math’s blog

Get ready for winter the circus
the circus is harvested and plowed under
weather is over and so is talk
rain and dew do nothing now but
make you put on your boots and walk
nowhere to go but where you've been
working since march to bring it in
it's all picked
it's all bottled
it's all ready to chew on
and savor
savor another wise winter.

Get ready for winter it's coming
get ready it's coming with full force
get ready with full stores in storage
ready with full closets of clothes
winter is coming get ready and think
about long hours around the fire
think about what stories you will tell
to stay warm
to keep courage
to remember the summer
to be
to be another winter wiser.

Get ready for winter invevitable
several times in a productive life
the winter of stubborn self-centeredness
winter like staying at the beach til dark
even after there is no real reason
to be there except you are there
and you cannot move you cannot share
your present with
any of those other
instrusive times you
cannot
get up and go anywhere.

Get ready for winter it's coming
get ready for days shorter than thoughts
shorter than what it takes to recharge
sit back in the chair and take pot shots
at all the unreasonable reasons
you are where you are this season
and will be where you will be in spring
stay warm
keep courage
remember the summer
and be
and be another winter wiser.

E / / / A6 / / /  Gm7 / / / A / / /
G13 / Gm7 / A / / / E / / /
A6 / Abm7 / G6 / F#7 /
A6 / Abm7 / G6 / F#7 /
Bb7 / E7 / Abm7 / G6 /
Bb7 / E7 / Abm7 / G6 /
Bm7 / / / Bb6 / / /
B6 / / /
Bb6 / / /
D9 / / /
Abm7 / / /
A7/G / / /
F7 / / /

around my birthday 2009 
West Barnstable

If again hardly same
if turned over dug
no if like the worked on
worked over uncovered
re-padded sharp snag.

Happy in hazard in purpose
dress up step ahead
vital rampart foot friendly
dress dutifully under smiles
been before mind read.

How does a small bird or fish
decide between treat and death
circle nod try repeat
wary change sense drama
get over healthy dread.

This is not children's music
no children's easy ideas
hero heroine consumed long
ago so ago kids grown
now hours deepen please.

Third fourth fifth time
scan the sky see your morrow
my morrow too over ocean
this one this lucky first
all thirst no thirst.

If again hardly same
if turned over dug
no if like the worked on
worked over uncovered
re-padded sharp snag.

F#m7 / C#m7 /
G6 / Bb13 /
Cm7 Cm11 Am7 Gm11
Gm11 / / Bb7
E9 Eb9 D9 Gm11
Fm7/Ab / C7/G

Why do I cry why do I cry
at a photograph of some little girl
some stranger with dark eyes like
eyes like a beaded bag of treasured stones
treasures like what makes a little girl
look at you that way out of the past
out of the grays that stand contrasting
that storytell and unfurl
and test vision.

Why the bangingly generous reminder
it brought the back back it is a must must
why the delicate inseparability
why the so harshly demanded cliche
a liquor distilled from weeds and coriander
the whole long wall of suspects grimaces
unrecognizable in new pants
spilled with visions.

There is no singular
no too particular
hallucinatory air
I see an inch a mile
less now that I wonder
what is behind seeing
a lickitisplit pile
all of it on its way
to being plowed under.

Why do we weep why do we weep
around the bend slightly finger-smudged
estranged about the approaching
newness and thinnness and sparseness
the hungers we cross into at lights out
the pastels we blend into in contact
with the grays highlighted and stabbed
with visions.

Why does he sigh why does he sigh
he was deviant in articulating too fast
the cantankerousness that out of his past
came bubbling came striving against itself
that made sense to tomorrow and no one else
when he sighs the women line up to judge
like a dollar bill he's been through too much
fancy vision.

There is no singular
no too particular
hallucinatory air
I see an inch a mile
less now that I wonder
what is behind seeing
a lickitisplit pile
all of it on its way
to being plowed under.

Why the shattering why the tears
why break with what holds hair on head
don't wish don't twist the angry arrow
into an argument poured out of bed
poured like pomegranate juice into tea
poured like yesterday's trouble into whisky
pour me pour me pour me all out
into your vision. 

