FOR MY CURRENT IMMERSION IN DEATH

193. FOR MY CURRENT IMMERSION IN DEATH (& a walk through Central Park too):

This isn’t a cavern isn’t a cave isn’t much of anything tangible and as the words go on although they accumulate they are nothing "I like to look at the stars yet although there are none there I pretend there are many and I pretend to see deeply into that vast myriad of swirling dimensional light that deep space eventually becomes and IT IS NOT silent for there is behind it all a vast buzzing background hum the simple white noise of the universe the fizz of creation and we pretend not to be able to see past that uncertain somewhere point of origination yet that that is our very soul and out there we are simple and urgent simple and strong and weighty and waiting so we are all things just like all things and if I hear a song I often wonder if it is from that distant place for that is why we seek melody – for it is memory – and that is why we walk the sea or seek the endings of the land or scan heavenward while we walk in darkness and the sad sea echoes back ONLY THAT WHICH WE HAVE HEARD BEFORE and if a philosopher or a scribe would say there is nothing new under the sun he would be wrong and right by degree for it is all the same ONE BEING as God or Sun King or the Wind and such building blocks can surpass our thoughts but cannot alter our being" now is that wasn’t that a sermonette as they say in those little church guidebooks I’ve seen handed out then if it wasn’t then nothing is and I absorb only as much of it as I choose for behind me the clock on the wall says completion and time and hour and the little second hand bounces around seemingly as unsteady as the universe’s chimes themselves would be if they could be heard and like that background noise comment said I know I’ve heard that too heard that many times and internalized all of whatever was THE SOUND WALL THE CAVERN THE DISTANT CAVE and many are the appetites of man - many - so you cannot hold one or more against me or anyone like me as ALL ARE ADAM’S stock and seed and steed alike ‘failure to prepare is preparing to fail’ they say the garbage men say the men who pave the roads say the toll-takers the clerks the police and fire men say the accountants the governors and the teachers all alike too say and are apt to mouth the essential piece which defies for them what they are and where ‘be quick but don’t hurry’ becomes their soiled mantra things like that BUT WE WE IT IS who know better ‘sky full of water rain pouring down’ and like a royal legionnaire or a guy with big bucks we start acting too proud and too haughty about meanings and motives and why’s and where’s and soon enough soon enough LIKE BOYLAN they’re having it shouted down to us from every rooftop and sidewalk stand ‘if you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles and if you know yourself and not your enemy for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat and still if you know neither the enemy nor yourself you will succumb in every battle’ and it becomes then meaningless like just something we’ve heard in a meadow somewhere something small and vacuous and ‘utterly without merit’ as the critics say ‘BUT SIR IT’S AN UMBRELLA’ but it hasn’t rained around here for nearly three months now as we remember it and the broadcasts tell us since the time the airplanes fell from the sky into those two tall buildings ALIKE together and so many died and then the Leonides surprised us by visiting the sky above and the waves and waters everywhere took them in and the other plane crashed RIGHT ABOVE OUR HEADS major and I swear it was something to do something to do with that fireman who said ‘you can kiss my ass and I live in Rockaway’ and there’s freedom to and freedom from and you better remember that Mr. Sharkey and it’s all out there written mysteriously in distant messages from some Mt. Palomar of the mind centered in light and image within each of us and here as I look at the deep and faraway pictures from deepest outer space the constellations and galaxies and forming gaseous stars and broken trajectories and finger eruptions of cosmic gas and the spectrum colors and dazzling lights and shadings in deepest space I wonder and nod and realize the place within me WHERE THE STARS ARE LIKE WORDS AND THE WORDS ARE LIKE STARS.

So I’ve gone from the Van Gogh of vision to the DeKooning of the dustbin and just like an apple on a still-life table somewhere under natural light the exposure the open sky the painterly line and flow of each expression captures rightly what exists so walking through the land and through streets beside that light and outside of experience becomes the right thing the right approach the masterly form to be rounded shaped with the charcoal’d control arm of the painter’s thought and there they are too in the sunlight with easels you can find them in bright weather lined up along the lake along the parkside castle villa even in the café doing colored chalk oils waters pastels pencils every motivated medium on paper and board and canvas whatever it may be the artists are aligned by their eyes to see and the gruff old man performs the turtle race guy shouting aloud like a barker on his blanket alerting the passersby to the faint alarm of his game and the boxed turtles so slowly emerge and his painted race track is lined out on his blanket and ‘HEY! just fifty cents a throw the turtle race is quite a show’ the show’s about to begin and his solace evidently is the solace of everyone and the couples lovingly pass by some stop some laugh stop continue on their lovers’ way and still the artists with their easels paint while the oriental masters along the sidebar benches ply their ancient crafts the man who paints a portrait on the brooch the other man with the wispy thin black whiskers five inches long paints he claims YOUR NAME on a grain of rice like every grain of sand is numbered so we guess are names and if not numbered than most certainly wondered about ‘back-bench massaged rubbed down pain eased away monkey on a string come talk with my green parrot pretzels ice cream here hey ! most certainly let those kids into the zoo I bet they’d love to see the animals today’ as the slow park rangers glide by in their dour sorrowful striped gray uniform pants like aging bohemians their pinched sallow faces aged decades since they last recalled the fun of obsolescence as I see she’s got the burned out face of a bad genuflection and lost so deep right here in the middle of slowly forested it seems city’s prideful park and they walk this park today in hats just watching what occurs these people one after another one after another sitting on the benches in rows like pellets like fleshy ammunition live awaiting flash and powder awaiting my God ! something today the guy reading the paper like some daily giant encyclopedia but it’s junk the junk of movie-star names and scandals and taxi-men complaining about their bowels and arms and hours the sale sheets of stupid stores the summer’s fat array of scores and every sport is someone’s grudge the new york post news journal times voice press eyes watching earns recognition only by the noise they make and so many HERE THE DEAD PICKED OUT BEFORE US sit arrayed beseeching someone for something oh IF THEY ONLY COULD and I hear the parkland echoes through the gleaming gliding sound the slice of butter the toast of recognition all the noise the thought of the globe each and every moment ‘what is it about medieval kings named John ? King John of England (known forever as John Lackland) was never forgiven his loss of Normandy and Anjou to the French or his involvement in murder and the perceived maladministration of England and at Poitiers in 1356 King John II of France was defeated by Edward the Black Prince and became a captive in England leaving his country to languish and even Scotland’s own King John…’ so it goes on my eye spies the college student girl complete with telephone and bag and books and lunch reading History Magazine while typing notes on screen her face so small and white (yet serene) providing image beneath broad elm oh had I brush and mind to paint I would Literary Walk indeed vast spreading widening trees on high above the sculpted garden soaring into light and with light the patterned passing of people in the varied positions of this world far past England’s clime past all of history clumped like bridge notes somewhere hidden hidden silent until found out alone or found out all together the hieroglyph’d meaning of this life is wanted the ROSETTA STONE of existence sought and all of these scratching surface peoples drifting with pencils through a long-dawned summer’s day an afternoon of a faun indeed (a time of ministration in such a time of need).