Another Day, Another Dolor

Railroad Sue

2009-12-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

Down the toilet
Out to sea
Nobody means nothing
To me.

Down to Hell
Up to the throne
“He travels fastest
Who travels alone.”

It’s never over
when it’s on.
When it’s off
it’s forever gone.

Railroad Sue
Railroad Sue
I never work.
How about you?

figment as fun as fast

2009-11-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Row upon row of sorrow
The graveyards of auto wrecks
Nothing as fun as fast

Heaven sheds on the earth round
Teardrops, and that’s it; I rather
Doubt heaven is sincere.

God is a figment of solitude.

Empty Ring

2009-03-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

Empty ring of cold white ice
Dangles in air very nice

Hard as marble in March
Melting with a music of manacles

Dripping with the tap of a drum.
Why she smile and me so glum?

My First Memory

2009-02-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

When I was a toddler in Kingston, an older boy led me into a shed in a backyard on Cooper Street. He unfolded some newspapers and spread them across the floor. Then he lit matches and tossed them on the papers. Then we exited deliberatively and walked over to Albert Street. A fire engine soon blared its arrival. The shed was engulfed in flames!

A few days later my family moved to a new house built on Churchill Crescent. A month afterward at a birthday party, the older boy told me a marshal from the fire department came calling. and seemed suspicious of him.

Many years later I heard that this boy had become a long-time resident of the local mental hospital.

At the beginning of the First Ice Age, ancient man, called Homo Erectus, started to move out of Africa. Was that strange timing? How could African apes survive perpetual winter?

Fire.

Ashes

2009-02-21T14:55:00.001-08:00

Me: It’s Ash Wednesday, babe. We have to give up sex.

Her: What’s Ash Wednesday?

Me: It’s the beginning of Lent. We must mortify our flesh.

Her: What’s Lent?

Justification by Faith and the Long Ball

2008-05-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

The purpose of life is to be purposeful;
and each separate purpose is judged daily by the body;

when the belly hurts, you must be doctor to yourself;
when the head hurts, you must think further

thereon, for the soul points to its chief instrument,
and from your brow like Zeus' a work is due.

When the whole body hurts, in pain, it means
death is not necessarily the end of the soul;

the man, the hero I say, steps to the plate
and look at this, he says, a principle to die on.

for Daniel Berrigan

40 Minutes and 33 Seconds

2008-04-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

As Allen Ginsberg was known as the Beat poet, John Cage was the Silent composer. His most famous work is 4’ 33” of Silence.

I published a lot of Cage’s writing. On the morning of 11 September 2001, I had it all in the Kinko’s on Reade Street, and was determined to make it into a book. But the building shook. I said to myself, “Gas explosion. Someone’s been careless.” I looked out the window. There were flames a couple blocks south. Damn careless! I resumed my work with greater care. Eventually there was another explosion. Parts of the World Trade Center bounced off the window. People outside were running. Only the cashier and I remained in Kinko’s. “Oh my God,” she said on her cell. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

I performed John Cage Waltz XI beginning at 3:00pm 26 April 26 2008 at the southern foot of Trinity Place and concluding at the north end of James Street at 3:40.33pm.

http://spearmintmusic.blogspot.com/

My walk or waltz was accompanied by the music of Elodie Lauten.

Paying for Sex

2008-02-11T01:02:00.001-08:00

Money is the hobgoblin of impoverished souls. After her seduction and abduction by the cruel criminal, she saw that she was kidnapped. She realized she was his slave. He sold her to a brothel. He needed the money. He was paid five hundred dollars for her soul.

Did Sally succeed and suck them silly? And did she get sick? And was she freed from the garden of earthly delights? And did she pay for the clap with several organs? And did she grow fat and slatternly sitting at a desk for ten years maintaining health insurance?

And then did a cruel cutthroat stab this secretary, this Sally, to steal her savings? And thanks to health insurance, was it all just another scar?

