all swollen & cut
& a black & blue &
yellow eye for sure—
my first one—all
the fights & scuffles
& getting 86’d—proud
of my clean face even
if I’m skinny—now
I’m proud of this—
I was just letting my
hair grow cause I was
so happy to be free of
the A. F. regulations—
still in my pointy-toed
shoes & tight pants—
I didn’t know I was
part of a movement—
but now I got my
badge—the next
meeting I went to
about Viet Nam I gave
a little rap on being
an ex-serviceman
getting beat up by
kids who hadn’t even
voted or paid taxes or
been drafted yet—I
was a big hit—and
it was all true—
I meant it—my
face was fucked up
from it—my fellow
anti-war activists
were impressed—I needed
a way to remember
being fast with your
hands wasn’t always
the answer—any more
I take her picture
with her hair still
wet & tangled &
it’s sexy & different
& all about how we
see things—not in
the magazine ads
or latest fads—punk
or chic or Soho elite—
it’s about how dis-
tracted she is & tense
—her father’s dying
like the rest of us
only he knows when
or about when & is
fighting with nothing—
the words of strangers—
promises—treatments—
operations—only to
delay or maybe
not even that useful—maybe
only to offer the appearance
of stalling the effects of
what we know will get
some of us—the epidemic
of cancer—industrial
civilization’s answer to
our polluting the rest
of life & the world’s
natural forces—I don’t
mean anymore with
that than my own
frustration & anger—
shit—
it’s like
Mayday—
a call for
help—
the Haymarket riot—
all the dead workers
(Mayday 1937 in Colorado
—the film of those
cops arriving at the
strikers picnic to open
fire on unarmed men,
and women, and
children—all that
death—deliberate &
against us—our
kind—
continues—
and us
against each other—
your book again
Harris—
“running for cover”
she covers her frustrations
with the rituals of covering
her body only to uncover
it soon enough to lose
it—or so I hope—
& believe—for a while
with mine—
Ted says his
“bye bye Jack”
telegram
aint the same
as Duchamp’s to Picabia—
he’s right of course—
it’s never the same—
Winch is an orphan—
you’re an orphan now—
me too—& this isn’t
even her “real” father—
it’s her “step-father”—
only the only one she
knows—& she loves
him—& he’s dying—&
taking some time to do it
in—the changes making
him mad, depressed, dis-
tracted, determined, deadly—
shit—does all this “art”
really do anything to help
me outwit my fate?—I
wanna think I’m great—
& sometimes do—& some-
times you & others—
like her & not only for
me—but her father?—
what can he tell me?—
what can I do for
him?—what does it matter
to either of us?—with
her between us & death
so close—I don’t
wanna die for a long
time & when I do I
want it to be gentle—
but I know there aint
shit I can do—my
grandmother would say
“If you’re born to be
shot, you’ll never be hung”
I wish we knew—
only
he knows & it must be
driving him crazy—it’s
getting to her—& that’s
getting to me—&
into this & therefore to
you—who knows what
I’m talking about that’s
why I’m “talking”—not
“walking” like I sometimes
do—I mean in my work—
her work—it moves me like
the books I love—including
yours—never do—her
music especially—is that
enough?—to live with &
love & be loved by a
person who creates music
that few get to hear but
me & it moves me beyond
my greatest expectations
for any art?—is this
the Paradise they sing
about in Saturday Night
Fever or Reznikoff
wrote of in his Adam
& Eve in the contemporary
city—New York in the
’30s?—poem? I read in
the late ’50s & recognized
(so have in me still as
I will yours & all I ex-
perience that shocks me
with its clarity—I love
to see the edges and the
blurs—I’d like to be in
Frank O’Hara’s mind when
he’s drunk & in love & the
city is out of focus but
gorgeous & his—when he
wrote those things—some
of them—I was drunk
too & in love & wandering
the same streets—a kid—
away from Jersey & home—
immersed in my romantic
self-pity & incredibly in-
telligent perceptions about
life & wages of concern &
sensitivity—it was the
’50s—you were in the
Bronx maybe?—or on
the same Manhattan
streets—I slept in the
park, walked in the
rain, was afraid of
anyone as graceful &
erudite as O’Hara or
I can be sometimes now—
& she—
she was getting to know
her new dad—jealous of
him & his son—she was
a little kid already
planning her escape—
while we were practicing
ours—
this time three
years ago I came
back—to the
city—for good—
(drove my Toyoto back to
D.C. to my ex-wife’s
house—who hasn’t driven
in 15 years—& gave her
the car
keys & title—letting
my license expire—through
with my “ace” driving days—
& I loved driving in the
city—that’s what I’d do
now—if it was then—
drive around for a few
hours, shifting gears hard
& fast, outflanking
traffic, judging tight
spaces like a cat, feeling
the limits with my
shoulders as if I were
the car—I loved driving
—making love to the
street with my body-
machine—but I love
so much else I had to
give it up—I was
coming out the other
end anyway brother
& dig it—we are too
often the ones who die
first or use it up fast
or never get to it—
not me—
I want to do it all
once as fast and intense as I can
& then move on—
but
I’m here now—back
where I started or
started starting—
& 3 moves later in 3 years
it’s Mayday, the
anniversary of my
farewell to D.C. where
I “came out” not only
as a lover of men but
a lover of men who loves
women in all those ways
as well and did so
first and will always—
I dont know what that
means—it confuses me
too—but I know I feel
good about feeling good
about me & loving the
way she smells &
moves & feels & lets me
get close as I can—
I loved it sometimes with the men—
but not as easily—as
gracefully—as romantically
—that’s it—there was too
much cynicism & con-
fusion there—& not just
dope—that’s maybe
the thing I’ve clung to
most—turned on the
first time by a black
dude at the Figaro
Cafe—McDougal &
