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The Second Book of Paul
An Old Man's
Strange and Idiosyncratic Musings
On God, Man, Friendship, and Art Kevin
Boyle
1997
QED
I have seen the yellow moon turn white
And shivered with the autumn night
Have I, I have
And I have intermingled
with a cornucopian delight
And a singing goat's horn
trumpeting thru the long october night.
I have seen the half-pearl rise,
And listened to racing white notes two centuries old.
I have squeezed the young girl's thighs
Licked the glistening dew facing fright, and wrote across those thighs
And been amused, and been amazed
Have
I, I have
Who like the moon shall never die,
Not in this life, say I
I have seen the shining teardrop
smile,
And tasted vanilla ice cream just before the snow
Have I, I have
And I have been tingled and tickled by the bye
And I have intuited the truth whilst the white moon like my life flies by
And this I take as
proof of God.
To Oblivious Readers
Where is God?
Where is God?
She is everywhere right before your
eyes,
And you do not even notice.
Prayer to Leaves
Tea
leaves, tai leaves, please, tell me please what these importunate feelings mean,
Tell me why I have these violent dreams, tell me what they mean,
Tea leaves, tai leaves, please, tell me please what these meanings breathe,
Tell me why, tell me why, tell me what and how, wherefore, whence, and
whither.
Tweak the pain of my heart, and listen, see my dreams and interpret,
Twang eternity and tell me what it has to say about me, my visions, and my being,
Tea leaves, tai leaves, please, tell me please what these monstrous feelings
mean,
Tell me my fate, that I may abide by it in a manner
worthy of winter.
Tea leaves, tai leaves, please, tell me please what these pulses seethe,
Tell me what the blood and fire mean, more than that I am some saviour
for another,
Tweak the truth like sap from a tree, and
taste what destiny has to offer,
Twang my soul and tell
me who I am.
A
Moment Removed From The World
Saturday morning, light white snowfall
Crisp, vivid, fresh, light white snowfallIn the woods, the sound of a brook
And
every one of its tenthousand voices
And every one of
its tenthousand voices
Mirrored in every flake, coming
at meThe season after fall, every winter forever
All this Beauty bundled in a moment,
One conscious moment, all the world is beautifall
I
see Beauty asssulting the air
I see Beauty assaulting the air, an army of snowflake soldiers
Taking over the town—Paris has been liberated!
Sound the bells! Ring the gongs! The Allies are here! The War is over!
From my window I see the soldiers myself.
Marriage Moment
She is mad at me and I don't care,
And I know that I should care, and I do care,
But right now I don't really care.
Because she is going to be mad at me from time to time,
And that is unavoidable fate.
And I know that I do not have the power to alter unavoidable fate,
So I cannot really care to try. I love her and she knows it,
And she knows I cannot undo the things that I have done,
And we both know that fate is fate,
And
that our fate is ultimate.
Tonight
God took care of me,
Tonight God took care of me,
Like She has done so many times before,
Tonight God took care of me.
She gave me a woman of beauty, nobility, and strength,
She gave me a hearty meal, and oral sex
As foreplay to a greater sexual experience,
She gave me a greater sexual experience,
She gave me al bock in celebration of life,
As
she gave Back suns, she gave me orgasms,
She made me
one with the world.
Poem To My Thoughts
You rage and roar and rumble like a river
On a sunny Sunday morning in winter,
While the snow calmly lays beauty on the eyes of a former sinner.
You random acts!
How can you suddenly be so blatantly sexual?
Don't you know or care that someone is watching? You lethean being.
Is forgetting yourself your goal,
Or is that an accident?
Poem to my thoughts.
you rage roar and rumble like a river of tenthousand voices
imaging the history of whoredom, out of boredom, ennui, and we
who wonder who you are can do nothing in the end, but pay homage
to a god we cannot fully comprehend.
And
you send me to that god, a beautiful woman...
Poem To My Thoughts
ToYou whores! Every last one of you, a whore! You impressionable,
impetuous youths--
You cannot embrace the entire world—there
is insufficient time.
You cannot penetrate all of potentia—there
is insufficient time.
Lick eternity, and let God take
care of the rest.
Poem To My Thoughts 3
I can't figure you out. What do you want?
Who are you? And what do you have to do with me?
