can almost feel I know this place,

until you land me back on the coffeetable,

back in the world of greenware

like the Michigan clay that I am.

7—28-87

East Lansing.

25

CROSSING

On a bridge above dark waters,

I drove your car through summer rain

all the way to Ramon's restaurant

from a piece of shore called home.

I wanted to eat at the Big Boy,

to gorge myself at the salad bar

forgetting all except the destruction of the lettuces

the demolition of the other vegetables

the ravaging of the diet dressing,

losing myself in virtuous gluttony.

I would have been content with salad,

but your daughter pulled out a twenty

with a flourish worthy of the noblest blood.

The three of us glutted on tortilla chips and chili sauce
and twelve-inch burritos that almost overflowed our plates.
Four years ago, I walked north

towards the same bridge on Washington Street near Main
within sight of the triple smokestack

of the Oldsmobile plant that stands

at the heart of the city of Lansing.

I was thirsting for comfort as I passed by the bars:
Ramon's, MAC's and the bowling alley lounge.

Deep in the self-pity of my new and fragile sobriety,

 

26

my relentless alcoholic mind
urged me to give in to my fate
and let one of these bars

suck me in as a vacuum cleaner gathers trash.
I was thirstier, though,

for something that bars couldn't hold
and held myself off

until I reached the bridge.

Looking far down into the water,

I saw the river for the first time.
There was no reason not to jump.

I could have fallen into the water

as a pilgrim seeking a holier state
and let the river swallow me.

But I watched the river pass below
and waited motionless until,

in a pool formed by some debris,

I saw a further vision

of you cleansing me with a sponge.
You were robed in white

with a blue turban covering your hair
and I was naked, half in

and half out of the pool.

Sheer rock walls rose above our heads

where milk-white figures hurled themselves

27

around a narrow ledge cut into the stone.
As you bathed me

with your golden sponge,

the ivory dancers jumped and glided wildly, but none fell.
I soaked, resting in your arms,
retrieved from the rocks and the debris.
I watched until the swelling river
washed the pool downstream.

Alive, I began to walk to the further shore.

11-15-87

East Lansing

 

PART TWO

FUN WITH DEATH

 

"The story of the world
cannot be told by an idiot"

from The Book of Truth Is All Lies

28

29

FUN WITH DEATH

I
Death wears black cowboy boots with gold spurs
and black satin jeans with shiny gold patches on the pockets.
In the black leather holsters, Death carries the future

like a pair of solid gold .44 magnum pistols.

You always walk up to Death, thinking it's a woman

or a man, trying to make a pass. Death has enormous eyes.

Death sets the table with blue lead plates

and platters. Before you can eat, the wind turns cold.

The rains come down. The house begins to float. You notice
the hands of Death carving meat. The fingers are sharpened

pickaxes. Death never wastes anything.

II
Death loves me. Death loves me not.
The question in the mind is nobler
than two answers in the bush.

Death always knows more than one answer.

30

Death philosophizes like an ancient tree.

A giant sequoia rises from the floor

and spreads its branches like a deck of cards.

Choose one, says Death.

III
Death loves to catch you
thinking it's the end,
then flip you over to tomorrow

like a half-done pancake.

7-5-88

East Lansing.

 

3l

FILM NOIR

the first frame holds

the table where you rest

your bejeweled elbow

next to a bottle of water

flavored to resemble liquor

that you drink

from a stone snifter

like some screen goddess

hungry for a bowl of apples

reflected in the pair of mirrored glasses

that lies beside you on the table

when I put on the mirrored glasses
in the next frame

i see with a new clarity

i'd confused you with the apples
shining red like roses

i'd confused you with the image

of the liquor that you drink so well
the image you created

now comes a new perspective

i hardly know the vision

that i see through the lenses

32

a short dark woman

gulping flavored water

through a straw

in a plastic glass with ice

your purse lies unopened

near one leg of the table

your nails are stilettoes
polished to perfection

reflecting images of dogs and cats
who come to lick

and beg for attention

i am sweating like a radiator
as i sit at the table
dripping water

like rosedew

that some cats are lapping
your miniature face

reflected into your eyes

by my mirrored lenses

waits for rivers

for gymnasiums

for animal asylum

33

a waiter staggers over

to uncork another bottle

he steps on the tails

of your favorite cat and dog
who bite him simultaneously
and die

laughing

you give the waiter

an extra dollar

he pours your flavored water

Your hair sprouts branches

that stream like lightning bugs
through the portholes on the sides
of my glasses

1 take them off screaming

mugging for the camera

1 think that i am dying

you take off your gloves

and lay them

on the table

you are not persuaded

34

my eyes are burning

red as gassed roaches

all the dogs are dying
licking at the sidewalk

i no longer see

clearly

without my mirrored lenses
only the water

reflecting your red lipstick
your red image

underexposed and overdeveloped

you rise

like dark angels
emerging at sunset
the waiter falls
across the table
spilling red water
at your feet

