john and yoko

The love John felt for Yoko: ‘She’s an original. And she can come on strong as any man. She’s usually ahead of all of us. And at the same time she’s a woman. And when you meet someone like that, you drop everything. It’s good bye to the gang you used to drink with. Or, in my case, the guys in the band. You don’t go and play football anymore. Once I found the woman, the boys became of no interest whatsoever, other than that they were like old school friends: “Hi, how are you, nice to see you.  How’s your wife?” ’

            the old myth about people being half and the other half being in the sky or in             

            heaven or on the other side of the universe or a mirror image

            we are             two                  halves                     and together we're a whole

                        everyone you see is full of life

                        everywhere in town is getting dark
                                   no

                        it’s not dark yet

                        but it’s getting there

J. Edgar

success she tells me the air of competition

and I realize what has been sorrowfully absent

having been where I’ve been studied where I’ve studied

excelling without every really trying

what a fucking joke

no no no no a fire has been lit a seed planted a vineyard sown

in my own library of Congress

nowhere man

John and his insecurity

            his kindness

            including us all

            ‘isn’t he a bit like you and me?’

            lurching around in the dusk

            grown restless

            all he needs all he seeks all he wants

            is all that he writes for

            is all that he sings desperately about

            with crying eyes

            beneath a bloated neck

            and a ragged sprawl of hair

the girl the woman the ocean child with the fire off the reef

seashell eyes                     windy smile

                        holds me

how can I live without knowing that somewhere in the world John Lennon is alive?

knowledge that flooded incessant days

with magic

a relationship triggered by the simple word ‘yes’

something positive an upsurge for once in a belonely time

he’s buried ‘neath concrete in Central Park

and I get the feeling elsewhere

a smile a dance a quietly strummed guitar a girl

a circle drawn

Anyway Anyhow Anywhere

Long before the steel crashed over him,

enclosing him in a tomb of musky smoke

and grimy ash, my uncle attended

a legendary concert performed by the Who. 

Six years before I emerged in a storm of 

floodlights and blood, Ari watched as Pete

Townshend wind-milled his arms in

his trademark flail, eyes glazed over, while

Roger Daltrey whipped his cables around the

air through the lull in between verses.The shrieks
of John Entwistle’s pyrotechnics on the colorful,
fuzzy bass guitar didn't leave my uncle’s gushing lips
for weeks as he walked to class

along the autumn-tinged lawns of Cooper
Union where he'd roil in the underbelly
of applied physics. Books tucked in

the crook of his arms sagged as he'd recount
to thin-lipped friends the heights of the night.             
                                                 In his own

way he rose phoenix-like above the pottery shard

arrangements of a harried, shuffled youth

into a narrow frame where he could settle down

in relative comfort.                       Tears shed

over the news of Lennon’s murder led to slammed

doors opening the gates to raised eyebrows and

mouths curling with concern, though never to any

search above and beyond.  It wouldn’t have helped him,

he was a pilot, an anarchist of the

most skilled sort, a juggler adept at balancing the

squiggles of Homer with the psalm-like

jeremiads of Zimmy, all the while keeping

an eye on the progressing discoveries of Rob Laughlin.

and then
all of a sudden
he was gone

in a plane

somewhere over a mountain

       and me

       how I feel inside

       can’t explain

From the Rock in Fort Tryon (Part II)

party people in the place to be

         you are now in the midst of a real MC

                   throw your hands in the air if you real as me

it was on a rock where she told me do I have to say it aloud and I hadn’t even looked around to question it her smile but I felt the swell within I think I’ve come to a good place I heard and smiled all the while ringing through my head             ‘did I mention that the sweater was a Jeremy Scott?’ were the sounds of her as we walked down circling my shoe soaked      she scaled the rocky wall with ease I led the way up to the rock wandering around the French turrets her voice distorting my summer her charm her hand on my arm

no

not yet (not not yet)

continuing in words speech people I must meet

communities to break in to

and there it was

the lifting of confusion

leading to

an overwhelming conclusion

           

Oh it’s so simple, I fear.

