cross/hairs

                         (or

                                 “I’ve got my

                                eye on you”

                         for Leni and John

kid, are you happy

with me, in this poem, the

heat on the plains

of India, the water,

come and go, are

good or not,           but

let’s just

go there, from

now on

6/12/65

a friend’s wife speaking

- from Tadeusz Rozewicz

(Polish contemporary)

he looks at me; his

blue eyes, bright,

bleed the sun. red

wine is black.

he still doesn’t

understand.

I can’t be as

young as I was

6/65

work/poem

                             - for Carl and Sheila

what do I want -

washing my body

in your hands

testing the weather

with ballons

writing this poem

for a friend.

whatever I have to do,

is never far from me; the

water, clean, then running

the dirt off my body

- close to me, on my skin -

that which I have is your

goodness, is near, for taking

as easily

as whenever I want it -

a hidden task,

and my tasks for you

form a list.

what do I want -

endlessly

cataloging

your dinosaurs.

6/65

earth-men

after them

her breath comes

short

panting panting

                       the gold

angel melted down,

divided,

collected out to virtuous greed;

                                       the bosses

slide in on damp grass, squeak

and eliminate

                              themselves - a row lined out

beside themselves:

(simple, parallel, half botthes

lie, pointing:

darkenss at the other side

of green glass;           she

reflects;

                                  cloth hangs

down      a coverlet for her

worldly

hang-ups

justification and contention are low points in consciousness. Try to forget them, put them out of mind; but they appear and re-appear everywhere, forever. Both come of the same nervous stomach; both are forms of enegry turned in upon itself; onanism of spirit: the two components, of one.

locate yourself wherever you can walk to whatever you need: and you won’t forget earth. because cars cross-multiply and generate spontaneously: poison the recollection: of distance, of time, of solidity (a solidity which is forgotten until you are surprised and on your hands and knees, fallen, bruised but conscious then).

structures break up space and can be only so many large rocks, parts of the horizon, solid and reminiscent. but the taller a building, the more you recognize it, the more you know it as smaller and less usable than anything in sight.

the poem is an apsect of your animal potential. you are not a saint. you are energized meat and the poem a part of “meat science.” the poet is not “special” but just another kind of animal, a species which could become dominant simply because it already exists as physical phenomenon. natural selection may soon demand the tendency.

Land and Life (by Carl Sauer) is a beautiful title for a book of geography. it stands without justification. contention springs automatically, but it is unecessary. a moment’s thought makes its truth obvious.

“sit up straight”: an expression we all hear, one way or other, every day. but don’t listen. WALK.

 

originals:

“I am the body, the animal, the poem

is a gesture of mine.” - Michael McClure

“…a nerve, a wire, a roadway, and a clearing-house are only varying channels which communication forces for itself. This is more than anology, it is identity of structure.

          - Ernest Fenellosa

“Language restores itself more quickly than any other energy.”

          - LeRoi Jones

“One acts from bottom, the root is the purpose quite beyond any kindness.”      - Robert Creeley

“There is not much wilderness left to destroy, and the nature in the mind is being logged and burned off.”

          - Gary Snyder

George Tysh

4/65)

(reprinted from the Artists Worksheet #10)

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