Dream Team, 2006

Gift of Gab, pitcher
Thelonious Monk, catcher
Duke Ellington, first base
capital D, second base
Yusef Lateef, third base
Seu Jorge, shortstop
Caetano Veloso, left field
Marisa Monte, center field
Waly Salomao, right field
Tone B. Nimble, designated hitter

The Life and Times of Uri Gellar

for David Parr

The Sinai desert is a place
where anything can happen:
manna from the sky,
multiplication of loaves, etc.
It really wasn't that unbelievable
when those eating utensils
began contorting themselves
gracefully, perfectly
like Martha Graham dancers --
the cusp of the spoon
arching back to kiss
its stem; the fork's fingers
splaying wide, as if in greeting --
when he looked at them
the way the sun looks
on the flowers and trees.

And when he told the keys
in your pocket to quietly
curve into Giacometti sculptures
from center stage at the Las Vegas Palms,
he only had to recall
the great expanse of sand and scrub,
unhranessed energy unfurled beneath
his 11 AM flight from Los Angeles.

The Mountain

I read in the stones in my hand
a small map detailing the route we would take East
through caves and over rivers, past the ruins,
to the foot of the Mountain.

We discussed how to deal with "the invisible ones"
and their ability to mimic the light in the air as it changes colors --
washed-out blue ink at dusk, a candle upon the water at dawn,
a flying gold wall at midday --
attempts to block our ascent to the Mountain.

We exited the Passage, our shadows preceding us,
the afternoon sun coming down in bright blocks.
Our future was a series of doors through which we
would walk and feel our past recede like previous rooms:
silences before we reach the Mountain.

Our companion carried a slender three-stringed instrument,
which she strummed furiously, her voice rising above us like smoke.
Our footsteps kept time with her songs and we walked
through the evening, approaching the Mountain.

My wife said she felt something like a cold wind
blow across the back of her neck.
I said it's the invisible ones.
They have followed us here and want to block
our passage to the Mountain

They ride the stillness of night and sleep buried beneath
a thin layer of sand during the day.
If we want to escape them we must walk through heat of day,
arm in arm, until we arrive at the reflected light
of the snow on the Mountain.

12 Pt. Buck

I knew one day
I would see him:
the other one,
the one who didn't go to the Village
and study Guthrie and Ginsberg
but remained in the Midwest
and painted houses.
Just a blue truck,
ladders on top,
can of chew on the front seat
and a color postcard
of a 12 pt. buck
dangling over the dash.
On the side in faded white letters:
Bob Zimmerman Painting (gascap) 462-9117

The Orchestra

This orchestra is playing in the future,
always in the future.

They are lonely, distant from us.
The instruments they play will never be invented.

Nobody attends their concerts.
They play in empty, wooden halls.

When they stay in hotels,
there is only a solitary bellhop.

The lace bed covers and
crystal pitchers of water.

Who will ever hear
this orchestra from the future?

Emerging

Stretch of grey lake,
the sound of a black branch
slicing water.
A machine blinking a bright pulse
falters, registers movement.
Its shape, traced in sonic waves,
is ghastly. Great boat of a body,
long, curving neck and small head.
Small, studious chap puts down his pipe.
Accelerating heartbeat.

The Painter

It was a weary blue
sundown in December
and the golf courses
of Milwaukee
were being drained
of a peculiar light
that reminded the painter
of a dusty penny candy
he ate as a child
one summer in Menoqua.
Weird ping of heels on the pier,
his stomach fluttering
like the fan tail
of the small sunfish
swimming beneath him.

Dream Team, 1998

Andre Breton, pitcher
Joseph Cornell, catcher
George Jones, first base
Phillip K. Dick, second base
Eugene Chadbourne, third base
John Zorn, shortstop
Charles Fort, left field
Allen Frost, center field
Charles Bukowski, right field

Kurt Schwitters, designated hitter

The Grey Ghost

He sits on a broken brown suitcase
or the top of a television,
feet dangling down.

He spins on the paper inner circle
of an old Stravinsky record.
The bassoon bellows loudly,
and he's off, floating wearily up,
like a week-old balloon,
to the high still corners of the room.
Waiting.
It is safe to come down now.
Over to an oak table.
The dark, cool wood beneath him,
he lays down to rest.

The smell of lamb and boiled cabbage
wafting up the stairs reminds him
of the Roosevelt administration
and seeing his first airplane
blink across the night sky.
He is filled with a brief strength
and moves a chair across the room.
They will notice this.
Then tired again and sitting on the floor,
hunched over with short breaths.

When night ends
he leaves the room
and through the hall window
watches the sun rise
like a bleeding plum
oozing across the landscape.

Creating
more
days.

The View

brown Wisconsin fields
seen from bus
window beneath
trouble clouds
rings of leafless
trees, white
paper caught
in low branches
foreclosures
temporary ponds
tilled soil
where birds perch
they say before
the meteor hit
there were
plane-sized
reptile birds and
cats as big as
tractors who
skulked & strode
on limestone
cliffs & stalked
prey across
red granite
expanses
clouds of sulfur
floating expanding
bursting over bogs
reflected in the
animal's convex eyes

Mystery

A tower,
a phone,
a pregnant woman.
Connected somehow.
I don't know how.

Froggy

I suspend a frog
in a block of ice for
a couple weeks.
The first warm day
in March
I release him,
the block melting slowly
on the splintered porch.
And the frog emerges,
dazed, a little sheepish,
but eager to hop around and experience.
I feed him some algae,
and then I give him
a little banjo to play.
He's not bad and he has
a high, yodeling voice
like Bob Wills.
Then I pack a little car of
full of provisions
and a box of Holy Bibles
and tell him to drive around
the country and solicit money
to set up storefront churches.
He nods his green head yes.

An Interview

Grab the chrome handle

and slide back the wooden door

through its wooden grooves

to reveal a white duck

on a black dinner plate.

Ask him your questions.

"How tall was Ching Kai-shek?"
"Five ft. seven."

"Who was the first man to climb Mount Shasta?"
"E.D. Pearce."

"How deep is the Sargasso Sea?"
"Three miles deep."

"What is the name of the Aztec sun god?"
"Huitzilopochtli."

"Who invented the refractometer?"
"Ernst Abbe."

"Why does the mind see colors?"
"The mind is a harbor box."

That is all.
No more questions.