Final Chapter of Bacon’s ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
after 5 years in retirement
he died of a chill
caught while experimenting
on refrigeration
by stuffing a chicken
full of snow
Myshkin2
"It happened in Switzlerland, during the first year of Myshkin's cure....At the time he was still like an idiot; he could not even speak properly, and sometimes he could not understand what was required of him. One bright sunny day he went for a walk in the mountains..... THE IDIOT, Dostoyevsky
April 30, 2009
April 29, 2009
poem a day, april 28
LIVES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
His mother had literary aspirations.
when she settled in W. two weeks before
the battle of J. There she sponsored
a literary salon, wrote books, and enjoyed
friendships with men of culture. She had little
affection for her son—a keen eye
for his faults, and warned him against
bombast and empty pathos. He was bothered
by her philanderings. When he came
of age, he received a modest inheritance,
and he and his mother found each other
more and more intolerable. His low
opinion of women is due, no doubt,
to the quarrels with his mother
April 28, 2009
poem a day, april 27
SURPLUS
It was one of those army surplus jeeps, World War 2 vintage, the kind you’d see advertized in the back pages of comic books. 99 bucks, unassembled, crated to the Colonel’s house, for his son who built It from the ground up.
The son, a senior in high school who shared his father’s Military bearing--buzz-cut, axle-straight, nothing surplus about them, and like the jeep, built for combat terrain.
The father was off in Vietnam and his son had his own mission—to transport his band of younger friends back along the path through the woods, to the most level and pristine football field ever, all the more pure for its lack of bleachers and fans.
To get there he had re-trench the rutted road, 12 of us crammed in the uncapped windshield-less jeep for the 20 minute scuttle to play.
If I had to describe it now, at this very moment, I’d say it was as choppy as the final presto movement of Shostakovich’s 6th symphony, written on the eve of war. I say this, watching my daughter on the far right of the stage (the world stage) scraping and slapping her bass.
A ride just as perilous as our jeep run.
We had no equipment other than a ball, no goal posts beyond the perfect hedgerows. It was to be a game of touch, but it was always more.
It’s only now as I ride out the vertiginous music that I recall the huge fenced-in farm tract along the path, with its put-to-pasture racing mares, and dusty oval where their offspring were pushed beyond endurance, prodded, poked, whipped into a froth of speed.
Or the unshorn lambs, floating like rain clouds over the hillside, their twig-legs an undecipherable scrawl—that if it spelled anything, spelled for us the littleness of everything but the bump and grind of slipping gears and our destination.
Which was, I learned years later, the back lawn of a secret Mental Hospital that catered to children of the internationally rich and famous. Which explains those perfect striped silhouettes in the huge barred casements, above our huddle. Shifting when one of us went long or button-hooked.
And once, following a wild kick into the pines, while the others horsed around by the jeep, I saw her—the steel magnate’s daughter, the exiled Romanian princess, Carey Grant’s secret mute sequestered child.
Having earned ground privileges—she already had all the others-- after her third series of electroshocks.
I know this to be true now, though I could only intuit it then. For there is always the wild ride back, tossed and jostled, nearly ejected from the jeep.
It was one of those army surplus jeeps, World War 2 vintage, the kind you’d see advertized in the back pages of comic books. 99 bucks, unassembled, crated to the Colonel’s house, for his son who built It from the ground up.
The son, a senior in high school who shared his father’s Military bearing--buzz-cut, axle-straight, nothing surplus about them, and like the jeep, built for combat terrain.
The father was off in Vietnam and his son had his own mission—to transport his band of younger friends back along the path through the woods, to the most level and pristine football field ever, all the more pure for its lack of bleachers and fans.
To get there he had re-trench the rutted road, 12 of us crammed in the uncapped windshield-less jeep for the 20 minute scuttle to play.
If I had to describe it now, at this very moment, I’d say it was as choppy as the final presto movement of Shostakovich’s 6th symphony, written on the eve of war. I say this, watching my daughter on the far right of the stage (the world stage) scraping and slapping her bass.
A ride just as perilous as our jeep run.
We had no equipment other than a ball, no goal posts beyond the perfect hedgerows. It was to be a game of touch, but it was always more.
It’s only now as I ride out the vertiginous music that I recall the huge fenced-in farm tract along the path, with its put-to-pasture racing mares, and dusty oval where their offspring were pushed beyond endurance, prodded, poked, whipped into a froth of speed.