his eyes laughing
he dies

you take back

the dollar

 

35

my emotions confuse me

you sit down again

and start to eat an apple

from the bowl next to the glasses
the light confuses me

i wait for an answer

a film in dark colors

you take out an emery board

the rasp is like cannons

like chalkboard hangnails

epileptic spasms

you offer an apple

with teeth half-smiling

in this dim light

they look like daggers

though without the glasses

1 don't trust my perceptions

if i could write your screenplay

it might be a true confession

or the dream of the sacred huntress

or just the apology of a fool

36

the camera zooms in on

your nails

red as rosewater

tapping intricate rhythms

on the table

next to my glasses

an empty bottle

and a bowl of half-eaten apples
the table stained

with blood and water

as the credits slowly flicker

11-21-87

East Lansing

 

37

FOR A NEW TESTAMENT

I, Francois Villon, son of man and woman,
sound in mind if not body,
revoke all previous testaments

made in the late age, before television.

I make this legacy available
once and for all, to clear up
certain misconceptions, without malice

or justice in this acceptable year.

I will give you
all the wisdom
I have stolen many times,

like all kings and creators.

I will not bring you
a shattered heart
desiring spiritual gifts,

suffering the commonplace.

Not the shallow ecstasy
of madness overcoming cowardice
through the appearance

of a saviour.

38

Had I known how the powers
would distort my word,
I would not have tempted honest women

and men to speak of me and taste

my grapes
gathered from a bramble bush,
my bread

pressed into wafer thin loaves,

my pages on the waters,
floating like my path
down back roads,

risen among thieves

in a new wilderness
where I have hidden
more than forty days,

resisting my own temptation.

I will not give you the heaven
festering within you,
like a quagmire

or a dead salt sea.

F.— -.a._"“

39

I will give you a kingdom
where we are all kings and robbers
and creation is the word for world,

stolen out of stagnant paradise.

9-23-88

East Lansing

40

NAME

(Kincaid--derived from the Gaelic word cencead,

meaning "head of one hundred" or "centurion")

i am working on Will. Within,
power slowly gathers

and exercises, knocking heads

Beyond will i am not willing

my name has nothing to say:

Inside, I have one hundred men
who work for the commission on naming,
who roam many towns

all in my head

Being needs no defense.
The existent mind swims in thought

almost without thinking:

My name has nothing new to say;

beyond the power of Will, i am.

“v- “u ‘q

41

Not like Kill Bincaid, the murderer.
whose dead kin decayed
despite the power of wills; too late

to change their names

My name has to say nothing now
while i gather all my selves

from all corners of myself, turning

Beyond all will or willying,

Nothing has to say my name

Aloud, like songs
festered by one hundred men
in roman type

invading many towns on hills but

All in good faith, I ask
do i traitor or hero

when i kink up the aid?

I-_'I--J-'

42

do not billy me or i will

Say nothing until my name

8-11-88

East Lansing

43

THE REST OF THE SATANIC VERSES

(for Salman Rushdie)

Logos 1. the Word of God 2. the creative power of God
3. the principle of reason as expressed in the universe

--Uncle Dave's Dictionary

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God."

-John 1:1, KJV

Finally, no one is safe in this garden-variety village
from the price of lost innocence

curdling on the tongues of the disenlightened
making their grey obeisance to stupid authority,
from the blood cries rattling prejudiciously
mixed with messages of love fired from guns
through centuries of shadow armor battles

chosen before the world began.

