by Cauble, Don
the Slam Play
the Hero of the Hour.
& each 7 years
the Stones come stalking
they carry signs
HURRY UP PLEASE
IT'S TIME!
& the Son wakes screaming
THE OLD MAN IS DEAD!
THE OLD MAN IS DEAD!
& Olympia billboards
It's the water!
& I say aren't you Carbon
cause Blue Print keeps
rubbing my hands
& he says, well then don't touch
& I say, why don't you
& he interrupts, I have
already
the jokes on you
Chicken Little,
here comes the crack-up!
& I say bunchingmywords
which way is OM?
& he answers, Eastern air lines
HOME
& I say, YOU aren't Bogart
not even Mordor!
& he says, how about that!
Now what you gonna do?
Come on in, she said to me
I walk 70 blocks thru a cemetery
and pick flowers
from which
beautiful skulls will grow.
The second-hand lady opens her door.
I'm standing on the steps with a nervous smile
and the skull of an angel in my hands.
She shows me to the basement,
to a small darkened room with a thousand walls
and a shifting mirror;
a room where her husbands never go.
She hides the skull under the stairs,
then she takes off her shirt and faded jeans.
Sometimes, she tells me, they just forget I'm here.
Next morning, she keeps watch thru a broken widow.
Trucks are in the street, she warns me.
The trucks have loud speakers.
Her husbands are searching the closets.
Cops are outside with rubber hoses.
They throw up barricades.
I disguise myself as a man.
They never see me.
Inside you
whispering
thru shut sockets
and circling light
dreams
Our voices cut a freeway
& the Greyhounds come riding;
Dr. Sanpaku tells us
in 13 languages
how we're poisoning
inside Saviors,
the key gets stuck in the door
& you tell me the only way out
is to crawl inside.
I turn, take one step backwards
CRAAASH!
The backdoor went out the front,
you say.
You open the fire escape.
Broken trees jamlog your thighs,
snow waits for spring.
Go slow,
you tell me
& my fingers hear Picasso flowers
splitting your throat,
mouths open into skulls.
When will IT begin?
I asked,
as I stepped into the end.
Standing still
Saj, the Grave Keeper
hangs out with the ghost of a face.
He sticks his eyes
in backwards—
If I wasn't so serious,
he cries,
I'd laugh myself to death!
But you know how it is,
I've got to stick around
and take all this down.
Aarun, the first born,
crashes the doors;
he shouts to the Greyhounds:
Catch me if you can!
I only want to catch
what's behind me,
says Tom—
our hero in this story—
and presses his face
to the windows
that guard his soul.
They always told us
to follow a running stream
and, if possible, a railroad track,
but I just keep following myself.
Step inside...
says the Grave Keeper,
The most you'll get
is the least you can expect.
2
I watch the Mind Pickers
sorting Blue Giant into dwarfs
and the heavies play mystical chairs
with his unblinking eyes.
Floating Lady sighs,
I worry about coming
when I haven't even left….
It's all the same,
says One-Eyed Jane,
with a laugh that reminds me
of tinkling cymbals.
The Magician crosses himself
then disappears into a cloud
of dust
and old book covers
musty with names of famous poets.
Lady G. shoots her white horse.
He was just a dream, she says,
in a bitter tone out of tune;
a dream that belongs to a lover
I once knew.
Then she hops in bed
with her bodyguards, all seven,
as her lover hangs himself
with disbelief
and a decent man's
hidden desires and long buried
guarded pleasures.
Goldilocks hides in plastic bags,
she plays with herself
while her boyfriend complains
to the crowd,
I've been all around
but I can't find a way to get in!
Each night,
the Head Dealer looks out to a busted house.
I sure hope I'm being cheated,
he says to the crowd,
I'd hate to think I play this bad!
3
This must be a family plot!
cries Tom,
looking around at all the pictures
of himself hanging
on the walls
and a door guarded by dragons
of deceit.
Obviously,
I'm in the wrong place!
What? Are you leaving
so soon? whispers Becky.
