Jon Frankel's Blog, page 6

isle of dogs part one

ISLE OF DOGS PART ONE is now available for pre-order from Whiskey Tit Books:

Isle of Dogs (Part One)

I can’t believe I was working on this eleven years ago. It did not take eleven years to write of course, I worked on other books for a while, and then there was a good deal of procrastination, then for a while I worked steadily but only wrote a hundred pages a year, then a bit more. The break came in 2016 when I had shoulder surgery and was out on medical leave for four months. I had reached page 300 or something at that point. After a week of recovery I started to write every morning and soon got up to speed, completing the first draft of the whole book before returning to work, about a thousand manuscript pages, which I revised and then, back at work, started to crawl through in the evening again. There were a bunch of problems with the first two parts, which had taken years to write, so I needed a plan. In September 2018 I retired and executed that plan, finishing a final draft in May 2019, which I then nit picked until a few days ago. I am deeply indebted to a few early readers for pointing out problems, and for later readers who showered me in praises, and most of all, Teresa, the proofreader! She was not only indefatigable, she had many questions and insights that made it a much better book. I really am not bothered by contradictions, and seriously, I can’t remember details in a thousand page book. Anyway, having Part One in print feels great, what can I say. And Parts Two, Three and Four will appear in due course, while I work on Parts Five and Six, which will likely have their own titles, volume numbers, prefaces, acknowledgements and dedications. Many thanks and much love to all involved as readers and in production, especially of course Miette and Philip, shepherds of extraordinary intelligence, patience, and diligence. Plus, they gave me the Oxford comma.

BATS

Bats hang from trees like angels

above the silent empty streets

they drop and creep from door to door

sword in hand where love sleeps

in the depths of unlit corridors

to sound the mindless ancient bells

gowned benighted amputees

blasted kidneys and heaped gowns.

Trumpeting Gabriel on his golden cloud

soots the sun with coming ages a clown

who sums the city up and takes one of fifty.

Geometric fury fumes in a stack backed

up against the river, dammed corpses spill

screeching nails on coffin lids, eyelids

shamed blind the windows, a sobbing light

reaches down and touches each of us.

The busted part dangles from the leaves

brushing the wings of a wounded Phoenix

who sits in its pyre and ponders the way

from wood to flame and then the why.

CROWDS

How easily their hands went in the air

In the town we thought they were waving

At first a few rolled to the sand

Like beach bathers stunned in the waves

Recumbent they cheered their distractors on

I drew happy faces on faces with o mouths

When I was surprised or sad

Evening came and the lamps

Cast dim blue shadows on the shatter lands

Then many waved and thrust their palms up

Thinking they were strong

Some defied the dim blue shadows

And lit cigars in cupped hands

Their faces were angry and red puffing the coals

They wrote books in dead languages

And then the parades began

Ads for the Universe

Disconnected words dangle from wires

Ads for the universe personals

And for sale serpents wound cool and tight

The anaconda muscles of weight trainers

Limbs of leafless oaks the Ides of March near

Icicles stabbing the air take light

Disconnected desires orbit chase but never collide

Things I have dreamed of become real

Reality crashes to its knees and cries uncle

The air clears for a period before bloody sunset and stars

Returning from the billboard obliterated sky

Remind me that the heartbeat of your bare chest speeds

When we touch ephemeral perfect balance

Of the wheel in time we are guests

In the yellow grass as winter recedes

Time changes shadows’ longing later

Buds breaking electric yellow and pink

Sick Tiger

SICK TIGER

The tiger dives at the window of her cage

Her paws hang in the light, rough black pads.

Skeletal trees cast black bars across

Dead leaves, obsidian water rushes by embers

Of moss burning wet logs eared with fungus

And the tiger prowls and I prowl and the world prowls.

We burglarize our time today we steal from ourselves

I am looting my life for something I can kiss tonight.

Every neuron touches another, the monads

Are in touch, the feelers have encompassed us

The TV is the woods and there are people

Bowling on the lawns who never bowled before.

