Nobody publishes a word that is not the cowardly robot ravings of a depraved mentality
the day of the publication of the true literature of the American body will be day of Revolution
the revolution of the sexy lamb
the only bloodless revolution that gives away corn
poor Genet will illuminate the harvesters of Ohio
Marijuana is a benevolent narcotic but J. Edgar Hoover prefers his deathly scotch
And the heroin of Lao-Tze & the Sixth Patriarch is punished by the electric chair
but the poor sick junkies have nowhere to lay their heads
fiends in our government have intended a cold-turkey cure for addiction as obsolete as the Defense Early Warning Radar System.
I am the defense early warning radar system
I see nothing but bombs
I am not interested in preventing Asia from being Asia
and the governments of Russia and Asia will rise and fall but Asia and Russia will not fall
the government of America also will fall but how can America fall
I doubt if anyone will ever fall anymore except governments
fortunately all the governments will fall
the only ones which won’t fall are the good ones
and the good ones don’t yet exist
But they have to begin existing they exist in my poems
they exist in the death of the Russian and American governments
they exist in the death of Hart Crane & Mayakovsky
Now is the time for prophecy without death as a consequence
the universe will ultimately disappear
Hollywood will rot on the windmills of Eternity
Hollywood whose movies stick in the throat of God
Yes Hollywood will get what it deserves
Time
Seepage of nerve-gas over the radio
History will make this poem prophetic and its awful silliness a hideous spiritual music
I have the moan of doves and the feather of ecstasy
Man cannot long endure the hunger of the cannibal abstract
War is abstract
the world will be destroyed
but I will die only for poetry, that will save the world
Monument to Sacco & Vanzetti not yet financed to ennoble Boston
natives of Kenya tormented by idiot con-men from England
South Africa in the grip of the white fool
Vachel Lindsay Secretary of the Interior
Poe Secretary of Imagination
Pound Secty. Economics
and Kra belongs to Kra, and Pukti to Pukti
crossfertilization of Blok and Artaud
Van Gogh’s Ear on the currency
no more propaganda for monsters
and poets should stay out of politics or become monsters
I have become monsterous with politics
the Russian poet undoubtedly monsterous in his secret notebook
Tibet should be left alone
These are obvious prophecies
America will be destroyed
Russian poets will struggle with Russia
Whitman warned against this ‘fabled Damned of nations’
Where was Theodore Roosevelt when he sent out ultimatums from his castle in Camden
Where was the House of Representatives when Crane read aloud from his prophetic books
What was Wall Street scheming when Lindsay announced the doom of Money
Were they listening to my ravings in the locker rooms of Bickfords Employment Offices?
Did they bend their ears to the moans of my soul when I struggled with market research statistics in the Forum at Rome?
No they were fighting in fiery offices, on carpets of heartfailure, screaming and bargaining with Destiny
fighting the Skeleton with sabres, muskets, buck teeth, indigestion, bombs of larceny, whoredom, rockets, pederasty,
back to the wall to build up their wives and apartments, lawns, suburbs, fairydoms,
Puerto Ricans crowded for massacre on 114th St for the sake of an imitation Chinese-Moderne refrigerator
Elephants of mercy murdered for the sake of an Elizabethan birdcage
millions of agitated fanatics in the bughouse for the sake of the screaming soprano of industry
Money-chant of soapers – toothpaste apes in television sets – deodorizers on hypnotic chairs –
petroleum mongers in Texas – jet plane streaks among the clouds –
sky writers liars in the face of Divinity – fanged butchers of hats and shoes, all Owners! Owners! Owners! with obsession on property and vanishing Selfhood!
and their long editorials on the fence of the screaming negro attacked by ants crawled out of the front page!
Machinery of a mass electrical dream! A war-creating Whore of Babylon bellowing over Capitols and Academies!
Money! Money! Money! shrieking mad celestial money of illusion! Money made of nothing, starvation, suicide! Money of failure! Money of death!
Money against Eternity! and eternity’s strong mills grind out vast paper of Illusion!
Death News
Visit to W.C. W. circa 1957. poets Kerouac Corso Orlovsky on sofa in living room inquired wise words, stricken Williams pointed thru window curtained on Main Street, ‘There’s a lot of bastards out there!’
Walking at night on asphalt campus
road by the German Instructor with Glasses
W.C. Williams is dead he said in accent
under the trees in Benares; I stopped and asked
Williams is Dead? Enthusiastic and wide-eyed
under the Big Dipper. Stood on the Porch
of the International House Annex bungalow
insects buzzing round the electric light
reading the Medical obituary in Time.
‘out among the sparrows behind the shutters’
Williams is in the Big Dipper. He isn’t dead
as the many pages of words arranged thrill
with his intonations the mouths of meek kids
becoming subtle even in Bengal. Thus
there’s a life moving out of his pages; Blake
also ‘alive’ thru his experienced machines.
Were his last words anything Black out there
in the carpeted bedroom of the gabled wood house
in Rutherford? Wonder what he said,
or was there anything left in realms of speech
after the stroke & brain-thrill doom entered
his thoughts? If I pray to his soul in Bardo Thodol
he may hear the unexpected vibration of foreign mercy.
