ANGEL OF DEATH

Sitting on the beach,
knees up, tan legs, white
swimsuit, black hoodie,
black glasses, grey stare:

Into the waves, the wind
(cool and strong), gold
light over white sand---
sitting to bring:

Thy will, not mine

Her body transient,
like all things material;
It is a mechanism, a vase
to carry the spirit:

To him, his time.

NERVES, WORK

Any artistic work I do while neurotically stable, balanced, typically comes as merely satisfying. However, I noticed---while looking at my work as objectively as possible---that during a nervous breakdown, great or small, my artistic work (usually poems or songs) are best. I've noted this personally for the past few years and related it today with a statement by William Carlos Williams:

"The better work men do is always done under stress and at great personal cost."

In retrospect of a nervous breakdown I noticed a formula or condition of events which occur to cause the breakdown: I exert much intellectual and/or physical effort towards a positive outcome or goal which results negatively or the opposite happens to what I strove for. I experienced at least one nervous breakdown each quarter during college. For example, I would study for hours,---all weekend perhaps---cover all material and facts thoroughly only to fail or earn an above average grade point on an exam. The end result being opposite of which I could control would cause a nervous system break down and therefore tilt or skew my perception or conscious of the world. It was during these times I wrote best.

The drab or mundane in which I live the majority of my life(with a de-industrializing Midwest as backdrop) requires greater effort, perhaps the energy required to tilt my perception or conscious, causes any, if lucky, work to be elevated to a height as that of breakdown work. Even now, as I write, the work is drab. Scholarship-writing at best. Who will read it? The "elevated height" which I just spoke of needs a metaphor which is at this time inaccessible as I type comfortably on a day off, coffee, with a fire in the corner. However, W.C.W. further writes:

"Composition is in no essential an escape from life. In fact if it is so it is negligible to the point of insignificance. Whatever 'life' the artist may be forced to lead has no relation to the vitality of his compositions. Such names as Homer, the blind; Scheherzade, who lived under threat---Their compositions have as their excellence an identity with life since they are as actual, as sappy as the leaf of the tree which never moves from one spot."

Williams is talking about living in one spot while still making interesting work. He lived his entire life in Rutherford, New Jersey, and had a proliferate while significant career both as a poet and medical doctor. I relate to him by living in suburban Akron, Ohio, working as a engineering technician and poet. However, Williams took several sabbaticals to Europe, while the extent of my cultural exposure has been the Cleveland Museum of Art and the local library (both of which have been excellent, and most importantly, accessible). But Williams' major point of this second passage is that one doesn't necessarily have to be world traveler or one who "tries everything once" to make good art. It could be all right under your nose and accessible through the imagination.

T.S.

FROM THE LINTEL

Let me on through, Janus.

I’m standing at your door,

rapping my knuckles sore;

standing on your floor

is degrading,

evermore.

Let me on through, it is

my time---I hunkered down

a decade, carrying the world on

my back, pulled myself up

by the bootstraps:

work---forevermore.

Let me on through, two-face:

you see ahead and behind

but not what’s standing,

starring you in the eye:

let me on through,

or....

I’ll knock you from the lintel.

I’ll knock you

from the lintel.

***

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Timber from the keystone! Rise

of the unsung Titans, the grunts

in the trenches; if I’m knocked

down to carry the world on

my shoulders---no matter, I

do it anyway. Tax, tax, tax,

take what you will; ax, ax, ax,

live by what you will

---no more.

INDUSTRIAL PARK

Young black spruces, ten

feet apart, frosted by

warm (late) March snow, line

along a demised rail-

road (now overtaken by

grey brush, thickets and trash

trees); the path a snow floor

Black turning tractor tire

marks swoosh through white

parking lines---by the

     hundreds

Light posts overlook

the adjoining parking lot,

(wet black)---two four-storey

blue fluid tanks

loom

                titanic behind

THE ENGINEER

I’ll be a train

on the brink of derail---

but I’ll be a train.

My pores hiss

steam out of coal-fire,

furnaced deep and hot

white: entropy: its got

to go out, somewhere.

The time is now

and the place is you.

ALIEN HEADS

Details---

I get chewed

at least once

a day at work

about details---

they change

are forgotten

or disappear

daily. I am

criticized

about details

manifested

in

implemented

by

corporate heads

---alien to

my own.

CITY HAWK

I

A hawk hunts the grass between east- and westbound lanes of I-480. It walks stiffly, swinging brown and white tail feathers, lowering its hooked beak, looking for carrion.

The speeding traffic should scare’em. Yeah, it should. But he ambles along like an old man field-searching for flint arrowheads, or, like an old woman picking berries from a thicket.

To the hawk, the city hawk, the verge is a bank---the light pole a tree---the pavement a river---the cars a current with a rubber-asphalt roar---rushing water. It should scare’em. Yeah, it should scare’em.

II

A hawk perches

the arm of

a streetlamp

one of many

lamps lining

the highway

(two-way river)

He sits

and watches

for something

moving and small,

he sits---for he

has nothing else

but to do

He sees a jittering

black dot, hunger

aches hollow bones

and he dives, tall

buildings, traffic about him