Or the unshorn lambs, floating like rain clouds over the hillside, their twig-legs an undecipherable scrawl—that if it spelled anything, spelled for us the littleness of everything but the bump and grind of slipping gears and our destination.
Which was, I learned years later, the back lawn of a secret Mental Hospital that catered to children of the internationally rich and famous. Which explains those perfect striped silhouettes in the huge barred casements, above our huddle. Shifting when one of us went long or button-hooked.
And once, following a wild kick into the pines, while the others horsed around by the jeep, I saw her—the steel magnate’s daughter, the exiled Romanian princess, Carey Grant’s secret mute sequestered child.
Having earned ground privileges—she already had all the others-- after her third series of electroshocks.
I know this to be true now, though I could only intuit it then. For there is always the wild ride back, tossed and jostled, nearly ejected from the jeep.
April 27, 2009
poem a day, april 26
SURPLUS
It was one of those army surplus jeeps, World War 2 vintage, the kind you’d see advertized in the back pages of comic books. 99 bucks, unassembled, crated to the Colonel’s house, for his son who built It from the ground up.
The son, a senior in high school who shared his father’s Military bearing--buzz-cut, axle-straight, nothing surplus about them, and like the jeep, built for combat terrain.
The father was off in Vietnam and his son had his own mission—to transport his band of younger friends back along the path through the woods, to the most level and pristine football field ever, all the more pure for its lack of bleachers and fans.
To get there he had re-trench the rutted road, 12 of us crammed in the uncapped windshield-less jeep for the 20 minute scuttle to play.
If I had to describe it now, at this very moment, I’d say it was as choppy as the final presto movement of Shostakovich’s 6th symphony, written on the eve of war. I say this, watching my daughter on the far right of the stage (the world stage) scraping and slapping her bass.
A ride just as perilous as our jeep run.
We had no equipment other than a ball, no goal posts beyond the perfect hedgerows. It was to be a game of touch, but it was always more.
It’s only now as I ride out the vertiginous music that I recall the huge fenced-in farm tract along the path, with its put-to-pasture racing mares, and dusty oval where their offspring were pushed beyond endurance, Prodded, poked, whipped into a froth of speed.
Or the unshorn lambs, floating like rain clouds over the hillside, their twig-like legs an undecipherable scrawl—that if it spelled anything, spelled for us the littleness of everything but the bump and grind Of slipping gears and our destination.
Which was, I learned years later, the back lawn of a secret Mental Hospital that catered to the children of the worldwide rich and famous. ….
(unfinished)
It was one of those army surplus jeeps, World War 2 vintage, the kind you’d see advertized in the back pages of comic books. 99 bucks, unassembled, crated to the Colonel’s house, for his son who built It from the ground up.
The son, a senior in high school who shared his father’s Military bearing--buzz-cut, axle-straight, nothing surplus about them, and like the jeep, built for combat terrain.
The father was off in Vietnam and his son had his own mission—to transport his band of younger friends back along the path through the woods, to the most level and pristine football field ever, all the more pure for its lack of bleachers and fans.
To get there he had re-trench the rutted road, 12 of us crammed in the uncapped windshield-less jeep for the 20 minute scuttle to play.
If I had to describe it now, at this very moment, I’d say it was as choppy as the final presto movement of Shostakovich’s 6th symphony, written on the eve of war. I say this, watching my daughter on the far right of the stage (the world stage) scraping and slapping her bass.
A ride just as perilous as our jeep run.
We had no equipment other than a ball, no goal posts beyond the perfect hedgerows. It was to be a game of touch, but it was always more.
It’s only now as I ride out the vertiginous music that I recall the huge fenced-in farm tract along the path, with its put-to-pasture racing mares, and dusty oval where their offspring were pushed beyond endurance, Prodded, poked, whipped into a froth of speed.
Or the unshorn lambs, floating like rain clouds over the hillside, their twig-like legs an undecipherable scrawl—that if it spelled anything, spelled for us the littleness of everything but the bump and grind Of slipping gears and our destination.
Which was, I learned years later, the back lawn of a secret Mental Hospital that catered to the children of the worldwide rich and famous. ….
(unfinished)
April 25, 2009
poem a day, april 25
BUDDHIST IMPROV, TAKE 3
A child puts flowers
By a grave marker.
They were stolen, clipped
From a neighbor’s lawn.