It's midnight
in March,
and the madness brings me near tears.
This
is the wind between winter and spring,
And I wish that
I could stand in it forever.
You make me scratch my head, cringe my face, and wonder.
Abstract and random, always intense, always cognizant, You bastards never sleep.
At least I am honest enough to call you bastards.
You might not be honest or intelligent enough to fact that. You
piss me off.
This is the wind between winter and springAnd I am in love forever.
The New Heroes
I felt heroic because I survived another day.
Shouldn't everyone?
That makes everyone a hero every day
they
survive.
The New Mentality
I am going to adopt her
mentality:
I said: I know someone who died in that hospital.
She said: I know someone who was born there.
The New Me
I came and went, now I am back.
Where did I go? I left myself awhile.
But all things return.
Now I am back
To act upon the power daily.
When Will We Wander Thru The Night Again?
I have returned from Cambridge all agog with the world.
I only wish that I could be more honest.
When will
we wander thru the night together, you and me?
I am lonely
for the soul who stood beside me under an awning in the rain on
shrooms in New York City.
mannahatta mannahatta
man i had a man i had a good time that
time you came up and we shroomed overlooking the east village
and then on the yellow night sidewalk by a white streetlamp in the drippy dropping rain.
philadelphia philiadelphia
fairmount center city manayunk overbrook south philly and
i think that's appropriate for us for you and me to be friends in the city of brotherly love with clifford and patrick
and anybody a man is friends with yes philadelphia is an appropriate place
especially
when it is where you're from.
The pace of man quickens, and yet I want to linger and let it all
pass by.
When will we wander thru the night again, you and I?
II
Crossing
centuries, crissing time,
We wander the night in the
middle of a poem
Like the poem that wanders the night
we wander
And we will again, and again, etcetera, setera,
setra, ad infinitum, forever and ever amen That is to say, we cross time,
We move over the curve of the wave of time
Indifferent to the wave of the curve of time, careless with regard to callous time,
So unaffected by time as to be unaware of its amateur existence. Now that time is over,
then, let us get on with it.Let us get on with our lives before
we die.
Let us continue to get on with life by getting
on with it, getting on with the show, the game, the play,
the action---Now that time is dead, let us wander once again
thru the night
Made intrepid by our presence.
Images
Image magis magically making mystical meaningscome
to life before your very eyes.
Image miracles at noonby the Sea of Galilee
during a time when men were ready to believe.
Image the invisiblemoon's intentions upon your loins when night you cannot see
You
Come To Me A Muse
It's Sunday morning
and I'm drinking tea with honey,
smoking hash-laced
marijuana in the fall,
thinking about myself and the
gods. I think too much thought is given to the self,
and
not enough thought is given to the gods. When the gods were here and we believed in them,
our world was well, and we were at one with the wind.
Now the gods are here and we believe in them, some of us, in some of them,
with and without the religiosity, with and without the integrity,but all is not well with the world and we are at odds with the wind.
Something is awry in our relationship with Nature
and it is we who are awry, not God.
2 Autumn.
I see a man remove a tree from the earth and not tell
his son the tree is sacred.
Sunday.
Today is the day of the gladiators!
The church files them in and out of the turnstile, though sales decline.--You come to me a muse, and amuse me, like a joke, and have mercy on me,
like a nurse,and the copper church bell tolls but the red
siren wail lingers louder and longer.
City.
God sent you an angel to be my friend this
life throughout like a wife, in sickness and in health.
More than once to be like a sweet moist gingersnap cookie dipped in honey tea.
More than once to be like a cigarette
drag, momentary utter satisfaction.
More than once to
betrue friend to me. Home.Meerstille.
Love. Food, the right sitting
position, protection from the sea---
You see, God is
matriarchal, and we, we would not endure without her.
Give
us a room for daily bread. Come, take a cup of tea.
The day wafts gently, peacefully, blessedly, and
we subsist upon her.
[ME frend, fr. OE freond; akin to OE freon to
love, freo free] GOD comes to me on Sunday mornings, furtivelysneaking behind Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Overbrook Park,
moving like a ghost through our neighbors' backyards, and spotting up at my window, like a bird.
Then it whooshes through the window and enters my fleshand
today says sing a song of friendship, chant your chant on Paul.
