when i assume my father
is starting to die
and mozart has decided to
play flute quartets
and the children wont talk
to me
and the eight hour fight
with the
not always lady of the house
is
adjourned for fresh peach
jam and yogurt
and a good tobacco cigarette
not sleepy at two in the
morning
of an ordinary day or myself
i decide
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS
AN ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
EVERYTHING WE DO
ALTERS CONSCIOUSNESS
INCLUDING
MEAT COFFEE
MAKING
LOVE OR NOT OR
HAVING
LEUKEMIA
at this particular moment
he is almost seventynine
his life remembers queen
victoria
lenin and nietzsche and
the many crises of 1931
including the birth of
the only somebody who
calls hospital rooms in
far rockaway
wondering about vienna and
the costs of conservative
jewish funerals
at this particular moment
a daughter calls from college
he sends her copies of nietzsche
and chuang tsu
locks himself in the bathroom
and tries hard for a good
cry but
he decides not to fly off
the earth today
he looks at the new little
kid
drinking coffee with him
while
the lady buys canning supplies
downtown and waits for
the toasted corn muffin
which
will announce the coming
of fall and decides
WE MUST SELECT
THE COMPONENTS FOR CONSCIOUSNESS
THE OUTCOME OF THESE CHOICES
CONSTITUTE OUR METAPHYSICS
AND THE INGREDIENTS
WHICH BRING THEM ABOUT
OUR ETHICS
at this particular moment
he looks at the clouds
to see their meaning
there is really nothing
there
he listens instead
to the old mans photograph
and decides
AT THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT
ONE SHOULD CLEAN ONES EQUIPMENT
THE COFFEEPOT
THE EIGHT TRACK PLAYER
THE TEETH AND ASSHOLE
AND ABOVE ALL THE MEMORY
OTHERWISE YOU END UP STAYING
MERELY ACCEPTABLY GOING NOWHERE
EXCEPT ACROSS AND A LITTLE DOWN
AND YOU NEVER GET TO
WHERE YOU WANT TO GO
which is
as everyone else knows
to the impossible ports
visited only by
sunken steamers
at this particular moment
he does not know what is
happening to him
he waits for ignorance to
become
a possibility
sometimes this takes a long
time
the chinese have a better
gift
for this sort of thing
his face listens to the
eye of death
he waits for the telephone
not to ring
and since it is a quiet
night
writes in its entirety
his life story on a pinhead
while in the next room
around the conference table
everyone else decides
what he should do about
the circumstances of the
evening
beyond this time of
absolutely nonchalant
cosmology there is no promise
except that eventually
the lights will be turned
out
without any possibility
of relief from the
sinister geometry
of human outcomes
at this particular moment
in a false house papered
with borrowed money
he waits to lose everything
before terminating
his unsatisfactory
antihistorical
counterrevolutionary
walk into their
model of his death
but since today is sunday
he makes jelly and jam
washes the kid again
carefully reads the papers
goes to the drug store
calls the hospital again
and decides
DO NOT WONDER
DISREPUTABLE
SONS
AND
FATHERS OF THE WORLD
WHY
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
NEVER
GROW BORED WITH
BLAMING
US FOR EVERYTHING
elude instead all the inevitable
constables
and administrative intellectuals
who
insist that things can or
cannot
go on this way
move around the planet many
times
breathe together new possibilities
after everyone else has
gone away
theres always the crumbled
product
once talked about so much
TASTY
AROMATIC
PURPOSELESS
life at this particular
moment