Warm Water

all the same I enjoy what I'm doing
one component at a time how it is
plunging headfirst into warm water
workouts on the exercise machines
manipulating letterforms on my iMac
playing tai chi with Thich Nhat Hanh
where is my suffering he speaks about

We Few

sole survivors are people I hardly know
we few manifesting as conditions decline
how can Meryl Streep keep looking young
having too much fun working to miss out
otherwise the movie painful as remember
we can't as always stay at home and read
the author is dead someone has to decide

Small Secrets

how is a person real without pages
or persuading others to become

scheduled appointments apply to
all manner of separate occasions

obvious truths explode faces in
disbelief of how it came down

this is an ordinary day regular
weather prevails against doubt

added flavor wishful movement
small secrets privately discussed

in sum the best chocolate again
rewards correct repeating form

Bare Eyes

if optics is not the whole of seeing
not in the eyes but the visual cortex
constructing the world like our ideas
I can throw away my glasses paying
hundreds so they don't make worse

reading this perfectly with bare eyes
what are we to make of that doctors
attend to the organism only I can see

She Cares

when it reminds me of cocoa that doesn't mean it necessarily is
though no telling what else it might be not quite the right color
anyway cocoa doesn't come in such quantity for domestic usage
why on the bottom of the pool tell me that what are they doing

and what am I doing thinking of turning back the blinding fog
happy I didn't the play was wonderful though the dinner not so
Irene a writer like no other delightful touching not just because
I know her easily imagine who she means how much she cares

Other Families

is there time to breathe water
before you realize the failing
air can save you from sorrow

or do we dream in error sadly
misled what happens to other
families suspended in solution

no poignant regret for what's
long past fixing the past solid
as thought with consequences

Being Brave

sixty years of marriage shows wear
party stiff food limp family snaps
poised among carnations nameless
earlier versions unflattering colors
being brave not trying very hard
you have to imagine the real thing
livelier and a whole lot more fun

The Light Changes

in the room the colors come and go
as the light changes maybe music

encounters over coffee and the piano
inspire gratitude devotion to practice

no one to share my Homage to Frank
other brightness a substitute for eyes

that's it and not chosen to contribute
all worth possible making my own

Other Aspects

different kinds of people can talk
early in the morning or later on
different subjects avoid political
opinion if we don't agree let be
not even mention Judith's radical
action they would not appreciate
or other aspects of my wild life
unregretted different other times

Stolen Time

quickly spill whether anything else
will grace the fallen manners forbid
exactly that random fact stolen time

I'm talking about lunch how people
talk about themselves to what end
if not entertainment never revealed

Secret Self

inner life is who
you are what lies
behind within the
given of yourself

what and how
made you this
manifestation
talking alive
doesn't appear
on the everyday
surfaces decide
express act out

where you stand
and what on an
ineluctable secret
even in poetry

New Clothes

more sweaters elbow-holed
warm for at-home wear old
folks trail old lives undusted
artifacts of a livelier period
children still around running
to keep up more relaxed now
enjoy quiet and new clothes

Knowing Enough

from David to Toulouse-Lautrec what riches the world
provides how weather can be better it is what it is and
not for long having rid ourselves of conditional words

glimpsed out of the corner of my mind never forgotten
although I don't know I remember until I do suddenly
pops as if the first time not knowing enough to enjoy

life might as well be art but it's only an opportunity to
swim weightless between applications raw intelligence
thick to cover thin to reveal everything done for us now

Flawed Ways

four cookies a splurge
how bad is that for me
admitting flawed ways
spawns anything goes
superego kicks in cuts
back stability restored

Clear Through

reading Proust in fragments
I make my way clear through
a few dense pages at a time
at the end of the day till sleep
robs the sentences of sense
and I gladly turn out the light

Still Awake

lines made by individual birds
not even thinking about a line
merely following the bird ahead
still awake to the whole picture

edges between cloud and no cloud
organized by individual atoms
if there even are atoms anymore
white part of the blueness of sky

humans are equally insignificant
eating sleeping talking fitting in
making loving the principal thing
emergent bits of organic pattern

