The Soft Machine

by William Seward Burroughs

  Pulsing blue silence photos genitals and pubic hairs in rectal mucus and carbolic soap. Alternate mirror and screen guide put on goggles walked through grey-filled shadows that melted in his head.

  In time focus the natives, like flickering bat wings over faded thousand-run faces, hearing, smelling through them like: "Johnny cock hard." Slowdown to statues with catatonic erection slow falling through colors red green black. A hot spread: cheeks close-up. And felt over Johnny's body the slow float down from Hollywood, came to the hot Panama nights. They clicked in through a squat toilet with walls of blue glass and underwater shots of warm soapy spermy water smell, so felt the boy neon fingers on sex spots breathing through sponge rock penis-flesh and brown intestine jungles lined with flesh-eating vines and frantic parasites of the area. . .

  Naked in the Panama night, rectal mucus and carbolic soap. A blue screen guide put on goggles.

  Pale panels of shadow melted his head on all sides into blue silent wings over the clock of fecal movement smelling through them like transparent.

  "A hot spread examination we call it. Johnny's body can't deceive us in any way. Came to the hot Panama nights to examine me."

  Clicked into his head of blue glass. Close-up neon finger over the scar-impressions learning the instrument panels, recording on the transparent flesh of present time. It is happening right now.

  Slow 1920 finger rubbing vaseline on the cobra lamps, flickering movie shadows into the blue void, pulling finger rolls a cuneiform cylinder. Lens eye drank the boy's jissom in yellow light.

  "Now Meester we flick fluck I me you cut." The two film tracks ran through impression screen, one track flash on other cut out in dark until cut back: "Me finish Johnny's shit. . . Clom through Johnny. . ." Hear rectums merging in flicks and orgasm of mutual processes, and pulsed in and out of each other's body on slow gills of sleep in the naked Panama nights and bent over the washstand in East St. Louis junk-sick dawn, smell of carbolic soap and rectal mucus and train whistle wake of blue silence and piss through my cock "I-you-me-fuck-up-ass-all-same-time-four-eyes." phantom cleavage crude and rampant. Every citizen can now grow sex forms in his bidet: in the night of Talara felt his hard-on against my khaki pants as we shifted slots and I browned a strange Danish dog under the nudes of Sweden. Warm spermy smell, room of blue glass strung together on light-lines of jissom and shit, shared meals and belches, the shifting of testes and contractions of rectum, flick-Suck back and forth.

  "Here goes Johnny. We fluck now first run": in blue silence saw the two one track out: blue. Each meet image coming round the other erection-fucked-self and came other shit both.

  "We flick-Suck I-you-film-tracks through rectal mucus and carbolic soap. Cut out pale panels of shadow." blue silent bat wings over rectums blending in transparent erection, a hot shit and all process together.

  "Johnny's body can't deceive us in other body, slow night to examine me." sick dawn smell of carbolic finger, close-up finger on all cocks.

  "I-you-me fuck up neon blind fingers phantom cleavage of boy impressions Witch Board of Present Time."

  The idiot green boys leaped on Johnny like tree frogs clinging to his chest with sucker paws fungoid gills and red mushroom penis pulsing to the sex waves from Johnny eyes, warm spermy smell, lamps and flicker movies strung together on a million fingers shared meals and belches and lens-eye drank jissom. contract of rectum flight: "Here goes Johnny. One flight out." Screen other rectum naked in Panama night.

  Ghost of Panama clung to our throats, coughing and spitting on separate spasm, phosphorescent breath fades in fractured air—sick flesh strung together on a million fingers shared meals and belches—nothing here now but circling word dust—dead post card falling through space between worlds—this road in this sharp smell of carrion—

  We twisted slowly to black lagoons, flower floats and gondolas—tentative crystal city iridescent in the dawn wind—(Adolescents ejaculate over the tide flats.)

  In the blue windy morning masturbating a soiled idiot body of cold scar tissue—catatonic limestone hands folded over his yen—a friend of any boy structure cut by a species of mollusk—Street boys of the green gathered—slow bronze smiles from a land of grass without memory—cool casual little ghosts of adolescent spasm—metal excrement and crystal glooms of the fish city—under a purple twilight our clothes shredded mummy mien on obsidian floors—Panama clung to our bodies—

  "You come with me, Meester?"