Love and Fish

2008-02-11T00:33:00.000-08:00

An anti-valentine event was a very useful reading for me as a writer. When I began looking for material about stinking love I drew a blank. But 99% of my writing sits unpublished in notebooks, and I finally remembered my green notebook -- wherein for ten years I've sketched out the how and who and why romantic interests fail. I gave each of these women Baseball Hall of Fame names. Jane Adler, for instance, is Tris Speaker. I'm always angry at these women when I write the poems but, sometimes because I wrote the poems, I am no longer angry. They are often in fact friends. The portraits are recognizable, especially to the subjects -- despite "the names have been changed to protect the innocent." There are a couple of dillies about Colette. I kept looking towards the back of the room to make sure she hadn't arrived late (she's always late). In the event at the podium I decided to read no www.NapLajoie poems (Colette’s a wrong-way Women). And I had also intended to read a poem called Jackie Robinson, but as Rosie Schaap, the organizer, introduced me to Mike Eustace I immediately thought -- I guess Jackie is out.

...................................................................................................
"LOVE"

good words @ Good World a reading series featuring a different theme every month, continues on Sunday, February 10. Valentine's Day, schmalentine's day, Reading #11 is LOVE STINKS!, with

poems by Michael Andre, editor of Unmuzzled Ox, an occasional magazine of poetry, art and politics founded in 1971. His books of poetry include Studying the Ground for Holes (1978) and Experiments in Banal Living (1998). The opera Orfreo, for which he wrote the libretto, premiered at the Merkin Concert Hall in 2004.

fiction by Amy Holman, whose occasional columns on knitting appear in The Huffington Post. Her poetry has won the Dream Horse Press National Poetry Chapbook Competition, and has been selected for The Best American Poetry 1999. She is writing a novel, and excerpts have been published in Shade and The Cortland Review.

and

fiction by Kristin McGonigle, who was, until recently, print editor of the literary magazine Pindeldyboz.

The event is free, and it starts at 5:00 p.m.

Good World Bar and Grill is located at 3 Orchard Street, between Canal and Division.

Mirror

2007-07-24T00:32:00.000-07:00

A piece of paper can get very messy. Revisions, as second thoughts, don’t disappear unless you recopy. So here I am looking into a word processor and there I am looking back at me from the word processor.

Yes, yes, let me look at Michael Andre. There he is at 3:00am. He’s never looked older because, of course, this mirror only tells the truth. He’s felt healthier.

My mistakes make me angry. Mistake-prone--what’s to be done? Mistake-supine--repent, lazy bastard!

My plans present themselves as a series of problems requiring solutions.

There is someone else in the mirror right now, Sandie. I am in her house. She’s sleeping. We’re in New Lebanon. Later today we’re driving to Brandon. 2 June 2007

*

It is tomorrow, 3:00am again, except I’m back in New Lebanon having been in Brandon. And today Sandie and I drive separately to Manhattan. I wish Sandie and I had made out but we didn’t; maybe I’m contagious, although whatever bug I’ve had seems to be fading. If we went to bed and she caught something from me, she’d hate me forever for sure probably. Who knows? Mirror, Mirror on the screen, who knows? Because Sandie’s an uptown girl, she makes me feel downtown.

How best to number my problems, those that can be solved? Alpha and Beta and Gamma and Delta? Gamma or Plan C? 3 June

*

And today I rise at 3:00am on Staten Island, remembering this mirror, the 3:00ams. Should I email this to Sandie thanking her for hospitality?

I do.

I’m so far downtown I’m on Staten Island. I’m 60; I’ve spent 40 years lost in thought. 4 June

*

Yesterday at 3:00am I stayed abed. Today I have a doctor’s appointment at 11:00am. “Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future.” Forty years ago today the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper was released. 6 June

*

I need a day to regroup. There’s nothing wrong with me, but my son had major back surgery a week ago yesterday. I’m back in Brandon, at Fran Bull’s. Tomorrow I read at her Gallery-in-the-Field. 29 June

*

This piece was leading to this day, when I will read at Gallery in the Field with Jeff Wright, introduced by Patt Cavanaugh, hosted by Fran Bull.
I’m staying with Jeff at Fran’s, two charming and intelligent companions. 30 June

*

Vermont farms favor red. Fran lives in the Hillbarn Farm. We ate Thursday night in Provence in Brandon, Friday in Tillie and Marie’s in Middlebury, and last night after the reading in the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury.

