Paterson: Book II, Chapter 1, p. 55

A Song for Nothing

mothballs 

sweaty sheets

&

trenchant hopelessness

--a trumpet sounds fitfully

the same way the blinds shake

when the window's open

seven trumpets on seven days

and the bed stays warm

and itchy

and inescapable

Say it! No.

There are days the young are very old.

A Poem from October 2012

*This poem is not part of the Paterson Project proper.  It is, instead, a personal poem I wrote last fall as part of a creative writing assignment.  It is based on my memories of a criminal trial in which I participated in the spring of 2009.

Sentencing

Four years ago

I sentenced a man

to his death.

Not that I killed him, I should revise,

but that I found him guilty,

of breaking and entering,

of rape,

of kidnapping in the 2nd degree.

There was little question

of innocence:

three friends, pointing plead fingers;

a DNA match, to the site of the crime;

the testimony, even, of a small,

and dimmer, woman,

who did not

flinch—

She had been chosen, she said;

among others.  Kept

in a bathroom, with her face pressed down

near the floor.

she was beaten, and made to suffer

the seemingly

unsufferable.

One by one of us declared it: guilty

of breaking and entering,

of rape,

of kidnapping in the 2nd degree.

This was followed

by the order of a judge,

who unshouldered our weight,

who gave our words

meaning:

60 years, he said;

and Life.

But what I remember most, what I

cannot shake from my head

of that day,

is not a boy, just

seventeen, whose life was then

forfeit;

is not a brown-skinned woman,

shoulders so far down,

taking the loneliest seat

in a courtroom;

is not the mothers, of the chained

and the unchained,

who wept alike

over the choices which had brought them

together;

it is a matching of eyes

between men: the

defendant; his friend, six months

on the inside.

The friend looked at

Him—twice—

as if to say:

“Run, oh Beautiful;

there is no waiting

for Death.”

You may say this

is not my tragedy;

and if you do, you are,

of course, right.

It is theirs,

and so sharp,

and so public.

Yet, still:

the combined humours of pity, guilt,

love weave seamlessly,

before they are contorted,

in rhythmed bows,

and made

a spectacle

of other horror.

And, in that,

 a point goes missing.

No love here is

replaceable, and no pity

yet bane.

KMC 9/14/12

Paterson: Book II, Chapter 1, p. 55

Hungarian Metronome; or, Time Over the Falls

(not a rush—a steady tempo:)

metronóm.

Metro-

nóm.

Etro

nóme.

Tron

ómet

ronó

me.tr

onóm

etro

nóme.

Nó.me.

Metro.

Nóme.
Nóme.
Nóme.

KMC 4/3/13

Paterson: Book II, Chapter 1, p. 50-52, 54-55, 58-61

Lovers in the Park

There is no place outside
from which to say
what this is 
or what it is not.

There is only it:
warming,
or reminding,
or being,
in its own
degrees.

But somewhere
a dog jumps for a Frisbee--
and forgets:
a fence;
a leash;
a chain.

KMC 4/2/13

Paterson: Book I, Preface, p. 3

To Make a Start: from Paterson

And just as time begins to pass the rigor

sets in, leaving nothing but stiffened beauty,

a pair of boots, a dog, and a yearning quest

of continuous loss over continual gain. Particulars

ease forward reticently. The hope of the general--

the only genuine hope--continues its rolling.

Furthermore (or perhaps however), these ends are rolling

on progressively as always, falsifying the rigor

of the first and calcifying hope and pain into general

anesthetic. Means shift meaning faithfully toward beauty.

The edges shift, shake, and oscillate the particulars

within, blurring the simple itinerate quest.

Is this the everyday, constant quest

of movement between crowded streets, rolling

forth? Are these them? These the particulars

we wanted when we dragged this dead dog in rigor

up, swabbed the blood from its ears, releasing beauty,

ghostly, from a concrete mutt? Arrived has our general.

It's hard to explain the exquisite truth in general,

but more so when you're an undead retriever mix back from a quest

that included drowning in the grey expansive beauty

of the Atlantic City ocean where the horizon sets to rolling

and lapping at your feet. This grey is a grey of a rigor

so severe that all who see it see only its particulars.

The dog is it. The one with all the particulars.

Her moves are to become our moves, her sounds our general

approach to all and all that will be. Rigor

is her only requirement. We shall leave, naked, on a quest

for it all, but only if all of it begins with rolling

freely out in its own direction and beauty.

