Coming 'round again, Part 1

1.

The paintings were a stab 

at some final resolution, 

put in place, 

he could move 

it around later

coming 'round again, 

maybe it would 

be right this time, shifted 

somewhat, Oh, geez. 

The shopping Mall, 

and that corporate sky line

now blocking the vision,

Did you think about how vision 

could mean seeing the whole, 

the order 

making it, one 

But it had to be true 

somehow 

had to hold a lot in one’s head, 

the weight 

was worth the struggle, 

beneath,

that corporate plan lacked, 

The suburban was the plan 

to lull into a submissive --

these wanderings 

more pressure 

the reality of it all 

to bull doze Jack, tumbling 

in the black garbage bags 

down, rolling head 

over heels, 

cartoon like--

of course it was hard enough 

without the backache and stressful 

cold sore, and we were human, 

all too--

That water over the dam, 

just continued 

into a beautiful, 

slow motion catastrophe 

of loss, now even the ice 

out of order Koyanisquatsi like

Green World, melting.

where would Jack salvage

2.
this or 
these 
thoughts, and stick them 
where, 
to file them, 

stacking the next,
Painting, it seemed 
to stop something.
Jack hugged the sheath 
to his chest 

it would get him through, 
he thought, his thoughts, 
which he loved 
from a distance, tumbling in like 
fashion 

tumbling the new work, in 
likewise jig saw 
and juxtaposition 
and cycle revolving, 
fragments 

in the evening OranGing Sky.
He was happy like Ariel,
Jack thought about a painting of 
the Sneakers, 
icon like 

Vincent’s peasant shoes,
and what of a hat on a stick? his 
walking stick?
 that Staff the one, 
a leaping flame.


3.
he was out on his walk 
around the lagoon, 
the blue spots, 
glimpsing--
Alex was passing 

Jack on Mercer St 
his White Bucks and Over sized Sunglasses 
another Theater, 
I enjoyed 
another Fashion 

of sorts. He made 
a picture of it all.
Crispin thought 
he’d take that simplicity 
and break it  

was like the lost sun,
and it showed the other simplicity 
of merely circulating.
It all went round,
and it was behind 

what happened 
and then there out in front 
and it changed 
the perspective on he saw 
what one was doing, 

radically,
and NeW.
They were shifting in their chairs 
by this time, another left to the rest room--

Exaggeration and Surprise! 

4.
Ruin the Sacred Truths, 
Ironic , Hyperbole, what a great word
That transposition.
made it's mark, erased

and drawn again 
and erased, 
they had decided that they would 
never know,
tossed out the results 

as no result,
Crispin would make it up 
beyond that heap over there,
Achilles was gesticulating with one arm 
dragging that corpse around 

with no self consciousness.
He had recognized Billy-- 
out there in the distance, 
his gaudy scarf
gave him away,

The whole contained 
the opposite,
and that was where he was headed,
this was just the second PaRt
He hoped he’d make it

Well the gardener was gone --or
really there never was one, 
someone had put in some work
though 
it had been forgotten.

Coming 'round again, Part 2

5.

Rational thought did a lot 

for the situation,

But then they were hectored 

and cajoled into quitting. 

Just thoughts 

and a good direction, 

Just seeing 

Well, rolling up his sleeves 

he picked up the rake,

He felt at home,

Akilles dream of California 

was on the Wane,

 the Nature Lovers 

had no conception of an abstraction

 on which to hang their love

so it was no love 

and in vain, 

Crispin picked up his pen 

as they hadn’t seen the mountain.

It was his to climb, 

and NaMe.

He Read his poem, 

to the wind,

curled below, 

there had been a spirit 

named Gary and his friend Allen, 

and Ken who introduced them.

That old guy Jeffers 

was mad, he got it mostly wrong, but

beautifully wrong.

Seeing What? They play their

word games 

missing the beauty,

Here Crispin meant seeing 

any order


6.
creating a Hierarchy
somehow the idea was abandoned 
there was nothing else to Jack, 
no white man 
owned it, surely not me, 

or you 
or all of us-- finally 
was the only soul 
that there was to have 
the vultures 

eating ones heart out 
seemed so elementally violent, 
by now it was a selfish greedy affair,
Jack was surprised he felt 
no sympathy, 

required no payment
then, we all partake 
in this violence of being
if we see this rigor, 
this harsh, almost mean 

meaning base is the spirit 
Patti had allowing her the delivery,
to speak of Love 
was not a word 
Jack used much like, 

Light, 
just as hard to define 
and maybe too illusive, it was 
what meant, though maybe 
the stars held a similar fate 

7.
but, well
he had to get on,” it was nice 
to meet you,”
That Western place had inspired the JourneY, 
OnE 

of the troublesome words
but he had identified 
with the HerO 
especiallly the one 
with the Hero’s hat, or head or

