Headings represent the page structure. You can also view PDF copy of the printed edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cover illustration by Scituate artist and woodcarver Paul McCarthy<\/a> (view the cover larger<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n Red Tin Noodles <\/p>\n only everyone knows<\/strong><\/p>\n the madman is miffed. <\/p>\n The collision of thought trains<\/strong><\/p>\n Sent out for judgment <\/p>\n the jazz<\/strong><\/p>\n under this noise <\/p>\n Parking cars in a bottle<\/strong><\/p>\n An amputee lobs <\/p>\n Plumfree and his Gog<\/strong><\/p>\n Plumfree uncracks his great cape with a bolt. <\/p>\n Two Gravesites<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the asparagus cemetery, The sign reads: The baseball cemetery is a round plot of land And the sign reads: <\/p>\n The weak of love<\/strong><\/p>\n One by two and <\/p>\n Ravishers of the sunrise<\/strong><\/p>\n the day is so short o beautiful forsaken skies you seem so removed raised above the eye’s vision o sino paradisia <\/p>\n The red crusader<\/strong><\/p>\n Outlandishly soft, His eyebrows form Walk away, red morning!<\/p>\n In the waning starboard sky, <\/p>\n Heart mountains and stone fires<\/strong><\/p>\n The love face has weathered to shards, The fire burns black by the road edge <\/p>\n Cave dweller<\/strong><\/p>\n If I had a red pen <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cover Image<\/h2>\n
![\"Richard](\"http:\/\/redtinnoodles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Red-Tin-Noodles-Richard-Young-1977-78-poetry-collection-web-531x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTitle Page<\/h2>\n
\nSome poems by Richard Young\/1974
\nCopyright pending 1977-78.<\/p>\nPoems<\/h2>\n
\n
\nwhat with all the garbage talk on
\nbroken circles, and the cylinder’s
\nstrange affrontry, but no one is
\nto blame
\nsave the lighter of the candles,
\nthat rare combination of sunbeam
\nand cripple who will happily confess
\nto each new epidemic of genocide.
\nthe madman whose ceiling shadows
\ncall down to him in sing-sing shades,
\nin square roots of dimension and
\nascension titillations until
\nlight prevails
\nand he is downtown again, buying
\nsanity with rubber checks.
\nthe madman.<\/p>\n
\n
\nin the careless thrashing
\nfor love, by the duck feet
\nupside down in the pond
\nbelow the spastic bridge,
\nwhere the dots flow round,
\nunending and untouching,
\nand stranded halfway there
\nwith a ripped ticket, with
\nthe glass-eyed egg of doubt
\nbeginning to run from
\nits cracks like a tear duct
\nglanced by holy fire,
\nfour lines, which would be
\nsquare in certain senses,
\nboxed to depth by others,
\nimplore the invasion
\nof space with the energy
\nof a painting in revolt
\nagainst its frame.<\/p>\n
\n
\nis a green woman’s veil\/
\ndangling scorpion legs
\nhang from the throat
\nof a bass clarinet\/
\nher wooden nails\/
\nyour drunken cymbals\/
\nhiss the poison mirage
\nover smoking bedposts\/
\nand the muscle strings\/
\nlike piano brains on fire\/
\nexplode into sand\/
\nwhere the insect mate
\nis waiting for the desert
\nbride to unwrap herself\/
\nfrom your music\/
\nfrom the chamber of sighs
\nwhere you smoulder\/
\nlike a sultan in the heat
\nof a black vinyl sun\/
\npuffing on a camel<\/p>\n
\n
\npeas in the roulette wheel.
\nYoung girls squirm,
\ngrowing t.v’s, hospital dresses,
\nskin without light.
\nWe twist the dials of a stone
\nand the flowers migrate.
\nA small hand knocks
\nthe ceiling through the floor.<\/p>\n
\n
\nKnowing nothing about nothing, he is spared the misery
\nwe feel when the dog farts on the sofa or
\nthe cats run off with Grandpa’s favorite truss.
\nLook at us, he smiles, and we can’t help but think
\nback to what Gog said before he was choked to death
\nby an unfriendly seat belt: “The light bulbs are pawning
\ntheir filaments at darkshops on the water’s edge, to old men
\ndrifting in a boat made out of sparks. And the sea is now
\nnothing but a wastebasket for our dreams.” Dear Gog,
\nbut no one knew him save Plumfree, who tells his stories
\naround the sad fire, tales of men who wouldn’t believe
\nthe woods, who scoffed at the baffling talk of the trees,
\nsaying, “Where are their Xs’ and O’s?” while Gog was out
\nwinding clocks inside the acorns. Plumfree says his body
\nis a mass of sacred animals, but never lets us see.