Sanctus Sanctus
Sanctus,
Deus Theus, Zeus,
Hay Seuss,Theuth,
All of you, all of yous, hey all of youse, listen up!
A beautiful green-eyed
manfree to love the world, and freely loved by the world,
To The Hundred Or So People Gathered Around The Mouth Of My Grave Know that I am content!
Can you hear me? Know you "my soul is rested."
Lauren and Jimmy, Mom
and Dad, Kelly and Tracie, Know that I am content, know "my
soul is rested."
Kath, Brian, Thomas, Kathryn, the
other one,
Betsy, Mike, Michael, Kristine, Ann, Catherine,
Mary, Daly, Doyle, HMan, Katie Rose, Michael, Tracie's baby
Tonky,
Joy, Neil, Renee, Austin, Alec, Aubrey, Rhonda, Alex, Scott and yr family
Know that I am content, know "my soul is rested.
"All you Lynams--how many Lynams are there?--All
you K-ites--how many K people are there?--
All you SJU
grads--how many Hawks are there?--Know that I am content,
know "my soul is rested."
Paul, Patrick, Clifford,
Ted, Glenn,Thomas Martin, Marvin Komaniarek, George White,Neducsins, Divers, Knolls, Bradys, Fogels, Cougars, CHOPpers, Neighbors,
Know
that I am content, know "my soul is rested."
And
all you others whom I love but do not have enough space to litanize,
Know that I am content, know you "my soul is rested."
I'm off to play hoop with Henry
Smith, Dennis McGettigan, John Harnice, and George Mikan!
I'll
be the point, Dennis the 2, Harno the 3, Hen-do the 4, and Big George the center.
I'm off to write the newsletter for the angels! In exchange they'll
teach me song.
And I'll teach English to dead college
freshmen. The pain is yours, not mine.
So if through
the undulating years you cry or turn sad betimes because of
me, remember
I feel no pain, and I lived happily surrounded by beauty and infused with the wherewithal to appreciate it.
Know that my dying is a trifling.
What's a half-life instead of a life?
There's no such thing as time to the moonor souls that abide by eternity, believing souls like mine.
So do not be bereaved too long,
but go,
get on with your lives in greater appreciation for the glory
of
the sky, the blue sky, see the blue blue blue sky
Go,
get on your with lives
And remember me fondly,
Remember blue-eyed Kevin Boyle with a smile.
There's No Such Thing As
Time
"When, whenever," and if I ever finally die,
Remember that I rejoiced in every autumn, first to last
Knowing that there is no first nor last, only eternity throbbing
Throbbing, pulsing, beating ceaselessly breathing and being
With me ridiculously content to be a trfling of it.
I have dying on my mind, but so what?
We can't do anything about death, not this autumn, Paulie,
Nothing we can do now, so we might as well just do what we have to do,
Might as well just get on with it,
Suffer and rejoice God.
We
might as well just enjoy the orange,
We may as well just
dance the dance,
We should just play the game with a
smile
And not think that we care about inevitable death.
What's a half-life to a life
When there's no
such thing as time?
What's a half-life to a
life
When numbers mean nothing to the beautiful and the
sublime?
Maybe it is true I would have
Doubled
my intensity and passion and expired in half the time,
But
not this autumn, Paulie, not amid these coppers,
Auburns,
yellows, cherries and limes,
Not this fucken time
Thanksgiving, 1997
Come, let us give thanks this thanksgiving day,
We who are able to give thanks and pray.
Thank you god for the cancer in my gut--Metastasization has expanded
My
vocabulary.
Thank you god for the hemlock in me guts:
It has compelled me to appreciate
The new taste of bananas and walnuts.
Thank you god for the poison in my gut.
Ephemerality has become soVivid!
I don't know what
To
say anymore, but I do know how.
I
have know-how, you know.
Thanks, God, for that. I swear life is nothing but Transient lust fucking blindfolded trust.
