SPOUT+-+Copy

Spout

Spout

Copyright © Jack Galmitz

Impress 2015

New York, New York

Spout

Jack Galmitz

The ball struck

by the bat

the ball struck

by the bat

the ball struck

by the bat

makes an obtuse angle



through the air

the heads tilted back



anticipating where

anticipating where

anticipating where

it will land

In the backyard in the grass behind the house near the cellar with its warm handles and sun warped doors is a rubber ball a ball unaccounted for a ball hit perhaps a ball thrown perhaps by one of the boys in the neighborhood lost to him lost to him something he would have cared for gathered up by me bounced against the wall caught bounced caught then brought upstairs and placed in a drawer

on a whale watch on a whale watch everyone on one side everyone on one side it looks like a sea swell a dark sea swell then it breaches then it breaches and everyone applauds

Light snow is falling The sky glows though it’s gray The flakes are far apart yet they find my face

spring dawn spring dawn spring dawn a blue tint a blue tint a blue tint on all

on the east side on the east side in midtown in midtown every building every building is glass and steel glass and steel it would be easy how easy to get lost completely lost if you were strolling here

everybody knows him everyone knows him the shaggy dog the shaggy dog with a white beard with a white beard a white coat a white coat and everyone loves him we all love him which makes him which makes him our totem

a cicada then another then another play the trees around the parking lot like the percussion section of an orchestra atonal raw brut a cacophony an outburst of love

reverberating hallucinating reverberating hallucinating the butterflies the butterflies move the field move the field from wildflower to wildflower evading evading the birds and insects

in the public pool in the blue water the color is the color of the painted walls the Chinese each wearing a floating tube touch each other touch each other there's nowhere to move there's nowhere to move each face is joyful each face is happy to be together touching touching and to be cool

why is music spirit why is music spirit why is music spirit the sound issues in waves the sound issues in waves the sound issues in waves outside Nortre Dame Cathedral I listened to a woman play the hang and I left my body and flew along the Seine

drums I kept thinking of drums I couldn’t get them out of my head like splinters under the nail of my thumb would it be a release slapping the taut skin or would it be reverberations in my head or something else again waves sharp snapped or slowed melodic I could call forth the dead focused as I would be on what my hands and the skin happened to be about as the sun strayed and was struck down by an downturned palm with dirt under its nails

Extraordinary love field of foxglove field of flox field of forever rugged rocks soggy shade crisp blades in sunshine stage never even ground for all the unnamed that range here to multiply in the Name, the creator of DNA strands so that everything is basically the same if distinctly not the fallen tree rotting slowly with each passing wind the grubs that live within the deer that disappear the men and women bare the army of ants the wild flowers and hummingbirds the black bears the mice the owl of night so it is to the creeping vine that loves the larches so much it strangles them in time forever field of love of reeds their plumes muscled rocks shade and sun waist-high grass sucking sedge where each becomes itself and multiplies without end

Chinese fisherman bring with them cormorants they tie a string around the birds' necks so they can catch the fish but cannot swallow them I have seen a cormorant dive into black pond water and waited to see its head rise to the surface I waited and waited and waited some more and when it emerged it was a hundred or more yards off it must have lost its skill somewhere in time because it hadn't caught a fish and was dissatisfied

the sound persists high pitched a child, a kitten, a kid but I'm surrounded by debris, debris by great slabs of concrete great slabs of concrete and twisted beams twisted beams that were the once the foundation of the buildings of a wondrous city now debris and debris I keep hearing the high pitched sounds of a child, a kitten, a kid even in my sleep

I wonder what my mother was thinking when she seduced me into being when our faces met and I could feel her fear of living holding living screaming bloody in her arms she seemed to say be a silent white sheet that limply hangs in the sun from tenement lines strung and doesn’t betray itself to anyone. Faithful to her theme of I, I’m the quiet one you do not see, you’ll never hear.

these nuts didn’t escape just walked off the grounds as if there were no men in white coats guarding the place nice knowing you they thought as each made his or her way to the city stores with only a small allowance left over after deductions salaries of doctors nurses art supplies things of that sort the grounds had walks and cut grass the city stunk and they all came back at least there were benches to sit on and reflect.

through 3D glasses I can see that American movies (not cinema-that’s for socialist europeans) promote more and more SENSATION pour the sensitivity stricken all action heroes are men who spend their time in gyms expose their naked chests and limbs (now that’s action) as character as speech as nuanced theme and destroy everything on sets designed a sign of the times of empire hard, harder, hardest never realizing the beauty of the penis and its enlargement comes from the tenderness of softness

motorcycle jacket zippers his motorcycle was covered a mosaic of shiny glass & mirrors in the lights of Greenwich Village like bourbon spilled from jazz clubs street lamps neon traffic signals a crowd had gathered I stumbled over it was so brilliant the words just came "it looks like a cathedral somewhere in Europe" and there was raucous laughter

I recovered my voice the movement of my mouth the sound of a stream trickling over a bed of rocks the trees were tall and sent the rustling leaves of the wind to the town where a man exchanged money for gas and a man ordered breakfast & patted his friend on the back

how did I make myself well, two boxes to begin with both with an open end the top was painted white the bottom green the top was reflective the bottom reproductive and nothing inbetween in each side of the "head," I pasted a brown acrylic bead so I could see outside I painted the top black for hair on the bottom I attached rollers from a broken chair so I would move and appear real this is how I started there were many repairs and it's still in progress after years

the first thing I did after I retired was wake up early on Saturday morning to watch the cartoons I didn't recognize any of the characters but that wasn't as important as I thought it would matter actually, what I needed was the two-dimensional world where however much violence was shown no one was ever hurt after forty years of being shoved and pushed and belittled people talking about me in whispers laughing at my humiliation- what else would I want to do

cars honking cars honking a car horn honking cars honking cars honking a ten mile backup an accident ahead

father & son with gloves we played catch until it got dark and even after that the small lights above the garages in the parking lot were enough to see the moths from the lightning bugs we talked or rather we conversed this way how hard or high or where we threw each knew how much was being asked & we thought we’d always remember & this would be enough

ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes while I paint while I paint while I paint on the computer program ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes while I alter the results on a photo editor ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes ice-coffee and cigarettes as I respond to likes that is my day

without god what would we have my hand in yours