He did want to say something here. 
The StorY 
held the parts together 
and continued 
to make these PartS

meaningful, 
not just decorating the space--
but each a piece 
of a larger puzzle.
we might never know 

what it meant, as NO 
MaN sHalL sEe thE ENd.
sounded pretty final.
what it meant 
was this search, 

would turn up 
not so much, a nugget here, 
or there but
man, Crispin here was 
the final thought, 

8.
On his death bed, 
well lucky for him 
the universe still twirled 
above 
and that seemed enough 

to-- that word was, “suffice” 
it would do to just be part 
of that somehow 
that chaos or grand whale 
of error and --

We'll, see just here again 

on the way to the temple,

steps
building oneself 
out and up into some, 

Ha! he exclaimed,
Lets make some music.

That’s what we need 

some pleasure 

in the abstraction

in that it changed 
made a start, 
we needed some rhythm, and
Well, a sad music, 

the saddest in the world,

         was very funny--
They just didn’t understand 
serious, thought AnGrY,
it had an element 

of WoRld WeaRiNesS.

Geez, John was gone 
and all he could worry about was where 
everything was, 
he didnt want to lose anything 
on the way out. 

Coming 'round again, Part 3

9.

His styrofoam cup of juice, 

and plastic bag of odds and ends.

Mary told me that it was my idea, 

that reality was just 

everything there was, 

and Bob 

said it was all GoOD, and

so I thought you meant--

we always knew ThIS?

Well, that created enough 

of a WoRlD to operate in -- here 

again as PaRt

TwO, So what else 

do we need to 

keep going

again here see it doesn’t 

really matter what 

one especially 

Jack, Achilles, or Crispin, 

thinks, Oh, and everyone's forgotten 



10.
Achilles,
he was home,
he had a table,
 the relics sat upon it
through the streaming seasons 

of snow and lightening, ice and pouring 
thunderstorm, the wind 
that snapped 
the Cottonwood.
Jack had planted it ten years ago now.

The Hat. The Sneakers, The Walking Stick,
that cow’s pelvis, 
a strange narrative
and some Sunflowers 
He’d dug up along the road,

and Jack draped the prayer flags
over it all.
Crispin couldn’t remember any more 
Why they had chased out 
that heroic fella,

Crispin no, 
I think Achilles, 

 or was it, Siddhattha 

Gotama boy or
that other one--

the cycle 
was coming round, 

and down

and the hand,
and the birds flew,



11.
planets gathered,
peacocks, cried
the grackles glint, 
the 8 bells,
waving to America’s lost poem.

It was all about the Hero, 
In The SuN.
to Crispin, 
the weather, my mirror, 
Jacks upper lip

Ha! his dress and 
GauDy SunFloWeRs.
the Sun was at Noon, 
that height, 
and Heaven 

was an Idea, 
worth a line
in Poetry, what ever you called it.
All things passed,
and it gave a color 

to the exploit,
falling, 
curling wave,
continuing, fall to tripod 
and Thetis 

touch to forehead, seeing 
the Aspen eyes, 
silent and blinking
all tumbling into western sunset 
of wild lagoon, 

and glimpse of blue,
dreamed of, 
seeking surface 
to relate it to climbing
zoDiAc

12.
turning
rising sun, spinning earth, 
solar, wind 
He’d see the moon coming up 
and remembered 

the last evening too
Venus was there beneath
in the south or was that Jupiter
it all returned
from a deeper deep 

grasping for a, surface
Boon!
and Just to See and wondering 
what did that mean?
It WaS aLL OrDerEd aRound.

as it looked here, 
a decorated thing,
musical chairs 
changing places, it was 
Crispin’s new poem 

and it was getting late. 
Jack was whittling it 
it kept changing shape 
he’d chop here and chop there,
How could he decide 

on the importance of this over that?
Wasn’t that part of the rigor
to decide 
again in a second thought
the Authority of-- 

Coming 'round again, Part 4

13.

why there wasn''t any more-- 

PoEtRy, someone 

might take a lead

seemed an Existential dutY 

or CoMmoN SensE 

Strong Poet.

Crispin wasn't ashamed 
of what he saw, he took himself

to a Promised land, 

he’d glimpsed

in the CeruleaN

it wasnt what they thought

one had to give up 

one idea to be free.

He wasnt tellin’

he’d find this or that  

saw some interesting hint 

extrapolating some idea

towards, then revolving round that,

coming to some Whole.