We are the guardian angels of love of expression:
the small incandescent extract of the life force
burning inside each human ribcage, driving on
even to the very end of the insane village

and out into the fields and forests

to embrace the sanity breaking through

 

44

as the Logos emerges at each crossroads of the world.
The Logos, reaching into the insane global village
in the form of Eve's apple

dangling in front of the eyes of man

like a glob of spittle drooling down an idiot's chin.
The Logos, transforming and splitting like an atom
burning with the fire hotter than a thousand suns
until all the grey tongues crack open and bleed,

pouring out a libation for all martyrs to the cause of words.

3-5-89

East Lansing

45

THE BOOK OF TRUTH IS ALL LIES

The story of the world

cannot be told by an idiot
whose gibberish, at least,
would be honest though unreal.
His face, like mine,

reveals a purple or a dull blue
mixed with green metal haze,
like sun sheening on a train

or fruit juice spilled on the floor.
All invention begets invention,
freight cars on a track

rolling away in time,

the necessity of pain

avoided or at least delayed.

People believe stories

that are real as lies

because they can hear them coming
from a long way away.

They twist their minds,

trying to see around another bend
while the con man flips a switch
that shunts them off the main line.

The story of the world

46

cannot be told without a con,
driven like a spike

between the rails

or stuck like a seed

between an idiot's front teeth,
while he watches his toy train

go around again.

7-19-88

East Lansing

““7

 

47

THE LAST PARTY

Overloaded neurologic circuits,
A taste I know too well.

Drunks who chase each other

With pokers around the fireplace.
Screams that come

From nowhere in particular.

Like the needle running through
The eye, I look around

In the sputtering firelight
Running into the walls.

There's a bottle on the table;

A syringe lies on the bathroom floor.
None of the screamers can

See the fire. I can't hear

For the people drowning.

Give me a drink.

I give one

To my lover. I become her

Next of kin. I stumble out into
Sunlight-silence like

A graverobber stumbling on

An open tomb.

I ask myself what happened

 

48

To the circuits I abandoned.
The fire's burned out;

The bottle's empty on the table.

12-29-88

Virginia Beach

 

49

BLOOD

Since you have gone

I watch your image form

a holy ghost

imprinted like a negative

on the bed next to me

while I lie without sleep

waiting for the next moon

The shape of your face rises instead
stained on the pillow like Christ's blood
etched into the shroud

I try to wipe it off without seeing you
but your eyes are open

watching me from deep in your bones

where you make your woman's blood

that pours like a hot river from your wrists
from your slit until I am almost drowning
as blood covers the floor

now sticky and red

the mucilaginous flow an apparition

an emblem of the great wound

and passion

I feel your eyes on me like scalpels

cutting into my hands and feet

50

until I accept the blood as anointment

and allow myself to float

like an ancient Indian sacrifice

winding down the healing river

until the scars within me are transfigured
like the marks I left on your body

your transubstantial body

luminous as bread rising

the veins in your eyes like the stars

11-17-88

East Lansing

 

PART THREE

TALES OF WESTERN ZEN

"I never wanted to do comedy while standing"

from My Comic Career

51

52

THE AMUSED MUSE

She sits before me in silver and brocaded finery,
staring across my face with eyes of jasper

that peek out from behind her embroidered rainbow fan.
In a voice that plays me like an instrument,

she sends me swimming into waters

deep and full of rocks. She tells me stories

no one has ever lived to tell.

We drink a rare liquor from the same glass,
pungent with the scent of bitter almonds.

The light fades across our eyes.

Distant voices murmur like orthodox priests
chanting the unwavering liturgy.

Trees sway like bodies

of the recently hanged

as our hair becomes entangled,

enmeshed in a ritual older than wine.

Her eyes steal from the moon

and flood my mind with heat

bubbling out of hidden regions

uncovered by the cantata of her laughter.

The secret heat overflows like a newly awakened volcano
and I feel my eyes crossing into moonstone,

feel the earth within me shaking as her laughter

 

53

topples all my gravestones into the rocky waters.

As they sink out of sight beneath the surface,

I hear the laughter ringing in my ears

and feel it pulsing in my throat.

In brocaded finery, I play my voice like an instrument

and write down stories for the rest of the night.

12-27-88

Virginia Beach

 

54

IN THE LONG LINE AT THE SUPERMARKET

Waiting to buy a forgotten jar of coffee
Electric lights boring down on me

Your arms appear, waving

I spot you again as I near the register
Elfin face dancing in the next checkout lane
"Forget the coffee," you whisper

Clutching my arm with mystic fingers

"Do you want to end up like that?"

