salamanders green part one/page 6

Bob Dylan

Dylan on the stereo Blonde on Blonde visions of Johanna sad eyed just like a woman knowing sooner or later if you just did what you were supposed to and the songs were Mary’s favourite and the question I would be asking her if she just did what she was supposed to do and Dylan brings it all back home, memories, fantasies and I’m lying on the bed wondering about the women in my life knowing I’ll never hear from them and Mary said goodbye for a while didn’t realise she was saying goodbye for good and a million visions of a million questions and I still want you I want you so fucking bad remembering with Blonde on Blonde all the love that was real and that no matter what lives on. I’m just not understanding how being so close can end up being so far out of touch.

Bob Dylan and sweet Marie the brass wind chimes sunlight breeze baby in his brave new world and cocaine greasing the works humanising the machine, cocaine thoughts of woman and actually the whole thing is about love a million layers surrounding this planet that I am, the stars of woman feed my evolving life forms. Loving .What ever you say it is all your alive for, love no matter what you believe you’re sum total is love that’s the one you take with you when you go.

I am being an afternoon blue of sky blue sky white cotton candy puffs across a limitless possibilities sky. Never was there an afternoon like this, never will there ever be again. I am living a treasure, wild one of a kind jewel, wild free uncut never to be set gem. I live the wondrous miracle sky blue sky white sun green scent lilacs drift up through open windows, fragile soon to be destroyed by time, forgetfulness, unawareness, storm of evening, this fragile afternoon of being tender miracle afternoon. Dylan sweet the lingering memories of woman on a happening afternoon limitless as any other day, night, moment by moment never to be the same never to be repeated never to ever in all the time you wish to imagine another afternoon like the one I am being right now.

Typing: again

No one to talk to don’t think I have a friend in the world, not the talk to kind, not one of the talk to kind. My machine, the only one I can talk to about my dreams, my fears, my fights with my wife, my hopes for my son. We had a bad fight today my wife and I don’t even know if we are still married or not. I don’t feel like I want to be any more. My thoughts are of my son though; if only his mother and I could get along we love him so much. But I’m thinking how beautiful, how perfect he is and she deliberate or not is driving me away from him and if we’re not married anymore? What will my son think of me when he is grown and someone else is his father? What will he think when he needs someone to talk to and I’m not there? What will he be like? If he’s like his mother then all is lost.

I am dreaming. Dreaming that the world isn’t ugly and it is that the world is serene but it’s a nightmare of petty aggravations built up to explosions. The food of insanity, origin of madness those petty insignificant dramas of the world, petty yet accumulating into things that overwhelm. I am dreaming that my son would want someone to talk to and it would be me. But what ever child talks, what child is ever allowed to speak? The whole environment from home to the entire planet is geared for no talking, no expression. It is geared for shutting up; even the most political of power struggles is about the power to shut up. Power is determining what the acceptable, allowable expression is. All rulers rule by shutting up.

I am dreaming someday I’ll have more than a machine to talk to but reality is I’m lucky to at least have that. I am lucky to have a machine to talk to. I never met a human being except maybe once but she turned sour too she turned into one of the petty basket cases that is commonly known as normal – sold out love for security – but she a least got me this machine. This machine that listens better than anyone else. I am dreaming that someday art will be more important than shutting up, that someday cash will not be considered a human attribute, and the definitions for human, love, art, cash, value, success, will be rewritten. That someday someone will discover and bring to light the fact that we have totally fucked the definition of these words, that we don’t even know the meaning of human, that cash isn’t a definition of humanness, that art isn’t cash and that machine is the closest to real human that we have right now. My best friend is a machine, it lets me dream, lets me express, it listens like no person ever does. I’ve told more to this typewriter than to any one. I have shared more with it than with any lover friend or god. I have shared more with it and not strictly by choice or desire but by the fact that everyone else is deaf and I believe my only hope is my son, perhaps there I can find a human connection but my wife is driving me away and I am crazy with fear for loosing what might very well be my only chance. And too I am afraid that I am only dreaming a night mare with my wife into a bearable situation in order to stay with my son and in so doing totally alienate him and simply assist him in becoming just one more cash defined human.

