Early Poems 1998-2005: New York Sonnets Edition

8/9/2019 Early Poems 1998-2005: New York Sonnets Edition

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Early Poems: 1998 2005

Second Edition

Adam Fieled



Early Poems 1998-2005Second Edition



Credits

American Writing: A Magazine — “Icarus In New York”

Hinge Online — “Prince,” “Disappear,” “On Love,” “Hamlet on PineStreet,” “Technician of Tough Love”

Many Mountains Moving (online ) — “4325 Baltimore Ave.”

Seven Corners — “On Jazz”

Siren’s Silence — “Clean”



Clean

I gave myself an enema the other day,took some antibiotics.

Thought to myself,“This is really the poet’s

place in the world — not sitting in some pasture,

not smoking in some bar,not fucking someone lovely,

not courting Gods or Jesus.

No.

The poet’s place is kneeling down,

naked, with something

or otherstuck

up his ass,in a desperate

attempt

to getclean.”

April, 1998



Prince

Wesley wore silk pajamas — he looked very regal,

planted before the floor TV.

I would sit next to him, waiting for the ugly nurses

to feed us our pills, and take our pulses.

He told me about his car,his mother,

his buddies — the catalogue

of adolescent normalcy —

and you wouldn’t think he was schizophrenic,

listening to him speak.

In fact, I thoughthe was a prince,

Albeit one who was,like most princes,

at the mercy of his servants.

May, 1998



Disappear

The bleached blonde shookthe two white bowls together,

one atop the other,making a Caesar salad.

Another bleached blonde, mygirlfriend,

watched me watchingthis meticulous process.

Dug her engine-red

nails intothe sweet secrecy

of my inner thigh,

Saying, wordlessly,“If you think that’s

a good trick, You should see me

disappearsometime.”

May, 1998



4325 Baltimore Ave.

Jason cooking flounder on a filthy range, picked up at 40th & Walnut where Penn students

mingled w/ artists, Chomsky-ites, bums, mothers, where French bread for two bucks we’d carry

around for walks home down rustic mansion’d streets, fish-waft filling lovably threadbare

kitchen laden w/ mustard & crumbs — gone —

Mary’s Acme pesto pasta, Olive-oil Goddessshe’d make a pot on pot in a pot & we’d

have a bowl from the pot watching hot

French-flicks in the vivid living room, gone — paintings, Mary’s evocations Dionysus & Apollo, Jason post-Dali post-structuralist Dada &

Derrida derived violences, submitted to smittenPAFA judges winking secretly at Jason’s tight

ass, Mary’s too, they screwed, we screwed, we all were screwing each other secretly, tenderly,

flecked w/ little chips from falling ceiling, gone —

parties on green-awning’d porch, weed midnights;

butt-smoke, frost-breath, gun-stocked West Phillycops stop to shock us w/ looks, putting no

cell-bar cramps on druggy St. Steven, gone — moments later I’d drag Mary into her wood-

floored torrid bedroom & open-door fuckher, hoping Josh & Kevin might spy

us, one time on whiskey Mary’s diaphragm got stuck inside her, I felt it, fucking her, we laughed, Mary’s hair then was

long down to her ass, raucous, gone —

Grace, Jason’s grace, a minx of jinxing, she from rich Connecticut knows Salinger reads my poems

at parties makes snot comments, silver-belted,out on the back porch in October wind we stood,

Grace, raven tresses Heaven-breasts innocentsex, girlfriend who had Jason by the face, ass,



