He’d filled it uP, Part 1

 He’d filled it uP

Part 1

1.

by now, his life

The spiral bound books.

Among the dead SpiderS and 

kerosene dirt, smudged 

the moments time left, fading ...

he'd kept on spinning--

not really finished

reaching for some resolution

the final one? 

as Lauren had said, “he would figure 

it all out someday.”

though having lost that belief, mostly glimpses 

he felt there to be some truth

in a moment between

it seemed to suffice,

no unchanging single ideal-- 

seemed certain

only to be seen, in

it’s revolving

cycles, to new places

then swerve, and

seasoned mythos

each moment died, as

we all die, 

he saw a pathway there

In the SunfloweR,

the artist standing on his box!

2.

gOd! wasn't 

interesting so much 

anymore he was looking for some 

new name to give 

some other perspective, to SeE

this passing reality

a really what 

might mean, a SToP!

kind of waiting--for

StilL, the ElephanT Blare! the trumpets of TibeT!

liked that, they were a metaphor,

there was no occasion, beside himself

to sing.

no professional

his only milestone these 56 years.

“til’ the end of the world”

his death bed got closer and 

his idea of Giotto changed too.

THE construction 

of reality

two things-- juxtaposed

like our lives, and death 

reconciling  the two

he guessed you could say 

there was just no reconciling

THAT would be a life long poem

a metaphor, or fragment 

that LeaF, to have any end meaning?

OFF NOW! to the villa Wall

that fresco, that American thing.

felt from under his MountainS

he had turned it over and that BrighT 

Striped SalamandeR was the 

beginning and Indian glinT,

The portrait of the great man haunted him.

3.

Jack's poem was more than travelogue

not of business at airports--

they'd driven far

but it was more a length

of pictograms into a code 

of DNA like romance, yes

a lineage of quest

the goings over in revolution,

he lived in the profane world 

and still wasn't sure of the vertical moment,

Wrapped in his Indian blanket 

of diamonded beauty 

which pleased him in it’s own order,

The addition of a music 

made everything, 

the mountain to the right 

and the bush to the left, balancing

 Crispin saw it that way now,

a way--, a going on with and around the sun

all of it

traced around 

and it became right for a time 

then, it just had to change.

A wriggling like the snake out of the egg

there was a deeper, deep

4

Aesthetic-ly so much was ruined

an older Miltonic Daimon 

on the heap 

It was some real end to beauty.

He would find an island of fiction in the chaos

and dwell there

in the order he'd made "as if"

a presence that represented a loss, he said

“we should test this as we go”

Feeling for surface

Among the cracked and 

crumbling-- then building 

again, piecing together,

what to make of this diminished thing

the fallacy

the pathetic human 

all too human

stars, revolving behind

a reflected life going over and around

the Egyptians pointed toward a fate, 

the China man, a meander... 

He'd forgotten the Western-- 

Jack was just making his own way here

looking for a shape and line and 

color to make--

He'd filled it uP, Part 2

5

could it be--

contained there,

in the scribbling of the old minotaur, 

He was writing a blank

He was writing of an whole, 

Crispin still sought

Not calling the phenomenon, One

waiting for--

an older Now, he held so  

in his head packing and unpacking it all.

The poet rode his bike down 

Houston Street, a black tee shirt and 

a poem in his head 

seemed all he needed, 

maybe he could say it

he opened his mouth-- the crossing  

was some crux or

crisis

things jammed

together like leaves and sunset and

ColosaLL suN and fragment

memory and VillA

into that OnE he still would crave 

at least here in the painting 

although it represented what we longed 

for in reality the oNe, sees

that made the cymbal clang, trumpet blare

As far away as Tibet 

Professor Thurman was getting excited!

Now, The idea was arriving!

the cycling-- soul

it was a life by now

a Surprised FlavouR turning

Crispin, blu-ish Comedian, Ha!

 6

To transpose what he saw

into Hindi form which reflected back

but was a thing in itself 

that sounded real--

Rather strange to fix an image into words,

Mr. Ashbery had said to me,

 "Oh the painting and poetry thing--"

Jack said everything seemed so very 

convoluted and difficult

Mon Oncle wondered what I meant?