I want all the world to see we’ve met.

body and soul

my love sings to me

from the streams of Syldavia

                                                                        where emeralds line  

                                                                        a path to the sea

there we pound

on the drums of Arabia

                                                                        while my lost archive eyes

                                                                        reel in the concrete

she’s always here

she’s apart of me

                                                                        she’s always here

                                                                        she’s inside me

in the dawn beside me

I was hung up on how her hair flowed so free

in the cool naked light of a gently pulsing space

then she yawned            sweeping gracefully down garden steps

that only she could see

and I got hung about                        the nothing                        John promised me

because everything was real                        and it all lasted forever

there we were by the Dakota as nameless numbered crowds mourned

and I felt the thump of the drums the braying of cymbals the cowering snare

Ringo came near

From the Rock in Fort Tryon

I hear the soft strains of music fill the fleeing morning,
my face blurry in the candle-lit dawn. I turn inside,

facing the room where my love and I have lain…

…and see the cats, cross the roof, mad in love, scream into the drainpipes they sit in,

and it is I who am ready

to listen, never tired, never sad, never hidden.

movement still

A story about a guy who knew a girl when he was younger, only to lose contact until some later point in life when they met up again.

I used to take pride in my being alone

Hashem natan

Hashem lakach

yihe shem Hashem mivorach

there’s a song I used to sing at midnight about a girl in a moonlit plain

went something along the lines of she dances in cold light she dances so free she dances so quiet and she dances for me

and sweet Melinda would carry the melody for me that pleasant goddess of gloom

as I would walk down K Street in the foggy afternoon

I’d hear crickets chirping singing crashing into one another

and I would laugh at the unbadgered possibility

whooshing through the air                                    we were young unfettered the world splayed in shades of magenta and grey before us

highly educated highly literate highly providential

I loved a girl then I’ve found the same girl around me now

phantom engineer

in the capitol over the weekend            Dani still out                when I found that what I might feel might be able to wound to prod and suggest and cower but will not succeed to isolate      my refusal to be isolated            from the one I love            and I sang songs to fall asleep            ‘I come back to the town from the flaming moon…’             and others to keep my head             ‘there’s a flame/that snakes inside of me…’      and with all of it          we were together          with Nate and Rube and Leila and Steve   a feisty couple            fiery with one another            drinking wine and longing for the night                        and I was still racing along through dimly lit corridors to the handless black door at the end where mysterious department lit up the zigging interior of that foreboding little ministry               me and Albus             punching the air in celebration            and turning over then in the morning light to see what I could see                 hold what I could hold                the feeling of love the embrace of a lover the comfort of such promised proximity

and Daria’s speech-like promises             nothing was delivered             as Alex wrote of motorcycle crashes and midnight trains                            which got recalled with a de Chirico styled maniacal solitude            the plumes of smog unwinding away from the phantom engineer all we are         phantom engineers

Adar 5771

I called a girl                        she stood out on the subway

and so I stalled             for her             she joined me at the back of the café

and we watched          the poets sing         their melodies             as I felt our sun go down     yeah our sun went down          there’s no excuse for it to have hurt me like that or for me to then have hurt myself in that way but I’m glad                          I can feel these fresh contortions allowing me to speak my heart my mind can’t sing when the clearing in the wood no longer shakes beneath me                        slipping                         no third girl I didn’t want to be a part of I think I ponder             I slip beneath                        I remember being on my bed in yeshiva longing for the return of language furiously scribbling down the ramblings a lunatic loudmouth poet musician I couldn’t find her there I’m always expecting my mother and I never get her and it hurts it hurts me hurts me hurts                        I want                        my girl to have braved             the murky shores of Barnard to then tussle with me by the crystal streams of Syldavia       where rubies                    suffer             the weight of the trees                    I saw her raven tresses flowing down her thighs and knew I could never approach her from that angle my fifth grade heart pulsing erratically pouring blood into vats opening and closing leading the way into the fog of the middle                                    she asked about my classes I talked I asked about hers she spoke the car door opened she was gone                      

