TOM BELL
Tom Bell
- Five Works
Tom Bell
USA
At the Twist
At the twist of the millenium around the final
violet campfire on the darkling seventh plateau
under redwoods seven mandarins sat. They
constantly honed and revised the language and
the discourse. They sought purity. They
abstracted essentials. The samurai came. The
samurai cut to the quick with earthy and fragrant
mud found along the way.
Bada Shanren drew curlicues of carp and
lotus blossoms between. He was psychotic so
they said. He wrote gave it out that way to
preserve his line. He sealed crimson and
verdantly some insignificant and confusing
schizophrenic frenetic scrawls in the dust.
Or, then again, he might have twisted it the
other way.
Bada Shanren (1626 - 1705)
A Dark Action
could be cashing
in the old savings booklette
of the soul,
or
casting a skein
of tulled mullen on
too Muddy Waters.
or
mining under
her all too precarious
hold on reality.
Dark Conditional
If I stop will I end?
If I stop will the pain?
If I stop the pain?
If I were to stop will
I be here if I were
to wear the pain if I
were to stop the pain
your pain would I end
if I were to be me if
No. If I stop I will end
the pain If I stop I
will be me if
Yes. If I stop will I end?
If I stop will the pain?
If I stop the pain?
If I were to stop will
I be here if I were
to wear the pain if I
were to stop the pain
your pain would I end
if I were to be me if
No. If I stop I will end
the pain If I stop I
will be me if
I were to end your pain.
If I were to stop the pain
If I were to wear the pain
would I be here
if I were to stop
if I stop the pain?
If I stop will I end?
If I stop will the pain?
If I stop the pain.
Balloon strings extend or intend.
Missing in Action B
as pruience cuts both ways
so prudence is in the proof
distant sterile words
don't say
a brush of the shadow whispers
unrelenting sorrow
and melancholy
I live in the midst, in the mixt
but can't speak it
I am the spin doctor
I write the score
where do we go round?
I am not the doctor.
I am me.
but there are the things we do
Beyond my grasp
the balloons are
Beyond my grasp
the balloons are
right now
Menace lurks beyond the curtins
and lace decimates her face
Honkytonk Rambles didn't know
how to say.
Got a Hallmark
but there are the things we do
The curve of my mind loops back again.
Missing in Action G
prurience is to be forgotten
prudery covers all she has said
oceanic bowels know no limit my storage
for depression, the abyss
mall I shop without list of purchases
secrete what I know, hide my desires
The one who has hardly made his mark
on the world. You are like a small,
slim shadow. To speak perchance would
dare destiny, to be or notification.
at the end of my life do I still want to bear
the emptiness I've stored through the years
life sentences sentence death
Why is the river always emptying?
empty seats reflect sound, while an audience absorbs.
How empty my life to this point.
'"Let's go."
They do not move'.
Waiting for Godot.
http://www.reading.ac.uk/SerDepts/vl/Lib/Colls/beckett.html
The curve of my mind loops back again.
TOM BELL
members.home.net/trbell
ted@warnell.com