The tiger sneezes and her nurses reach for an anesthetic

And a swab. One of many ways to test and know

What we already knew, fleet friend, whipping free.

SAD SONGS

It is good to play sad songs in the heat

Light ripples the mirrored faces of trees

Ages ago the day completed repeated

Asteroids and comets streak the evening sky

A girl clutches her braids

A bike winds in the air

Tires spinning to earth

Hello storm of the new day

Hello fellow man on a branch

Woman falling through the shattered water

She blooms on the surface

My love I have seen you

Living on an icy cloud

I have heard your melody in the whistling birds

The wind touches us gently now

We only have each other

There are no crowds and future

A distant thought in a shroud

Of unmeaning, the grey the black

The white light gleaming on metal bars

big muddy

Big Muddy opened

The grey exhausted craters of his eyes

Stared at the big sky and let the die

Cast across the cold white cloud

Tumbling on the table with his only wife

Dead today dead tomorrow but gliding

In the gleam of young metal pots

Hanging from hooks in search of tears

In search of any feeling Old Muddy could find

In the swirling cesspools in the pits of the mine

Eye all the time and no me oh my

Brass knuckles bags of garbage

Big Muddy bragged to the napalm sky

Forty years of time is an eternity

Tide’s coming in

Tide’s going out

Wink at the girl on her bicycle

Sly tried to get away with a small dog and no other friend in town

The fury is blind mad at Big Muddy’s gold and sapphire ring

The rain dimples puddles

Rainbows of petroleum stretch

Across flat panel tv’s watching himself bloom

Hans Castorp in the gallery

Teeth chattering while they drain his lungs

Of battery acid and axle grease

They bring out their dead and load the wagons

Slow turning rain to snow the gleam in his eye when Grace

Bends down to fix the strap of her shoe

Her mind is on a tear of worry

His libido won’t let him be

Old Muddy on his gurney still prays for pussy

 

World Upside Down

Would you like another drink

A cigarette sir

The monk in his robes is meditating

Feet crossed on the tiles

Chanting in the mountain valleys

Smoke rising from the brick chimneys

A farmer saws the logs and splits firewood

I have never felt so calm

Falling through the sky clouds

Crossing the windows swords

Exploding into Matterhorns

Done with the woolly cows and yaks

Upturned begging bowls for hats

Askew on their shaved heads

Hanging by their saffron robes

From sturdy limbs

We prayed for our brothers to come home

The town was in a fury as we came together

Determined to oust the ghost

Who scattered poisonous rain

Who chanted in the bonze’s ears

Who distracted god from his calypso of creation

In the sapphire room

Where his throne was swept

Where god finally wept

 

Cold Blood

COLD BLOOD

The stranger came swinging his vacant lantern

Yellow globe in the night

The dogs barked but the lock didn’t rattle

The family slept and dreamt of slides and see saws

They chanted Little Miss Dailey and the diesel lullaby

They had a picnic and a bbq and caught butterflies in nets

The locks on the doors opened by themselves

And in the morning when the teapot whistled

They thought it was a man

Thought it was a man but it was the strangers knife

Sliding on their throats

And the dreams of benches by the willows

Sun lit ice stars on the windows never were more beautiful

Diamond lattices laceing the lawn

Bacon and eggs bled on the floor

The stranger’s footprints to the door

TIME TO CLEAN THE GLASS

It was time to clean the glass

I began the work the work

With great optimism

But the stains grew darker

Except the bright wing of winter

And the scarlet pieces pierced with light

As the morning set through the windows

It was hard not to weep and forget

That these were churches once

Where honest people prayed for rain

And all the other things they threw away

And then I finally slept

Rocked by the arms of my mother

Reaching through from the other side

I was so happy

She had made it where the water rises and ebbs

And the only floods are light

I awoke to the sound of television

Glass unbroken Saints’ still fingers on guitars

We sink with birds and watch the water approach

This is how it used to be

But time is our friend

It takes us along wherever we go

And the waves crash against the dunes

Horseshoe crabs in the shallows

Their carapaces face the sky

As we are bent towards the floor

Looking for some miracle bug to exterminate