I Go

so nice to be invited
if asked I say yes
if invited I go
invitation
key

Half Blind

a vacation from my mind keeps
churning when it doesn't matter
nothing to be made of a trip to
the eye doctor drive home half
blind do what I'd do without it
next steps implicit in the prior
even sleeping it barely lets up
I wake in a spin having traveled
think I might as well actually go

See Attached

continues to blaze coldly through the night
rising into consciousness only to annoy
mine of to wit or else to woo see attached
nothing does any good what is continues
evolving chaotically toward no good end

Young Again

The light will return, but they will not be young again. To themselves they are always young, as well as old; they carry their youth within them as they live their age.

Still White

self-devouring worlds in other colors
convey facticities otherwise unglimpsed
turning flips despite awfulness live on
are we still white in a darkened theatre
other disparities emerge not mattering
I want pants that red to remember them

Two States

adamant
overwhelmed

The Fact

every sentence has three parts or more
if you can break it open add on others
undo the subject-verb-object thought-
form invisible constraint on realness
something more apposite can happen

other verbs denote being a character
dissolves into acts of self-expression
objects as much agents as people are
subject to influences nobody notices
whether or not you recognize the fact

New Language

books pile up each beckons
each a reason for being read

then forgotten as everything
evaporates or will be burnt

each wording new language
no one is able to understand

already a translation English
is a prison without reprieve

reason itself a bare construct
wishing to be taken seriously

read all of them at once to
make room for new writing

Four Couplets

you studied I did it
whoever is alive wins

what's better for me
is not better for you

time changes music
location changes us

where we are now
reveals who we are

Get Better

practice no chore
it helps it's what
I do to get better

Other Parts

the game absorbs the mind
(I mean the game you play)
all questions put aside every
problem is forgotten while it
lasts whether or not you win

this is the pleasure brief free
dependable then you go back
to what's needing to be done
other pleasures people chores
move other parts of yourself

Too Late

if I had known you better I would be sorrier
not to have been able to save anyone's life
my own least likely to be remembered right

a final effort corrects omissions of the past
nothing more than I did possible at the time
stupid as I was naive embarrassingly antsy

if you're an artist that's what matters most
though what you care about is love the body
children everything revealed when it's too late

Wild Winds

these clouds rob the world of brightness
color never matches the brilliant screen
I'd rather look at pictures than the thing
itself a ghost of what I used to try to see

the woods accepted me kept their secret
an animal doesn't need to understand I
was one of them practically the only one
cold winters make it hard to live there

I need my house its furnace warmth
dry bedding a roof doesn't blow away
my nature to withdraw behind walls
when the rain cold wild winds blow

Personal History

At the left of my chair, books on Frank O'Hara and Andy Warhol, pole stars of the moment of disintegration, which I took to be personal transformation at the time (on my right, Montaigne). Both were shining in that glittering climactic year, 1964, the time of the Tavel/Warhol book I am working on (typing). Frank was warm, Andy chill. Frank was drinking too much. Andy was on speed (obatrol). They were suns, each in a swarm of planets; Frank's were nourished, Andy's burnt up. Two years later Frank was dead (July 25). I produced a brilliant season at Sundance, then chased the Living Theatre to Berlin, writing Theatre Trip, won a Brandeis Award, directed Soren Agenoux's Christmas Carol at the Caffè Cino (on speed). Frank's death was the turning point, two years ahead of the general culture's (MLK, RFK assassinations). Andy won.

Too Cold

too cold to be sorry the moon
glows waxing unseen warmer
tomorrow maybe I can do more

Bartok educates the teacher too
funny peculiar rhythm harmony
opens hearing teaches reading

ears cleared imagining silence
not heard again without regret
these losses nobody's surprise

Among Friends

pressure from within
released carefully
among friends
who approve already
even so
squirming doesn't help
more than ears
trying to be specific

after the party
we clean up
it's early
but we are tired
tomorrow promises
further cold
the same issues
ready to pounce

what do I propose
to do
as if spacing
were available
cascades instead
roar all night
having hosted
deserves to rest