I made scathing Spears comment everyone

hissed, instead we put on Stones Kinks ElliottSmith, Josh who played music, gone, now w/ Sara,jailbait date stealing cars & kisses, back-seatcaresses blonde tresses sun-dresses, trouble-

starting, Kevin’s dread on my head, gone—

Kevin dumb chimp we called him big beast ofa man writing bad songs doing Ritalin lines

raging through nights fucking Diana, gone,moans that broke us up, Oh Kevin Oh Kevin,

waitress of the hunt, Diana, blank stare, no caresor qualms taking alms from everyone, doing

laundry, Diana & me in lust discreetly, doorsopen, Bohemian dream-time —

apogee — everyone hot — everyone fucking, paintingmaking music, boozing, drugging, sucking, humping,

leaning on nothing but the night’s promise, always more night, another line, another ride, time

to find out food, hues of mood, clues of color, loveshape, O Lord we were the crux of ourselves,

our nexus the nexus, our moment the moment, all

now reduced to ash, nothing but a shut window,a fiery memory of an open one…

June, 2004



Front

To have a front is to be faking it —

though its this we use, when we want to prove,there is no love — love isn’t making it.

Though pain is dross (we must be shaking it),though the fight isn’t fun, (nor does it soothe)to have a front is to be faking it.

The world is a bank; to be breaking it, we sit tight on all fronts, to make our moves;there is no love — love isn’t making it.

Money is the king, we’ll be raking it; it is this we worship, and this we choose — to have a front is to be faking it.

Knowing no doves, we’d rather be snaking it, and our soul’s in the fire; hot, it stews; there is no love — love isn’t making it.

If love were a drug, we’d be taking it;

we want the pill that we’re loathe to use — to have a front is to be faking it.

There is no love — love isn’t making it.

Autumn 2004



Combing Out

“we” were in english class, next to being next to

each other.a matter of adding a porch or rolling in mud.she said to me: “you’re caring” sounded to me like: “you’re a fairy” that hair became a kind of relic, the waya once-used metaphor might (in its’ “it”) leaving high school was a “volta” i’m still combing out.combing out with meredith’s mud-brown hair.

combing out with meredith’s mud-blown hair.combing out.leaving “leaving high school”, another “volta” now, becoming a once-used metaphor (out & “out”) that way is a hair-relic, “me” a heretic; her tic sounds to me like: “you’re a weirdo” she said to me: “you’re a weirdo” a matter of adding peach or rolling in hay

with each other.“we’re” in a separate class, “late for the next one”.

Mid 2005



To a Diner Waitress

You were not born to mind the counter

at Pete’s Famous Pizza.

You were born to be an Italian peasantin a thick black skirt.

I’d walk w/ you along dusty streets of some green provincial town.

We’d lay making love in a field, your skirt hitched up.

You’d have a child by me as I was off fighting World War I.

Then I’d be dead and you’d take other lovers who were also me.

You were not born to mind the counterat Pete’s Famous Pizza.

You will always be to me as you werein those rolling verdant fields.

You will always be to me Demeter,

scattering grain from your hips’heft. With every corned beef club, I come closerto the essence of your sorcery.

With every side of fries, I come closerto encompassing your cleavage.

You were not born to mind the counterat Pete’s Famous Pizza.

Spring 2005



fantasy interaction with bjork

She crouches in green

wilderness, a sylvansprite, tonguelapping rain, tattooexposed to humidmist & heat.I take hold of herfirmly, handsfeeling flanks,teeth gnawingneck, fingers finding

spine, wedged betweenlegs; she squirms,

writhes, surrendersto the ancient

pulse of drippingleaves, swayingferns, moistearth. I ease heronto her backand come inside her

Autumn 1999



White Light/ White Heat

Lou spews whirlpools of junk-puke over grimy expanses

of East Village loft, grasping his Gretsch w/ fingers likeneedles, feeding back carcass-stacks of stank-ball squall,humping his collegiate-clean dystopic-dream lysergic-

scream haunches against concrete dank-secreting wall; John (throttled at the edge of static-panic, lapsed scho-

larship schoolboy, stiff earnest-drip shoulder-chippedart-mensch) pounds resounding third-rounded absurd-

isms from his keyboard, shudder-rippling behind shadeslike Horatio watching Hamlet create more things in

Heaven & Earth (magic-tragic turkey-wracked Jew-Lou waving his textual bi-sexual word-wand over shit-wind-

owed walls), Sterling (Lou’s chord-swallow lick-mellow pick-darling) lets winsome Beatle-bangs fall in his eyes,