Countless

There are countless words that could be written, countless combinations to express countless thoughts. Countless the one word that can describe it all countless countlessly lost set adrift in the countless worlds adrift there are no directions, there are no homes no families, no lovers, only drifters only lost and like the wind who knows such things I am not happy not sad only looking, seeing everything not ever really knowing anything yet always looking countlessly ever onwards.

salamanders green part one/page 5

WALKING & walking

Spent the day walking. I mean really walking miles and miles trying to hitch a ride but only getting one the whole day walking through construction builders of the new highway ramps. Rock pits prowled by diesel dinosaurs and other monsters, dust grinding down of stone into sand, drills, blasts blades – split the mountain newly exposed rock shining like a wet open wound splintered with bones of uprooted trees smashed life fading into a browner than any autumn leaves all the more shocking when contrasted by the reaming full green surviving foliage. I am a soldier through a forgotten battlefield strong metallic sunlight soldier shelled and shocked turning back with death up in my eyes among the rubble of mountain amidst the slaughter of homeland. My eyes full of death find no place to rest – all is covered with impersonal debris cans glass papers stones dust a never ending dust billows like smoke. I am the soldier walking amidst destruction of a mountain where once as a child I played, where once I loved where now feeling totally sub-human I walk with no place to rest my death filled eyes, no soft place to rest my tender tender eyes. Here on the battlefield of creation – what you have destroyed and what you’ll create is it worth your creating this destruction of beauty?

I am walking today up the hill straight through the activity of destruction and re directing of cars as they try to get through past the two constantly bored occasionally exasperated traffic cops, towards the top where construction has not yet taken place and the ragged skeletons of doomed houses the empty framework of American families bought out for love of money and no choice. Some are already gone only a few concrete steps, a bit of crumbled wall… An emptiness of places once loved and lived in by plain human beings –was that taken into consideration when the state exercised its right to dominate? Stones that someone painted along the wall tops, the tree house in the back yard, the grape vines shading the old kitchen table, the lilacs, the roses, rooms full of firsts – steps, kisses, and lasts – deaths, break ups divorce, moving was anything human taken into consideration bedsides cash market values? Cash is not human if we forget that then I didn’t know… Cash is not human, human is painted stones and tree houses, human is the best roses in the neighbourhood and those vines which for over forty years supplied that neighbourhood with string slightly bitter wine;. Those grape vines are human, these vines that are now brown brown beyond any autumn their roots like bodies reach up now as if seeking to be reunited with those amputated limbs, these vines that shall never know another harvest because the old man when forced out, knowing he couldn’t possibly take them with him decided and cut their roots off as if cutting his own arm he cut a piece of human off because cash is not human and grape vines are and human deserves a personal death a death of tears, courage and compassion not a death of cash bulldozers. I am walking and when I get to the top of the hill, a the very crest where the dust and noise are their busiest the very moment I walk over, that very footstep which puts me walking down hill at that exact point inn time there is a lull a silence like a heavy door shuts on those heavy sounds of destruction. The effect is so startling that I ‘m spun to turn around and there is nothing but the border line of a hill top separating me from the rising dust of destruction battle shell shock slaughter of a mountain.