Pointing to a gnarled folded-up body
Unloading a small basket at the cash-only counter
"He was born in this store,

In the frozen food section," you say

Leading me to the electric doors

"Look how long it took him to get through the quick line."

11-7-87

East Lansing

 

55

FIVE WOMEN INSIDE THE ROOM IN MY MIND

The room has spacious cabinets of wood and marble,
windows overlooking glades and ponds.
Two women are blonde; they stand.

Two recline at length

on a brown sofa, the color of tea

or of crisp morning flakes.

Their hair is black. They wear
swords like soldiers and gleaming
brocaded belts around their chests.
The blondes appear uncertain,

like horses startled by nightnoise.
They wear long robes of terrifying
pacifying colors and design

and one has teeth that shine out
through the windows to become a moon
for weary travelers who seek some light.
In the room, I sit

behind a nearly barren desk, drinking
nothing but water

while you drink wine.

You are more important

than the rest. You live

inside the room

 

56

or out, sitting in your wicker chair

resting your foot on my leg

like you're doing now

while I write this, or

sitting on our sofa

watching the television news.

The sofa in the room is

occupied by the Queen

of Swords and her daughter

who will end all wars

_the hard way,

with heavy machinery asphyxiating all combatants.
Their bodies will be greased and used

as repair tools, reminders

that plows can serve as weapons

until something better comes.

The blondes are getting restless,

shifting weight from foot to foot.

You ask them what's the matter,

but I have forgotten to give them any language
other than the primal tongue of undiluted poetry,
stated without words, only symbols

from the creative fire within.

Soon their frustration will drive them mad

or send them to the showers

57

at the back of the room

where they'll try to douse their torches

to no avail.

I have also forgotten

to give the room any water

other than my own useless drink.

You will laugh then,

throw back your head and roar until I join in,
and rolling onto the floor in each other's arms,
we watch the room collapse of its own weight,
its doomed seriosity exploding

with all contents fragmented

out of existence.

Just you and I are left

to start construction again,

and this time,

to create something not so wholly and totally

out of my mind.

11-1-87

East Lansing

58

WALLS ARE THICKER IN SPANISH CASTLES

They act out Spanish songs

at the next door neighbors'.

It's part of their regular fight.
He always slams the door

she throws the dishes against,
after she tells him

he's her everything.

A matador throwing his bull;

a flamenco dancer spiking her heels.
She always screams,

”What have I done to you?"

He never answers.

We listen through the wall,

never so solid as it appears,
wondering why they stay

where they are,

why they don't go

and tear apart other hearts,

why they don't suffer

in blessed silence.

9-2-88

East Lansing

 

59

THE SAME WIND (for Marcus and Dianne Cafagna)

The wind lifts

balloons to sky,

over bodies engulfed

by sounds of love,

and in return wafts to us
the smells of bread
baking at home

mingled with scents of fish
in far harbors.

The same wind

breathes through both
noses just touching,

curled together on one pillow.

8-20-87

East Lansing

60

FOR SISTERS

All stone stands on sand;

across our paths, the stars scatter rain

that filters through pores in the matrix rock,
through shifting twisting shapes beneath our river
like a snake's belly undulating, coagulating.

Like clay that forms in quiet water,

we return to see and walk the steps

with naked eyes and feet,

the lines on our hands like scratches in the quartz
that lines the bottom of our river,

like small pains that remind us of the living way.
To be healed is the gift of the sick

to those who ask small mercies to become miracles
like summer songs that heat the river before fading,
misting and obscuring all traces of the stone;

our gift is love.

Because we love, we wake

to trust the shifting quartz sands of our river
and feed the plants that grow between the grains,
listening to each other through the storm and fire:
to let the stars wash our paths with light,

to let our love give up the clothes of gift and stone

 

61

and let the river pour us, sift us

until only love is left.

9-9-88

East Lansing

 

62

HEALING

When the evening sun meets the sea,

like a lobster swimming on his back
through a river canyon

with sheer rock banks

cut through red sandstone

hundreds of feet deep

but not deeper than the trench

between my teeth and lips,

the light spreads across the shiny water,
like a boiling lobster stretching out

as he cooks his redness into softer pink
like the color of a rose quartz

growing in the sandstone, healing

even the red in your eyes.

