"My work

was always
fact of any day's instance--"

[Robert Creeley explaining
how he made Oppen's
Selected Poems
and so much more]

First Saturday morning in the new apartment
I'm in the middle of the second movement
of some classical piece
as this box pours itself
into that corner and
that corner starts to look
like my family's fingerprint.

Steady rain now for three days straight
didn't stop a walk last night
out to a friend's and back
with a little tipping
in the middle.
Cicadastreets gone quiet
then suddenly loud
then quiet--a negotiation of sorts
with the rain and the night and the older
neighbors who have a seat
at the table.

Do me a favor and
some day collect
all the lines we've ever written
about crickets and cicadas.

Things I Have Seen or Heard Lately That Delight Me More than Ice Cream

1.

A man leaning out the window of his pickup at

Bloomfield Ave & Valley Rd.

He's way, way out as the red light eats time and god-
damnits.

He combs his mustache.

2.

A woman's dog shits on my lawn. She prepares to walk away but then

sees me watching,

finds a tissue or something
in her purse

(probably intended for sobbing at an opera or
Jersey pizza shop),

and cleans it up.

Incidentally, I was shirtless when I did
the apprehending.


3.

In an argumentative meeting today

someone's neck muscles got really tense

and through tight, white lips
he said something about

"750 dollars worth of comedians." This

phrase then proceeded to bounce around the room
angering some and causing a few to even sound as if

they had been punched
hard
in the guts.

_____________

Times like these
I know not much has changed
from an age of bicycle gangs
and first kisses,
headlocks and black eyes. I put my
body in places
and its very being
blesses me with
all I can take in. It won't always
be this way, but these days
the world is numerous and young
and I am of it, one of it, a close cousin.

_____________

I didn't get that right, but
wanted to say it. At worst this makes me
some kind of poetry pig,
alone in my slop.

"The defeat

of presupposed expectation of unity may be itself
a pleasure. Music
which pleases
by doing what we expect
('coming home') may also please us
by failing to do so."

So says Iris Murdoch

and of course
everything new
about a new "home."

So that leaves us with . . .

[ahem, kick them feet]

Before judging a piece of music as
great
we would have to separate
the music from the particular
stereo
from which we
eat it.

Restate as: the problem of all
this speaking
of beauty anyway,
I guess. The work is the breaking
of difficult
horses.

____


Ease up, she says,
motherly(?) and
stern (she calls people who look at art
"clients."): "[There] are innumerable points
at which we have to detach
ourselves, to
change our orientation, to redirect
our desire and
refresh and purify our energy,
to keep on looking in the right direction:
to attend upon the grace that comes through . . ."

Why Apartments Are Good For You

1. An inheritance of chipped wood
and inebriate notches
awaits you.

2. The sounds that split the walls are sometimes
sweetened with charity. Someone's,
for example,
shower voice.

3. That breeze like those skinned knees
are only rented.

4. A renter's eyes are closer to a
criminal's--
which means a certain hunger
and its attendant
skinniness
stays in your pockets.

5. The walls don't belong to you so
you can't break your hand on them.

Yes, and to prove it, I am currently on hold

w/ PSE & G
to hook up electric,
gas, oil, waiting on
a call back from
the old tenant
to pay him
for his oil,
still have to walk through
to inspect cracks
and other holdovers
to make sure I'm not billed
a year from now
when I'll be doing it all
over again.
A man's back
is made broad
as the beloved
in which he buries
work and
rest.

Did you find an apartment?

How to Move Out of An Apartment

[This will be ongoing for the next few days]

1.

Listen to the Silver Jews in reverse--starting with the new albums (that you probably only listened to a few times anyway) and go back, back, back to the early, ramshackle stuff that was recorded on, basically, a glorified answering machine. This will ensure that when you've boxed up all your stuff and only the small, uncategorizable things are clouding the corners, you will feel like you did when you lived in Virginia--and you'll trust yourself because you trust that guy.

2.

Number 1, like all my sentences these days, are proposal for a life experiment.

3.

Keep saying the word adventure. You want to come out of this with a new definition for family life. With so many competing definitions, you have to learn how to unlearn swiftly and radically.

4.

Things to pack last (learned in unpacking): salt, coffee and coffee maker . . . [expand as needed]

5.

Push boxes. Run for 20 minutes as fast as you can. Order pizza. Push boxes. Eat it. Live of/in/by the body.

6.

Run out of steam as the boxes choke off your air. Give up this thing you couldn't make live. Try a new space in the morning.

7.

Topped . . . by . . . Rufus . . .