no plans             the future none to speak of

the thrush's song

and on my return I encounter fifty seven jugglers

double-balancing a life in precarious black and white I find

there’s something beautiful about being back in YU

even if it’s only to work on DC stuff

surroundings of people with similar eyesight dreams overlapping

feeling the streaking lightness of Geulah in the crush of Audobon

once upon a time I would come to these very tables

to pore over the words of the Piaseczner in Derech HaMelech

or that morning’s 3 new mishnayot long before memorization lifted its head

and roared

I don’t follow the same daily practices I once swore by

though I still find myself plagued by fervent curiosity at times

the need for the promise

of that particular glazed future

my showdown

            and I feel you then

            and the seams burst forth all around me

            like they don’t know what it means            

            to be held

            to be taken into arms and comforted reassured

            I waltz beside you in the garden

            and I’ve never danced before

we rejoice together in that lovely area

where I can fall but not too deeply

and I can sing but not too loud

and I can charge but without deadened eyes

and I can feel out in front of me with fingers warm and grasping

and I can connect without it ever feeling like a dream oh this fever

and I can hold on to you while aware that inside my heart hammers madly

and I get drunk crying to look at a song painting movement I otherwise can't see

and from within that drunken stupor I find clarity and foresight

and I can see through all of the decaying tree limbs

the sweatshops laboring to produce this past summer

to the thrush of the present

chirping away

I find it all when I reach out like that when I reach in

Handwriting Analyst

‘You’re a repressed leader,’ he tells me, eyes crinkling neath

the twinkle of brown spectacles. We walk slowly, softly,

a little confused, I remember well. The scrap of paper flutters

between us, creating in bursts a bond poring into thick,

crackling tomes never aroused. I blink, it’s gone.

            I remember asking him about the death of John Lennon.

            ‘All great men,’ he told me, ‘find what they’re looking for

            only once they stop looking.’

He stares at the scrap as long, whispering cresses of white beard

rustle through pulling hands. ‘You need a girl who will

challenge you, stand up to you,’ he deciphers. I cough, staring at my

sandals. Waylaid by the rustic heat of the swarming desert.

A thought achieves coherency as my toes

escape confinement, prodding the fine sand.

I don't have the backbone for this calling.

I'm aware of his muted presence beside me,

hushed, robed, waiting for an inquiry.

                        Once I sat in my favorite spot,

                        as the light, natural, dusty, filtered through

                        the open window, thinking how I'd dare not share

                        repressed questions floating through

                        desolate air. I turned to a friend

                        my muteness knows no bounds in the moment

                        I turned to my friend. 'What daf do you want to start'

from the beginning I would act. Act act act. No thought, not a sliver.

Now my future is determined through the squint of eyes

in the desert heat of a deserted moshav. I look at his face,

his beard, his stature. I know nothing more than what my scrawl imparts.

thumping adrenaline/the best part

                               joy of good fortune the sad twinge of being given over experiencing yes I am privileged red red heart opened to the swinging strains pumping gallons industrial size creativity saw the girl mad mad wild lit up the corridor hammering charging pounding bleeding desired love and obsession overwhelming desire infatuation disturbing all of the swirling nonsense gleeful in casting off throwing down wind get away from me you murderer unneeded undesired change is in the cards I look to the horizon and appear to smile to myself (I’m not really smiling to myself that’s the best part) tho this time it might be hard

trying not to get my signals crossed

my first post collected words I spoke to her last night she was bursting with joy over her small success their understanding of the fire burning their grasp of lifelines underlying the words     I told her to try and channel the potency turn it into something real massive     permanent      she was already way ahead of me              I was so glad       I love being in love having someone in love with me even if it makes the creative expression more difficult at times            not all of the time most of the time I guess  when I’m clear focused all around               I provide content that’s what I do it’s not about the sleekness of the design the usability of the product not Facebook or Apple or Google               but about the use the shells provide what their existence conveys the exchange of idea of art and philosophy of music and song                        try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm/’come in,’ she said, ‘I’ll give ya shelter from the storm’            the romance of life            the exchange that propels pushes            the equations that boast love = 1+1 nothing more nothing less            the fireplace glances keepin’ us warm while the night blows cold              the sounds shattering the silent night              the movement pulling at me so the gentle swaying of hips                  the lyric attaining eternity through pain             the simplicity keeping me on track               the spark that moves up the spine tingling the bones   the limelight where the stage is nothing to be feared practiced immersion         it’s found in the valiancy of attempting to make something breathe                where nothing stirred before            

the ticking of the clocks.