5-11-88

East Lansing

63

HOLISTICS

(for Philip K. Dick)

Has to be a way out
from Android metascheming
night-timeslide corporate trapjaws

spinning endlessly, gearwinding

Tighter and tighter, while posing as human,
keeping the whole egg barren underground
and hidden from all light,

laughing at our skins' destiny.

Clothing reality in a softer ambience,
the Android roads mesh into webs
colored like crepe foam

hanging over canyons disguised as valleys.

Despite the cover of Android darkness,
pink light squeezes through the shell
to set off the final implosion shock wave

and wrench the egg beyond time metaschemes

64

To die aborted and reincarnate
as caving underwater gods, jewels
in rock, tunneling under the world

to impregnate the virgin mother from within.

8-21-88

East Lansing.

65

ANCIENT IOWA SONNET

All the roads are snowed

and the homes encrusted

with ice and lights

jewels in the watch on my wrist
Turning over memory through the glass
the long walk out to the cows

in the predawn light,

breaking through the surface of the snow
The time changes, leaving

the almost invisible

heat rushing out,

foul breath

Warm from the christmas liquor

and the cows still in bed, waiting

12-23-87

Ames, Iowa

66
SHARP ICE

a plunge through sharp ice
rubs shards in the wound
it grows in my side like coaldust

sprinkled from the edge of the volcano

i stood impermanently fixed in chains
across the arena at your thumbs
the cuffs and slaps to me

like an old film horse

up whipped the heat and flame wind
your hair bound in leather
all across the scented page

a story bleeding with rose thorns

i nodded to the fallible mind
that turns me into pegleg and eyepatch
gently a river's mouth opens

almost hindering the next step

67

an arc in language snapped
like spiders' webs the mind's making
each watch taken easily as sleep

bolting upright into your canyon

5-3-88

East Lansing

68
ARS PHILOSOPHICA

Mediocrites,

the forgotten Greek philosopher,
claimed that Aristotle distorted
his theory of the excluded middle:
”Being in the middle

is worse than being

on a side.

One gets squeezed more

and more until

the middle vanishes completely."
He also said,

"As the wheel turns,

the hub travels

in the smallest circles.

That is a lesson

for our priests and leaders."
His motto was

"the greatest wood

for the greatest lumber."
Luckily,

all of his writings are lost.

9-7-88

East Lansing

(1‘

 

‘14-'11

69

KICK-AHA AND OTHER DOG TAILS

This dog, lying like an Indian rug,
whether a Navajo or woven in Calcutta,
tells me without talking that he can
think me under the table; I'm considering
the offer, when by slight off hand remarks
he hounds me into a corner. I'm barking
in the wrong tipi, and pretty soon

he runs off on both legs, laughing,
leaving me holding my head. I get up,
thinking I've got no kick, at least

life is. That's when the trickster

bites me in the aha. When I try

to kick back, all I find is hair.

4-27-88

East Lansing

70

WHITE KNIGHTS

The blood fleet catalyzed from druidic bone marrow,
too vast to fathom in its complex movements

as though the subs rotated and shifted

through openings between cilia and other cells

at completely random intervals to avoid detection,
a laconic wolfpack based at the core

of the interlocking bone structure.

The submariners return united in blood,

as the radio recalls them

from triumphal engagement with enemy vessels
whose remnants plash down the hulls still pulsing.
Some must stand vigilant against further invasion,

feudal lords watching from their high conning towers.

12-28-88

Virginia Beach

71

FROM THE DIARY OF A DIPLOMAT

I smelled them through the wall all night,

locked into my interstellar hotel room with a view

of the vacuum shaft around which the hotel tumbled silently.
On our world, they wouldn't have lasted the night. "
The smell almost drove me to a violent act
during the negotiations. I kept telling myself:

they don't think like we do; they aren't u

 

like us; how could they know; be charitable.

Our hosts, trained by centuries of contact with strange species,
forgave us both our ungainliness in alien form

as they swam through the hotel air like giant glowing angelfish,
graceful in the shrewdness of their two-sided diplomacy.

The talks concluded in our favor, as I knew they would,

though it was late evening before I could turn the final key

in the lock that was their stiffest and smelliest member.

The only female in their party, she was small,

less than two meters high, yet the others deferred

to her judgment, if not to her authority.

