100 Poems

45th Chorus Mexico City Blues
Euphonism, a softening of sounds
Euphemism, a softened word –
One is sonic, one is human
Both are imaginary metaphors
Metaphysical Exception taken by the old euphonious phoney of Arkansaw River bridge
Excisor of taxes via tickets of taxes
With what Euphonic doesnt-matter Really pronunciation
price
Dolichocephalic?
Ichthyocephalic,
Encephalotherapy.
Dont point at your head
The Judge says you’re crazy
Breaky cephalic
Ouch
Inch of Grace, sigh.

113th Chorus Mexico City Blues
Got up and dressed up
and went out & got laid
Then died and got buried
in a coffin in the grave,
Man—
Yet everything is perfect,
Because it is empty,
Because it is perfect
with emptiness,
Because it’s not even happening.
Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesn’t like to be reminded of fits—
You start with the Teaching
Inscrutable of the Diamond
And end with it, your goal
is your startingplace,
No race was run, no walk
of prophetic toenails
Across Arabies of hot
meaning—you just
numbly don’t get there

106th Chorus Mexico City Blues
Man is nowhere anyway
Because nowhere is here
And I am here, to testify.
Nowhere is
what nowhere was
I know nowhere
More anywhere
Than this here
Particular everywhere
When I fell thru the eye of the needle And became a tumbling torso
In the Univers-O,
Brother, let me tell you,
I thought
I was moving from somewhere to everywhere
but nothing moved so I musta been and still be
(must) no where be
But that’s all up to the Saints
I aint gonna say the Saints of Innisfree

96th Chorus Mexico City Blues
I tumbled down the street On a tricycle, very fast,
I coulda kept going
And wound up in the river,
– Or across the trolley tracks And got cobble mashed
And all smashed so that later on I cant have grit dreams
Of Lakeview Avenue, And see my father die, Had I died at two –
But I saw my father die, I saw my brother die,
I saw my mother die
my mother my mother my mother inside me –
Saw the pear trees die,
the grapes, pearls, penny trees – Saw little white collar girl
with little black dress And spots of rose on each cheek,
die, in her glasses In a coffin.
But I raced my bicycle safely.

“I have no plans No dates
No appointments with anybody
So I leisurely explore
Souls and Cities
Geographically I’m from
and belong to that group
called Pennsylvania Dutch
But I’m really a citizen
of the world
who hates Communism
and tolerates Democracy
Of which Plato said 2000 years
ago,
Was the best form of bad government
I’m merely exploring souls & cities
From the vantage point
Of my ivory tower built,
Built with the assistance of Opium
That’s enough, isnt it?”