On the other side of the door is not total silence either. The sounds of birds and barking and children getting off a school bus. I take a left get off the main road and this is a street where you can hear growing grass give way to running children. This is a neighbourhood that has seen and passed its glory, it’s the old neighbourhood, the good ol’ days, houses built like they don’t build them anymore, old ladies leaning at the front door, gaudy lace draped dull film of lace drapes across the window the newly renovated picture window from floor to ceiling that can slide open for a good old fashioned summer breeze windows, the good old new aluminium framed windows that are never opened for any breeze for fear of getting the fixtures worn. It’s just something to talk about, the new windows and how they could if we wanted, be slide open. It’s the weird scene of old peoples new items, old peoples modernised renovations, there is nothing more tacky than old peoples modernisation always so much aluminium you bet your ass they was related to Reynolds. Old peoples new things stay new too long, never any wearing away of that slick gloss film of newness. Maybe it’s because there’s no one energetic enough around to use it. Maybe after wearing themselves out to be able to afford such things they don’t have the energy to use it or the heart to allow it to be used, to let it become worn, to become less than new. Maybe amidst an aging body they don’t want to have old things around the house and prefer something new to have something that will out last them. Maybe they worked out a deal and when they die the windows , fixtures screens slides will be returned to the manufacturer and can be re sold at original prices because they’re never used and because of this they get to have it for half price as long as the merchandise is kept in pristine and for this they get something to talk about with the neighbours, something new to talk about with the new old neighbours – that guy who for fifty odd years you wanted to get something on and now you finally done it, I mean you really didn’t care about keeping up with the joneses, you’re not into that but for about fifty years you been thinking just once, wouldn’t it be nice if for just once, just for the hell of lot you’d be one up on him. Well now friend you can do it with these wonderfully aluminium floor to ceiling right in the front yard overlooking the street where every one can see ‘em sliding glass-door-picture-windows. I mean you can’t really use them you know, not unless you’re into exhibition but that’s not the thing, you don’t need ‘em to be useful, you need them to be seen. Something new to talk about besides the good old days, fucking lousy good ol’ days, more like the good ol daze at this point anyway, good for fucking nothing days except for fictional accounts made up by people who never lived ‘em and need something to distract them from their own lousy day. Poor fucking slob remember those good old days – forty years of factory labour, wars and more fucking factories until they all closed down and moved to Argentina and the union bastards got paid off and split to god knows where with the pensions covered up in a legalise language that you’re not even entitled to know. Those good old days, remember them? And remember that when you die you wont even leave behind one piece of silver or a decent stick of furniture worth the kids fighting over, not even those fucking windows that you wont slide, those big new ceiling to floor, even those will be gone resold as per agreement by the manufacturer. Those good old days and now matter how many kids you put through college, no matter how many kids you got living in Manhattan, Chicago, San Juan, Toronto, they wont even help you pay for the ride in the limo – the only ride you’ll ever get in one and even that wont be you it will be someone that would look like you if your insides were sucked out and the wrinkles stretched out and if you had any real guts you stand in front of the windows those fucking ceiling to floor sliding glass door windows with the drapes ripped down. Stand there with your back to them, preferably naked, and blow your mouth out with that Stirling/Fox double barrel then you could be in closed casket and the windows destroyed un-re-sellable and you could send the bill to New York because your insurance wont cover suicide and if you had any savings you’d a already drawn it out and given it to someone just given it to someone who was your friend like maybe Jesus. The suicide note and there should always be one should read among other things: Mark my stone with this – Here I lay victim of the good ol’ days with my fingers half the length I started with and my windows blown out.

salamanders green/ Part One /page 4

Snowing

The black bird skim the tree the river the rocks and into sky is gone. It is snowing in May. The other day 80 degrees, now, since this morning a strange and beautiful sight, delicate greens of spring – lilacs in bloom, maples in red and the powdery puffs of sparkling white white snow so white. Among the deep rich earth colours of spring – a winter thief. Birds singing snow falling. Its snowing in May and we have to get down to the shop and buy a battery for the car so we can try and sell it. Snowing in May. The car that since we bought it months ago probably only ran right for a few days was fixed and still not right was fixed again and again so to sell it we have to get it jumped hopefully make it to the shop buy a new battery and get it running long enough to sell it so we can get some cash towards buying another with. The baby is sleeping. I wanted to paint today; so far nothing has come of that. I wanted to do a water colour dancer wet down the paper let the colour mingle disperse, vanish and coagulate, to dance into a dancer. I did not expect snow in May in fact I expected it to be sunny that’s why I planned to paint I was not ready for this day and am in no mood to paint unless the sun comes out, especially with this car thing hanging. My wife tells me all I do is waste my time; all I do is write, paint, read, fish. What else is there to do? And oh yes always want to make love. My wife says all I do is a waste of time. Maybe if I worked fifty hours a week and spent the rest of my time watching TV she’d be happy? I don’t know though sometimes the girl strikes me as one who will never be happy. It’s snowing in May, my wife doesn’t talk she doesn’t know how. I ask her what she wants, she doesn’t know. I ask her why she’s unhappy and what we can do to fix it, nothing. She says she isn’t unhappy. When I ask her then why are you always mad and complaining she gets mad and complains that it’s just the way she is.