Jeff acted up after the reading, ecole de Creeley & Dickey & Corso. There was a wedding in progress at the Inn and Jeff decided to crash it. I should have been embarrassed, but in fact it merely woke me up.

Jeff positioned himself in our view, our post-reading party of seven, and then danced flamboyantly, madly. He was asked to leave. A little girl, mesmerized, pursued him. He ducked into the Inn, pickt up a teddy bear which he previously inappropriately fondled when we entered the Inn. The manager had said Jeff -- Put down the bear. The manager talks like a Law Enforcement Officer. She nows tells the waitress Jeff is -- Cut off. But Jeff merely returns to the wedding bearing the teddy bear, attempting to woo the little girl. This time the father, a huge bouncer, explodes from the wedding following Jeff. Jeff retreats nervously to our table. The bouncer marches in, enraged. He is threatening. The restaurant manager reappears and intervenes. Somehow blows are not delivered. “The nuance was weird,” the father informs Jeff. Jeff is a little chastened.

And so the first half of the year, as Pepys might say, ended. 1 July 2007

*

Today I will read again with Jeff. This time it will be in his neighborhood, at Mo Pritkin’s House of Satisfaction on Avenue A. I haven’t seen him since I dropped him off near a Ben & Jerry’s Bookstore in Rutland. It’s 3:00am. By the time the reading ends at 6:00pm tonight, I’ll probably be so tired I’ll go home to bed. I’ll miss the post-reading shenanigans. Darn. 22 July

*

By the time the reading began, I was too tired to put in a decent performance. I read too much and sleep at the wrong time. Look at Michael Andre! I wish someone would invite me to a wedding. 24 July 2007.

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF BARDOLATRY

2007-01-09T02:00:00.000-08:00

A trickle of new books by and about the late Allen Ginsberg has become a stream, even a river. I did a long interview with Allen in the early seventies, wrote an essay on him, duly wrapt them together as a book, and sent the manuscript to Coach House Press; they promptly and enthusiastically accepted it for publication. Then they forgot it existed. This is an except from the only published portion of our interview.

I made the mistake of bringing up phenomenology.

GINSBERG: The word is interesting. Under yoga or L.S.D. or just paying attention to surroundings, I wind up saying, “I’m studying the actual phenomenology of mind consciousness.” But as a body of philosophical texts, I haven’t read any of them. Why does this interest you?

ANDRE: I’ve become curious about the relation of philosophy to your work. In an old copy of Triquarterly I happened upon last week, a Rumanian named Cioran was criticizing Westerners interested in Eastern philosophy as necessarily inconsistent. Do you feel you are inconsistent? Are there aspects of Eastern thought, such as reincarnation, in which you don’t believe?

GINSBERG: My interest in yoga isn’t an interest in philosophy so much as a physiological practice, that‘s one thing. I don’t particularly believe in reincarnation--I’m not interested in it anyway--I’m interested in other matters. But I wouldn’t put reincarnation out; it’s just not my concern. I don’t know why Cioran makes a statement that there is something inconsistent with Oriental philosophy or Oriental methods, particularly in the twentieth century. What philosophies would be more consistent to a strange American esoteric? Aryan philosophy? Or Rumanian? Or Russian? It sunds like a generalization of a vague order. If there were some specific arguments--…it’s just a big statement, and I just answer, “No, I disagree.” Period. Okay?

ANDRE: Cioran claims in the course of this essay that the chief Western urge was towards being and suffering and being-in-suffering--

GINSBERG: What? Utter bullshit. I mean, to begin with the phrase “the chief Western urge” and then end the sentence with “being-in-suffering” makes you sound like some horrible German talking asshole. I mean, something out of Burroughs. Or Hitler.