You wanna refund, is that it?
He's beginning to catch on,
says the Keeper,
and smiles as warm as a light
in the window of a winter's day.
I think he wants out,
but in and out are dreams
of the past,
he says.
You see...for us...
there's only ourselves
and, he chuckles, these blasted mirrors.
Hey, and chewing gum!
Don't forget that's what holds this house
together,
that and the mirrors,
giggles One-Eyed Jane,
as she teases me
through peek-a-boo dresses and sly gestures
with her painted fingers
and a rose in bloom
tattooed
on her thigh,
next to Venus giving heads up to Jupiter.
Escape is useless, don't you see?
Go outside
and it's still raining.
She touches my hands
to her face
in the mirror and the rain,
What else is there to do...but look?
Deadwood with screaming roots
Vanessa stops with her skin;
there's no place to go.
The prisoner hangs to the ocean,
Grave robbers steal my eyes,
they bind them to the skies.
A ghost writes in water:
THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED,
ISN'T IT?
Saj builds a fire inside the sea
and then turns the house inside out.
He gives free passages to the angels.
He writes on the walls:
You can go as far in
&n
bsp; as you can go out.
Tom plays with the keys,
he sees the garden surrounded by dogs.
A cop shouts,
Well whacha waitin' for?
Aarun holds a burning spade.
I come closer and Vanessa cries, How?
2
The flower grows toward the sun,
the flower never asks, yet the flower
never misses.
Then come the Keepers with stones
in their hands.
They put up fronts and lock the doors.
If there's no one else,
we shoot holes through ourselves.
Ah, yes...smiles Lisa,
and goes upstairs to dress as a nude.
That's the way it goes, so they say:
First your money then your clothes.
It's all in your mind, anyway.
Yeah, I know...moans the prisoner.
That's why we're still here.
3
Tom runs screaming through the walls,
Let me in! Let me in!
In time...Becky whispers...in time.
There's nothing you can save
SOLAR ECLIPSE IN THE 5TH HOUSE
Invisible snakes punch holes in the ring,
I throw stones at the moon.
Brown birds freeze in skeletons
& I wait for Lisa to undress.
On the Creeper, she says,
you never know what time it is.
Bad days drive her to the edge,
she sleeps in her clothes
& I cannot hold her dreams.
THE SIGN SAYS 84
The middle-age priest bows
to an empty house,
He shows his hand to the audience
& then shouts, Higher Mysteries!
I keep getting higher
but I don't see any mysteries.
The workers clock out and go home,
They complain the day's a drag
& night's only a thin cover.
The prisoner keeps one eye hanging;
the eagle dies at the window
& the 5th horseman stalls at the gate.
Aarun works all hours making gloves.
If I slow up now, he cries, I'll stop!
Saj, who says he never takes life
personally,
turns every stone to a full house.
Tom swears it's too soon
& takes up automatic writing.
It's not what you know,
Saj warns him.
It's what you grow!
ALMOST...LIKE A GHOST
The Magician digs holes in the sky.
He cries to the sun:
I've done what you asked,
I've shown them my tricks!
What more do they want?
Vanessa looks out to a world on fire;
I burn incense to Mexico's ancient Queen
& dream dreams of falling rocks.
Vanessa sees through the smoke,
ghosts cling to the walls.
Looks tell you everything, she says,
if you know how to look.
The Grave Keeper turns my way.
He looks as far as the eye can see.
Step quickly...he says...
& in all directions...
then you'll know what I mean.
Is that all? I ask.
Sure...he replies and points to the walls....
But if you keep dragging those ghosts
around,
you'll only lose yourself
and wind up in a pigeon hole.
With one foot in the grave,
the fool pauses
& dreams he's dancing
Pigs set up house in the garden,
George the clean-up man
holds a long arm up his sleeve—
The whites of his eyes glint like stones.
The 7th daughter sleeps with the lights;
she spends her days taking baths.
The Magician empties his dark hat,
ghost rabbits jump the escapes.