Why contemplate why cogitate
nothing seems to be able to break my word
nothing as loud as the dinner train in Sandwich
loud believes whatever it wants and kisses
the backside of hesitation like a fence
constructed to portray stagecraft
to be as neat as the band you recall
trashing the myth.

There is no singular
no too particular
hallucinatory air
I see an inch a mile
less now that I wonder
what is behind seeing
a lickitisplit pile
all of it on its way
to being plowed under.

Why don't bother why don't you like
scary black on Old County Road tonight
been here before with a guitar in daytime
a bog a track a pond a line of fishermen
fishermen half of which were women
like a birthday they stop a while
to wait until the favorite smile makes
the decision.

It is my birthday it is my birthday
I see mystery in ancient history
couples surround me with stark mindset
sandstone arches falling in millions
of years appearing and distressing
at the back of a restaurant I smell and smell
the life other people think they know
but can't envision.

There is no singular
no too particular
hallucinatory air
I see an inch a mile
less now that I wonder
what is behind seeing
a lickitisplit pile
all of it on its way
to being plowed under.

We deny blood
then blood denies us
stars fall from the sky
not because they're not there
but because looking is strangled
in the string we insist
ties them.

Consider many natural mirrors
uncomfortable unconforming hordes
have been testing those glancing limits
tapping at that stubborn edge
seeing what can get by and can't
on mornings since the baboons
babbled mixing syllables
with breakneck play at being
baby philosophers. We all assert
our quickly chewed undigested
views leaving husk and shell
scattered on what will only later
become the table the tableau
surrounded and tossed at ritually
by the tribes and the too few
cogs in the glass the water the ice
and the branch-shaking faces
of cohorts juggling hierarchies.

We are more than this
but not all right here.

If we could see what wine sees
what butter does if the eyes
of women and men were able
able like squirrels scampering to
see into the ground a world away
where the limbs sip dark life
or another world away where wind
picks up quieter than love and
without any intention drops
fish into net egg into pan
foot into sock verb into the work
it can do without a word to
paste all our nouns together into
our pantry ready for the coming
white draught then we could
curl confidently up all winter
composing the thaw we could see
if we could hear how in the throat a note
becomes two then a dream.

Blink enough for a sequence to click
off then on then off again for good
all our slogans turn to leaves turning
magenta then deathly in childish
disorder cascading for half a moon covering
all our one-at-a-times stacked up.

Let me tell you how the best tunes
are written it's a shotgun wedding
where the must-be and the what-not
marry have afternoon sex
and a week later is born
the coulda-woulda the platypus
the infantile infant unexpected
but shoulda-been.

I said that to you while sitting
on a beach on a pond in Mashpee
I was going to finish it
make it pretty and send it to you
but I chanced upon a long conversation
with a certain wandering Wampanoag
who drove up saw my guitar
got out his big chromatic harp
only country not blues
never called me darling darling
and told me all about how his family
goes back to sixteen thirty but
I objected it must have been
longer than the counting
of the whites. He's a vet
grandson just back from
four tours in Iraq [wtf]
he pulled arrowheads out of a rabbit-skin bag
showing me without knowing
what they were
just old.

Sometimes
we agreed
it's better to be
invisible.

Now there is a word
usable in so many contexts
but never clearly
invisible truth and reality
invsible puppet strings
invisible cheese and crackers
munched on trying to stay warm
while October's forces force
the invisible to come out
of my sunburst guitar.

A song is a frame
in the music pictures made to fit
by choosing front back top side
little drama killing distance
close and alive as stark crowding
faces major minor diminished
you are augmented today
invisible still coursing.

The mind is an envelope
big mouth voracious not picky
dropped in all sorts of slippages
its capacity dependent on reduction
and clipping together the various
construct a package of acquisitions
related by corners or what's cut off
similar by date or leftovers
give the jumble a shape and squeeze
breathe on it with furnace
  [jet noise pursed lips]
let it cool seal it name it
address it mail it.
 
