BRIZEE:

I see him,

Death standing over his shoulder.

The Devil counting the molars left in his skull,

Through his sallow, sunken cheeks.

The stubble growth of his fears.

Crack swallowing and amplifying

The mysticism of his paranoia, clenching his asshole,

Forcing his brain and his balls to peek through curtains.

Cultivating a grandeur un-due.

His imagination circling the clap-board house,

Its roof of quilted shingles,

Like so many police helicopters in a small town.

“Sit down Mikey, your trail is cold,” I say.

©MORTON 2012

OF KEYNES:

When you’re scared in the middle of the night, it’s almost impossible to imagine morning.




-SYLVIA NASAR
Published: September 17, 2011 New York Times
Relating to John Maynard Keynes and his Sunny disposition in the worst of times.

OVERWHELMING EXCITEMENT:

CLEANSING:

The reflexology of the world has been muted.

Manny had a heart attack.

Ramon’s buddy killed himself.

Bullet for your face?

I don’t know Ramon directly.

Ryan and Keren aren’t going to figure it out.

Laurie is the queen.

The quantity.

And a simple context in this confusion.

The sense of impending doom has not lifted.

Usually I have these sinking senses in the winter.

I can’t sweat them out.

Objective. The simplicity of sorrow is surrender.

The heat lightning has even given way to threat and thunder.

Ominous and inviting.

Something cleansing.

Clear.

©MORTON 2010

BEATING:

PASSAGE:

He examined the room with the clairvoyance of his last days, and for the first time he saw the truth: the final borrowed bed, the pitiful dressing table whose clouded, patient mirror would not reflect his image again, the chipped porcelain washbasin with the water and towel and soap meant for other hands, the heartless speed of the octagonal clock racing toward the ineluctable appointment at seven past one on his final afternoon of December 17. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and began to listen to the radiant voices of the slaves singing the six o'clock Salve in the mills, and through the window he saw the diamond of Venus in the sky that was dying forever, the eternal snows, the new vine whose yellow bellflowers he would not see bloom on the following Saturday in the house closed in mourning, the final brilliance that would never, through all eternity, be repeated again.


-GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
(The death of General Simon Bolivar, "the Liberator")

WHERE:

DEFINITION:

NOSTRATIC:
Relating to or denoting a hypothetical phylum of languages including the Indo-European, Semitic, Altaic, and Dravidian families.

JOUST:

PASSAGE:

The last to come is Jupiter. He prances through the tomato vines, holding in his generous mouth the remains of an evening slipper. Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.




-JOHN CHEEVER

DIRECTIONAL:

WokeUpThisMorning,PutOnMyShoes.

Left for the magic as it happened.

Leaving the thoughts of the night's sleep,

Betrayed,

They were strong, stormy and unsympathetic.

They were dreams.

Thoughts of reality and sanguine.

Struggles bereft of the things of life.

I walked in my shoes.

East of the West-Side highway.

Thinking about being “On the wagon,”

About not,

About Wagoners,

The Oregon Trail.

Other people have sorrow and dregs.

Other people are Somali,

Distended and shrieking;

Motherless.

Others have fathom and fury and find thirty bucks on the walk.

The ball Derek hits for his 3000^th will be worth more.

I cannot sleep to my troubles and they continue

To amount to nothing.

To the thought and the lack of money,

Real hard dollars.

But they never resonate deeply but still the sleep dwindles and it is I

And 7:30 in the morning,

A sleep-light night.

I am lucky when it rains and the conditioned-box is on “high” and we are cold.

Tombstone in Antarctica, cold.

Reason know slaps keys,

Fingered in brave.

The smallest spider is creeping across Hunter

Spinning a web for an even smaller bug.

I AM MAD!

TO LIVE!

I am sorry,

For the supposed weakness and the strange path of my dreams.

And the way that I don’t listen when I should,

And don’t forgive when I shouldn’t,

And the way I spit, sorrow, seams.

Swallows diving in divine-light Yankee summer,

I remember their silver sleek.

Their constant wet,

Slimmering Sea Lions.

Racing after prey in the semi-dark but raucous world.

Dipping and diving,

Driving me to call Dad five days before Fathers day….

Next week we head farther East

I will work on more pages.

Think about the Gas-light and the Gin in my Filmography.

Lately captivated by Cheever and the needs of the service staff,

Their capacity to captivate the imagination of someone out of such.

I don’t think it works in reverse.

I don’t think it works directionally.

The good game is the steaming condolence,

But the game is played.

©MORTON 2011

ZACH:

NO QUARTER:

No harboring the hand-held adventure.

I want to KNOW when shit smiles.

The leopard is pacing,

For the same reason Addicts do push-ups

In Prison.

DANIEL MORTON 2011

NEW HUNTING:

Where in the world is Hunter?

Who is doing anything?

Strange to find a similar Dagger-Man or would-be;

I suppose.

Solidity in the situation

Funny to meet a simpatico in the City Round.

These New York impressions are amiss

Abound and unfounded.