I mention this only as an example of the subtle distinctions
employed by these creatures in their thought process

so different from ours, yet conducive to our ends.

I persuaded her finally by illogic, by the revelation

of a future filled with feminine unity

72

within a great plurality of space communities.

On our world, she would have been eaten long ago,

as much to banish her smell as to absorb her knowledge,
though I must admit that had I known her spirit

within one of our bodies, I would have courted her

as arduously as I pursued any of the clanswomen

who became the in-wives that I now form with.

Perhaps in time, as we absorb the humans into our withforming,
I shall meet again with this one called Lilith.

But not without considerable genetic transformation,

not after having to spend a night and day with the stench
of their bodies pouring into my membranes.

All the next day, on the return flight to our world,

I thought of our blessed clean-smelling planet

and all the other planets that held our withforming

and all the planets yet to come in.

9-5-88

East Lansing

 

73
MY COMIC CAREER

I never wanted to do comedy while standing

in front of a crowd. Public speaking

made my words smell worse than usual,

like long strings of farts tied together.

I knew enough to keep my nose plugged,

but superfluous puns kept hitting me on the chin
and even turned kamikaze, trying to force me

into a head-on collision with a run-on sentence.

I never needed props to do comedy;

one look at my face was enough for most.
When I spoke with no intention of levity,
my words became houses of cards

that fell apart into meanings that tended
to make people explode into laughter.
Finally, I decided to study comedy

at the famous Stand-Up Comics' School.

When I wrote home for money after the first week,
I got back pictures cut from ads for weight-loss drugs.
At the end of the first semester,

the School shut me up in a paper factory

where the smell drove me to wearing noseplugs

 

 

74

and carrying small handguns constantly
which I learned to use without any instruction

by watching crime shows with the sound turned off.

I never watch any comedy now,

afraid that there might be some stray puns
left sticking into my cushions.

Whenever I open my mouth, I check

to see exactly what I'm standing on.

I only write letters on brown paper bags.
And above all, I never listen to anybody

who even thinks of taking a comic seriously.

12-28-88

Virginia Beach

75

TALES OF WESTERN ZEN

A zenmaster was riding through the plains

of Oklahoma with some of his disciples. They
discovered the carcass of a cow, riddled with
bulletholes, still bleeding onto the ground.

A disciple asked, "Master, why would anyone kill
a cow this way?" "Perhaps they were just testing
their guns," said the zenmaster. "But why didn't
they shoot into the air, instead of this cow?"
The zenmaster looked upward. "Perhaps," he said,

”they did not wish to disturb the wind."

12-2-87

East Lansing

..L

PART FOUR

ILLUMINATION

 

"I wanted to hold the light in my hands"

from Ihg Ehgth Turning Gradually to Moon

76

77

ACROSS THE BAY

The trees whistle and lurch like sailors
on leave in San Francisco.

Between gusts of wind,

I feel the ocean crash in my veins;

when the wind stops,

the stillness of the trees

can't hind the currents

bursting into whitecaps

near the water's edge.

Somewhere behind me,

across the bay in Berkeley,

my father lived his early life.

Twenty years ago, I looked through his childhood window
across the bay to San Francisco,

city of adulthood and sophistication.

My grandfather was dying inside that house.
I wanted desperately to cross the bay.
Like my father, I wanted to escape

from the dying, from the family.

At age thirteen, I felt weighed down.

I thought my future ran in lines,
straight and constricted,

like the paint in the middle of a highway

 

78

or the bridge connecting two sides of a bay.
Developers razed my grandfather's house

to build a singles apartment complex

on land that has no hold on me.

Not like the ocean on the other side of San Francisco
that holds the same fascination

for sailors and small children.

The ocean running through me,

restless though pacific,

dazzling in sunlight,

unpredictably creating its own future.

Spray mists the air like steam

as each new wave breaks

as the whitecaps run through my blood.

11-18-87
San Francisco

East Lansing

 

79

THE ALCHEMY OF TRANSLATION

Translation is an imperfect alchemy. Does the caterpillar know
what it must become when it enters into the cocoon?
Is sand more beautiful? Or glass?

And to whom?

 

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER by Wal; Whitmgn

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,

when the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure
them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

 

80

PROCESS

"Everyone is everything,"
I heard the spiritual master say
and turned away to watch the sea
as the waves crashed through my hair,
as I crawled out onto the beach
to sleep until the sun grew warmer
like other stars in other days.