Virgo-nerd flying tight, word-silent but evoking jaggedminiature Pollock-plots of red edge-lead, direct math ab-

straction bridge-reaction ledge-approaching dread-encro-aching speed-promoted blood, glowing protein-splats,

shattered from canvas by Mo’s garbage-truck stark-as-fuck thunder-thuds, female-engendered texture-bends

breaking wave-like over dark-din anti-silence; city-collis-ion in shock-sharp car-part fuel-fart mule-heart oil, cru

dely refined; blinding black & white stag-movie snap-sho-ts, hot wig-wearing dick-sharing eye-glaring girl-guys

getting & giving head, erectile tissue explored in minisc-ule detail, deep-throat gambits, shaft-licking side-swipes,

nut-sacks tea-bagged on shag carpets, intense semen exp-losions leaving greasy sludge-stains, also smearing lips

& faces, mixing w/ pill-highs, gin-depths, sleep-deprivedcontests of who blows best, knows best; bathroom mini-

battalions tying tourniquets, biting off ends, fixing works(spoon-cook patient moments contemplating junk-coming

Elysian ecstasies), further red-dropper squish seconds bef-ore final plunge-thrust, fulfilling Oedipal lust, Mom-cunt



in needle-point vein-stitchery; twitching of nerves, bitchingswig-sounds from the living room; Lou bent over, rectum

loosened, accepting phallus imperious intrusion as he pukesgroaning bloody mucus into the deep-shitted bowl, his ha-

nds hip; its God, or maybe isn’t, directing anal in/out peris-taltic ocean-flow (drainage drone audible behind grime-

walls), entrails burning w/ New York concrete essences,upper-cranial snot-drains as John drops ass-dissonance

(thinking avant-garde revenge, correctness of murk, inner/outer alignment) into the entropy of snake-body being;

Sterling lets open strings ring, bends the fifth arrythmically,tasting the taste of no-taste, the vacuum sub-stench of

death’s final abyss, as a bathroom-boy collapses, needle-

armed, needing nothing, complete, feeling free in theswim to death’s other un-mother still-thunder gut-chundershore, final spittle-remnants flecking his chin, leaving

puddles on tile, shit piss & blood, mingling w/ living-roomsemen, picture congeals & Andy says okay cut

Spring 2004



Icarus In New York

if Icarus fell out of the sky

& landed in Times Square,miraculously, so as not To damage his body,

would anyone whirl To witness the event?

shorn of melted wings, would he take to begging

among the petty merchants& hustlers? Would he

find his feet and run,sprinting down Fifth Ave.

in a headlong push towardsoblivion? Or jump off

empire State, a suicidal victimof his own need to fly?

perhaps he’d make peace with the poverty of winglessness

and apply for work

in the New York Public Library.

perha ps he’d take an apartment in Chelsea, furnish it rococo.

perhaps he’d run for office, become a private pilot,

take his sons on flightsover the ocean, heedless

of the sun’s rage, remembering only promise.

July, 1999



Hamlet on Pine Street

A hammered elder took me aside: "Try your skill on eachgirl; hone, develop your skill; but prepare yourself for solitude

nonetheless. Never let your eyes linger longer than a minute."Petty Polonius

left me leeching cigarettes outside Dirty Frank's.Ophelia, beer-breath'd, bleary-eyed, laid a cadaveroushand on my lap, plummeted into streams of Scotch-good night, sweet lady, good night. Leeches

lingered on our exit; jealous teeth, yellowed of nicotine.Gentle Rosencrantz tried to turn a trick; Guildensterndid a monkey-dance. The reign of despair

consolidated itself with the arrival of batteredGertrude. The night wasted away; my fortunes

waned outrageously.

Autumn 2003



Technician Of Tough Love

Puzzling your way back to nothingness you must be; if the Void is an abyss,

to conquer it in life is impossible. There is a blessing in ritual,but it is all on this side.

