25. Earl Wild Plays Rhapsody In Blue

.
Listen up you guys.
The real thing.
Joy power.
Go power.

How sad that Gershwin missed hearing
his extravaganza turned into
this mountain of excellence.

This New York time,
in language of structural spontaneity
detailing the genetic history
of a people of exuberant strength.

Transfixed by a translation of events into sound,
from street sounds to piano sounds,
from street language to piano language,
the beautiful translation of randomness into
movements of feelings.

24. To Robert Duncan

.
If I had had a mother
named Minnehaha Harris
I too would have become a
famous poet.
But alas, my mother's name
was Turalura Epstein
and that is why I am,
Yours truly, A. Nonymous.

23. At Nine Years

At nine years old I knew
I would become famous when I grew up.
Thats why strangers starred at me,
at the bus stop, in the dime store,
walking to school.

They were from the future
and wanted to catch a glimpse of me,
the young boy who would become famous,
who would change the world.

Today I am the old man
who did not become famous.
Looking at the handsome children
enjoying their lives.

22. Where They Went

Nobby, Punch, Uncle Bill, Weary Willie, Guts,
Gone
Into
Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, Evens,
Gone
Into . . .

21. Wagon Trains

The children circle the adult table
Like movie indians around the white shirt wagons,
Yelling, whooping, performing, letting it all out
With physical dexterity.
The wagons, enclosed, guarded, keeping it all in
With verbal dexterity.

Off in a corner of the lawn a young girl
Stands, watching with blank face.
The filling observation of a child growing
To be harvested in old age.

I do not know if she is empty with hate or fulled with love.
I only hope she will learn that it wonderful enough
to live with all senses open.

20. A Description Of A Poem By William Carlos Williams

.
Putting into words a simple observation,
wrapping it into a new beginning.
Defining the obvious from a new direction
as "the great number five" flashes by.
A phantazein of four dimensions
that smoothes recognition.
Turning a sideways thing
into an absolute gravity well of meaning,
of meaningful sound between
two breaths.
Overtaking and freezing in understatement
the greatness of now.