Cyling round, then

now in dark spinning into the light, 

the morning, HeRo!

arriving, that saintly 

luCkY FellA,

he’d Remember.

the work was getting done, it looked 

better in the coffee house,

it was growing beyond him

large, an epIc fashion which--


14.
anyway, it was Crispin’s story.
Jack looked up, 
what had he missed, 
He had just woken 
from the dream

had he forgotten 
something
Nothing was quite strait 
but then it all went together, 
besides he was leaving 

 for the road, The RoaD,
the shelves and the cabinets
could wait
something strait 
would be out of place,

besides trees grew that way, 
it was the crooked timber,
Jack was out in the 
Sun, Wind and Rain,
he swerved, from his thought

as he looked back 
a bobbing head--
the turtle crossing the road 
he remembered, its aged eye
the first one-- 
first one he’d seen 

in the book, Jack thought 
like a Benton illustration--
Oh, and that magazine he’d stopped to see,
flipping in the road, these spots 
of time and flesh

15.
in the rear view
floated through 
and gave a flavor
that he was, Tom Saywer
Becky would always be.

He didnt really have to figure 
anything further, 
organize the parts,
 the whole might be the big 
what it all added up 

to surprise 
and, he’d looked at the rope 

hanging there 

and cringed 
at the sharp thought 

that extreme, 
jerk 

would be 

and so far

from the form of 

Tom’s white fence, 
all slick 
and new in the Summer Grass 
gleaming Green 

and that it really would turn out 

safe in Texas, 
safe as Texas, 
safe as Texas in Texas,
David’s father would always be madly 

in love with the eaRtH


16.
magical wand of 
Presence
here, and Gone-- Fort DA!
everything is somewhat the same 
and 

floating in Heaven 
of thought, remembered
in a dance in firelight
origin and 
Time lapse of-- Bang! and 

the evolutions 
towards our own moment
all crashing 
in a rapids of river time 
up over and down
Really explosive 

time a continuing Big Bang!
so why did I think this rough exaggerated 
approach 
worth--, 
the style

Jack liked, seeing how it 
was all hammered together.
organizing the content of 
one’s life in a form which
related.

skipping along, keeping aloft 
on the peaks, the stones slipping
away falling to that dangerous 
Mother gulping 
after formlessness,

Cythonic woman of Eternity,
stars behind,
stars ahead.
my back ache in bed,
never to arrive.

Coming 'round again, Part 5

17.

Had to slow a bit to allow 

this poetry 

of older age to catch up.

each idea pushed out 

set out into the weightlessness 

of the revolving-- free

out there looking back.

Aurora blaze in the nick.

the inner reaches of outer space 

seemed it,

evilly compounded,

same bare place.

in the capscan machine the 

underwater sonar, blip blip

my life, my mind,my body, 

my aching back.

Jack wanted to bring up the 

rear guard 

and pin it onto the resultant, One! 

connecting to a whole

Donkey-- idea 

fading in whimsy

a shape, a stripe, a flower 

--revolving

clouds, leaves, waves.

swoosh 

the leaves, 

the figures onward 

to the vase 


18.

an ideal in the stars 
of Pollock drip,
hatch, hatch of Vincent and over 
hatch of Jasper,
the diamonded reality

I was ready
to go
Jack was all packed up
ready
going through it all again 

to make sure
Jack arrived in a black sky
yellow leaves,
in the headlights
1/2 moon,

waking to the first cars,
coffee, and the routines beginning.
reading, and doing yoga for his back.
He was going to paint right away.
He was nudging it forward 

to a change.
to its new existence, changing
to a forward turn
needing to crack, break or
blow into and through 

an inner knowing
some pathos he thought
that we would care.
some aesthetic dignity,
difficulty of mind.

19.
a yielded wisdom,
in that moment whistling dryly
scratch scratch in the moment.
he remembered the 
made up phrase, “Achilles 

of the wind fed brush”
so he left us without 
that old dusty God of our fathers
but a NeW reality of GeniuS.
sparkled 

in a New World,
set off, in the stars
to give rise
Heave HO!
Revolving black and white

Reduce and Radicalize
He was making those 
Subway drawings,
A new word for God was painted
on his lips

from now OnwarD!
New Reality! HO! HO!
revolving around,
back in the library, Jack 
was making the plan.

He hurried
that mad woman gobbling 
up everything.
the painting tumbled around in the 
stars upside

20.
down
this version doubled in the stars
a dick face and a fuck you 
had won the day.
Jack was on his own 

in the desert
this hero in the library was 
an old man’s game
but then my hero
the garbage man 

of the world
upside down world of mysterious 
rustling
leaves, that passage.
Jack had thought of it all 

many times over, and around 
and it changed slightly.
he remembered the blue hills,
it was different than 
he thought it would be

it was late
the yellowing sky, scattering 
slate of cloud
snow whipping at the very height
jangling diamonded light 

and credence of snowman, joined--
and blank returning.
jumble and skip
the same bare place
Stars behind,