76. FISH POOL WISDOM

wisdom
born of
pools of foaming
fish sperm bobbing
on grassy stream surface
in desolate grassland countryside
spit
from the wind
drawn across the sky
(by a boy’s moist finger
in a department store window)
falls
to earth
gray clouds settle in bushes
along a glimmer—cold stream bank
(lazy stream life slow
wallow ponderously nowhere
nowhere just a streak a hiss a
cry of life brief as the flash of a
meteor brief as
a curve in the stream)
gray clouds icy with glitters
in spider—shit clinging
like eroding detergent
in the spread—arm
crucified twigs
dry as bone

a wind
and winter passes
spidershit germinates
busts and crackles
nothing happens
nothing
cosmic abortion
death before life
“Now I lay me down to sleep…”
drifts across the empty road
fireside warmth on a
telephone pole
security—
knows nothing of the
parents’ quarrel
the needs, the passions,
the fomenting desires
the seething shrill
anguish of the mouthless mind
echoing dully in the
grating, blood–whispering
bone chambers of the head

the trees
blew their minds long ago
they just are
seek an answer from a tree
beat your head against a wall
nothing
nothing
agony of having intellect
agony of wondering
agony of searching the streets
long–deserted back roads
cloud–brush–swept skies
searching for an answer
only a mind could ask
what it cannot answer
mind: a leaf
growing inward
till it bursts
sprays juice
sprays despair
sprays
what lingers
on a night—air tincted
with the faint poisonous
exhalations of plants

(leaves, trees, even
ugly poisonous
       curling plants
living hidden in the
darkness and stench
of hidden–flowing
       swill rivers)
exhalations of stranger
faint toxic whiff
of methane of jet trail
of crashed burned towed car
of comet trail
of star trail
alien and solemn
       forbidding
as the icy Medusa bush
stripped to its
       crackling branches
and gnarly twigs
struggling
half in half out
of the frozen
       winter—night pond
lair of snakes
anguish of the mind
nightmare of
no awakening just
deepening sleep…