The Marathon Bar Talk Poem

how else can you get there
except by sheer determination
you are born good
inclined to sit up straight
during the dinner hour
oh yes to sit up close and tight
for your neighbor's girl
who wrote poems about your next
Parisian mulberry pink parasol summer
you monkey around with images
at the General's Window
like on Margaretta Street
as if this were magic
we all love you
straight from the heart
you learned it all as a child
something about assuming the position
of an Indian mother who scouted
and coaxed you into sitting with
the little guys
who in turn liked you hanging curtains
in the tree cabin
liked your bermuda shorts
as those shorts were on fire
non-stop through hours and hours
of the etc. of marking time
strand by straw strand
non-stop through Gemini's season
lying on your stomach in the grass
and peering across the French-like
schoolyard
as if through a wet rainbow
to the insouciant sea
with a tribe of little guys
who are wild
about you
about each other
about life
how does it come to this
the shape of your rhomboid moods
the inveigled stage of yesterday's
wildwing fortune
packing up a suitcase
for running off to the circus
hiddden in the milk cartons
and
chocolate bon-bons, devouring a
cold lunch plate
as Pegasus and the others wanted
you so much to do
wanted a kindess from you
as your behest season of genius
rose up for celebration with the
simple moment of crystals in ice
rusting
through timely hours
I know only those who feather
these loose pages
carefully
ergo boundless trivial pursuit
then a step closer infinitesimal
perhaps faltering but there
certainly you
not that you are hopeless
but that we are hopelessly in
love with you
One speaks louder for a grand
and glorious moment
not a soul seems to know you
your darting shadow like the
sterling silver at the flea market
we are aware that you must
begin to know
how to learn,
confusion sets in like the
sun in the eyes of a fellow on
a blue barstool singing
Sheeeeeena and Sherrrrry Baby
the knowledge needed to review the
hours
is still beyond
still parcel of some finer degree
you tend to dismiss that you have
entered into foreign Eureka the clouds
moving, into a greater space with
a view
we see you from the catwalk with
cherished poems about LiPo Valentines

seeing all and everything
in one stinging moment
crying in the beer
You decide in many sublime riddles
and something is funny if
it is too difficult to understand
too mind-boggling to
partake of
your letters are large as mum's flowers
are big but smell nice
like your mum's feet as she
darts from the bath to the bedroom
in a furry housecoat, her tawny hair
blasting the walls
as Emerson proposed, the transparent
condition
so we sometimes eat vegetables, I guess,
the arrival of a counter-destiny has us
sitting at the cathedral awaiting
the true feelings of our hearts to be
buried with our hatreds
now it may soon be a different day
studying the map, becoming the navigator,
in space and time
with no apparent warning of hot cats-eyes
and matchless outercourse on a merry-go-
round
the dirt one foot in mid-air
the dirt the dirt
the miffing the dirt
like switching from station to station
on a transistor radio
and them humming with
greetings through the danger
you know we have all talked about you
already
what finds you in front of an audience
young jagged and scared
eager and dumb


REALIZE YOU ARE REAL
and then through the golden silence after leaving a
noisy bar
TALK
for this is the marathon bar talk poem