S.B.T. 290

low yo yo stuff

a gesture

dropt in cool water

the orbit salute of

wheeling atoms

sighing space between them

how infinite pause

they know it is

fingers curl round

a tin cup and handle

the invisible net drop s

we may be caught...

for one moment, almost

shifting backwards,

dueling thru a tunnel

the asphalt seems familiar

peeling random grit and funk

there is a light at the end

a lost intuition

of generosity

S.B.T. 289

in stormy weather

the boat leans heavy

on her keel

her long and weary timbers touch

one wish

with worthy second thoughts

for foghorn wails and sailors knots!

i tremble at the wheel

when shrouds of mist are left suspended

in trust of the sun,

magnanimous ball,

to burn its incorruptible

splendid

and let the rose and compass fall

when warming rueful ruddy rocks

succeed in breaking through,

one lonely step on sand is sacred

one grain of dirt is chiseled true

while all hands on the deck arena

dance to a candlelit concertina

those calloused fingers torn on rope,

still squeeze the bellows n shape the wind

as fierce waves somewhere still may crest

from under earths eternal spin

S.B.T. 288

help wanted

responsibility

includes but is not limited

to

(that which seems uncomfortable' i thought scanning the column

and then further)

• ....the invaluable whateveritis that we do

join a trusted

connecting community that expects to

• improve peoples lives

• declare 'we r a landmark'

• have 50 ways to say the same thing

.....................

it could be huge and there would be no turning back

i dare say,

but, pause for a moment and let me tell u about a product i truly adore. wired ribbon, three inch wide, diaphanous. the sculptability of it is wonderful, it is infinitely playful. and the cats love it too. i used it once to decorate a shrine to lakshmi, formed to unfurl in ringlets falling from the sides. jasmine rose is her favorite color. this one had a rounded gold-flecked edge as well as the select hue. it has been shaped and reshaped often and rarely ever cut, i guess about seven yards of it still long enough to respool just like new. i have had it for three years and it comes in a variety of tone. wired ribbon, three inch wide, good, lasts forever

ok

during interviews when i speak aloud my collar flashes

aflame, fire that covers my ears - just not real fire

but so what. it could be.

tho it isnt. nonetheless it is curling around my throat when to the left a venetian flock of birds lets loose

sprinkled in delicate lines across the silver churl of clouds smoothing the horizon, like fairy dust expelled from a magic trumpet their flight path forms a curve, a g cleff, five lines four spaces curled like a ribbon bebopping w/ mouse's ear on-a-stick notation and fingerflags waving there in the blue sublimity and instantly i am transported from the window to the top of a faraway hill where it dissolves in the sky over view

banking on it, sound parody

S.B.T. 287

a little too late

always just a little too late, it seems. i mean in getting the point or reaching outside the stall for tissue or something. wonder if jonas salk ever thought that he had to invent a vaccine because it was already too late. invention is the mother of intention, or what was that? neccessity, a perky pinkyfinger word. the mother of invention. and thus i cant helpbutt recall the impact of frank zappa. cover that girl with chocolate syrup and love her till the cows come home

"up against the wall!"

huh ?

"I said, Up Against the Wall, hands flat in front of you"

but dont worry it turns out to be a comedian in uniform, doing this laughing cop shtick.

thats just a water pistol, and ha ha, it's fluorescent purple. wish i'd taken fuller note of that before but the excuse is that it was dark in the alleyway

at any rate, he got me

and i got him

fzzz-pishshshsh splat

just a little too late

S.B.T. 286

there is only one and there will always be only one paul squires.

gingatao

there was so much he had to give, and give he did.

he always had a handful of something

jewelled intuitions and memory pearls and ribbons of rainbows

and with the smooth pebbles rumbling in his pocket

you could hear him coming from a distance

one must come to terms with any profound and monumental loss. this one is really gonna take some time

i remember him especially on his birthday, a day, nov 19, which from now on will be featured in my calendar as paul squires day. an international holiday written in bright green. no one works on this day and yet everyone gets paid.

but mostly, i came here to remember that what he gave to me was a wonderful world, full of color and music, people and ideas and creative genius. and here is louis armstrong to sing about it.

dedicated to paul, a great writer and friend, and a gentleman i shall never forget

and to all of the people he loved and who loved him

S.B.T. 285

halloween

at times a work will plow new roads that echo a skidmark stretched out on solemn ground, tho usually when something begins feet first it walks closely, we witness polite repression tap six deep as he dares to say something dignified and improbable while the gestures cackle and the bell tolls magnetic tic tic