  Northern lights flicker from his "Yes"—The rope is adjusted—Writhing in wind black hair bursts through his flesh—Great canines tear into his gums with exquisite toothache pleasure—The green cab boys go all the way on any line.

  Green boys—idiot irresponsibles—rolling in warm delta ooze fuck in color flashes through green jelly flesh that quivers together merging and drawing back in a temple dance of colors. "Hot licks us all the way we are all one clear green substance like flexible amber changing color and consistency to accommodate any occasion."

  "This bad place Meester. You crazy or something walk around alone. Where you go?" The guide: impersonal screen swept by color winds light up green red white blue, antennae ears of flexible metal cartilage crackle blue spark messages leaving smell of ozone in the shiny black pubic hairs that grow on the guide's pink skull, blood and nerves hard meat cleaver his whole body would scorn to carry a weapon. And Being inside was him and more, face cut by image-flak impersonal young pilot eyes riding light rays pulsing through his head.

  "Fluck Johnny? Up ass?" He guided Carl with electric tingles in spine and sex hairs through clicking gates and turnstiles, escalators and cable cars in synchronized motion. Impersonal young pilot eyes riding the blue silence permutated Carl into an iron cubicle with painted blue walls pallet on the floor brass tea tray kif pipes and jars of phosphorescent green sex paste, wall over the pallet two-way mirrors opposite wall of glass opening on the next cubicle and so on, sex acts into the blue distance. The Guide pointed to the mirror: "We fuck good Johnny. On air now."

  "Johnny pants down"—he was smearing the sex paste on "Johnny's" ass hot licking the white nerves and pearly genitals—Carl's lips and tongue swelled with blood and his face went phosphorescent penis purple— slow penetrating incandescent flesh tubes siphoned his body into a pulsing sphere of blue jelly floated over skeletons locked in limestone—The cubicles shifted— Carl was siphoned back through the Guide and landed with a fluid plop as the cubicles permutated fucking shadows through ceilings of legs and sex hairs, black spirals of phantom assholes lifting and twisting like a Panhandle cyclone.

  UNIT I: WHITE: "You wanta screw me?" "I wanta screw you." Two marble white youths with identical erections stand on a white tile bathroom floor. The young faces sharp flash bulb of urgency fade-out stale empty of hunger. (Crystal flute music. The boys step from Attic frieze on Greek urns.)

  Tarnished pub mirrors of the gentle ghost-people, grey faded clubs under yellowing tusks of the beast killed by improbable hyphenated names. In bath cubicles and locker rooms shut for the summer white light bent over a chair—

  UNIT II: BLACK: "Bend over." As the white youth bends over turns brown then black. The other half drums on his back. The youths fade in obsidian mirror, smell of opium and copal.

  UNIT III: GREEN: "Loosen you up a bit." Black finger dips into green jelly. The finger turns green in rusty limestone with a slow circular pull, green boy of flexible green amber, bright lizards and beetles incrusted here and there, twists sighs out in jungle sound of frogs and bird calls and howler monkeys like wind in the trees, slow movement of rivers and forests cross the Drenched Lands.

  Vines twist through the boys smell of mud flats where sting rays bask in shallow canals brown with excrement sewage delta and coal gas swamps under orange gas flares and grey metal fallout.

  UNIT IV: RED: "Breathe in Johnny. Here goes." Red youths fuck bent over a brass bed in Mexico, feel through a maze of penny arcades and dirty pictures to the blue Mexican night, penis of different size, shape swell in
and out flicker faces and bodies burning flesh sparks from camp fires and red fuck lights in blue cubicles.

  UNIT V: BLUE: SILENCE. The two bodies merge in a blue sphere. Vapor trails cross a blue sky.

  Out on a blue wave high fi cool and blue as liquid air in our slate-blue houses wrapped in orange flesh-robes that grow on us.

  UNIT I: WHITE: The boys slow down to phallic statues. They fade out in old photos and 1920

  movies, hairs rub the exquisite toothache pleasure: "I wanta screw you." Flash bulb of urgency fade:

  "Loosen you up a bit." The finger turns green out in stale streets of cry.

