An American Papyrus: 25 Poems | Page 9

bench--
packages of her new
clothing pulling on arms and chest
Like the recalling torpor that came more easily
To her lower legs; the weight of the
mink that arched
Her aching shoulders more like a lady;
And a small sack of
chocolate stars
Touching her upper neck--
Wondering what packages her
fellow-creatures
Bought to be brought home and to whom
They brought them to.

And then, as the locks of solitude clicked in her
consciousness,
Came the wondering
of where, oh where,
Did the Mall-Lady go?

Savior-Searcher In The Bible-Belt
I can see you in those dry moments, then
As clearly as if I were there: staring at the
cracks
Of the white ceiling above the bedpost, wondering if
You will slip down three

flights to the outer darkness
Like your ex-Mormon roomate, here. Your visual mind,
Against your will, probably
thinks about your squirm
That a few moments ago squirmed you of your juice,

Wiggled her skirt back on, resurfaced the lip-spit
Crackup in her concrete of makeup,
and wordless,
Walked like a princess out the door.
As the last of the ecstatic
vibrations tides you in
the rear
You arise from the raft of the mattress.
Then you
cover up your nakedness,
And move to the light of the living room.
And then I actually see you, Don, in the hour that you
had told
Me to step back in.
You are bending over the
end-table stained
In the blood of wine. Sunlight, stripped
silver from
the grey
Clouds, pours through the window to the table.
To your right a
nine of swords card of a man pierced
in the
Back gleams as it walls the card of your
future
lovers.,
And the redness of Doctrines and Covenants to the far
left of
That
table also looks pure in the light.
You do not see me. Your mind is racked in screwing

the pack
For an answer. You turn another Tarot Card
In the order your destiny is to
be read.
Your sad eyes look up
And your languid voice says that you are late
For your meeting
with the local Bishop...
A meeting to straighten up your fucking life.
I laugh! In
bitterness that shakes my intestines, I
laugh!
Another hillbilly man
Has lifted his
head above the rest--a foot up from the
jug--
And has blown his breath into the air

Which 'naps another young and fragmented one
To the call of being holy.
But before
you arise
You turn the gleaming card of number four--
Your eyes in a more
motionless trance than before.

New England Washing
(Mental Account, Some day of Gorbechev, 1987)
Another hour.
There is no circulation
Beneath the steering wheel for my feet.

Outside myself
There is the last of the sun at dusk
But like the conquering Hsuing-Nu

Pushing themselves beyond a
Great Wall and through an eternal
Gathering, it is
hardly felt.
There is nothing great to trouble me
And nothing substantial descends on
my senses,
Giving me thoughts other than the fact I'm thinking
nothing:
Only
A
flock of birds in the corner of my left eye
Blend down with the grey skies
As if the
fence barricading
The farm land does not pertain to them;
Thoughts of the center line

And not going over it.
Days of Gorbechev, the radio speaks of,
But not his
nights--where, one time
He may have smashed
A big, red cigarettte in an ashtray

With an action stiff and slow;
And as he stood up the mattress of his bed may have

Raised to touch his rear, again,
Like a quick and soothing give-me-five handshake;

And opening a window of the embassy
To escape the stuffy dryness
Of electric heat
to his suite,
He may have let the cool American air
Attack him with the smells and

sights
Of its diplomatic car exhausts,
Grey and orange from street lamps
And store
lights...and how
The nation breathed for once as it moved.
The third: road; cows, like islanders;
Multi-tinted bladed fields broken by acres
Of
forests and pastures; a black-sun scene with
Car lights; a vision blurred and pebbled

Through the windshield--
A truck passes my pinto;
Muddy water slapping its face;

Its stick eyes smoothing it
To a duller complexion.
It isn't yet Christmas
And I am
going home.
My parents one day drooped
In front of all, and were old--
We should
be having much to say...
I, thinking like them, with
The mind of the world,
And us
smiling unhappily
And speaking none of that:
But a lot will be said.
I am a bum.

One of their hearts shall give in
And their marriage will be a farce...
Even in car
accidents the married
Die separately. And then the widowed
Mother, smoking the
cigars of her husband,
And coughing them as the husband had done
But in the
apartment of the son, might
Visit away her life: I would
Bring her there, thanking
God for a reason
Not to try hiding all of me in some pussy
As in daylight the main
part
Goes into underwear.
This is their town
Far from trays with saucers
And plates and spoons and forks

(Sometimes hardened in scalloped potatoes
Or bent) and knives and glasses
(Glasses
sometime with folded bread inside)...
But forever coming down the belt for the

Dumping and washing...the trays that disappear

In a square hole and come out clean

Will continue regardless if I am there.
Men fuck virgins; a child-worker
Is born and
all is holy.
There is nothing great to trouble me:
The rains that drop and drift next

To streets in gutters,