I woke myself with a big bang
that sounded like a smoke alarm
tied to my side, just above the flame.
I burned this light inside my chest cavity
for a long time, until
it came leaking out in streams
through every love I made.
At night, in the sky,
all the stars and moons I looked at

took part of their light from me.

 

 

 

81

PROCESS is an example of reverse alchemy, from gold to lead.
However, trying to transform ideas from one idiom to another
can be valuable in itself. The experience of the process,

not the product, leads to the ultimate enlightenment.

10-1-88

 

East Lansing

 

 

82

THE TRUTH IN IOWA

Small farmers grow

the truth in Iowa

as living flowers

groping out of the dark soil,
opening channels as personal idea

appears among the pastures and gardens

Debris encrusted on faces

and corn lodge walls

like the grease of past porkchops
and exhausted truck bodies
dotting the fields

like the hulls of giant kernels

Depleted by emigration

to urban mechanized oases

of high pay in Omaha or Kansas City,
the farmers ship truth to market
like all other word games

trying to bury the myth

 

83

The truth in Iowa,
measureless as sun's breath
growing into worlds

atop an ancient grain silo
hiding both magician and fool,

suspended far above the plain

11-5-88

Ames, Iowa

 

84
THE LINCOLN TUNNEL AND OTHER TIME TRAVELS

I watch the clock hands,

enemies of flesh,

moving across mouthless faces

fixed and triangulated in twelve slices,
across interstices between planets

like neurochemicals bridging the gap
charged with angular momentum stored in the spine
emerging as black wings

from the whitefat shoulders.

iThe energy contact points powered

by amps turned on and fully protected
skyscraper jungles plugged in to mesh
and merge in light as circles

shot into spinal taps

becoming spirals like the rings
inserted around Saturn.

In the hall of the time Makers,

white and black light, sun and moon
regaining the ancient forms

in the circle like pale white water
strained into luminescent black containers;

machine-crazy Uncle Sam and the other blue conspirators

 

85

renegotiate through their desperation, waving hands
yellow with fear like grapes
spattered on walls, in classes

stretched across shelves.

Half-formed, half-decayed

structures emerge from the dying light--
blooming and expanding into the raw openings
between the rings of Saturn

like blue cheese cultures.

Overhead, the fires burn through

the opening of the curtain like small hail
and we, caught in the ride under

and up to our ears,

cry "oh if my aching asshole

could only save my art"

and that is the rest of the

fire electric nightshadow happening

a thousand times repeated,

inserted into the tape by the Makers
winding the clock spring

in an endless loop

to burn out the motor at an infinitesimal pace,
like the sun turning ever slightly

away from the true path

 

 

 

86

and driving us off from the snake's belly,

losing us in the narcotic substratum.

The Helen Schmeck officers in their white suits
thinking they have us lightless this time,

a circling monstrosity in the backlit jungle streets
always having to stop and piss in the black corners,
saying "oh shit i wish i could"

and catching the light at the other end

of the tunnel, a moon reflecting.

When the blue phone rang

slowly, I pulled two marbles

out of the marble place

and picked the phone up with my nose

turned to fingers,

talking to myself again

and to the Makers:

black marble to the left,

white marble to the right

and then revolving through the woods

to the other side of the battlefield,
parading with the blue boys in the weak sun
like a bus creaking and groaning with the strain
of movement and growing slowly without focus

like a foggy moon until it swallows Saturn

 

 

 

87

and becomes the ringed world,

an orphan hugging the adopted father.

When the tunnel dilates open
and flashes down the blue song
like a curse, an alarm clock
sounds over and over again,

asking "when was my Gettysburg?"

12-9-88
Ann Arbor

East Lansing

_ __.JU

88

THE HALF-LIFE OF GREAT PAINTINGS (for Sue Barton)

Schizophrenic children wander through my paintings
searching for the stable framework

that they knew in your paintings,

hungry for the fine definition that you used
to guide them through the landscapes

beyond the edge of their bodies;

deChirico would have created them

falling through the frames

to pursue their moments in planed structures
cut and jutted through the sky,

angles thrust into multiple configuration
like right-angled noses

breathing out through Picasso's cut-
and-pasted constructions,

distorted eyes overlooking nothing;
unturned, but not unreflected,

they see some wonder

in the sense of their own destruction,
looking at their distortions

in a hypothetically cracked mirror.