  UNIT III: GREEN: The green boy of green flute music, worn amber with lizards incrusted and finger rusty sighs out in the spectral smell of birdcalls and howler monkeys like gentle ghost-people, slow movement of brown rivers. The boys in speed-up and barracks toilet smell of the mud flats and the white youths fuck brown with excrement under a static red sky. smell of subway dawns and turnstile, tarnished pub mirrors jungle sound of frogs, army of trees killed by the improbable hyphenated name, tendril movement in white light.

  UNIT V: BLUE: "The initiate awoke in other flesh the lookout different." Cool blue casual youth check Board Books of the world finger light and cold as Spring wind. Little high blue notes drift through slate-blue houses. Street gangs Uranian born in the face of appalling conditions. Fade-out in "Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin" down the flash funnel of copy faces out in summer dawn we made it in a smell of carbolic soap and rectal mucus, slow green tendrils through the hair and the purple fungoid gills breathe empty green house, plaintive monkey phallus on the grave of dying peoples, red mesas cut by a blue wind. Copper youths languidly masturbate, coming in puffs of blue smoke cross the translucent red stone buildings and copper domes of the city a white tooth sky cut with vapor trails, flash bulb of urgency train whistles fade in black finger and basement pot. cool blue light in stale streets of cry. In the hyacinths green boys of a green flute music sigh out birdcalls and howler monkey like: "You wanta screw me?" slow movement of rivers, the boy's unit green with shit smell of the mud flats. Jelly substance like excrement flares under static red sky. Like smell BED: "Breathe in Johnny. Here goes." Twisting over a brass bed in Mexico. The boys slow fucking shift old photos and 1910 movie of the two bodies, merge in blue smoke rings loosen you up out drift away slate-blue Northern sky water, limestone cave fades in blue drum of gentle ghost-people, draft youths with indentical erection in speed-up barracks orgasm, pub mirrors green fade movie club, under the faces improbable names, green boys formed the fuck drum message lights a blue flame inside phallus (boy ear, blue sky). The initiate awoke in the city of red stone different train whistle masturbate with fingers light as Spring smoke, cross road of the world the high blue domes of the city and blue children born in the face of white battle, bulb of urgency train war unit. Mr.

  Bradly cool blue down the flash funnel out in stale summer dawn smell, black drum talks mucus.

  The youths twist flowers and sewers of the world, drum puffs of paint flesh, "flesh diseased dirty pictures how long you want us to fuck very nice Mister? To cheat and betray us been sent?"

  We got to untalking on question studying the porch noise home from work used to be me Mister diseased waiting face return various bits and pieces of the picture: that he coin a "nice-guy-myth"

  the bastard dirtier than Coin Smell Dorm.

  "What you trying to unload on somebody Mister? radioactive garbage?"

  Where You Belong

  My trouble began when they decide I am executive timber—It starts like this: a big blond driller from Dallas picks me out of the labor pool to be his house-boy in a prefabricated air-conditioned bungalow— He comes on rugged but as soon as we strip down to the ball park over on his stomach kicking white wash and screams out "Fuck the shit out of me!"—I give him a slow pimp screwing and in solid—When this friend comes down from New York the driller says "This is the boy I was telling you about"—And friend looks me over slow chewing his cigar and says: "What are you doing over there with the apes? Why don't you come over here with the Board where you belong?"

  And he slips me a long slimy look Friend works for the

  Trak News Agency—"We don't report the news—We write it." And next thing I know they have trapped a grey flannel suit on me and I am sent to this school in Washington to learn how this writing the news before it happens is done—I sus it is the Mayan Caper with an IBM machine and I don't want to be caught short in a grey flannel suit when the lid blows off—So I act in concert with the Subliminal Kid who is a technical sergeant and has a special way of talking. And he stands there a long time chewing tobacco is our middle name "—What are you doing over there?—Beat your mother to over here—Know what they mean if they start job for instance?—Open shirt, apparent sensory impressions calling slimy terms of the old fifty-fifty jazz—Kiss then-target all over—

  Assembly points in Danny Deever—By now they are controlling shithouse of the world—Just feed in sad-eyed youths and the machine will process it —After that Minraud sky—Their eggs all over—