We understand so
Little about the
Psychology of
Loss to understand
Why the creation
Of beauty is so
Fitting a way of
Marking it. Sing
Songs, dig fingernails
Into the soft earth
Of your tender palms.
poem a day, april 24
Saving Anna K.
It flickered, began to dim, and went out forever.
And as for her, all that had been shrouded in darkness
flared up with a brighter light than before and lit up.
Something huge and implacable struck her on the head.
Where am I? She tried to get up and to throw herself back.
She threw away her red handbag and drew her head down,
but she did not take her eyes off the wheels of the train.
Memories of her childhood, everything torn apart,
a feeling similar to entering a warm bath.
It was too late, the car had already passed by her.
She had wanted to fall between the wheels of the car.
She picked up her handbag, handing it back to Tolstoy.
April 23, 2009
poem a day, april 23
BUDDHIST IMPROV, TAKE 2
I’m circling—or should I say
Ovaling, which is a much gentler word,
Unless you transmute it to ogling—
The muddy gravel track
That surrounds field upon field
Of pee-wee soccer and baseball.
More kids than I’d care to count.
Is it too soon to admit
I’m like Yeats among schoolchildren?
Yet he conveniently leaves out
Their young moms, with their expensive
Trendy haircuts and shapely sweats,
Who drop off and deliver with time-
Clock regularity. Here & there
A stroller slumps in the muck
And they, the moms groan it out.
Yes, the very same groan, to my years,
They don’t ask for my help & I don’t offer.
April 22, 2009
poem a day, april 22
Buddhist Improv, take 1
a biting windy rain from Lake Erie
rustles the feathery robe of the nesting goose
she takes it all in foraging stride
and stares at my discomfort
as I duck, drenched, into my car, dripping
sickness, decrepitude, death--
what does she know about this
or care? It shouldn’t be this cold
late April — says who?
I am shivering
which is
in itself
a kind of pleasure
April 21, 2009
poem a day, april 21
MISS NEW JERSEY
I almost dated Miss New Jersey
Once. No, this is not the punchline
To some joke. And it didn’t happen
Decades after the pageant, when she’d become
Unrecognizable as such. Maybe just a year
Or two after her title, her sash still pressed
And unboxed. However, if I were pressed
I wouldn’t divulge whether or not the jersey
Came off—but it was, I admit, a very good year
For small town girls…at least that was the song line
We heard in a bar one night after we became
Friends. Good for me, too, if it happened
That her scumbag boyfriend left—which didn’t happen,
Of course. She considered moving into his place,
Amid talk of spilled blood and Casinos, what would become
Of him, if she left New Jersey,
Where she substitute taught junior high music, in line
For full-time, if she stuck it out a year,
Teaching steelworkers’ sons and daughters. The year
She won, she toured military bases and happened
To appear with Bob Hope, even became the punchline
Of his suggestive jokes, while he pressed
Up close. Vietnam, I thought, but it might’ve been Jersey’s
Fort Dix. She didn’t dare sing, (fearing she’d become
A laughing stock) the Schubert song, “Bliss,” which became
Pageant legend. Instead, for “Mr. Hope,” it was the year’s
Hit, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” which played well in Jersey.
Though after a single tour, it happened:
She lost her will to sing and nothing could press
Her into it. Time after time, her rehearsed line
Was “God took my voice,” and with that I drew the line
On taking things further. For she was becoming
Sorrowful (a different Schubert song) and depressed.
Her inability to sing lasted almost a year,
Then, she sang “Bliss” for me--I don’t know how it happened--
Right before moving away from New Jersey.
April 20, 2009
poem a day, april 20
SMALL COMFORT
oh no, I said
there’s my daughter
and son
--"and," he hummed
my wife, my father
--"is that all?", he asked
ok, ok, my mother
--"I see," he said
but she’s been dead
a decade
you don’t think...
--"no, of course not," he said
I mean I can’t be that terrible
can I?
--"no way," he said
no way? Or did he say, I can’t say
--"you’re not bad
you’re just
an
archetype"
oh no, I said
there’s my daughter
and son
--"and," he hummed
my wife, my father
--"is that all?", he asked
ok, ok, my mother
--"I see," he said
but she’s been dead
a decade
you don’t think...
--"no, of course not," he said
I mean I can’t be that terrible
can I?
--"no way," he said
no way? Or did he say, I can’t say
--"you’re not bad
you’re just
an
archetype"
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