Time of the Missile

The grey sky, lighter & darker
greys,
lights between & delicate
lavenders also
blue-greys in smaller strokes,
& swashes
of mauve-grey on the Hudson—
openings

for Gary Snyder

“I think I’ll be the Buddha of this place”

and sat himself
down


1.

Straight rye whiskey, 100 proof
you need a better friend?
Yes. Myself.

The lights
the lights
the lonely lovely fucking lights
and the bridge on a rainy Tuesday night

for Richard Griffith 1 THE BURNING

Girl grown woman fire mother of fire

my house’s stairway is seized with vertigo. Matter having forsaken its laws, we land in hell, ascending to heaven.

1

There are things
We live among ‘and to see them
Is to know ourselves’.

Occurrence, a part
Of an infinite series,

The sad marvels;

Of this was told

I

It is not to be bought for a penny
in the candy store, nor picked
from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps,
in the ashes on the distant lots,
among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds.
If you wish to eat fish freely,
cucumbers and melons,

The farmhouses north of Driggs,
silos for miles along the road saying
BUTLER or SIOUX. The light saying
rain coming on, the wind not up yet,
animals waiting as the front hits
everything on the high fiats, hailstones
bouncing like rabbits under the sage.
Nothing running off. Creeks clear.

A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her
death tonight when she was swept
through an emergency door that sud-
denly sprang open ... The body ...
was found ... three hours after the
accident.
—New York Times