There would be a point 

and a digression

from it, Abstract figure flying 

into dream of landscape questing to 

surface, it was RealizatioN one sought

inner and outer resolution

the goings over

fixing to order

making of a poem

Villa whole and fragmenting 

man made self,

UmpH!

it repeated and fell, 

as that leaden balloon

and his clown bat, UmpH!

drove him back 

to that ole, fish shaped island 

to continue his HeaveN,

into dreams of unknown,

escaping profane

He, Ho! 

Major maN at helm, 

Hero on his heaD

SpAraGmOs 

the rending apart, 

7.

He'd found it on the dump

coming down

the tree cut up into logs,

this particular thought

into AmbivalenT, Comic sublimE.

a minor key

to coincide

with certain abstract 

shapes 

some striped, others plain.

"Y’r not talkin' to anyone, kid"

he couldn't believe all this was for sale

the chair thrown into the corner

He felt ok, with the cowboy hat 

AgaiN, coming from the East 

it would suffice--

The black line completed it all, it seemed

he was home

but still reaching for the Top Shelf

the bottle slipping 

falling, tumbling

slow motion

the painting in a dream

Hero in a smudge, the “carving not a kiss”

everything BrOkEn 

The larger heap, the transfer station

serpents lair 

here is where-- 

He lives Here 

nowhere and everywhere at once.

A word out of the sea 

whispered Me

not to complete the thought but 

to lead out into 

the stars, tracing a form

8.

serpent flashing

a part for the whole

the name of one thing for something else

a turning

an emphasis

strangely, different

better than

"I sing a Hero’s Head... "

We've been through the deconstructions

The Universe of Death. 

revolving around, down here

undid the Summer

in flames

imagining the Winter

constellations flying by

star spangled mind

of Achilles Universe

of winter circle

to deeper edge

She was the Universe.

Crispin passing

the leaves

in sunset,

Jack went west in ‘93

the JoshuA Trees waving

through Comic Sublime

he tried 

to put it all together 

and was distracted by Fashion Model 

of this profane world

he looked beyond to the sea

to live alone, thankless

out there

he wasn’t dead yet,

Sun revolvinG in that time-lapsed splendor

He'd filled it uP, Part 3

9.

going down 

silhouette and black

fades to scribble

rushing around to see it all

come back up--

He would build from foot, 

ordering a head, 

repeating to symbol

He had this last judgement idea

revelations flying

unveiling any final truth 

as man is the final resolution 

of himself, at least

but now everything was 

just leant up against the wall,

waiting.

It was about putting 

it all together again and 

for all

it was the quest itself, arriving

he thought, this way

and that 

the flags waving

fate, freedom, and power

those Idealisms waning in the twilight

Jack had by now some philosophical idea

which seemed a reality,

a procession was involved

It was a making, the progress

of a he or-- self

Crispin was resolving an older order

new ideas were not what he needed now

as they kept spinning ‘round

presenting themselves

in negative and positive interplay

Akilles had seen it long ago,

10.

the reconciling of opposites 

it made sense of it all

this idea attached to a shape

to a surface, Shield

he gestured with his arms

it was all a narrowing down

we were all running fast not looking 

down to see there was no net, no

nothing beneath

we were only human

the sad fact 

we hid as well as we could, that

we would all come to an end

though the treasure was buried, long ago

in the winter mind, floating

through, he felt he knew a thing or two

that transcended or lifted him up

enough to keep on

a comic cycle into 

sublime and falling

We used to just yell up--

then that wasn’t so cool any more

on the now busy street

Roy got a bell but it never worked

I was saying I wanted to try 

it all from the Imagination

  to draw just from there, his head

he made it up--

we used to say, the clap of hands 

was like the surface, truth, TherE!

Why had that meant so much?

the outline, a shape, a stripe

"I see what you are trying to do," Alex would say

but he also thought 

this all too complex

a kind of abstraction repeated, 

and turning

revealing the blank in our eye

11.

we denied

a blind man seeing for the first

would mean something--

seeing black

an irony

we struggled beyond

a can of white and a can of black

was all he had

a new beginning, again?

a new modern-- modern

the nEw, the NeW, seeming glut

of post-- PosT--

he dove in, was soaking wet,

with his Shield

on his arm he emerged

he was still searching

for this abstraction, he discerned some 

medieval abstraction-- CarniVal coloR

Waving, dancE

from a deep space, to a thing itself

"and would find myself more truly strange"

and clear

seeing in a new way

with no cliche

but archetype, I guessed a cliche itself

they were all having dinner by now 

business was being discussed

we were still at the bar

and soon gathered over at Bill Wilson's.