Your private treasures I never knew;beyond the Indian drums (of which you hada collection), was there something,some book, some record, you prizedabove all others?

You were a technician of tough love,collected hearts; had a passionfor Chinese herbs boiled downto the root, to retrieve essential,healing strength;

ministered weary angelsneeding succor, familiar w/ your tongue,

your breath, the beating of your heart.Saintly, to feed some soul's need

for flesh, nectar, sanctuary,oblivion;

now its death's mysteryfrom which you can't escape-maybe. I profess & confessutter bewilderment.

Remember lunches

at Essene, 4th Street, the crutchof good caffeinated coffee, conversation,a few hours rest; was eternitythere, watching you, waiting silentlyto bear naked flanksto your moribund pleasure?



Who can tell what world will fit a restless spirit well?

Summer 2003



On Love

What is the essence of a too-brief kiss? The rigor of reaching the thing-in-itself,

from subject to object, chaos to bliss,our frail intuition of heavenly health?

Our love is not molecules, dumbly colliding,nor is it knowledge, formal and static

nor is it accident, reasoned and plumbed — it's real, meta-rational, soaring and gliding,

felt like an earthquake, bringing up panic,taking our parts and achieving a sum.

The greater part of love is sacrifice — flesh intermingled, tensing and tingled,

this is the secret I learn from your eyes.Giving my body, knotted, single,

tiny eruptions that come from my tongue; plunging down surfaces, slicking the flesh

thoughtless as leopards or hurricane winds — watching you shudder, watching you come,

rapt in the throes of an innocent death,

giving my life to an inch of your skin.

Thus, we trade in secure oblivionfor reckless reality, messy and fleeting.

Such is the cosmos - creation, carrion,motions of molecules merging and meeting.

Nothing is lost but notions of self-ness,hard ideations that close and clatter,

rages of ego that strain at their walls —

nothing is gained but a sense of the deathless,"there-ness" of spirit, "there-ness" of matter,

ultimate "there-ness" that scares as it calls.

Summer 2003



On Jazz

Physical beauty, Formal Rigor of God — spiritual beauty, Economy of God — Natural Will, Transcendent Will,Facile Will in all its’ dismal “there-ness”—

Piano broken chords breaking down spacelike watching bits of paper collect,contained in a 12-bar blues; rootnotes you tend to lean on,or maybe a honking minor third,a harmonic multi-colored sharp…

Follow your compulsion into flurries,clusters of connecting phrases,then a pause to sanctify as the progressionresolves after lingering on the fifthfor the appointed time —

pentatonics mainly w/ some suspensions,sheets of sound, trademark leaps,like watching a rainbow eruptout of the placid bowels of street-lakes,

sparrows in the gutters,Eliot-esque alienation syncopatedimpossibly high & mighty…

Repeat the repetition now into major scale — Ionian gold, major-third suspensions again,almost midnight for tremulous trees,also hipsters, flights of birds, rabbisin the wilderness as blues ends; here’s a quicker quirkier jarring bit to cut

your teeth on…

Base bottom notes natural like ferns,ride the ride cymbal like musical fellatio,roll w/ rolls & kick-drum ejaculations,

what Hart Crane heard in bridges,only blues (so bridge seldom comes),



stasis achieved nicely replicates movements,bowel, kidney, heart-beat, daring snare of lip-ness,thickness, quickness,get it all out for all of us into the brick-laden city,mutter of exhausted midnight busesas vibrato notes shiver, miniaturesolos on the toms creates energyof emptiness among the weird abundance,concluding w/ roll on the snare, now bassalso investigates metaphysical space,not so much implacable as inexhaustibleeruptions; spring of autumn,autumn of spring…

Seasons of balance, compromise,away from extremes; Middle Path exteriorized,oh piano on a minor seventh which bespeakslonging for a more ethereal world,elegiac as the last apple of October, eatenby a Halloween camp-fire, beyond bluesof Earth into cadence, dying fall of pure moon,ravaged, torn from the throat of persistence,mute existence destroyed completelyand on fire, a universe of fingers & mouths,

looking down the tide of Death into eternity,square-shouldered & erect,freezing into whims of Ultimate “there-ness”, beyond ordinary notions of quotidian abyssin one long sitting pow-wow peace-pipe corn-cob

wholesome dinner of Voidness,but insinuated only to drive away singularity….