Reverie of France

2006-05-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

The engineer stops the long train in Reve. I tap on his cab door. I am ignored. Vexed, I pound on the door with the side of my fist. The engineer cracks the door open. My pistol surprises him and I start shooting. We will stay in Reve.

Reve

2006-04-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

Perturbations?
Well, I always despair.
Despaired twice yesterday.

Suicide interrupted by joy.

Suicide interrupted by sleep:
I'm on a train, and it slows
and stops, and
the station placard reads:
Reve.

2006-04-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Perturbations?
Well, I always despair.
Despaired twice yesterday.

Suicide interrupted by joy.

Poetry goes for a song--like used cars always underpriced

2006-01-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

What old tune? Who you kidding?
Old age begins too soon.
Humbled, we begin to mumble
And know we will not heal.
How you feel? No cure
For age can long endure.
Love the young. Noisily
Off-key, in no new
Harmony, they outlive you.
Who can sing along?

2005-11-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

In a message dated 11/12/2005 4:57:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, owner-realpoetik@scn.org writes:
Subj: RealPoetik - Michael Andre Date: 11/12/2005 4:57:55 PM Eastern Standard Time From: owner-realpoetik@scn.org Sent from the Internet

Dr. Michael Andre is a poet, librettist, editor, film and art critic. He's a French Canadian New Yorker.

Underworld

What thought Thoth
Egyptian god of medicine
Of spells & magic &knowledge?

What thinkest thou Thoth
Of Aleister Crowley
Of Yeats, Keats & the Beats

Of Gregory, Allen and William?
Jack whom living, alack,
I never saw

wrote
doggerel like Gregory.

Gregory
Was a junkie drunk and thug
Like Crowley, Thoth; thugs

Like them lisp
As they think in numbers.
Their reputation underground

Until they securely join it, then
Allen famous howling and
Waiting

For John on the toy piano
And Andy, all of them
Picturing the late twentieth century.

THE FORK

2005-10-05T03:19:00.000-07:00

Michael Andre sits at a table in Gallery-in-a-Field in Brandon, Vermont. The sounds of his opera Orfreo, with music by Elodie Lauten, come to a close. He reads a few Scenarios from the Richard Kostelanetz anthology and an article on Ray Johnson, the hero of his opera. Then, without invitation, Doctor David McPherson, the Canadian psychiatrist and radio personality, formally introduces Andre to the rest of the audience. Andre reads in the libretto to his new opera, How I Blew Up the World. McPherson interrupts and Andre takes a fork from his pocket and puts it on the table. Andre reads a few poems, and then, using as text a Douglas Messerli anthology, Andre reads a long story about drugs, Plato’s retreat and a confrontation in Bellevue between a poet and a psychiatrist, in which the poet triumphs by jabbing the psychiatrist with a fork. McPherson then diagnoses the poet's reading as excessively morbid. Finally Andre lunges at McPherson with The Fork.

1 October 2005

DRIVING A CANOE THROUGH SYRACUSE

2005-10-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

Worry cuts its track over and over
As I sit belted in the driver's seat

The canoe lashed upside
Down to the roof.

In a few hours the paddle will break
The water and mend my heart.

VERMONT

2005-09-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Michael Andre will read poetry, fiction and criticism at Gallery in-the-Field on Saturday, 1 October at 4:00 PM. Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

Fran Bull, gallery director
Gallery in-the-Field
685 Arnold District Road
Brandon, Vermont 05733
Tel: 802-247-0125 Cell: 802-558-8609

franbull@franbull.com
http://www.franbull.com
http://www.galleryinthefield.com

Justification by Faith & the Long Ball

2005-09-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

For the Reverend Daniel Berrigan, S. J.

The purpose of life is to be purposeful;
And each separate purpose is judged daily by the body;

When the belly hurts, you must be doctor to yourself;
When the head hurts, you must think further

Thereon, for the soul points to its chief instrument
And like Zeus from your brow a work is due.

When the whole body hurts, in pain, it means
Death is not necessarily the end of the soul

The man, the hero I say, steps to the plate
And look at this, he says, a principle to die on.