  These officers come gibbering into the queer bar don't even know what buttons to push—('Run with the apes? Why don't you come across the lawn?') And he gives me a long slimy responsible cum grey flannel suit and I am Danny Deever in drag writing 'the news is served, sir.' Hooded dead gibber: 'this is the Mayan Caper'— A fat cigar and a long white nightie—Nonpayment answer is simple as Board Room Reports rigged a thousand years—Set up excuse and the machine will process it—Moldy pawn ticket runs a thousand years chewing the same argument—I Sekuin perfected that art along the Tang Dynasty—To put it another way IBM machine controls thought feeling and apparent sensory impressions—Subliminal lark—These officers don't even know what buttons to push—Whatever you feed into the machine on subliminal level the machine will process

  — So we feed in 'dismantle thyself' and authority emaciated down to answer Mr of the Account in Ewyork, Onolulu, Aris, Ome, Oston—Might be just what I am look"—

  We fold writers of all time in together and record radio programs, movie sound tracks, TV and juke box songs all the words of the world stirring around in a cement mixer and pour in the resistance message "Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift lin-guals—Free doorways—

  Vibrate 'tourists'—Word f ailing —Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room."

  So the District Supervisor calls me in and puts the old white smaltz down on me:

  "Now kid what are you doing over there with the niggers and the apes? Why don't you straighten out and act like a white man?—After all they're only human cattle—You know that yourself—Hate to see a bright young man fuck up and get off on the wrong track— Sure it happens to all of us one time or another—Why the man who went on to invent Shitola was sitting right where you're sitting now twenty-five years ago and I was saying the same things to him—Well he straightened out the way you're going to straighten out—Yes sir that Shitola combined with an ape diet—All we have to do is press the button and a hundred million more or less gooks flush down the drain in green cancer piss—

  That's big isn't it?—And any man with white blood in him wants to be part of something big—You can't deny your blood kid—You're white white white—And you can't walk out on Trak—There's just no place to go."

  Most distasteful thing I ever stood still for—Enough to make a girl crack her calories—So I walk out and the lid blew off—

  Uranian Willy

  Uranian Willy the Heavy Metal Kid, also known as Willy the Rat—He wised up the marks.

  "This is war to extermination—Fight cell by cell through bodies and mind screens of the earth—

  Souls rotten from the Orgasm Drug—Flesh shuddering from the Ovens—Prisoners of the earth, come out—Storm the studio."

  His plan called for total exposure—Wise up all the marks everywhere Show them the rigged wheel

  — Storm the Reality Studio and retake the universe—The plan shi
fted and reformed as reports came in from his electric patrols sniffing quivering down streets of the earth—the reality film giving and buckling like a bulkhead under pressure—burned metal smell of interplanetary war in the raw noon streets swept by screaming glass blizzards of enemy flak.

  "Photo falling—Word falling—Use partisans of all nations—Target Orgasm Ray Installations—

  Gothenburg Sweden—Coordinates 8 2 7 6—Take Studio— Take Board Books—Take Death Dwarfs—Towers, open fire."

  Pilot K9 caught the syndicate killer image on a penny arcade screen and held it in his sight—Now he was behind it in it was it—The image disintegrated in photo flash of total recognition—Other image on screen—Hold in sight—Smell of burning metal in his head—"Pilot K9, you are cut off—

  Back—Back—Back before the whole fucking shithouse goes up—Return to base immediately—

  Ride music beam back to base—Stay out of that tune flak—All pilots ride Pan Pipes back to base."

  It was impossible to estimate the damage—Board Books destroyed—Enemy personnel decimated—

  The message of total resistance on short wave of the world.

  "Calling partisans of all nations—Shift linguals—Cut word lines—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways

  —Photo falling—Word falling—Break through in Grey Room."

  Gongs of Violence

  The war between the sexes split the planet into armed camps right down the middle line divides one thing from the other—And I have seen them all: The Lesbian colonels in tight green uniforms, the young aides and directives regarding the Sex Enemy from proliferating departments.

  On the line is the Baby and Semen Market where the sexes meet to exchange the basic commodity which is known as the "property"—Unborn properties are shown with a time projector. As a clear young going face flashes on the auction screen frantic queens of all nations scream: "A doll! A doll!