I was on a beach today playing
stillness made of handwaving
and rags and I saw
the edge of my table.

Don't cross my words
she said just answer
the best answer from the heart
not tossed back and forth
say what says 'of course'
don't cross my words.

So many possibilities
they eat each other up
she gave you the best part
when hunger was unsurpassed
when choosing gasped
so many possibilities.

Don't break my heart
she said on the phone
I gave you the best part
it's out in the garden dying
then again on the line
don't break my heart.

The lady who keeps shop
below my bedroom says she will
assume like toes the path
raise my ground by arguing
pick up my stairs cavorting
all this for the sorry sake
for the slippery sake of Art.

The ungainly precise woman
thriving where millwork stacks
opened up the outstretched window
through the screens flooded in
august pleroma ringing haunt
she put into my face blood
spread immeasurable reward.

A lover like a shower
deals with the exceptions
the scratching in the pillow
the hounding the pleading
with dust of internal shrug
she wipes my counters clean
and with white flour starts over.

A duchess like a dell
sweet debts made up
wood and would-be tangles
don't want you to go
swimming in rays played
the sun making pun of sight
here and there she buries my acorn.

Locked Up Run Down

If I held your hand
 would you hold it holding it
  held too close to you?
If I held your hand
 would you hold it holding it
  held too close to you?

The sand is no more hot
 like it used to be hot like it
  wants to be even now.
The sand is no more hot
 like it used to be hot like it
  wants to be even now.

How many times before
 have we have we not
  done this awkward dance.
How many times before
 have we have we not
  done this awkward dance.

I do not like locks I do not
 lock my likes or lock
  my clocks up run down.
I do not like locks I do not
 lock my likes or lock
  my clocks up run down.

Take care of one thing
 at a time taking care of
  any thing sublime first.
Take care of one thing
 at a time taking care of
  any thing sublime first.

Honey in the bank thinking
 murals on the wall all
  full of marigolds.
Honey in the bank thinking
 murals on the wall all
  full of marigolds.

Weirdo

Oddball
he puts the verbal
rhythm ahead of the beat
oddball
he puts the children
ahead of noisy big people
oddball
he puts details
down because they don't add up
oddball.

Stranger
he insists upon
driving a falling apart car
stranger
he insists upon
talking back to the television
stranger
he insists upon
pruning his own profusion
stranger.

Fossil
he is clay-footed
he stalks and stokes the lava
he is stick-fingered
he sucks up and sips Eden-water
bullet-nosed
he invites and invents battlegrounds
fossil.

Weirdo
he would rather
be yes be a man than try to
weirdo
he would rather
write a song than sing
weirdo
he would rather
tell a lie than live one
weirdo.

late October 2009
midcape

Surface Just Below

[A]
A life you wonder how to cross
or make it come alive
kick in the pants and a shot
in the arm the gut
cross into a life.

A book unwritten makes its noise
trickles through your rocks
getting more force as it falls
out of the high hills
down your noisy canyon.

A dream forgotten has its time
it will not forget
it will return to the eye
til it fills the sky
dreaming finds the time.

[B]
On the surface just below
how many people live in fear
everybody raise your hand
I do I do I do
how many people have a dream
a book a life a wish
a quest a rescue a resurrection
on the surface just below
I do I do I do.

A strategy in which the US and Israel were joined over at least the last decade was to try to weaken the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian political potential by fostering a destructive competition between (a) Gaza and (b) the West Bank, which also had (later) correspondence to a competition between Hamas (in Gaza) and Fatah (in Ramallah).

Whatever happened, they didn't want a united Palestinian nation. Part of the strategy too included geographically and militarily dividing up Palestinian lands - using a big concrete wall (the Berlin wall idea moved to the holy land), stealing Arab farms, building settlements, blockading transport between Palestinians in the two occupied regions.

What has happened is the emergence of the potential that there is no longer a single Palestinian nation. They (the fascists in Israel and Washington) have actually stumbled into the creation of TWO potentially independent Palestinian states.