The only thing that counts as far as beauty

is concerned is this: divide up the particulars

into categorical desires, then smash them with a rolling

pin. A fine dust will be generated and a general

feeling of peace will wash over you and your quest

will end. Breathe deeply this dust, for it is your rigor.

There is only rolling in this nothing beauty.

There is only rigor in these murky particulars.

There is no general thought in this categorical quest.

Paterson: Book II, Chapter I, p. 57-58 (II)

Eisenstein’s Heavenly Man (II)

The film is a nickel

And worth it:

Eisenstein’s heavenly man.

“The meat is rotten!”: Vakulynchuk's corpse

Ice on the inside of a window: Alma-Ata

“Госуда́рственная пре́мия СССР!”: Moscow

Ca-ROCK-ithy, C-ROCK-ithy: 4 December, 1930

“Think of them as frescoes in motion!”: to Frida Kahlo

Whisps of chilled air: Alma-Ata

Strike!: Strike

“A film without equal in cinema!”: Joseph Goebbels

One hundred thousand dollars: py6 2,746,800

The numbness of a cheek: Alma-Ata

Fingers curling along the edge of a mattress: Alma-Ata

Iris out: Alma-Ata

In the morning, Rising: 11 February 1948


KMC 8/4/11

Paterson: Book II, Chapter I, p. 57-58 (I)

Eisenstein’s Heavenly Man (I)

Fifty feet           

On a silver screen //      

Eisenstein’s:      

HEAVENLY MAN.

The meat is rotten!

(Strike!)

The quarters unkempt!

(Strike!)

The wages unfair!

(Strike!)

The blood unjustly spilled!

(And in a darkened

room, eyes reflect light
and Tell: 
everything is shadows
moving faster
than they should be.)

Paterson: Book II, Chapter I, p. 58

(Priapus!)

Priapus!

Come and let me

have a look at you.

I'll not stare

at the obvious--

          the enormous,

          swollen,

          tired phallus;

                    the rises of strains

                    in the muscles 

                    of your forearm;

                              the purple bend

                              of awful skin;

                              the long-wished-lost

                                        weight.

I'll not share

your story broadly--

          the fetal curse

          of a jealous 

          goddess;

                    the chasing through fields

                    of Other-claimed 

                    flesh;

                              the thwarting,

                              (hilariously)

                              of an angry, stubborn

                                        ass.

I'll not mock

the life of verdict--

          the building

          in you    

          of the unspeakable thing;

                    the want

                    of love

                    or the thrust of it;

                              the longing

                              for finish,

                              and the prayer for

                                       ends.

          Rather, I'll wait.

          I'll look you over,

          with my own two eyes,

          and see you blink.

          Who would have guessed

          it would take your presence

          to undo you?

          Who would have expected

          the weight of too much of you

          would be the weight you could not bear?

         The envy, friend, is yours.

         Stand up (as if you could not);

         rise,

         and get out

         of my sight.

KMC 8/4/11

Paterson: Book II, Chapter I, p. 55

A Song for Nothing; or, "Rafters"

[horns enter]

Chorus of thousands:

arpeggiated risings, fallings

to a sound.

Let's sing, goddammit;

let's shout til the mother
fucking roof rises,
until it quakes

from the grey-dusted I-beams

posting up from the floor;

Let's sing until bolts rattle

in their holes

and hundred-year old washers

bounce on their foundings

 like makeshift tambourines;

until metal winks and shimmers

in radiating rooflight,

and silvered steel hisses out

the harshest cymbaled Cs:

                     SSSSSSSSS--

Let's sing, you sons of bitches;

let's roar from our bellies

with full-lunged, full-

throated, fucking

full-bodied gutsongs;

let's shout until pressures unknowable

push out against the walls

of our skin;

until sound itself vibrates

our bones,

our fingers,

our teeth,

until something threatens

and will

burst, tear, rip

out of us,

splitting us each

down our alchemical

middle--

Let's break, crowd of crowds;

let's swell, rise, and part

down our seam;

let's climb in walls

of mother-fucking water,

riven as the Red Sea,

hemisected as our own 

grey matter;

let's, let's build

our song of everything

until it opens,

it unzips itself,

it spills itself out

of our split-husked selves,

pouring from the hives of us

like a swarm of 

unbelievable bees,

Oh, oh, my god:
            LISTEN--

Take
this,
Jesus Christ,
please take
it;

take it
and keep 

taking.

KMC 7/2/11, 7/10/11