these pink roses
some plastic shrine
@ music’s feet
unbroken divinity of eye / ear –
a prophecy deep from within the skull’s roots
controlled miles of flexible oratory
bouquets of plasticity stretching the petals of the bell
this sun this bursting gaffaw
parked here at the edge of godsland any jackson knows
any queen whoever-shed-her-face-of-water knows
any revolutionary zookeeper knows
any weaver of lace knows
any gone logic device knows
any virgin in search of the mystery knows
these unwaving toxic neo-industrial sad unscented roses
enshrined @ the feet of music know
those at the helm of the ship know
that which guides the rudder knows
uncontrollability in an inflexible space
madmen know
scientists know
the spirits
know
the married know
the sick
the lame
the intolerant know
somewhere in their inflexibly religious souls
the long gones know it
deep within their long gone elegant
tombs
an unfathomable unity between forest & trees
first & last hucksters
even the hucksters know
the soft walls know
the high walls know
the low walls know
the hard walls know
“I kill Bad aMericans” - a harder groove / the gloss of pearls
this holy heliocent
world of round holidays
even the humans know
the war/mongers know
the survivors beneath our soles they know
twice octoped ghosts know
a sound-tale coming closer to inflexible plastic
the face of water
the quint of power
the laying on of long dawns
prio priopas achordin
prio priopas acru
loosen confusion & broaden forms
loosen confusion & bro a den forms
there’s that second before the petals melt
that moment before the shrines collapse
when we realize we are all prophets
& fortune tellers
when we all see what the future holds
speaks
tastes
touches
smells
the wise ones know
the idiots know
the rootless know
the innocent know
the innocent know the innocent know..
the bird spoke to me
thru the heavy rain on the hollow cans
a kind of tin/morse
uhuh um sure i answered
short peeped phrases
i haven't showered in 6 days
being afraid being stronger than being dirty
sometime's earth's too down to death
moving on thru attractions
circles walking like wolves thru bad histories
inked by iron & quill
upon the legs of strangers
names streets players finalized
for the time being
at last century's turn it must have been
quite a time back then expositions
memory moving foward
like fate undoing itself
i am searching for rules
for the missing piece
indeed the light that precedes the coming
any coming
2nd 3rd
even 1st will do
who ever thought that sitting
would be such an obstacle?
what did methuselah feel when he left
his house?
in manhattan
how many sides are there,
it being like a book of thickened sand
with so many side/trips &
so little shoreline?
the rain on the island quiets a bit
as it echoes itself more & more faintly
into the oncoming hollows
in time
we go back like the # of angels
purported to be shadow boxing at g-d's side
lying flat
the pain is diminished
many long minutes ago
the bird has
shut up
i try to clear my throat using only my throat
knowing that to "cough"
will instantaneously doom me
to an
electric shock
should i drink shelter from the white guard's
jacket that engulfs me & protects me from the
process of curse & noise?
should i seek asylum in the word?
uhuh um yup my left hand answers
what a GIFT cemented to the oncoming night:
this diary of hungry nods
wandering thru holidays & characters &
caterpillaring across the noses of gargoyles
without ever leaving my room.
but my bladder is full
& the demon that is my zero tolerance
for discomfort
is insisting / I RISE UP.
( need i paint you a picture? )
relax
real light surrounds your eyes
this is one way of ha(l)ving things
this is another
there is more than one way to skin a cloud
pay a check
extinguish a fire
so the man with little to say distinguished himself again by saying too much
stuck between tinsel & crumble
more than one way to extinguish a life
tie up the laces
it's not as if hands were unique
microphones tilted -
transforming grass into hardware
into liguid
tilt sign tilt sign
i stood somewhere beneath the tilt sign & then i cracked
stood for a moment below my waist
& could feel the plates shifting
bone dead & yet the flesh so much alive
rotted in spots
dodging again yet another wild pitch
earth laboring
final beams falling against discounted space
ruthless & wreckless
balance here
yet unaware / or uncaring
as your G/d might
be
i think i'm dying of cancer
she says i just have a bad cold
how does the death of 1000's
stack up against my problems?
earth laboring
coughs convulsively
nose runs one instant
stuffed up the next
back & ribs
cracking
my plates seem to be shifting
i am weighted in soft blue tissues
there is a rumbling in the street
i saw 3 cats as i precariously scuttled from one event to the next
the horizon never changing
nor the weather
only my temperature going from cold to hot
luckily they were all black & white
it is not about more bodies
or less
but about a contracting of space
an expanding
like a yawn
a fart
a belch
not about something in the present
but something from the past
that has changed the future
i spin within this axis
this is not a postcard
the sun re-emerging after a storm
shadows on a once cluttered
landscape
the sea itself again
the larger part
is always hidden beneath the surface
these are many different things
that are happening
even birds have deep memories
a germ of a melody
ruffled
i carried 15 notebooks on my shoulders today
what was left of 38 yrs of writing
(i lost a few yrs when the ground began to shift)
then i put them down
as i walked calmly back to my room
i encountered 3 simple but significant questions
1. does anyone know which direction south is?
2. do you know where the closest chinese take out is?
3. which way is Ave. A?
i answered them all.
Steven Dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn, New York sometime after the last Big War and before lots of useless little wars...he has been writing poetry since before then and has always...he is basically self-taught...his great loves and influences are the Beats, Blake, Kafka, Camus, Harpo, surreal and abstract painting and music......especially jazz and so-called "Avante Guarde" or "FREE" jazz. Two key elements in his poetry are spontaneity and the idea of transformation rather than description with a preference toward non-linear, non-narrative though. He resides in Manhattan where he has lived for the past 30 years.