(said you may's well start where you want to go, it'll save you the trouble of getting there later)

            focused consciousness // diffuse awareness

(boots, bootstraps and bootheels)

      (the care and feeding of injured bodies)

                  (more hints than kinks)

i'm trying to learn.  can i practice on you?

      (like trying to hide what you don't know you have)

(said he don't get excited often, that's why he ain't much good at it, he ain't had the chance to practice)

(said they remember gentle, but not how gentle)

                        (said don't get me wrong -- but get me)

'but the only thing i would whip them for is not knowing english,
i would whip them hard for that.'
                                          --winston churchill

      (the moral and intellectual importance
of habituating ourselves to a strict accuracy of expression)

'this sculpture in the memory is not without pre-established harmony'

      like living in a goldfish bowl filled with piranhas

(her bones like chalk against the blackboard pavement)

                  (that myth is just another word for narrative)

(and now it's just a question of whether i can swallow it unchewed)

            Run Higher, Jump Faster, Last Longer

(Yesterday's Trials)

that when you settle you settle

(for you know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears)

(the inherent problems of a literature written in language evolved for use elsewhere)

      alferd in the kitchen

said you're willing to talk to everyone but yourself

said yeah i know these are the golden days, and i'm enjoying it all to the hilt.  i just wish there was a bit more left of the hilt.

      (said i have this dear old aunt, maiden aunt, she's crippled in both legs and has terrible breath, but she's been very kind to me, and we're close, she tells me stories of the loves of her youth and the dreams of her age.  none of her relations care for her, i'm the only one visits her, and that only rarely, she called me this afternoon to ask if i'd come see her, she's very kind about that, she never says she's lonely, i told her i'd come.  what could i say?  so, we could make it another time, perhaps?)

pinwheels of flowers
symphonies of goodbyes
after all those hours
you can read their eyes
      (not be denied)

(transitional surface)

                  (fossil poetry)

                        --said tears like this no angels weep

                        --no old repute, consent, no custome

(made to trod those steps thrice over, which i need not to have trod but once)

      (fingers, ears, the elongated jaw
                        crooked part, cocked elbow
                  thick lips,
                              fingers)

(as it fell
to the early bird
when the worm turned)

            (they have none of that vital energy,
                  which disease only could give them)

impalpable earth,
unattainable sky

      the awareness that the eyes may deceive by seeing rather than by fancying

      the greatest clown in the world never received a more flattering tribute to his powers to amuse than had been called forth by mine to make myself understood

-- the use of outer creation, to give us language for the beings
                        and changes of the inward creation

            nona:
            it's hard to write about joy.
            that's where it turns into music.

will says, what is it, l.a., you get tired of burning it at both ends and decide to take a blowtorch to the middle?

      said i'm a hothouse rose
      said there just ain't enough in your steam

(by the time you bring them back together, it's no loner fair to be calling it tranquility)

i want to take you where you've never been
when you get here i want you to stay

                              it ain't your river
                              you bring me to cross
                              i fight bitter tears
                              for that man's loss

that the visionary is always the cruelest of the cruel lot, saying 'this is beautiful, it is not like you.'

      (who know nothing better, indeed nothing other, than to break it down into constituent parts and consider the organizing principle)

      well if it ain't your home, then you ain't got the right to draw the faintest line.  if you ain't got the time to treat it right, better leave it alone.)

those still attempting to differentiate love from perception

just one altar
where i'll ever bow

      said what i'm lookin for
            is some accounts receivable

said i'm lookin for a line to lay it on

i believe in love
want to stick around see what that means?

            a long, cold, stony one then --
                  i'll walk it

make it hurt
make it pay
make it new

      you thought to exhaust the body, your spirit burnt out first

            meconium

his secret meaning lies in our endeavors

      the patterns never those you plan,
      but those that are more truly yours

(those are the ones that you got to look out for
they ain't lookin out for themselves)

i'd say that the most widely circulating image today is the ache of the lost appendage

when they make you a teacher they let you require things.  when you become one you can stop

(what you like best to eat you can never consume)

      (said i can sing this song now, it's no longer true)

i'll tell you what this is about here.  i always make a list, of things i want to remember to pack