It’s snowing in May and I wish I wasn’t married to someone who doesn’t know what they want and I wish I could be gone even dead. I wish it wasn’t snowing and I didn’t have to live in constant tension. I wish I was free and in a new met lovers arms and I wish I had someone else to tell my dreams besides this machine of type. This type of machine that has heard more of my voice than any human ear. So does this machine make me one more victim of the modern age? If not for the invention of the cigarette and the typewriter, I would have no one to talk to!

It’s snowing in May and the machines are winning and the type of machine doesn’t matter only it’s a machine, the only dreams are told to a machine, my only intimate a machine, the only peace is the sound of machine pounding order, pounding everything into order, the order driving me insane is shorting my circuits, is making me die – I wouldn’t be surprised.

I am pouring cocaine into the nasal opening of this machine, cocaine the perfect lubricant making all run smooth smooth smooth no grinding smooth no squeaking smooth no pressure pounding, smooth cocaine cool soft so perfect lubricant. Not like the machine dehumanizer, cocaine the humaniser, cocaine the bringer of dreams, dreams no machine can dream.

It’s snowing in May and the baby is in his walker playing with a magazine while I am having black coffee. We take turns the child and I. He comes over to my work table, finds the basket of papers and water colours and is pulling on a picture that looks like an Indian Chief but at first was going to be a young woman, he chews it the background of ultramarine blue smears across his little face leaving his saliva splotches in the upper left hand corner makes it our painting. Now he is playing with my cigarette pack which he is always attracted to … so anyway that’s the story of how my son became an artist before even being able to walk, his very saliva worked into the painting.

It’s still snowing in May the whole world gone crazy, the flowers, the birds, my wife, the motorists in the highway, the while river-fish-animal-plant-mineral thing is hay-wire and me and my son are having a ball making each other laugh painting writing laughing even at the snow, forgetting everything we ever learned I become the infant and he remains infinitely wise. We are having orgasmic experience here and now – being human, being working here and now we enjoy the good work of being alive. He with his water colour blue beard, brave little fingers grabbing with delight the bells, the beads, the cigarette pack, and the paint tubes of the world. Me cigarette in mouth fingers cracking away grabbing too at my own life as he is as we are as the rest of the world isn’t quite as absurd anymore since its snowing in May – still.

salamanders green/ Part One /page 3

Owls

Owls. The word itself sensationing. Try it right now out loud: “Owls. Owls. Owls.” Owls belong to Picasso. The whole reason for writing about owls is to say, Picasso’s owls are wonderful. I drew an owl today for my son, in crayon. I always use crayon for the things I make for him – plain simply pure active colour – red reds, green greens, blues blues, orange oranges, purple purples, brown browns, black blacks borders. Out loud crayon colours for my son. All his creatures, figures, numbers, mobile alligator spider bird hand triangle star planet sunfish all out loud crayon colour for my son.

Picasso Owls Picasso Owls – they were named for each other.

Typing

Afternoon starving to the refrigerator open the door look around find nothing but a queasy stomach, go back sit down, cigarettes. Began with getting lost in one of Miller’s books somewhere between the Tailor and the Jabbowal, end up banging these keys to the sound of sobbing baby melody. My wife is away, she’ll trade a gallon or two of milk for some cigarettes and tapioca. We get free milk subsidy from the county, if money was milk we’d be rich. My stomach tight in a knot, I’m all awareness ready to go my whole sensory being dagger sharp from the stone of hunger. Ready to go, ready for action but there’s no action, no destiny - the only thing that happens is my stomach bubbles, the baby cries, my wife stays gone, I still bang away these keys my bony fingers running out of juice no lubrication only brittle creaking of over used abused bone against other brittle bone the sound the feeling the imagery of my fingers is all that happens, the drying up process is all, that and my body anxious for food and tobacco and the baby still cries and the wife stays gone and there are two cigarettes I found today on the front stair landing one of which will now cure half my hunger and give my fingers a chance to survive.

Rain

Rain. Night rain. Stimulating scent of rain. Heavy blotches after weeks of 90 degrees scent of summer rain rising from hot pavement. By the road side scent of summer barefoot children grateful in the rain. Night rain the sound of cars through the bedroom window, wide open hungry windows as is the earth as is the dwindling river as is the pavement and all the green and flesh and stone and scaly life for miles around hungry for fresh cool clean wet new rain.