Jazz is plural,they give you a space, show you its’ contours,

allow you to move around & drownif you want over hilltops of remorse, createdby Love or dolorous longing & especiallyCentral Parks of the soul & intellectual Bordellolife cut & pasting its’ bleak outline over rooftops & bluebirds —

https://media.sas.upenn.edu/LiveKWH/2004/Live_KWH_46/Fieled-Adam_On-Jazz_LiveKWH.mp3








Autumn 2002



Brooklyn Song

I. The sage drops a bottle cap

on subway tracks,clanking & smudging black

w/ its’ brightness;

A new-born lion roars & moanssweet Brooklyn blues

to the literal voidof afternoon traffic,

smoking gumballs w/ a martyr’s air— I shit out an intestine.

II.

I loaf in yr basement,smoking hash & drinking.

It’s too late for death

to besmear our unfrozencontentment, fresh

as we are for the morning —

III.

Strawberry perfume serving somebody’s purpose only to make a pretty smellon the blank pageof our bodies —

New flowers sitBuddha in themiddle of themoving pictureframe —



IV.

Is love what we’ll remember, or just

melded dreams?



New York Sonnets

#1

It is 12: 35 p.m. hello Dan who merges left to the Last Dropand the Vivarin rides green to Trenton

we’ve grown! now picking up/discharging Briana’s breath spent money emergency exit lift this baror at least the tenderconstant fear of self watching self-like Carruth or open fields in New Jersey

is Mars in my twelfth house scary?(he that is high can decipherhieroglyphs begin with us)it isn’t what the federal law prohibits the poem is dream transportation



#2

The Vivarin rides greengrey ghosts upon the banks of the sky(that’s my job over there) available dirt in the form of a mountainBriana’s breath spent money New York for the sake of unityhello Dan it is 12:35 p.m.

whose collage in the Last Dropor at least the tenderthe only change is finger in mouth

pull body fully and push herein the limited bliss

constant fear of self watching self — hieroglyphs begin with us



#3

In the limited blissthe only change is finger in mouthO the beautiful elms are achingand her last name goes by,

who merges left to the Last DropCoffeehouse, in other words why

whose collage is limited blisshello Dan for the sake of our unityhoming birds flap fluttergrey ghosts upon the tenderthe moon in the constellation lionBriana’s breath spent money

(who sleeps a square, unaware I’m in the limited bliss



#4

Grey ghosts upon the treesO the beautiful elms are aching

we’ve grown! now picking up/discharging graceful catalysts, round and fineforgiven my only traffic tickettwin towers in the distance!New York, for the sake of our unity,I offer my concessionthrough the blasted road comes blacknessor at least the tendertunnel vision, democraticBriana’s breath money spent

it isn’t what the federal law prohibits that’s my job over there;



#5

Against the backdrop of eternitychoking victims celebrate the seasonforget it, forget it, forgethello Dan 23 hours have passedan irritating man pressing buttonsI think Bukowski would hate meof course we dance in threesthe crushing faces anonymousBriana’s breath

who has a kite in her chartto have the sex of good tidingsfor the looney movie later

betray your bed with bouncesthe stick, the notch, the fire —



#6

23 hours have passedthe stealthy yellow pill drops throbbinginto the dust-begotten subwayemergency exit lift this barsmell of peanuts, 14th Streetagainst the backdrop of eternity

who can say no to structure?enough money, breath, Brianatwo New York virgins playing tartcontinue to evade meI think Bukowskior at least the tender

losing leverage is inevitablehow can I shrug at Atlas?