Hubble Deepfield
this is the beginning of the universe as we see it.
ha, ha.
this is as close
to the origin as we have gotten. so there.
and
my wife, the beautiful ms. lauren, she called it"crowded."
and i laughed, and thought, well, we live in the woods
somewhat solipsistically, so there.
that the colors
are so brilliant corresponds to the spiritbeing so holy.
that the essence remains invisible is proof
god loves secrets.
this is the beginning of the new god coming, the next
godwho is a goddess.
this is the beginning of a new world, a new divinity coming like an orgasm.
and my lover, the spiritual ms. lauren, she laughs at gods and has little comment.
and i am all over it, intensely, passionately, full of belief, and unspeakable intuition.
that pervasive aqua sky blue splattering the canvas of the pastindicates the truth.
that eternity dominates, and time is subservient, is clear.
from there to here, selah.
You know you're sick when you're sitting with a blanket draped over your shoulders
eating a bowl of cereal at midnight
Come, Let Us Change
The World
Come let us found a religion!
Come let us find a religion! Come let us fund a church!
Come, let us alter the world. Let us find a religion that encourages us to sit properly
Come, let us
bring belief into rationality, leave system out of it, and get on with it.
Come let us sing songs of friendships! Let
us read alone in the night,
Let us drop a notch in pitch,
degree by degree,Let us sink into a near whisper, just you
and me paulie,
Pain Takes Us To The Stars
What takes us to the stars is pain.
Pain takes us to the stars.
I exhale thoughts of you in the middle of the night, when almost all the
world's asleep,
And my stomach pierces bells from
within.
It hurts tonight, Paul, it really hurts.
How
many sedatives are there? Until no more exist
And there is no jab, no stab of another sharp thought hard
to capture hard to read
Like is that from the sickness
or the treatment?
Until no more exist Until no more exist
I'll chant the incomprehensible and the ineffable
While the cow jumps over the moon of Jupiter and the meaning
moves in her wind
No more sedatives, I mean, once you try them all, once you have them all in you at once
And still it hurts, Paulie, still it really hurts--then
what?
I will subsist Dear God, on my love of men and women, my love of nature, my strange love
of life
I will subist on myself, and my refusal to be
beaten by the demon who would see me down.
What I am trying to say is there is a new God, she is a Goddess,
and she is here now waiting
To be seen, waiting to appear,
like a newborn waiting to be named.
It doesn't matter much to me whether or not they experience it.
I, however, would like to have been there.
C'est
la vie.
Je souffri donc je suis.
Qu'est-ce que c'est la difference?
Truth is truth,
Pain is pain,
I love you,
night listens, and transformation beckons like a dream.
Endure, and you know what I mean when I scream
Pain takes us to the stars.
Knowledge of the artist's name is irrelevant to the sensory aesthetic
experience,
but knowledge of the names of the gods who
rule us now would be immeasurably helpful.
So art tries
to bring about the gods, goes where religion used to reign,
but
what is the color yellow to the smell of incense and candleflame?
Preachers
and proselytizers, painters and poets are not,
so who
delivers the goddess I desperately summon?
Sunday
November 2, 1997
I'm a tortured soul, Paul,
And
so are you,
Wednesday November 19, 1997
Dateless pain streaks across my
back
Indifferent to the capriciousness of arbitrary nonexistent
time.
How do you say there is no time?
No time,
how do you do?
I am a tortured soul, my friend,
And
so are you.
Thursday November 20, 1997
We are tortured because we know,
We know because we are,
We are therefore we
suffer,
We suffer therefore we are.
And at moments
we try to grasp something of the world,
And then somehow
resay it,
as if we really grasped it, or anything at all,
When in reality we know we are less than what we think.
It is the truth that tortures our souls.
Wednesday November 19, 1997
It is cancer that tortures my organs, cancer the demon darting across my
back
Fire dark electric radiating streaking comet coals
tingling like there's no tomorrow
And yet I rejoice in the yellow moon over autumn.
How
can that be?
How now such love for
the world from the hearts of tortured souls like you and me?
It's quiet across the
city tonight,
The City of Brotherly Love.
Where I'm in Overbrook, you're in Manayunk,
And a common half-moon minds us from above.
What are the waves on which our
bond is carried
Through Philadelphia time?
I sound my thoughts
In a simple rhyme, and they
are married
To your ears a January later.
There's
no such thing as time to amity
And the affinity two kindred
spirits have for one another.
There's no such thing
as time to the satyr
Who minds the love of a brother
for a brother.
There is only our friendship teeming thru this ancient City
On a night when I haven't seen you in a month.
Avec privilege de Dieu
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