The day past: a day of water cloudy sometimes sunny day of fishing for trout warriors, fierce quick warriors of the river cult. Catching first the dreaded sucker, small maybe two pounder of ugly brown flesh that have no desire to look at let alone touch. Scavenger so necessary yet so hideous repulsive bottom mouthed creature, thick human like lips quivering with barbed steel. Pulpy soft fleshy lips tender peeling with steel, soft fleshy no fine sharp teeth of the warrior cult, none of the beauty rather brown slug like shape and colour and human like lips forever in a perfect O.

Then in white water deep between my favourite rock and hillside bank hard bend pole hard white water vibrating the line pulsating right up my arm silver flash of battle. Bold all at once hit no nibbling cowardly attempts at thievery. Fearless lusty trout battle as water as silver flash as raw life all too quickly over as another silver flash brings quick simple knife strokes as is the fate of all captured warriors a quick clean death – only children and vile suckers given quarter.

The day past a day of water remembering plants, fishing, cloudy sometimes sunlight sky refusing to give up its pleasure until darkness drew it out softly slowly blotches trickling pleasure across hot ground like finger tips my lover trickles across my skin softly slowly growing heavier until pouring out a pleasure of caresses soaks the earth the skin the sheets.

salamanders green/ Part One /page 2

Night Gowns

Midnight sitting up getting stoned looking for cigarettes, tipping the scales in my favour so as to remain in touch with this afternoons thoughts yet totally bored with them and everything else which is the reason I’m sitting up in the middle of the night typing thoughtlessly wondering if the downstairs neighbour will come home sometime before after smoking my last one I will be going out of my mind for the nicotine or whatever it is that hooks you. I cannot sleep and I’m stoned and I cannot sleep without a cigarette and out of totally boredom I’m just sitting here thinking about bedroom clothes, flannel robes, scarlet slippers, underwear, night gowns – you know the textures, the smells of sleep and sleeping wear and in the middle of the night get up to feed the baby wear, the texture of the lining in your slipper, places where it’s worn out like at your heels or under your big toe. And there is that some how more than sexual tingle I get when a woman’s night gown glances over me. It has to be just right for that real dreamy sensation though any way will do for some excitement, just thinking about night gowns, think about it night gowns, just that so slight whisper between you and a woman, just that so slight whisper between you and everything you want – a woman in night gowns. In your sleep the dreams which are gentle, soft always forgotten before waking, images forgotten but not their sensation, never the sense of being which these images born from the touch of a woman in night gown bring. Night gowns, a night gown full of woman, the closest thing to perfect.

South America

A friend of mine asked me the other day, why I had a map of South America hung over the kitchen table. I happen to like South America, its foreign and jungles and Brazil and Argentina and just saying the names Brazil savoury, Chile silky, Surinam otherworldly. The only one I don’t like is French Guiana I mean how the hell did French get mixed in with Brazil, Surinam and the rest? I mean its not even France which after much effort, might become tolerable – its French, French a totally disagreeable taste to it, uninteresting as well as annoying – French. Just say it out loud – compared to Surinam it simply has no business being there.

The continent itself, its shape, I can see an old woman’s breast, a bullfighter poised with sword and cape, a piece of human anatomy perhaps a liver or whatever but definitely distinctly human and inside. If I picture it with Brazil on the top and if I look at it for a while first noticing how much more interesting it is this way, no matter how I try positioning and repositioning this continent none is as interesting or better than having Brazil at the top. It looks so right, so - this is the way it’s supposed to be. I get the feeling that this is how a continent on another world is shaped it brings almost memories of seeing somewhere a land mass shaped that way – Brazil towards one pole, Chile, Peru and such towards the other but its not Brazil or Peru or any of that, they are other names or not at all. It is South America - what was once known as South America only with the part once known as Brazil pointing to the pole once known as north on a planet once called earth. It could now be the continent of Surinam because I like the name but maybe not, maybe I don’t know what it’s called or even if there are beings there to call it or if so have they words to name it?