#7

The printer, the poem, the pagethe I-Ching threw me a loopgradual progress, stagnationcontinue to evade meGina, how could you

with bounces, the stick, the notch — the crushing facesconstant fear of self watching self — grey ghosts upon the banksin limited blissO the beautiful elms are achingCoffehouse, in other words why

the stealthy yellow pill drops throbbing23 hours have passed



#8

I sit and thinkthe nausea haunts me and gnawslike Carruth or open fields in New Jersey

pulling light from politeness with bounces, crushing facesthe stealthy yellow pillGina, how could youconnect nothing with nothingin limited bliss, continue to progressstagnate, the dust-begotten subwayof course we dance in threesI offer my concession

Twin towers in the distance!and her last name goes by,



#9

it’s 3:00 a.m. and fiendish! I don’t know that I’d flip much a five foot three spotty degeneratehello Stevie in heaventhe face of God is small as leaf

with bounces, crushing faceslike Carruth, open fields in New Jerseyfermenting sky over Central Park treesI ran around the Village with Lennyfollowing the process, processingan excess of shared lollipopsin Dan Baker’s collage

nakedness affords us praiselike a cab sent down, 14th Street —



#10

of this magnificent flare in the gutter where sirens move into Long Islandshe sounded half-asleepnow the bed is made, maidenI wonder did the orange juice come?

which of course is fiendish!Briana’s spent mad money breath hello Dan hello grey cat

you tremble then sprintfollowing the process, processing(he that is high can decipheror at least the tender

stick, match, fire into the dustbegotten emptiness



#11

What was her name-dropping hook?at the Music Box on Avenue B

with Michal the Girl going crazyrunning around the Village with Lennyconstant fear of self-created grey ghosts upon the blissin the limited bankmetaphysical combs pluck angel hairlike grease like grass like butterfollowing the processthe great grey morning grows ghoulishemergency exit lift this bar

O the beautiful elms are achingthis is all so natural



#12

for gay kids, it really hasis it death, is it mmmm… I saw a dancer in Union Squareand my grandma on 96th Streetsupposed to change everythingbeing flagrant isn’t flaking out unless you’re sprung from Death Row constant fear of limited blissfollowing the process, stagnating

what is the excess you’re excessing? watching Bjork get hungI’m hung for her

and I stand by bodegasin the screaming cold…



#13

I swirl at the center of myselfas simple as a sick roseBriana’s mad I freaked spent breath restricted areas

winter walks bitterly dressedupon the grey ghosts

perched like vultures in Port Authoritychattering chattering chatteringGeorge wants a mist of white horsesbut gets the Pink Pony againdown by the Luna Lounge her breastsclutter my cock like clockwork

this is not so naturalbegotten emptiness



#14

What the hell kind of name is Degan?rather make fun than fuss — O the beautiful elms

who flap flutter to the Last Drophello Dan Baker hello greyin limited bliss I tickher breasts like clockworksmell of peanuts, 14th Streetgrey ghosts upon the banksstill before noon she’s nude and we falter for hungry Christmasand I still love her

the stealthy yellow pill drops throbbinginto the rushing bliss



#15

the Devil peers out of the Holland Tunneljoyous and informallike the high-begotten balance of Empire Stateamong grey vans and spiresthe windy sky a desolate sphinxthrow out your cell phones!chattering chattering chatteringthe poem is dream transportationcraving distinction, I turn my faceto Gina, how could shestick fire notch burned beds… O the moaning is marvelous

(feminine marvelous and tough!)may the breast man win —



#16

The lines slide down like orphansto assume a parented shapeam I a humble bootblack?or is their truly no succorto be sucked from hersturdy brown thighsa siren’s secrecy in the silent night sad to end on a stiff notebut I fell, fell, feel,& left her wet w/ orange juicean excess of shared lollipopsran around the Village

bleak like the tip of her tongueand I still love her…

Adam Fieled, 2000

***cover photographs taken by Mary Harju and Matt Stevenson inPhiladelphia in the early Aughts***

Early Poems 1998-2005: New York Sonnets Edition

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