Bush's Have-mores

2005-09-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Have-nots
be-
have
to suit the
haves.

SOCIAL WORK

2005-08-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Maryanne’s name fell apart. Two women, Mary and Anne, now consoled her. They were younger and prettier--blonde, while she was a brunette--and, almost dolls, their expenses were slight. Maryanne thought tenderly of Mary and Anne. The little images were real, they were sent to do the unpleasant things. Poor little Mary was a secretary, though Maryanne, when she worked at all, scrubbed floors. Anne walked the dog, especially when it rained, and the people admired Maryanne for her daughter (or servant, the role varied). Maryanne still walked Lillah occasionally, and complained gently of Anne, her favorite. That way she concealed her pride; why make people jealous?

FIVE PHYLLA

2005-08-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

The nude in the forest, worst
of breed, eyes me, like a fly,

in facets. The bear, eating cold
clammy fish, sniffs

us -- or the camp provisions. We hear
the fish, his water run away, cry

with ears of heron, coughing notes by

rote, a drill. Then the nude’s tongue --
hot, moist and curled -- snakes out all our curses.

TOMBSTONES BURIED IN SNOW

2005-08-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

The squirrels, their thermostat set on
wake, go back
to bed:
a storm deflowers the spring.
When the last snow succumbs, the melting water runs
in dark verbs under the ice. Yet now again
water coagulates and stumbles and
dies.

ELEGY FOR AN ENGINEER

2005-08-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

The mind with a brain tumor discovers new talents.
Unappreciated, they die with this patient dying
Impatient and pissed. See you in heaven, I scribble, then
Fold the page and place that letter in the drawer
Of his coffin. Yellow leaves do hang
Over the open grave. The piper wails. His widow
Asks his daughter, Who the Hell’s the guy
With the bagpipe? After the whirling reception
At Queen’s, once the friends leave,
And the flowers start to fade, and the widow
And the son are lonely again, and --
What can you say about the kindly engineer
Who loved children because they were so gullible
And whose charming absurd stories I’ll never
Sort from the truth because Dad told me
And I loved him? Goodbye. I hope
To love you as well as you loved me.

Kenneth Bailey Andre
29 August 1915

SULKING IN BED

2005-08-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

The best time to sleep is
when you’re depressed,

the worst time to sleep is
when worried

and when very tired.
I worry easily,

it’s exhausting. If

you can just give up
the bed’s a nice coffin.

UNDERWORLD

2005-08-01T04:09:00.000-07:00

What thought Thoth
Egyptian god of medicine
Of spells & magic & knowledge?

What thinkest thou Thoth
Of Aleister Crowley
Of Yeats, Keats & the Beats

Of Gregory, Allen and William?
Jack whom living, alack,
I never saw wrote

doggerel like Gregory.
Gregory

Was a junkie drunk and thug
Like Crowley, Thoth; thugs
Like them lisp

As they think in numbers.
Their reputation underground
Until they securely join it, then

Allen famous howling and
Waiting
For

John on the toy piano
And Andy, all of them
Picturing the late twentieth century.

SAY YES TONIGHT

2005-07-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

Abandoning romance for the hermit’s cell
To write prayers to life, called poetry--

No?--Murdering his wife, then confined
To a cell, the poet--No?--

No poet hates taking no for the question.

All things are ruled by Fashion,
Poetry and pants, death and dance.

BEDTIME

2005-07-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

Bert’s time machine flips from ff to ww, wrongrong. When fast forward turns iffy, even maniacs get depressed.
“Sleep is for weaklings,” Bert said.
Bert’s ticker dual functions as time machine.
The river rolls on its gravel bed out of the mountains. The green heron stands on a boulder awaiting his fish. The river whirls and gurgles. A bear, fat from all summer, sashays along the bank. A hunter loads. Bert imagines the gunshot, the bear splashing into the river, the heron taking flight. He imagines plunging into the river with the dying bear and finally he sleeps and dreams.
If not, not. If, if.