1999 brooklyn museum of art, Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary," shielded by impenetrable plexiglass and 2 armed guards on either side...the irony evident. that her breast was made of elephant dung and exposed, the accents intensely sensitive. unwittingly (or not) the work changed history at the end of the last century.

i listened at the door, they were right, right round second middle and obviously inspired but i groaned hanging passionate upright tractions and felt gloom swaying in our neatly confidential family as it grew tumultuous. the considerable effort of the century was pronounced with a shrill sixteenth note played paternally and w/o any appreciable discretion, it was saturated w/fatha. it wasnt trying to reach muthur, no, she was on a retreat with strict rules about visitors. can these dry and broken aphorisms get near any uttered consciousness? spent and sculpted to the pose we thought more than we said, in projected expression, crammed into an older automatic sort of soft carved lyrical guard.

the little picked pieces opened a robust forehead gate beyond which education lay moulded, brakes held the furniture flat, the paper almost went serious and closed. leaving artfully thin spirits waving roses. in the distance a warm house was umber and beautifully congenial in the front third forward which shone distinctly and answered rhetorical reflection so simply and lovingly that disquieting traces of dark frantic attitude created an entirely happening poetic, man

vaguely unhappy the morning news ran far younger than when it was planted but made such respectable take that there could be no question, the twentieth abruptly got ready to go and things went backwards with indolent lines off the room elastic

pedaling tight on steep hills swinging baggages will provoke the metallic spokes. riding up to methodical solidarity infinitely jolly to further even an event with some agent, a protocol practice of the curious 'know not do higher unseen modestly' ie "candy hum" (kndhum) and eventually we hope to come to a glad end tea reading.

tell me everything you heard that night the detective said, pulling the bulb down

here reasons are old and seem nameless. the meticulous work was utterly condemned. in a dirty eighteenth street warehouse basking in surrounding moments we didnt think 'lateral' but 'critical' - voiding out to catch a train reserved for nobodymen punctured panelled and pictured. anyone whose hour sank at sunset might find laid bare hands reaching though a wimpled narrow horizon line.

we began to see That Ease was perfectly spacious without any ripe nostalgic remoteness. further, the inexhaustible urge goes onward in magnificent horrible halfway stilliness, and awful pictures bathe up and sell. shouting out about conversational questions when the natural thick answer is a black bamboo brush or something leaving startlingly pleasant and indignantly simpler questions. do you ever have the feeling that everything is just all right? did you get candy?

wip cut excerpt

S.B.T. 284

guernica

on the right a mile down a fire

freedoms fall like cinders

his gun? why it meant a lot in the day

of ransoms for the whole father

easier to unthink wishes than narrate

standing kneedeep in a narrow riverbed

casting to catch the red-eye and give

up raspy whisky fairly straight

swore on a business idea

hey

elephant money for miles of monstrous morale

fat minutes shacked

together in a tight mancave spare p o w camp

sweaty morning scattered with showtime skiff

drunks and a lot of friendly dialect collected

asleep

a makebelieved hatter cussed out any reckoning

and cleaned up well later, looking ratty raddy ready

anyway, dying dollars spent over longer days

busted and shoved into ahundred trusted secrets

we hung out late and talked lonesome about

a ragged police door everybody went through

old regular goodness with no luck underneath

shooken we never wrote anything slim

every extreme from a greasy devil to the

name dropping of an hornery derringer

those around who lived never understood

in kitchen clothes respectably ignorant

nice breakfast tin

of hot-crossed bad blood genies

minutes passed till new hands ticked talked

lamps rolled and we hunted a quick forever

laughing a polite robbers oath

the light sent sure as candles

but something was left waiting

a number like howmany hogsigns

till nothing is forgotten tho better off gone

curious,

we pulled into mindtown

half past clay and white sand

the last fool looked at the coming mouthful

of broad rubs awakened in the nighthouse

stuck his ground with wanted wants

for a palace in which to lay uncomfortably

and came up against everything

six ways times 6 stock things drop

by mean books, time and a shaky rimshot

get going, get the country cabin judge and his fish son

they slid in and were soundlocked you know

away past parts mixed back before we won trouble

and cried out landishly

anyhow, the boy caught

a tale and hooked our supper

from atop mighty loose logs long and heavy

still on short notice

uncommonly beautiful brothers sleepy and wonderful

dropped crawled shed who knows?

we take miserableness warn out and bear

hardly a smooth olé from the bull