Agnes Martin died yesterday.

12.

Jack was his own hero,

He came back from his own war, would visit 

the Modern

Chapel, he stepped aside to let them all pass

Mom died and the dream--

and what does that mean, 

being saved-- I'd never 

have put that on you?

Yeah, yeah-- and then go 

have a few beers in the parking lot.

she said, "I'd be a very unhappy boy 

asking all those questions."

though I've asked 

all the questions

they were in touch 

with the EartH, at least

had no questions, just to work

I read a lot, I said,

there seems no sin in this poetry

just guilt of living

too well,

too much,

he was in the dark 

dreaming his name

the poem was like strata of earth 

1st and now 3rd part put down 

like refuse and bones

layering

a drone, over and over Mantra

repeating forms

He'd filled it uP, Part 4

13.

of life and fragmenting, release-- 

new life from dreams of winter

shimmer shake

there was a HerO that cried that 

he was dead, 

that his adventure had failed him,

and ComediaN genius,

cartoon character

and hieroglyph

Oh, glad to be back out here

in the SUn

Snowing, though there were no cloudS

starS Bright

Jack was sitting having a quesadilla and jalapeno

over kitchen sink

the ConstellationS were revolving round

out the window

thinking about the size of the painting

that last judgemenT 

thing, he had on his mind

the nearing final reality, he thought

nearing, he hadn't been up to the 

pRaYeR flags in a while

he watched the health 

of the Tree at the center

he stood up there reading his poem

the SSnaking river below

the cycles would lift him above

he was thinking on Beauty 

he was thinking on deatH

it was his mOther 

he thought about.

He was WobBbling down 

the lane on his bike.

Another painting ahead--

It was GobBlinG him up.

14.

he would say he cared most 

about the abstraction 

the shapes and colors

that line which drew.

The black and white lagoon 

the depth, is where he started

in mystery

which now the surface 

that the two colors make

in the beginning is a hint of the end

meeting, this reality, a religion 

of sorts or poetry of

reality, he said instead of 

this empty idea they all worship

Unless you meant what 

was older, he had an idea 

for that older unnamable

which was reality itself--

all together, Achilles here, a part 

of that whole thing

The TrumpeT blarE, like air raid horn,

now, here, the sun height

Orange square

depth in the PurplE square

all over form of starS

tHat out there, in here--

He’d said or painted the feeling before

so many times, though

the leaves were ongoing

He said "fuck you, if--" 

A JoKe, well, I’m not sure about breaking it all

the leaves are enough and the

cartoon shape

no man shall see-- 

Odysseus

15.

was puzzling it all together 

that fast surface

he leapt out the window

cold stone sober

what he saw-- 

SufFiceD,

a spot of time, here

repeated through a life

through a broken breeze

painting the lives,

through which leaves hopped, skittled 

and over days, hours, a moment

here--the brush of a fore head

warmed in the blond sun,

that obscure glance

just looking for the outlook 

that would be right

this poem that took the place

of a MouNtaiN

each day passed-- 

in adventure of some kind

sacred moments, which slowed

were looked for and recognized

a patch of blue

giving way

up there on the mountain side

he saw the full moon rise

I mean didn’t they felt badly

knowing the moment had passed

they were teaching now

some relation ship

that the nature we had lost--

never to dance 

with the DaffodilS--

dancing

16.

in the WinD.

Something I saw once--

everything dies everywhere 

and is born of these moments--

this profundity of an inner 

and outer reality, which 

blazed on the edge between.

He wasn’t sure what that meant

Crispin liked the reality seemingly between.

What he meant by JuxtapositioN

Those paintings were finished 

and now feeling at some height, 

he resumed, the stacking

more?--he wondered? the two Henry’s asked

how much further?

Say it even more simply, Jack said.

The different view now

The New, New, he was seeing through 

the words now and there 

wasn’t much more to say,

it was the goings over

he was coming home

here was a garden, 

he could manage--

he held the idea 

in his teeth 

it was the flower 

he saw in Zurbaran

there was a moment when

  all metaphors became one

in the sun.

He was thinking of the old certainty

even if not a reality

what we expected from our intellectual

refinement, what we made up