BEYOND

Pain is impossible to describe
Pain is the impossibility of describing
Describing what is impossible to describe
Which must be a thing beyond describing
Beyond knowing but not a mystery
Not mystery but pain not plain but pain
But pain beyond but here beyond


laura riding

reasons to be cheerful.
today is worse than yesterday.
but it's better than tomorrow.

my teeth are disintegrating like candy skulls
i can do nothing
but talk about it
many things i can do nothing
about that are
beyond me
but my teeth? that's a strange one
so intimate, so banal
so keen,
so.
intense.

this is it. because i'm as old as MJ, i first think of The Doobie Brothers, "make no mistake where you are", then i think of Michael, bow my eyes, then i think, because of today, This Is It.

the white ship with the golden hull
both a nomad and immobile
sad and spiritual, whose life
was one long deja vu.

do not let words decide
what path a poem takes.
let words fool themes
whose flight takes them far.

it is my destiny to wait
which my heart regrets
this sweet adieu.

there should be no more elections, there should only be field studies.
there should be no schools, only field trips to prisons.
all activities should be without ends.
they should toss out the yankees.
the yankees won't have it.

beethoven was sad too.
i'm not sad, i'm just pensive.
anyway he was a genius, geniuses are pose to be sad.
the sad always have company
even when they're dead.
the sad geniuses you mean.
well, yeah.

what are we waiting for?
i don't know, that's why we're waiting.
why?
to see.
what?
what we're waiting for. see?
yeah,
i see.

you've been fairly incoherent lately.
whaddya mean? how many words do you know?
five hundred, more or less.
you are fairly erudite i will admit. while i blather on after i've plum run out of brain juice, willy-nilly.
that's what i said.

mr. dreamboat.

i think fen likes pictures when i hold him best.

how is it on earth, are the puppies full of mirth?

you, you're all i need, to get by.

ok fen, this one's for the moms.

sashays knowingly as i picture him.

 did i tell you about the girl teacher who filmed us from the school window? i was so happy!

 dudes. can you imagine life under Occupation? Crazy!

it all starts today. the name of a great Tavernier film, by the way. we can do fuck-all about the government, a poison hive of corruption, but dudes, we can love, we can grow seedlings, we can Play!

i remember that blue and white fish boat with the black ringed almond eyes sunk in the harbor stormfilled with whispering pumice. my heart felt that way looking.

flying under green.

 i wonder how many pictures i've taken just following him around. as many as the flowers in the field.

i spent the whole day thinking of you.

and if i could talk to the rictus lady i'd say please!please!please! i don't hate you! please, i only want to love and honor the dog!

well, and myself, naturally. it's true i'm an enlightened-seflish so and so.

and fen went mildly berserk and charged a sidewalk sweeper at blossom house. it was funny.

aw, my little dynamo love-blossom fen.

it's just an if only. if she would only soften her heart, she could receive the love that's in the neighborhood, for instance this guy, he could love even her who actively hates his freedom. but she hurts my heart. i have no protection. and she will probably live on hate a long time, alas.

anyway, we was just acting naturally!

 so what do you think of me now, fenster?

 i knew it. we're in perfect harmony.

i don't want to hate the haters mostly because it pains me to hate but my instinct is to love love and to hate hate and how do you hate the hate but not the hater after all hate was not born in a vacuum.
so i smile like a clown to the rictus frown. and she knows the smile is a mask like her makeup over pain.

so copp goes up to this old bag wearing a rictus of pain and makeup and she says, Uh, your Friend!? and i smile big and say Nothing.

and my smile is as genuine as copp.

 hilde, defiant devourer of paper products.

sticking her tongue out at me.

hilde and comet urban garden composters.

i want t be taken serious. and i'm not sure you do.

we do, we do.

we do.

                 but i looked around, and i noticed the sound. this was the sound of no reply.

    endless reign, endless reign.

   for this is the time of no reply.

sometime bleary i
think i got nothing
to say then i think i do
but no one cares
and that inspires me
in a way i hush the voice
and trust again
i can say anything
what should i say

i keep waking up in an alien world