A WORK IN PROGRESS
 
 
 

They is the biggest myth that ever was
my father-in-law was fond of saying to me
during my first and most convincing paranoia

but who can deny that they are watching us
they are destroying the planet
they are among us
& they are using us

we owe them constant money
& they are never happy

We is the biggest myth that never was
seems never to will be

the electric presence of night informs
us in its evil genius
of great cloudbursts
of which we are just sighings

we heave & take form
& flower in cloud
in light dancing thru mists
which is our respiration

so get fucked in the mouth
it's easier that way
in the day to day life

& if the motorcycle gangs shatter the peaceful
reflecting facades of the boulevards    remember

it's a dog eat dog world

but thanks to English god is dog spelled backwards
& live is evil on this side of the mirror

that's why I try to let my hair
blow in the same breeze as the stars

You see
            although a vain preoccupation of pampered egomaniacs
brought me to this position
I attempt to avoid the professorial stance
because the exploration must go on

but yes
            indeed
                        I'd like to respond
for from the time our founder coughed himself into the abyss
to today's glib sports & money talk
much the same now as it was then
the formulary music of after dinner speech
& The Emperor's New Clothes
have been on parade in this space

the bourgeois cigar separates the riff-raff from the ruffians

Ahhhh.... it's just a drop in da bucket

the heroes die in railroad yards & drunken rooms
beyond the society of mutual adoration

hard
honest
true

burning with a love of the beautiful
driven to spread it around
they spread it thin
across the ugly face of time
vomiting daily this disaster
too huge to improve

dawn seeps through a blue mist over the ohio flatlands
while the same derelicts who forage thru the New York night
still stumble around within blocks of the port authority
terminal   never to escape

the fields are newly plowed   black
the trees    budding    delicate wavy creatures
drinking in the haze

the land is radiant with life
& out in the corn flat every tree is blossoming
sixteen years ago where I went to school
same stubbles of corn    same twisting rivulets

& nightly
                  when the sun is well set
delicately attentive
slightly quivering
there is a poet
trying to decipher the
riddle of reflection
of the celestial
of the artificial light
in the lake
in the glass
Is the
greater virtue of glass
transparency or reflection?

      in a bus station in Mexicali an ancient Mexican in ancient cowboy hat dirt & weather stained plays
weeping aztec bottleneck blues guitar only enough to make anyone hearing stop & listen
no language
is only too real to us the living

eye to eye love knows no words
especially to old men weeping guitar strings
for quarter dollars & cinco pesos
reminted & reminted in smaller & smaller sizes

in Durango the campesinos want land or war & get
neither
tho the war goes on
subtly disguised as government

It's better to be pissed off than pissed on say
the soldiers laughing & waiting for new orders
they throw up a roadblock &
call it customs
everybody out
papers
stories
possessions

then you're back on your way
if they finish with you
looking shot at & missed
shit at & hit

the self-immolation continues
a strange way to build a monument
or transmit a message
outside a hard rain is falling
under an umbrella
you can listen to it fall

©1979 Harris Schiff