This glimpse of them spins me through walls
of canvas painted over like Magritte's canvases

opening me to unknown spaces,

 

 

89

like my memory of your paintings,
minimally imagined by an aging Minimalist
feeling chalk-sketched

and as ridiculous as any artist

searching the ground outside his garden

for the seed of his next creation.

12-1-88

East Lansing

 

 

90

EDGES

Staring at my calendar

where the spot stands marked:

Ash City in July, 1969;

the way back opens

and I remember looking forward

out of the catatonic state,

listening to my future self

make a futile effort to warn me

about the coming world

while the TV war droned,

almost drowned out by the whisperings

and winches lowering the black boxes,

burnt edges in the files falling

through the hands to the littered pavement.
I thought only the high codebreakers could access the past
now that the memories were seamed over

and the rocks from the moon revealed no more
than the advice I couldn't take from myself,
worn like washed-up wounded and other debris
that offers clues to diggers excavating
deep into the skeletal fragments

at the aid station and other scenes

in the memoirs unwritten,

 

 

91

but spoken from the distant future

as though my body records an endless loop of tape
for a video unmade and unintended, perpetually playing back
unless erased by heat and careless handling,

the least burnt segues peeled and cut

like grapefruit sectioned open to the raw pink edges.
In the catatonic darkness,

black dust rubs into my eyes;

Ash City blurs across time,

identity unraveling in the mud of rushing juices.

I bury my history even as I unearth it

and take away nothing except what I can carry,

like all survivors: marks on a calendar

and scars that edge the dimensionless pain.

ll-16-88

East Lansing

 

 

 

92

ILLUMINATION

Watching a movie on videotape with your daughter
about a rebel with no cause but much effect,

I remember another film

made without words or lights

while listening to a dying radio station,

the reception fading in and out

like fireflies in the distant hills.

Tara has to watch the movie for high school English class,
to write a structured essay on the relationships
between Dean and Wood and Mineo

and the perfection of teen-age alienation

in this technicolor slice of Americana from 1955,
to make a study of these ancestral life-forms.

I watch, remembering another moment

flickering in a parallel universe

that remains a part of me, that I carry like a portable hotel
though I cannot live there.

Recalling the solitary face of the silent actor
captured on the murky 16mm black-and-white,
especially in the scenes where I am painting

and then moving the finished canvases

out through the rain, singing

"Goodbye to All That" but I don't know

 

93

all the words and I can read my lips

twisting in the dim deaf-mute frames.

The dark rain sticks to my head like beetles

that dig for grubs in the phosphorescent stumps of trees
while Tara laughs at ancient thirty-three-year-old lines
that are as funny to her at seventeen

as they are now to me, hearing them again

as though the radio stations never died.

As though the bad actor's shuffle

that flits across the small screen of my mind

could be the dance of an artist

accompanied by more than just the static

that is all the radio will play in that empty hotel lobby
while the paintings themselves, nailed to trees

or sold or thrown into pits,

refuse to give up being art;

as though the past holds illumination

for the universe that Tara lives in.

Watching the movie with your daughter,

we share for a moment in the making of our world.

All evening, the glow lights up around our bodies

like a candle flame swallowing moths.

10-26-88

East Lansing

 

 

‘11.

94
RAIN

When I looked into the wild ocean
that slaked my thirst and fed me

and kept me green with life,

whose immensity I could not hold in my mind
any more than I could hold your heart

to echo the beat of my own,

I saw the waves crush limestone rocks
and transform them into sand

that swept out with the tide

to mire and bog down the ocean
into a dark wet plaster

that I could not drink

until I left the water
to replenish and be cleansed,

like the earth, with rain.

3-10-89

East Lansing

 

 

95

THE EARTH TURNING GRADUALLY TO MOON

(for O)

I wanted to hold the light in my hands

When you first appeared like a slippery moon.

The sounds made by your body moving over water

Rustled in my blood like the music I heard

When I saw you rising in a sky of stars.

You gave the light in your body to my fields

And moved your house into the space behind my eyes.

Now the light rains through my forests from leaves to roots

While you pull me through the night like a tide.

6-1-88

East Lansing

MICHIGAN STATE
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V. LIBRARIES

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