Bleecker—in 1959—I was
17—always in love—
romantically with
women—brotherly
with men—
Charles Wicks
—“Charlie”—“Cochese”—
the football star of
my youth—Columbia
High—when I was in
grammar school—the
toughest spade in town—
maybe the toughest
period—no white guy
ever tried—he was
beautiful—from a
poor family, with a
wife like a picture &
all the women he
could do—& he did—
& told me how he did
& who & what I should
do & I was already doing
by the time we were
friends in 1957 or 58—
in 1972 I realized how
much I loved that dude—
& saw him again then—
a little paunchy &
pushing 40—me just
30 & newly into my
own beauty—so late—
but in time goddamnit
in time—
Charles was so
sweet—but always noble
& generous & offhand in
his easy masculinity & pride
—I never knew a kinder
man—he helped me see
that kindness could be
more than rules & gestures—
& so did you—& I hardly
know you—& maybe it
isn’t always true—but
it made me think of
all this & you in it—
it’s the first Mayday in
12 years I haven’t done
something to commemorate—
& now I have—thank you
NYC April 28-May 2 1978
PATTERNS
assembly line breaks—
the critic combing our cells as though on the
table’s keys, wallet (worn)
coins, comb, did not
imply empty pockets or
empty (clean) ashtray non-
smoker or extra tidy guest—
the bad tasting, worse
smelling water (only
matched by the dogs here)—
empty case for eyeglasses—someone reading or watching
TV—or writing in a note-
book the choices of a career
in self-observational anti-
cipation—life—like that—
making a lamp out of a
milk can in Virginia—
out near the mountains—
kids at the swimming hole
of 1978 using the language
of the beatnik bar of 1958—
a hairbrush—a Christopher Isherwood book (early and
relatively obscure)—the
sudden burst of ’60s “rock”
from outside competing with
the river (“born under a bad
sign”)—dirty socks—crickets in gangs—the nastiness of
flying ants—the “pleasures” of the country life outweighed
by the inconveniences for
those addicted to the “pleasures”
of city life—open doorway
to adjoining bathroom that
serves the teenaged daughter’s room as well—more
aged than teened—not old but
older—her yellow bathing-suit and big boned girlishness—
the remnant’s of a doper’s life—
the single wildflower in the cut
glass vase—the blues base of
most rock—tiresome “black”
derivation—unlike the real country origins of non-
blacks—sun supporting
somehow the haze that defuses its explosive
impact on everything here—
more trees than people in Manhattan—no more horizons
outside the stereo or TV and
those all inside now—the
end of a century before it
has ended—we look up once
before—
4.4.80
ex-wife in semi-coma
daughter moves in for good
joins brother and father
reluctant (she) to accept
her mother no longer able
to be her mother as she
has been, though, whatever
“brain damage” means
her father doesn’t even
try to explain or use
these terms, instead
“won’t get much better”
“why me?” asks son
then spends days making
“sick” jokes about death
and brain damage, though
no one mentioned either
in his presence, and
he’s the younger though
raised in New York City
with father these years
where dreams keep father
going despite despair
and recognition confusion
(is he gay or what? no,
he’s sensitive and at times
super-sensual to the point
of not caring what’s
different or the same—
is he any good or what?
so much potential etc.)
38 going on 17, 10 going
on 50 (the son) 12 going
on 6 going on 80 going on,
whoever survives survives,
it doesn’t seem to matter
how, only who, we
all
make do, you’ll never
understand who or how
though try, please try,
I got a why that won’t
quit, though my ex-wife
didn’t always like it
and now she’s shit fucking
fighting for some fraction
of a life she used to have
and everything is different
even in my dreams, I
don’t know shit & can’t
compete even with myself
anymore, just let me do
it once the way I meant
to be remembered, she
seems to have, despite
whatever got between us
& I hardly knew, so
fucking scared & hungry.
LOST ANGELS
for Peggy Feury
We are the generation of lost
angels. We rarely feel these
days like we have anything new
to do or say & yet our lives
are totally changed, even from
what they were a year ago, three
months ago, yesterday, trying
to finally be honest about our
feelings about each other’s fame
& glory, while still trying to
get or forget our own, as Billy
Idol sings and the expression
“thrillsville” is recycled in
some teenaged woman’s bed, or
“oh my god” we did that too
the way rocknroll connects us
with the folks we never knew,
maybe spoiling us for joy &
hope & honest bullshit as we
once said to people who were
“naturals” like ourselves before
we disillusioned on the anti-
antis . . . like wanting to be a
movie star forever despite the
rocknroll & dope & beatniks
who still can’t finesse the
necessary kind of classic
heroism we all continue to
love, like the idols of the
silver screen we injected
directly into the limelight
of our brains and hearts for
smarts the schoolrooms dis
possessed and all the rest;
we don’t expect too much, just
freedom from the assholes we
suspect have been enthralled
by their own egos making money
off ours.
We don’t wanna go crazy & die
in some nuthouse with no teeth
like Antonin Artuad, the world’s
first poet movie star and father
of whatever wave obsesses us now
in the New York-L.A.-Berlin-Paris-
Tokyo-Melbourne-London scene that
is the unbraining of Hollywood’s
being influenced by us! (the obvious
vice versa has been feeling our
brains since we mainlined Marilyn
& Marlon) & what about the “blues”
of John Wayne? That’s how we
survived. And now it’s all one,
the sum of our music and movie
influences spread across the
globe for anyone to use as in
“the new technology” which has
been in our cells since “action”
was a label for painting and
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