11 6 18 9 5 11 10 12 13
Never did comprehend that
movie Blow-up
back in the ‘sixties. There
were breasts—the two skinny London model girls that David Hemmings shot with
his Contax, Vanessa Redgrave in
a split dress. I liked
the Yardbirds playing in that rock club, with all
those impassive faces. But I never
figured out what David Hemmings saw when he blew
up the photo of that strange woman on the park lawn.
. . .
Bec and Nina gone after a
good visit,
Robin doing school work,
I took as long a walk as possible without ever returning home,
past Snelling, over the Selby bridge.
But I had to pee,
so I ducked into a small factory lot,
and in the shadow of two U-Haul trucks
I took my penis out and peed into the snow,
standing looking back at the sparse traffic on the bridge.
People in the cars might have
been able to
see me, but my peeing
was dark and mostly still, a long way to their right. Noticing on my left
A A A Midway Boxes for Sale,
and quite a ways in
front of me a doorway labeled Entrance,
with
lights, red and white, shining off the door glass—
Christmas lights, I thought, but no—reflections from
the
Selby and Hamline traffic semaphore behind me.
A couple of cars approached
and passed while I
was standing there, before
I finally finished and walked back to the sidewalk. But I regretted
I never verified whether the
light in the glass turned
green. So I walked back and stood by my dark mark,
taking my gloves off, waiting for the green,
and trying to shoot the Entrance door
with my phone
camera, then shooting the traffic lights behind me.
When I got home I saw the
shot of the glass
Entrance door, no dot of
red or green, but the whole pane a red glow, and the lights behind me red
flames
like burning cars—motto on a sign
by my left ear: Where
will you go next? Do you know? Flagellating
ear worm I’m strollin’ on, cause it’s all
gone
the reason why you made me cry by
telling me
you didn’t see the future bore our
lovin’ no more.
. . .
Next day to my iyengar class
at St. Paul
Yoga, almost all the
way to Selby and Lexington. With a large appetite to see things, to
take photos. With a phone camera,
you have almost a
duty to be attentive, to catch the sign
on a funny brown brick tower FOR SALE or
LEASE Stan Smith, lovely green and black grafitti on
metal wall, brazen words BOMB or
BUMR—can’t tell which.
Trying to time my footsteps
to the words my
class intones Yogena
citasya padena vacam, having
trouble getting the entire hymn
into my thick skull, hardly grocking
the Sanskrit Malam
sharirasya ca vaidya kena. I shot
the two U-Haul trucks, one with a big sign
LOWEST COST in the front window. And there was my
bestial black depression in the snow—new rabbit
tracks surrounding it (but
nothing had effaced
my own shoe prints, growing
more numerous), a few delicate droplet loops emanating from it.
But I stared toward the Entrance door
Yopakarotam
pravaram muninam, a truck in
the way
this time, but I could see the red dot in
the glass, bouncing to my eye from the signal lights,
and now I have photographic proof Patanjalim
pranjaliranato
s’mi. Distinct Abaa
hu purushakharam.
Standing for many seconds with my phone in my bare hands, looking between
the traffic lights behind me and the
Entrance door Sanka
cakrasi dharinam. Moment
I broke a
string trying to play a solo during
the United Handicapped Federation gig,
knuckles bleeding because I’d never learned to hold a
plectrum correcty—but I’ve
always been proud
of my public bleeding
episodes, when I was flicked in the eyelid with a racquetball racquet,
reopenened when I sang Sahasra
shirasam
svetam.
Old Denver girlfriend who smelled
like egg salad,
her tasteful vagina, her bathtub tears.
But my phone blacked out while the red light lasted, hands
throbbing. Can this ill-starred liasson be permitted?
I saw the green dot in the
glass door, but I
couldn’t shoot it, standing
by my hole in the snow, looking at it, comparing the memory with
the gone reality, where nothing
is missing, even,
especially, nothingness. Guitar neck hurled at
the crowd, fought for tooth and nail, discarded
on the street Pranamami patanjalim. Too
cold to wait through the long light cycle again, I put
my phone in my pocket, pull
my gloves back on,
and walk east on Selby
to the Yoga Center Yoga for right articulation of words and
bones. I approach this munificence.
Upper form human.
Holding the conch and disc. Crowned by the thousand-
headed cobra. Neither or both male and
female. I lay my shoulders down on the wool rug.
I reach my beautiful naked feet to the ceiling.
. . .
So what do you want? Do you
wish it had been
Lou Reed instead of Jeff
Beck smashing that replica of Pete Townsend’s guitar? I can’t not mention
the pock-pock of that tennis ball hit
by those mimes without
racquets—when, as happens in tennis, the ball
flies over the fence, and David Hemmings,
after a doubtful interval (but whyever
should he hesitate?), picks up the ball and returns it.
