The Mason Will Be Out of the Office From July 1 - 7th, If You Need Your Requisite Fix of Juice Just Read the Poem Below (A Beaut)

Brickmelt

"The whole glacier
does some things
with time that I
can't really describe..."
Days with H. are like that now, too.

Highlights from Wednesday:

1. The dustbowl near the Hudson is an ice skating rink. I'm not allowed on the ice until I put on my skates. Even then, I am clearly second string. But he's kind about it.

2. A giant piece of train is buried below the West Side Highway, must be off 59th street but--and, yeah, this goes without saying--all maps dissolve. We go there every Wednesday, my summer day off, to see if it is unlocked. I know it will never be unlocked, the locks have rusted, someone has forgotten, some lawyer has ruled and run off... But he can imagine his way past the locks and I am learning that trade, which means I'm not lying when I say, "yeah, let's go there, things might be different this time."

3. On the way we sit under a canopy tree. It's a rainforest. We have planted three dinosaur eggs there. At night, before bed, we do a little harvesting, but not too much.

4. Conversation. Me: "You know, you have to be a little careful with all this talk of farting. Farts are actually kind of gross. People don't like them." Him: "No daddy. Farts are good. They're a little funny. I'm going to have to check with mommy on this."

5. At night he says, "I've never been out at night. I wonder what it would be like." So we go out. Late. After 10. When mostly it's just people walking dogs or heading out to have drinks. He observes (everything): "There are no clouds . . . Actually, there are a few clouds . . . It's beautiful . . . Where are the stars? . . . I haven't seen a sunset in so long . . . What do they do in the supermarket when it gets night-night out? . . . Those dogs, where are their mommies?"

Time means I am falling in love with a poem carved in smoke.

Bricklore

A pretty interesting
brick fell from the sky
yesterday--
Downtown '81.
When it struck earth
it smacked open
into a diorama
of NYC, complete
with graffiti artists,
strippers, pushers,
some live footage
of bands from
fanbrains long ago.
James White and
the Blacks were a
highlight--and DNA.
The whole glacier
does some things
with time that I
can't really describe...
you'll just have to
watch it. Creates the
illusion a day can be
as long as you
want it to be, in
this case, almost
endless. Jean
Michel Basquiat
is the main character...
and while watching
him ease like a
tumbleweed around the
rough angles of Manhattan,
I'd pause every now and
then and say, So that's
what his voice sounded
like. Curious, relaxed.
Innocent all the way
down to the undertones.
But after the day was
finished, I checked the
DVD notes and noticed--
the original audio tapes
for the movie were
lost some time between
the 80's and late 90's,
when the directors
reclaimed the rights,
so they had Saul Williams
re-record it. So the film,
the day-sized man, the
lackadaisy painter
you're watching
is really only a
visual ghost
to verbal flesh,
or the past,
overdosed, reliving
the best intentions
of the present--which
can only approximate.
That's not a problem, though.
I liked the scenes best
when he was simply
walking.

Brickwork

From a purely
workmanlike
POV
I embed these lines
to push down
what's below
and also to see
what images fluster
(like one in love,
not a bad thing)
my mind when
the words
are actually.
(Remind me
sometime
to quote from the first
page of
How Buildings Learn
and I'll make
all the connections
necessary.)
So, for example,
now I see two
great hicks
skipping work
to go fishing
and talk shit
about people
who don't use
live bait. They can be
forgiven
for almost anything,
these two
(except their handles):
Smokemonster & Flyswatter.

Leaping Poetry

The Hot Boys of Washington...?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23730.html

Bitte Orca

Wow?

Dear Whitefish

You appeared
as carrot cake--
fish thoughts buried

in your flour and fiber.
Only I was laughing, playing
out the high

comedy. It's like
an architecture, really.
We strew the lines

with whatever
material we can fluster
into joining.

No. It's like great laundry
blowing in a black and white
wind. Almost slow mo.

The Whitefish Speaks

So, did I at least taste good? Digesting
into the cosmos, like Alan Dugan
among a potluck of stomachs, maybe
only to be this one subtle flourish:
to taste as good as they feel. Each
and every one--man and child
and woman, and woman with baby
slung on her hip alike. Virginia
in the summertime. Enzymes. Intestinal
travel. Lightyears. Nutrients.
To glow out of the faces
that only hours ago
looked on me
as a stranger.
Where else did they earn this yen for the urge to dive out and make water move like swimming? What you taught me:
wherever it's at,
it's mostly in the fins, homey.

Love Vigilante

Virginia Silver

The pot luck party
starts in fifteen minutes.
I plan to bring something funny,
a smoked fish, head attached, maybe,
but mostly just to be able to tell K. the story.
This is a way of being friends--first
foreshadowing, then completing,
a kind of comedy that winds its way
back to Virginia nights
where we traded time
like two hapless drinkers
paying each other
with the same silver dollar.

Wenting Agin(g)

poetry
as (if)
by dream

the collected
disappearances
of a fierce
friend
of the universe

the boy
gave birth
to the marriage,
right?

I think I've
got it
wrong
but it felt like
a beautiful
home
movie
played back-
draw
into time-distance

and there was
something about
a flowerpot
flowering
and such
with said slant
it stood
perfectly slant
ed

what's funny
and started this
is this morning's
antics: H.
woke up
screaming
MOM
and when I later
asked him
what happened?
what
happened buddy?
he said,
"the lines
on my pillow
were there
and then gone
and then came back
again"

planting
a certain kind of
brief habit
of mind
pulling
thread from
thread

you
two knuckle-
heads
meeting in tween
two dreams
call that
the life that held
two (at least)
clouds
lovingly,
I hope.