             ‘So write,’ Anna says, ‘You’re a writer, aren’t you? You’re in a total enviable position that any writer would kill for, you can just write and write and write without other obligations,’ and I don’t respond, thinking of her words, turning them over, letting them rise up to the surface where they exist as mere sounds before I decipher them. She’s right, I conclude.

            ‘You’re right,’ I tell her, picturing the cavalcade of motorcycles escorting some politician to some political event or other that surround the voice on the other end of the line. ‘I should just go off and  write somewhere.’

            ‘My head is hurting from all this talking on speakerphone,’ she whines, ‘and I’m so tiiiired.’ She stretches the last word as if it’s a yawn twisting its way out of her twisting mouth.

            ‘Go to sleep,’ I tell her, ‘take a power nap.’

            I hang up the phone and set out into the drizzle in the direction of Amsterdam. I’m on 93^rd street. I feel that pounding of coarse blood charge through my streams, the one I know predates a change in the air around me. What's it this time? I’ve still got no job, still one of the many unemployed. I picture a queue of despondent, silent immigrants wearing tattered, dirty clothing waiting for a bit of soup, a piece of bread, outside a shelter. Weird, I tell myself, before my thoughts change course completely to explore what the morrow holds. I’ve got the Paul McCartney 9/11 documentary at 5, that should kill some time, I think, before feeling the grayness all over again at the unsettling prospect of a life where ‘killing time’ offers strained comfort.

            I hear the surge as the drizzle transforms into a pour and think of the song lyric ‘Come in, she said, I’ll give ya, shelter from the storm.’ My thoughts dance between Anna, running away with Anna, running away to Anna, escaping to be with her, and the colder grey blah of life in Manhattan right now. I need some shelter from the storm.  I take a deep breath. I know it’s absolutely absurd, but I sort of wish she meant it when she flung out the teasing ‘Let’s quit!!’ I miss that girl. And I’m afraid of the city.

            I saw Jay Kalb on Monday afternoon. Was that his girlfriend he was with? Must have been. Who else could it be? They were getting into his car, heading off somewhere. We spoke about Salomon’s wedding. I was out of breath from biking uphill. He wore his facial hair oddly; a bushy beard without mustache. I commented on it and he said ‘Why does everybody I talk to make some comment on it?’ Cuz it looks weird as hell, I thought to myself. I shook her hand, sneaking looks at her throughout the course of Jay and my brief chat.

            ‘How was the wedding?’ I inquired.

            ‘Nice,’ he said, ‘I was chilling with Jordan, and you’re name came up in conversation. I forget how…oh yeah, that you’re dating Anna Greyser, it came up that it was weird.’

            ‘I guess so,’ I responded. Why’s that weird? Nobody says a word. I latch onto something, anything, to boost the lagging conversation with momentum.

            ‘Right, I guess it’s weird cuz she went out with Salomon at some point.’ Eh, that’s weak, you could’ve said something better. I realized Jay isn’t that coherent of a speaker; he jumps all over the place and pours out words with the very minimal amount of prodding. I like people like that; it means I have to do less talking. I prefer to listen and ingest the ideas and thoughts being expressed rather than force words out to merely have them out there, to avoid the silence that means I’ve got nothing to say to the person I’m speaking to.

            ‘There was mixed dancing,’ he smirked.

            ‘Scandalous,’ I replied, my voice betraying uninterest. Why? I am interested.  We parted ways, I told the girl it was nice to have met her, and I continued biking, past the Casper house and down the hill into New Milford territory, my thoughts on Jay Kalb.

            I’ve never particularly liked him. We’ve always been friends more out of a sense of necessity than any real desire or common interest. Sort of friends in school, not really anything outside of it. His intellectual rebelliousness in high school, espousing superficial philosophical ideas and diatribes against the school administration were somewhat impressive back then, but they’ve since matured into what I’ve come to realize as a stunning immaturity. What the fuck was he thinking, handing out pro-Palestinian flyers at the Israeli Day Parade? I think, Ben was right to grab them out of his hand, no matter how pissed off Jay was. Immaturity. Immaturity. I’ve always been easily swayed and seduced by people with confidence when it comes to art, philosophy, religion. Anybody with an assured air about them. They just get to me.