Just spent a couple weeks in New Mexico. Saw a great Impressionist show at Albuquerque Museum--Turner, Cezanne, Van Gogh, August John. Augustus John has some great portraits of women. Old friends Neil and Sonia put me up at their daughter's home near Old Town. We had a wail of a bash on July 4th up at Blade's place near where Tawapa used to be. Good to be back among the old group I hung out with for decades. Everyone getting on in time, lots of complaints about health. I tried to deal with some kind of nerve problem in left hand where two fingers are numb. Have tried acupuncture, chiropractic and various medical responses. Seems there is some kind of pinched nerve. Old friend Bob and I went to lunch yesterday at Dim Sum place downtown Albuquerque and he told me of his battle with rheumatoid arthritis. Very rough stuff, and he said there were weeks in winter he couldn't get out of bed.

Problem of time, of ageing, of coming toward the end of the line...Still, the young are around as well, and they seem to be holding up the world at this time...

RAMIFIED KINGDOM

She stood apart in a ramified kingdom

and death came to the fore, cooked

in a ravaged pot, holed up

in ashcans or remedials,

stumped in our guiding motions,

in our upbeat strained articulations

but could you survive the losses

keep coming in our time,

the old dependent furies, the quaking

shaped for an old variation

come into sharp focal

rigid merriments untoward

and the listening frequencies

                               **

 4th of July Momentum

Full-mob, a kaleidescope

of meanings, woman's body

at last in the opening, strike

the lunging feel, the way

it comes to the force field

and I see you and vice-versa

Your strange beauty ignites

all that memory, that wilderness

where you've lived & breathed

an enormity of feeling--

This was a destined hour

and you came to me openly

and we shone the light fantastic

instantly ('the feeling's mutual')

and we got into time & memory

and we guided the moment forever

Strength that wanders full-soul

the effort of long days' wonder

and the lift on seeing you

so deep in the eye, the formidable

carrier of such longing, such

open places of our hunger

and you who give so much

But beauty brightens bedrock

stimulus of stretched lids

the way a brow breaks a smile

and the whole package alerting

a response in mid-air, plummet

of defense for a reprieve

that gets us further forward--

the dance the conjures destiny