These are a kind people ready to talk and flirt.

Rewarded by the French.

An American Bulldog owner in the cold-breath, oblivious night.

We are well,

Sharing this space and these tremendously feral hands

Crammed into a spigot no bigger than Moby’s,

Dick.

Measuring, ourselves and our character.

Swimming against the streaming wildness of our quenched thirst,

Strumming the guitar with no strings.

Stringing along the people in our lives,

Ourselves.

Calling our mothers and talking about D3 and Australian Rules football.

Creamy-cries for healing truth;

And not through God.

Asphalt-green-fence-jumping-creatures of the future.

I love the night!

And the dreams, which come.

In need of pardon and the evening re-done.

Crazed and crushing the “White Fandango.”

The selfish stumps of these fingers

Stressing the times when they stop.

Strengthening the wild horses in the deap fissures in the world.

Faltering,

A Point of return.

DANIEL MORTON 2011

QUESTION:

Why are people interested in Meerkats
And not Subway Rats?

Why would anyone paint a Yaris
Baby-Yellow?

OH WALDO:

CARL:

WEDNESDAY:

What’s wrong?

Shouldn’t

We be tripping,

The light?

Fandango?

Losing the concubines

And reveling in another year,

Of friends and fracas?

Causing trouble

And pissing in the streets?

Instead your head is heavy.

Your slant,

Tropical.

Your speech,

Slumped in corpulent circumspect.

Your dreams are not mine.

They were once,

But things change.

Reason has been lost.

Sympathy shortened,

Signed.

We used to sing!

Plan. Turn tricks. Trifle with women.

Staked claims. Surmount oblivious breeds.

Calm waters. Torment truncated verse.

Now we try,

To trust.

To be.

Together.

On the same stage,

Rule the world with much haste.

We used to be,

Lost in the Barons.

Fur trappers.

Forced by nature to nurture.

We canoed rapids.

Hunted and fished.

Ate preserved meat.

Were.

Alive without temptation.

Without words.

With worries,

But of survival,

Mannish honor,

Strength.

Will we flush this all

Into olfactory abyss?

Cry simple and die slow?

It is my fear.

Just mine.

©DANIEL MORTON 2011

MOURNING:

Again swilling back something.

Someone must be to thank.

Thinking about time,

Discontent with its speedy passing,

Its mingling with my dreams along the way.

Meddling with aspiration and assumption.

Slinking away into deep nights,
Dank dreams

Dramatically folding with the weather into,

Continuous.

Silence.

Questioning,

Wrath and wrong,

Write,

And writhing fingers.

Quick sex in the afternoon.

Long and slow,

Mornings.

©DANIEL MORTON 2011

LOVE, SAID BETTER:

CURL:

-MARTIN POOLE

RACE HORSES:

Coyote Blood.

Written,

On clear

Corrugated-plastic.

Tell her She is sexy,

Ramon.

Never-mind the gap.

Never-mind, La Rubia.

Never-mind…

Her eyes,

Their pain.

Triumph!

Un-like any motorcycle.

Get Tattoos!

And trust no one!

Kids sleeping

At home,

They are good.

Wholesome.

Black,

Plastic guns.

And lines of white,

Women.

She is.

All I need,

To get by.

Stuffed!

Animals on the TV.

Friar Tuck?

Oh yes,

He is a Badger.

Same story.

Big eyes,

Bright Eyes.

Lipstick, perfection red,

No,

Not Riley’s.

“I FEAR NOTHING!”

Single-Sinner-Radio.

Why do I?

Shower on the beach in my dreams?

Slide down
Never ending stairwells in the rain?

Balloons like Butterflies

Must die.

Conscience Stream.

River,

Damned:

Hydro-Electric-Evening.

Drained.

World-Smith.

Word-War.

I want to name,

Race horses.

Call her Assumption-Rewarded.
©DANIEL MORTON 2011

WHEN YOU CALL MY NAME:

He's wasted again,

I feel something.

Not remorse,

No loathing.

No disappointment,

He is happy.

I am happy.

Different levels,

Space-age bras

We are levity.

We are bearded men,

Space-suit blue.

Raging the dark wood.

Weathering the storms,

Waiting on cocaine deliveries.

Wanting to stage a night.

Little lion men.

Wishing to con the revelry.

©DANIEL MORTON 2011

INSPIRATION:

-George Minne

RAIN OR RIVER:

East River,

First of spring,

Vested.

Craggy rocks

Vineyard sun, setting.

Queensborough Eclipse.

Rasping Red-Tug’s

Downstream dominance.

Floating above the eff D arr,

Hands refreshed,

Stiff.

Climbing iron to perch,

Lighthouse level.

A strange beauty this man,

With his gardens and

Gracfull Mansion.

Places of play,

Grand arches and spaces of quiet.

Shrieking offspring,

Huff-puffing herdsmen of another time,

Haggard yuppies sweating misspent middle age.

I am hungry but haven’t shaken,

The cold and sleepless.

The River or the rain.
©DANIEL MORTON 2011