N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 0 7

TOM PETERS

"Almost every trace of the Moths"

with Jack Spicer

I.

With the gums gone you

are toothless, And the nose is next to nothing

the eye alive

And now the rattling

Of the radiator the floor

is loose, the even row of it

fit to raise 11 children.

You will count on them 1, 2, 4, 8, One hundred

You will stay in the midst of them,

You will know them, you will hear them

in the narrow meadow

II.

In the endless endlessness

snow, sea salt

He lost his teeth

Without eyes or thumbs

He suffers from restlessness

How to lick a wound

    (salt)

His lover left.

Snow sea salt love

In the lovely endlessness

III.

  Blue rooted heron, loon lake

river song, like me no traveler

taking a rest, loose-winged water-bird

And dumb with music theory.

I stand upon the waterfront, like him no traveler

before, dangling on Icarus wings

Aching for flight, for waxen wings

I ache and take my rest

So let us die for death alone is motion

And death alone will make these herons fly.

I fall wingless in the ocean

& die.

What I remember from Lisa Jarnot’s Reading

for L.J.

At the meridian

where I saw the bird

near the meridian

at at at the corner

of Sixth by a side street

where I saw Lou Reed

the meridian

at the meridian

where I saw the bird

in Jane & Anselm’s backyard

at the meridian

where I saw the bird

the meridian

Hockey Night in Canada

are the Stars really playing tonight?

scowl

swish swish swish

corduroy scowl

at the meridian

it’s such an honor

with Bernadette Mayer

behind me

at the meridian

the bird

scarf

the bird

did I start at 8:25

are the Sabres really playing tonight?

Buffalo

Hockey night in Jane & Anselm’s backyard

did you recognize it?

Nam Rats God

for Stan Brakhage

1.

Above the little

  do not worry

cared little to leave the house

  come with us

To fell the sacred top!

  Obeying

He grabbed an axe

  Made the long climb, slowly

The only tree there

  a bowman

the goddess herself shot,

  looked down

shall touch the ground

  their cottage

swung an axe for the slanting

  while they wondered

the oak tree trembled

  seeing the neighbors trouble

And acorns paled

  and the poor quarters

And when the axe bit into

  me a temple

As from the neck

  to the marble columns;

And they were all stunned;

  the root was golden

And they paid for their devotion

  with this carefully carved

axe of Eurystheus

  struck marble

For ten miles around and the dry years together

stunned at their own, their forest neither

Robed all in black; per se

punished by seeing

they prayed, from

the beautiful, was granted

made the fields tremble

  watched the temple

She planned an awful punishment

  for the mortals

was something days over

in any act of his; she would cut loaves

appeal to famine they still had time

Are never allowed to meet

and the bark was closed over

Summoned one of the mountains

  even to this day.

My Grandpa Tremonti

(part 1)

my Grandpa

was born on the same day

as Ed Wood

& Thelonious Monk

& looked so much

like George Raft

that some people

were sure that it was him

(if you don't know who

George Raft is that

is your problem)

he was a gentle guy

who like bumble bees

for their help in the garden

kept wild birds as pets

smoked a pipe

& made wine in his house

every year he would pickup

100 boxes of grapes from

the train from California

& spread them out on his basement

(or base e mente) as my Grandma

called it) floor where the boxes

covered every inch

he would crush them with

his feet before putting them

in the masher

& made 3 barrels a year

& one small barrel of liqueur

he drank wine with every meal

& an egg in the beer for breakfast

sometimes at 5 am

he loved to go down to the

beer garden but rarely

did & was forbidden

by my Grandma to

drink

whiskey but

had a bottle under the bed

in the spare bedroom

the bed there

was my Mom's

four post bed

that she had made

my Grandpa saw

off the four posts

so she cd have a trendy

Hollywood Bed

in the 1940's

he was retired from his job

before I cd talk

so he never had to go to work

the 18 years that I knew him

once when I was in Hollywood

at a diner in 1981, I met the

only person I had ever met

outside of my family

that had known my Grandpa

from work, this guy who I thought

was nuts and a liar

said he knew my Grandpa

from the Vassar Chrysler Plant

& that people called him

Monty short for Tremonti

instead of Vito which

was too obviously not an

American name, it turned out he

was right & couldn't have known this

in any other way

my Grandpa's brother who liked

"to talk to the cows"

jumped to his death from the

Ambassador bridge at 15

after a painful & disconcerting

ear infection

his Dad left his Mom &

5 kids at 33 years old

she died a few years later

of "a broke heart"

he never saw his Dad

again, but 50 years later

my Dad found out that

he had died in a mining

shack explosion in

California

Frank Tremonti

blown to bits

maybe with another

family, supposedly

no one in the family

ever saw him again

after he left to make

money

to bring the rest of

the family over

but his son Frank Jr.

Might have tracked him

down

When he worked

at Chrysler as

chief inspector

he would stump the

assembly line

workers by putting a

little lead from a pencil

on the head of the spark plug

& see if they cd figure out

why it was misfiring