Monkeys Like To Drive Green Jeeps And Visit The Palaces of New Emperors

This misty, foggy, sloggy time of year when soggy leaves accumulate and swish and swirl – death with its vibrant hue and sigh is onto  me – early in the morn when moisture accumulates and drops from overhanging bony limbs and the shoulder blades are dewy and doughy – I walk alone down, up and back, around as yet deserted bye lanes where sleepy cabins slumber. When the world awakes then I shall only then myself go to sleep.

I had, I suppose, thought of myself as being a member of society in the same way as a passenger thinks of himself belonging to the ship on which he is carried – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p134

MY TONKA TOYS


A red armored truck
Then an orange tractor
       With sleeping compartment

You don’t see that many blue
        Autos any more
Earth colors are very popular
An occasional yellow cab
Then along comes a big blue
        Dump truck “All Pro Paving”
And a blue and white Pepsi Cola trailer
How about something green – a jeep
        No that one is red – there is
        Mommy in her blue mini van
Purple seems to be a popular color
For the independent trucker

Desire makes our / enchanter gracious, and / naturally he’s surprised to / be. And so are you to be / you, when he smiles – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p238

And I thought about changing the pronouns (the hes to the shes) but that would be faking it – you just need to understand that O’Hara was O’Hara and make your own translations if necessary – gender being what gender is

[A] poem fails because it does not fuse the two halves of a split situation, and attain a unity where the inner passion becomes inseparable from the outer one… perhaps the only people who attained it were the murders and the murdered – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p192

I got the car
It’s a matter of
       Good will
Not that it matters
But I don’t have any

       Natural rights
Those vested in
       Ownership
Are there any others?


So I got the car
       You see
Because I’m so very
       Very nice
What would you do
       For me
That I don’t have to
       Keep?
Will you let me be?

Somewhere I felt that there was a place which was at the very centre of the world, some terrible place like the core of a raging fire… If I could ever approach it, I felt it would be the centre where the greatest evil of our time was understood and endured. But at this thought I was appalled, for it made me realize that the centre of our time was perhaps the violent, incommunicable death of an innocent victim – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p192-93

PRIDE AND SENSIBILITY


That coat hanging there
       In that there closet
That coat with the yellow
      And tan squares and
The red lines that make them
      Into large checks
And the discolored collar
      Of fake lambskin
I found that somewhere
My roommate she says
      That she can’t understand
      How anyone can wear
      Something worn by someone

              Else
She won’t touch the thing
But that doesn’t make it
       Any less warm when
       I go out into the cold
I don’t often wear it
As I’m not often needing
       A coat wouldn’t
       Have bought
       A new one
                Anyhow
Pride has it’s cost
And I want to stay warm
Even when it means
We don’t walk arm-in-arm

Through the streets we skip like swallows. / Howard malingers. (Come on, Howard.) Ashes / malingers (Come on J. A.), Dick malingers. / (Come on , Dick.) Alvin darts ahead (Wait up / Alvin.) Jack, Earl and Someone don’t come – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p223

I’m so willing to listen
To any argument
       But the conventional
No time for apologists
I want to hear
       From you


Nonsense only resides
In that from which all the sense
        Has been extracted
Don’t talk nonsense
       To me
Say something strange

George Washington chopped down the tree, and then threw away the money… He was telling us an essential truth, namely, that money doesn’t grow on trees. This is what made our country great… Now George Washington’s picture is on every dollar bill – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p103

Is this emotion
This connection a
Combination of the ambiance
       And your conversation
It is the uniqueness
       Of this moment –
The song that is played and
The poem you wrote just
       For me
You can stay – there will
       Never be
Any ennui with you here
Otherwise I shall now die

Make believe you are happy, for you are dining on my image – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p241



Oh no - you tell yourself - you have places to go, things to do. I missed out on the story of the decade yesterday. I hope I find something else as worthwhile today! That was such a tragedy that happened to the “Little Red Wagon Blues Band” – the very best of the best of all the street musicians – the ones that had the portable generator that they pulled around in that Red Flyer – damn that was great blues that they played. A buster at the corner of Davis and Market next to the California St cable car terminus was telling of having teamed up with the man and woman who played the blues and how he never wanted to get close to anyone again and was bemoaning the tragedy of it all. It sounded like my “Red Wagon Blues Band” I was curious. It had been quite awhile since I had heard them - I asked him on a break whatever happened to them. Oh yes, he said that was them. He murdered her last spring. His trial is getting ready to begin.”

There is a good public restroom at the Main Library. It seems that the transients have not discovered this one yet. Its in the basement. So far only the more adapt homeless had found it. A transient takes a careful survey of his available public spaces. He must be creative. The first thing he needs to learn is where he can relieve himself and then where he can safely sleep.

“I was the first person there to witness history that day” Manning Marable wrote at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He was seventeen and had been sent down by the Dayton Ohio Express to file a column on Martin Luther Kings funeral.

At first I had recorded overheard conversations; now I talk to my books I converse with books – I redact and interact – I write and it is tight – it is and I am. I don’t do movie reviews. I don’t write political commentary. I don’t rank socially relevant events. I have no ten best. I only have this text.

It is ignoble…to give birth to nothing from ourselves - Pico dell Mirandola


Hand off yourself; try to build up yourself and you build a ruin - St Augustine


Who’s an independent - undercapitalizes venture - St Augustine

Be prepared for the factor that your return on investment may not be monetary

Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on! – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p232