I am above looking through the green edged field of vision that I have. A concave thickness of glass close to my face as I watch this mystical land of Surinam through a green lightly green edged sky getting closer I see the water blues of oceans and realize instinctively that green is the colour perfect for Surinam – Surinam Green – the kind of green so sensible, so peaceful, the kind of green which guaranties all oceans a lifetime of purity. Getting closer, the tree tops, pine trees then lakes, Surinam a land of trees, pine trees and moose. The beings of Surinam are trees and moose and all the lakes have voices and all the soil rich tree food lake bed friendly. All that live here are moose and trees, pine trees. Yet the lakes all tell legends of ladies and rumour other creatures across the sea but Surinam if it be Surinam at all is filled with only moose and trees and the voices of its lakes. No visitors accept the wind that brings last months news on the occasional wings of migrating things. Lighting a cigarette turning from the concave glass above the mythical land of Surinam I set the controls for the heart of what was once known as the sun, patiently I wait for this land we now head for, this mystical land of oranges and oceans of gold, this land now called Surinam because I like the name…

Now past the middle of the night and all planets, stars and celestial objects are all known as Surinam and I’m still awake. There’s the radio and lighting my last cigarette smoke blowing across the old breast of Surinam in the kitchen.

salamanders green/ Part One /page 1

 Part One: Do you really want to go here?
River

Afternoon late spring clean water rivering golden sunlight drifts slowly graces full breezy trees, sub down silver gold sparks white water green water brass between rock and crumbling pylons water. Trout water clean fast life death water sparkle moments cascade flash blood scent spotted sating skin shudder pulse lightning trout flesh steel clean pain death dream river of sun of steel of rock pumping blood cold icy blood silt shadow lightning green brass white sun down water river.

Suli has freckles all over her body, freckles well not exactly covering but her face looks like a strawberry especially when she's sunburn, her lips chap Vaselined strawberry fresh fruity taste other glistening lips that never kiss yet smile a river of holy water down upon tonguing boys. Lips of swallowed strawberry fruits of other faces, lips of holy juices tonguing boys strawberry licking body down, sun down, tongue down, body down holy lips fruity inside with a taste with a scent with rivers and rivers of sweet flowing pouring into a sea of tonguing boys. River of blood life death ecstasy the Suli woman rolling roiling river queen all tongued down into pools holy water spilt down pale wall thighs tongue down boy watching windows reflect a sun down silky skin Suli silky silky run it through your fingers skin.

  Anxiety who wants to give up the trees, the river, for the city again? Who wants to break open the money bags piss away good cold hard almost legal cash – paying to return to the city. Cold cash for to see the cold city, cold people, hot people, hot/cold never cool or warm only angry suns sons and daughters. My dream does not see me there. I have no place to go there. Here is life and death, clean pure immediate; each being accepts their own responsibilities, each and every form of life raw open being face to face. Here is not the city, here is not the hiding masked man who can never claim himself, the concrete never stops the flood, the narcotic blood can never give the thrill of pure wild savage unadulterated blood as it gushes through the world, not the world of the city but the world of experience, the world of life of pure unadulterated orgasmic thrill. The icy thrill of a morning that does not begin with angry swollen suns sons and daughters.

I live by the river. I live with the river. I am the weeds by the side of the river. Fly as well as trout of the river. I paint in with the river. I write to with in the river. I make love to strawberry women in with by on the river. Animal amphibian fish reptilian whore-master whore Merlin Morgana of the river. My blood white water silt cans bottles logs sparkled stone bits unidentifiable biological material fish egg strider spider; all living, all dead, all treasure of the river are me and I them. All that is river is me. Dreams words skin sex stock barrel - we are river, we the living, we the dead. All flesh, no flesh; we the river. No river of life no river of death no river of things no river but the river. All that is all that isn't, that is the river.

The river is dreaming me here with radio and cigarette. I am a river dream watching the river sink into a liquid sky a million times reflected upon a sleeping river-dream. All things come from come, all things come, all things the dream of liquid sleep the river dreams. All things a myriad of simultaneous dreams, none greater or smaller only different all sourced from the river. The same river that feeds trout flows through all veins, the same river pours from Suli's cunt pours out of tonguing boys pours from swollen penises pours out the swollen sun, pours out the violent city pours out the whores the saints trees wind grass stone fingers singers words all as all as all is the one water one dream split countless facets gleaming countless suns sons and daughters of the same sleeping river.

salamanders - green, dedication

dedication

still reminiscing life comes

fine little flakes, bits & pieces

not some continuous movie show

darts in & out

between the logs

Salamander memory

before the fire