Jane tells you she's from the other side
& can't get back through the traffic.
The wind blows lace curtains across your face.
You stare at the ceiling
& run your hands up the bare walls.
Remember how simple death used to be?
The fat king quickly claims
that nothing's really changed.
The second-hand lady brings me her kiss
but I'm stealing looks at the show.
Paranoid cops,
with orders from the street cleaners,
murder Cleveland's first prophet
with his own 22 vision.
Revolutionists kiss the air above his head
& wonder why the holes in his body
keep screaming.
The girl on the side hangs another rope
for the young train robber
one step ahead
of the blindfolded switchman.
The mad historian
crashes a burning time machine
through double rums
and back alleys
that curve into each other
like acid freeways flashing van Gogh exits.
The rebel son rips the stage door
from the horse's mouth.
He drops his pants
and the school girl shrieks—
she does not see her own clothes
disappearing.
The oldest living poet paints his eyes
and dresses the lion with terror.
He staggers under L. A. suns
with whores who won't give an inch,
as skinny, rich blondes play tricks
on his bravado sheets,
singing, O beautiful for spacious thighs.
The prison mystic out-waits the walls.
He steps from his body with a wink
then slashes the cord.
He takes his life into his own hands.
Gen. Opinion hangs out the window.
Buttons lob his ears,
Boy Scouts ape his wings.
He pokes one finger in his eyes
& the other up his ass,
then he shouts for the guards.
Oh, and just when the stars give up looking
for a light,
and firemen jam the street with their trucks,
and the 9 bring up the rear
with visions of transfiguration,
Lilly Bulero tags your shadow with his.
He dregs up the great U-shrinker
who bums the first corner in sight,
as he points to the sky, clapping
with thunder and smoke,
and quotes his favorite joke:
Here lies Blue Giant!
When you come to her door
empty handed,
and she tells you,
It's time to go
My sister lives in a dream,
she whispered,
with the skull of our father.
I smiled at her words,
as I paced the ceiling
& stared through the clothes in her hands.
I can be whatever you want! she cried.
I can show you the universe
in the space of an eye!
The house stood still.
Rooms closed like empty banks.
Skeletons leered from every bed.
Through disappearing walls
I could see a girl's thin body
wrapped in sheets like a corpse.
Husbands kissed her dead mouth,
Lovers flashed lights in her eyes.
Children hid in the flowers
and cried for her milk.
A priest mumbled from the law
and a judge pointed his finger at me.
What you took so long ago, he shouted,
now you must give back!
There was no place to hide.
My head pounded with fire,
I rushed the sky in anger.
The house dissolved into a veil of light.
I stood before a shrine
and a magician dressed me in purple.
In one hand, he showed me the sword
and in my left, a burning cup.
If you're looking for the way out,
he said, Come....
And he showed me into a room
concealed in the heart of the shrine.
I stared with horror and disbelief.
Men and women knelt in fear to the walls.
They tore and mutilated their organs
as they shouted oaths to love and power.
In the center, a man gazed into the light
with his hands chained to each other.
Three figures circled him with fire.
A lovely girl danced naked in his eyes.
Now do you see? said the magician.
The cup spilled to the floor,
the three figures vanished.
I rushed to set the man free
but the woman called my name;
and the sword in my hand
turned to a golden skull.
In a moment
you'll begin to suspect
who I really am
He wrote strange letters
to a woman
who ruled
the moon in her thighs
and he tried to say
when you've covered the sun
there's nowhere to go.
She painted lotuses over his ceiling
and exploded mines beneath his fingers.
Stand still and dance!
he cried to the shadows.
How can you dance
like a scorpion
dodging from room to room?
She lifted her blinds
and opened his eyes—
You must leave...she told him...
You've overlooked the sky
so very long....
NOT JUST NOW, he tried to explain
for his hands were empty
and his sleeves were bare.
His mind unraveled the past
for a place of his own
but the fire blazed at his back
...out there...OUT THERE....
Is there no place
you can hide?
He grabbed the lights
when she wanted the dark