The quiet sailor watches the Beatles play in the Kaiserkeller bar in 1960.
He listens to a song in time out of sync
composed for the Abbey Road album
in 1969.
A song born for the future –
silently asleep
in the silence of crystal stars.
He listens above the open sea
climbing a ladder made of coal
rising from the depths –
dreaming itself
into a structure
aimed into the obsidian sky.
Giotto painted the stars bleeding out his fingertips.
Caroline Coon did a painting of Christine Keeler
As did Pauline Boty.
I fell into the world without a shaman
Somewhere the world is not yet what it will become.
I rented a tiny apartment next door to the girl in white shorts
whose brother, or maybe step-father, has a hook for a hand.
I wake to the sound of birds.
My mother worked near a famous intersection during the war –
music in the nightclubs vibrated echoes all night long.
Somebody said he remembered her –
in a flat boat gliding through the reeds.
Oak trees cast shadows across divided pools
designed in the curvilinear shapes of a Celtic eagle’s head –
I remember fish in deep water
I didn’t want to fall in –
going home from Eddie’s house.
Eddie spread catsup on white bread and smoothed it with a butter knife.
The architect said it was a secret.
My father brought home FBI WANTED POSTERS his friend, the agent, gave him. I spread them out on the bed and frightened myself with aliases, previous crimes, and last known locations. What is white slavery? He has a bazooka? The square inked fingerprints looked like Neolithic patterns connected to the criminal’s inner mind. Photographs were specific yet vague. He could be at the music store, in line at the Frozen Dairy stand. If a car slowed down, surely one of the most wanted had followed me – possibly for hours.
from my book Meme-Noir (2019)
I created these three GIFs before my Photoshop 5 program became unworkable. A face in Art History seems out of context yet provides commentary, a touchstone. I remind myself, in various ways, of this day when the carnival came to town. A long car driving through shadows into the sun of art history.
I walked past the row houses where I spent my childhood, stepping over syringes, watching for wild dogs, hearing hammering & avoiding ladders leaned against altars in late-afternoon shadow. The wind blew a torn page to my feet: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Without understanding why, I put the folded paper in my jacket pocket. A touchstone.
Across the years I return again and again to hear The Small Faces sing Itchykoo Park. It all seems such a dream. Steve Marriott’s pleasure and Ronnie Laine’s pleasure and their back and forth expressions. Their Carnaby Street fashions.
I argue with myself and contrast realities. The rebellious joy in Itchykoo Park juxtaposed with Joos de Momper the Younger documenting great Babel. Soon to crumble. Soon to fall.
The laboratories & the madness of Babel. Soon to crumble. Soon to fall.
poemimage 