October 3-9, 2005: francEyE and Cian Cafferky

francEyE and Cian Cafferky

Names, Words, Love I’m notta Rick says big fan notta big fan of Basquiat  We’re in this room of Basquiat in MOCA Basquiat in MOCA hard to be notta big fan, sit in all this light nothing but Basquiat here in MOCA to hear I’m notta big fan of MOCA so fulla sweet precious people all here to hear I dunno maybe each other or maybe Brendan, hear Brendan  I came here to hear Jamau, Jamau Daaood and Brendan, but all around Basquiat hafta be real poets hafta be real to be heard even over these Basquiats I’m glad of Basquiat, glad of Constantine too I’m glad of Daaood he’s still here & I hear the world, I’m a big fan of of course anyone anyone with feet on the ground but it’s true you don’t hafta be a big fan to live all your life in Basquiat, his so short but long as the day is, thank you for Constantine for Kamau too Thank you but I’m still not a big fan of MOCA. Signs, Songs, Water (to Marina) I didn’t do as I planned  The storm hadn’t stopped as I thought, or rather it had but had started again It poured, it stopped, it poured again but lucky for me it arrived at step 3 before I left home so I put on your warm sweater and over it my long purple raincoat okay so I know it’s not purple it’s mauve but how does that sound-“long mauve”-? Anyway it keeps my legs dry & I wore my yellow boots, opened the bright red umbrella Rick Lupert returned to me after I’d forgotten all about it and it has spent so long with Rick now as well as a while with Amelie that it is much kinder than it was when I let go of it last spring in Rick’s car  It opens with grace and shuts politely, Rick-sanctified umbrella  I’m a symphony to rain and all these clothes are so old and know me so well now they treat me like family The coat knows I’ll never sew back the missing button, but it doesn’t care; it closes anyway  Your sweater misses you but cossets me anyway, the shoes are not the oldest but they are what I stand on ever since back when I was still a wage slave and thought I would have time to garden The hat, the hat I forgot to say, it’s tan and warm and sort of Peruvian  And then the red umbrella  Across the street from the bench where I wait for the bus Express Auto Care sings its song: Engine, Diagnostic, Transmission, Clutch, Brakes, Tuneup, Electrical Engine, Diagnostic, Transmission, Clutch, Brakes, Tuneup, Electrical – the song I tried to sing all my life but never could, the song I never wanted to sing but had to, all my life no matter what  And to think now I’ve lived to see it begin to die  That song does not have long to sing now, hydrogen or no hydrogen, though of course, it will always “vibrate in the memory” the way even today if you know where to go you can buy a good buggy whip; you can buy Roman sandals, you will even see tough-soled barefoot  savages walking these city streets on their thick-soled feet now and then There is no one I think really as old as the hills nor are even the hills as old as the seas and as for songs, they die too, it’s said, if no one sings them but last night while I watched lightning flash not behind a mountain but behind a 99-Cent Store and heard thunder roll and roll I thought even the hills were young once and now it’s goodbye to Engine Diagnostic Transmission Clutch Brakes Tuneup but not to Electrical   Electrical Older than hills, and the song of the ages, thank you Uncle Walt, and the storms pour, stop, and pour again  In the middle, that’s the eye   Thanks, storm; thanks, eye; thanks coat; thank you; thanks, Rick  Thanks, songs.

Note Rene’s perplexed His pierced nipple is infected again Sitting on the curb stone Opposite The Temple Of Hair On Rue de la Croix He imagines sunlight On the edge of a sharpened blade In a bowl of disinfectant On the beautiful doctor’s Crisp white coat A drop of blood (his!) Watching him, And as saddened perhaps, Marcel is cutting The butcher’s hair- Sixty if he’s a day, And all of it spent In an abattoir Hacking through flesh Now he wants love, Youth, a warm hand- Only the tenderist parts Of the human experience Which does not include His wife who sits in their balcony Wishing she were gone, Out into the wind With its hint of snow, To a cabin in a deep wood Where all day the leaves Whisper in her ear Promising hail, storm clouds, One last gathering On the edge of everything Nothing else moves But if you listen, You can hear in the distance The traffic go south, The huge trains lurching Under your feet, A moment in the mouth Of a small bird Breaking the heart Of our terrified street. Anniversary At first it was nothing A small cloud Ragged on one side, Smooth on the other I thought of that blue cardigan With its white patches, The one you’d been wearing Then I went to the park And sat on a green bench Under the lilac trees Someone had hacked Out somebody’s name, Michelle or Michael, I couldn’t’t tell And it failed to matter Now the cloud had grown, As dark as the man in the Shadows opposite- Flecks of dust catching In the folds of his collar, The skin white where His hands held on Whatever he said It went unheard And I fell to studying The birds tearing At the shrubs in the Memorial garden, Its bronze plaque Amongst the blue flowers Like an eye on something I was wondering where I’d go After the gates were closed? Who would I meet there And what awaited? I longed to touch your face And the cloud joined Other clouds, Lost its edge and randomness, Rained down.