E  MAIL FOR DAMNISO LOPEZ

(Moments)

On moments not pressured by his commodityism

                                                           He donned

Snakeskin ankle-length boots, a cowboy hat with a band

Of trangressive angels bumping into one another

As in

         A painting by Botticelli. Otherwise

He wore a quotidian business suit.

At midnight he went outside to listen to love

Calls

Of owls.

His wife was away sleeping with his boss

Who promised a promotion.

This was the socially constituted milieu I witnessed

In my formative years.

At Robles Park in Tampa near the crime section of

North Jefferson there is a bridge made from palms.

Hands are scratched and bleed when gripping the rails.

Scattered around a dredged, artificial lake are clusters

Of bamboo, and the long stems have leaves yellowing.

The ends of the seesaws that touched the ground

Were rottening due to their never being used. The

Tennis court was empty, and the asphalt was cracking.

[I was influenced by these courts to read and be

Influenced by John Ashbery’s book on an oath.]

Many were afraid to go this park on account of all

The murders.

This is the socially constituted milieu I witnessed

In my retirement years while living on a pauper’s pension

From the less-than-mediocre university where

I wasted my life teaching.

In Venice, under an arch off  San Marco Piazza

to keep out of the rain,

I saw a madrigal singer, Monteverdi, crying.

He was crying

Because his American mother

Had taught him only girls cry,

American men never cry.

He saw all Italian men cried.  He wanted to cry.

So he cried.

When he stopped crying.  He cried again

Because he felt guilty for his mother

That taught him American men never cry.

This was during my middle age.  I always

Felt at home in foreign countries, and

Deracinated when home.

When drinking Campari at Florian where

Nietzsche, my favorite philosophers after Gorgias,

Sat in a yellow chair and wrote a poem about pigeons,

With the madrigal singer, the madrigal singer

Started crying again. When he finished crying,

He confessed that his mother also

Taught him that American boys should not admire flowers,

They should admire machine guns and the Mafia,

You know, the Godfathers.

He said he recovered from his mother’s misdirection

By joining the flower children. He always

Carried a white orchid pressed against his heart

By his left hand.

When I left to meet my lover, A Slavic Teutonic blonde,

in front of the four surrogate horses on San Marco cathedral,

I was singing Monteverdi.  She scolded me, she said

That American middle-aged men should not sing

Monteverdi, they should sing Country Western.  Then

She started talking about Ernest Tubbs, Hank Williams,

And Johnny Cash.

Back in my room at the Bauer Grunwald,

I cried all night

While holding a white orchid.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ

(My Peers)

My peers, schoolmates, used to throw rocks

At me

After I was forced to play volleyball

By the educational institute’s physical

Education

Program.

The most voluptuous girl at what was then called

“Jefferson Junior High,” in Tampa, near North

Jefferson Street, who engaged in the hedonist

Past time of having her breasts caressed by

A curly haired red-headed boy while listening

To lectures on how water seeks its level

In “Introduction to Science” taught by the

School principal who was a leading softball

Pitchers on the local softball league once spit

On my face because I could work mathematics

Faster than anyone in the class and was

Two weeks ahead of the class.

Although she lived next door, she never

Invited to join her gang bangs that took

Place in the Jefferson Junior High School yard

At twilight. She would always say in a sneering

Manner to me, “Stay home and solve an

Equation. You are not going to be

In this issue.”  I did not understand what

She meant by issue.  Later on, I found out

She became editor of an avant-garde,

Post-Language poetry little magazine.

By the way, a long time later, I send

A poem to her magazine, The Wall.

Knowing her disdain of my intelligence

And sensitivity, I send the poem

Under the penname of “Bustop Fifteen.”

She published this poem:

ALEX AND DIO

Alexander the Great:

Hello, Diogenes, I am Alexander the Great.

Diogenes the Cynic:

I am Diogenes the Dog.

Alexander the Great:

I heard that you are the most learned man

In the world, and that you present

Live sex shows.  What can I do

For you.

Digoenes the Cynic:

Get of my light, so I can read

The handwriting in this poem

By Robert Grenier.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ

(A Long Time)

It took a long time to know what I really

Believed.

My parents had taught me to believe

What I did not believe.

My preacher had taught me to believe

What I did not believe.

Why public school teachers had taught me

To believe what I did not believe.

My college professors had taught me

To believe what I did not believe.

I had so much opposition in my search

To  find my truth

That it took a long time.

Before I discovered my truth, I had made

So many mistakes by following the language

Of lies spoken by others that most of my

Life was wasted.

So now,

I write poems about my wasted life

And my personal, private visions, my truth.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ

(Ghent)

I was in Ghent, sitting in an art museum

Close to the Van Eyck painting of the lamb,

Drinking Vino Santo from San Gimignano,

Surround on the circular walls by Andy Warhol’s

“Marylyn Monroes.”

I asked myself, “What feelings do

These art works evoke in me?”

My answer was “None.”

I remembered a statement

Made by someone in a slick

Magazine devoted to au courant art,

“The postmodern artists brackets

Experience and puts his faith

In art dealers.”

The Zen asceticism of the display,

For looking at these displays

Of nothingness, finally satori

From a simulation of a simulation,

This complete transcendence

Of life and experience almost

Made one long for the old

Cri de couers.

Most Americans passionately

Hate art, but passionately pretend

They are arbiters and transcendental

Signifiers when it comes to

The judgment of what is art

So now they have discovered

A puppet of their taste, a man

Who hates art and has it advertised

By the aesthetic power structure

And their documentaries that

He is an artistic genius so these circular

Walls in a Belgian art museum

Are decorated with an art

That is not art, and since it is not

An art, it is admired and revered

As art by Americans who hate art.

Soon, I will go into next room

And observe a wrecked radio

With its parts scattered over the floor.

At least, the Vino Santo evoked

Feelings.

E MAIL TO DAMNISO LOPEZ

(Parafiin day)

It was a paraffin day,

Waxy, colorless,

Made for waterproofing

Or making candles.

A gunslinger said he

Needed the candles

To use the flames as targets.

I made candles.

I never could comprehend

Why I made the candles.

I hate guns, I think target

Practice is for fools.

Yet, I made the candles

For the gunslinger.  I

Felt I was a traitor,

I had betrayed myself.

No one suspected

This true part of my nature,

That I felt myself a traitor

For making the candles.

My paramour, a born-

Again Christian blonde who

Talks with God, does not know

That I am an atheist.

I don’t even know if

I am an atheist,

I believe I’m a

Follower of Spinoza.

The neo-pragmists,

Richard Rorty says

He is an atheist.

I’m a follower of Rorty.

I don’t seem to know

Anything about myself,

I especially don’t know

Why I made those candles.

All I know is that

This is a paraffin day.

I wish it were

An Armagnac day.

Last update : 14-05-2007 07:32

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