\nWe say, “Just one tiny peek, old friend?” and drop our holy
\nnickles in his rice. And he says, “That’s not nice,”
\nand relates the parable of the smokestacks, reminding us
\nthat “Gog died for our coins.” Then he paints a picture
\nof the divine smog flash that would start the heart.
\nYes, Plumfree is an interesting guy to have around,
\nhim and his Gog. Of course, we don’t believe him, but he
\nloves us anyway, knowing nothing about nothing as he does.<\/p>\n
\n
\nwhere old vegetables cultivate their last rites
\nalong the green-rowed carpet of their kitchen hours;
\nwhere young heads pop like leeks from the ground,
\nthen dig back down in wisdom,
\nwhispering, “the world is winter,”
\nas the elders eat themselves, stalk to stalk, into hunger.<\/p>\n
\n“There will be no baseball playing in the asparagus cemetery.”
\nAnd above this:
\n“There will be asparagus playing in the baseball cemetery.”<\/p>\n
\nat the bottom of Suitcase Mountain
\nwhere every sphere that has ever passed through the time warp
\nof a window pane or outfield cloud finally comes to rest.
\nWhen the sun ever shines, the sweet trill of asparagus voices
\ncan be heard as they run diamond circles
\naround the stagnant horsehide lumps, slowly retiring to earth.<\/p>\n
\n“Coke is cheap. Please don’t eat the players.”
\nAnd above this:
\n“The happiest gravesite in the world.”<\/p>\n
\n
\nSeven by sun,
\nThe weak of love,
\nLike neglected tornadoes,
\nPoison bike tracks in
\nThe pollen serenade,
\nAnd graze through
\nThe hair trees, singing
\nOf chiclet farms,
\nInvented on a spot
\nIn the deft pencil scratch.
\nSuch thin appeasements
\nFor the big eraser.<\/p>\n
\n
\non your side of sight
\nwhere the body ends
\nwith the body<\/p>\n
\nnothing more for the eyes
\nof those who love one
\nnot for the other<\/p>\n
\nfrom the general death
\nof the sad land
\nlike a marble poster<\/p>\n
\nto blot the source you worship
\nso every morning the face
\nhas your name on it<\/p>\n
\nwhere the flowers fall
\nwhere the dead fall
\nwhere the most you can ask
\nis the least we can give<\/p>\n
\n
\nas no seminary for nature’s
\nburrs could ever be,
\nsent back to memory, only,
\nbut enough.
\nLike silent bell claps
\nsome can hear, he walks
\naway in rhyme.<\/p>\n
\na cloud line, better
\nmountains should the world
\ngo flat again; and
\nhis trace dissolves
\nto cross halves,
\ntouching lightly on the
\nground to wait for sentence,
\nfeather penance for the poor
\nwho touched his hand
\nbefore the death.<\/p>\n
\nhe is the brightest of thieves.<\/p>\n
\n
\nan outlaw poster sifted through ghost towns,
\na threadbare noose of polaroid now
\nwired to the echo of some south-running train
\nand fallen down across a dirty plate,
\nwhere even vermin cannot glut for fear
\n(where red mouths slash the lion’s sleep
\nwith gleaming tongue pestles of ice).<\/p>\n
\nlike a monument to simple dying stars,
\na gift for those meant to miss their way,
\nlost among the map veins of the love face
\nand climbing up forever over empty hills
\nwhere buzzards fight with jackals for their food
\n(where the blood born in the eyes of wild babies
\nis slapped to death by endless cries of night).<\/p>\n
\n
\nI would write
\nthis on the roof of my mouth,
\ninviting all the love cave dwellers
\nto come borrowing through.
\nBack out through the teeth
\nof nothing,
\nthey would have to invent.
\nHow did you like the cloud straddling
\nthe wall of empty pockets, they could say.
\nOr they could say nothing,
\nand be right,
\nand be right,
\njust hum some joke about the Tartar invasion,
\nchoking their throats with my own signs, say.
\nBesides, there’s no way I can get
\ninto my own mouth, whole,
\npour my heart out on the ceiling
\nlike the chapel of beets,
\nwhen I can’t even get into my heart,
\nmuch less my mind, or even my cave
\nnow that I can’t go into the darkness
\nwithout drowning
\nin the bloody ink of my own points,
\nthis roof dripping everywhere.<\/p>\n