Quietly unknown for three weeks; now I saw Passaic
and Ganges one, consenting his devotion,
because he walked on the steeley bank & prayed
to a Goddess in the river, that he only invented,
another Ganga-Ma. Riding on the old
rusty Holland submarine on the ground floor
Paterson Museum instead of a celestial crockodile.
Mourn O Ye Angels of the Left Wing! that the poet
of the streets is a skeleton under the pavement now
and there’s no other old soul so kind and meek
and feminine jawed and him-eyed can see you
What you wanted to be among the bastards out there.
A Vow
I will haunt these States
with beard bald head
eyes staring out plane window,
hair hanging in Greyhound bus midnight
leaning over taxicab seat to admonish
an angry cursing driver
hand lifted to calm
his outraged vehicle
that I pass with the Green Light of common law.
Common Sense, Common law, common tenderness & common tranquillity
our means in America to control the money munching war machine, bright lit industry
everywhere digesting forests & excreting soft pyramids of
newsprint, Redwood and Ponderosa patriarchs
silent in Meditation murdered & regurgitated as smoke,
sawdust, screaming ceilings of Soap Opera,
thick dead Lifes, slick Advertisements
for Gubernatorial big guns
burping Napalm on palm rice tropic greenery.
Dynamite in forests,
boughs fly slow motion
thunder down ravine,
Helicopters roar over National Park, Mekong Swamp,
Dynamite fire blasts thru Model Villages,
Violence screams at Police, Mayors get mad over radio,
Drop the Bomb on Niggers!
drop Fire on the gook China
Frankenstein Dragon
waving its tail over Bayonne’s domed Aluminum oil reservoir!
I’ll haunt these States all year
gazing bleakly out train windows, blue airfield
red TV network on evening plains,
decoding radar Provincial editorial paper message,
deciphering Iron Pipe laborers’ curses as
clanging hammers they raise steamshovel claws
over Puerto Rican agony lawyers’ screams in slums.
Mugging
I
Tonite I walked out of my red apartment door on East tenth street’s dusk –
Walked out of my home ten years, walked out in my honking neighborhood
Tonite at seven walked out past garbage cans chained to concrete anchors
Walked under black painted fire escapes, giant castiron plate covering a hole in ground
– Crossed the street, traffic lite red, thirteen bus roaring by liquor store, past corner pharmacy iron grated, past Coca Cola & My-Lai posters fading scraped on brick
Past Chinese Laundry wood door’d, & broken cement stoop steps For Rent hall painted green & purple Puerto Rican style
Along E. 10th’s glass splattered pavement, kid blacks & Spanish oiled hair adolescents’ crowded house fronts –
Ah, tonite I walked out on my block NY City under humid summer sky Halloween,
thinking what happened Timothy Leary joining brain police for a season?
thinking what’s all this Weathermen, secrecy & selfrighteousness beyond reason – F.B.I, plots?
Walked past a taxicab controlling the bottle strewn curb –
past young fellows with their umbrella handles & canes leaning against ravaged Buick
– and as I looked at the crowd of kids on the stoop – a boy stepped up, put his arm around my neck
tenderly I thought for a moment, squeezed harder, his umbrella handle against my skull,
and his friends took my arm, a young brown companion tripped his foot ’gainst my ankle –
as I went down shouting Om Ah Hūm to gangs of lovers on the stoop watching
slowly appreciating, why this is a raid, these strangers mean strange business
with what – my pockets, bald head, broken-healed-bone leg, my soft-shoes, my heart –
Have they knives? Om Ah Hūm – Have they sharp metal wood to shove in eye ear ass? Om Ah Hūm
& slowly reclined on the pavement, struggling to keep my woolen bag of poetry address calendar & Leary-lawyer notes hung from my shoulder
dragged in my neat orlon shirt over the crossbar of a broken metal door
dragged slowly onto the fire-soiled floor an abandoned store, laundry candy counter 1929 –
now a mess of papers & pillows & plastic covers cracked cockroach-corpsed ground –
my wallet back pocket passed over the iron foot step guard
and fell out, stole by God Muggers’ lost fingers, Strange –
Couldn’t tell – snakeskin wallet actually plastic, 70 dollars my bank money for a week,
old broken wallet – and dreary plastic contents – Amex card & Manf. Hanover Trust Credit too – business card from Mr. Spears British
Home Minister Drug Squad – my draft card – membership ACLU & Naropa Institute Instructor’s identification
Om Ah Hūm I continued chanting Om Ah Hūm
Putting my palm on the neck of an 18 year old boy fingering my back pocket crying ‘Where’s the money’
‘Om Ah Hūm there isn’t any’
My card Chief Boo-Hoo Neo American Church New Jersey & Lower East Side
Om Ah Hūm – what not forgotten crowded wallet – Mobil Credit, Shell? old lovers addresses on cardboard pieces, booksellers calling cards –
– ‘Shut up or we’ll murder you’ – ‘Om Ah Hūm take it easy’
Lying on the floor shall I shout more loud? – the metal door closed on blackness
one boy felt my broken healed ankle, looking for hundred dollar bills behind my stocking weren’t even there – a third boy untied my Seiko Hong Kong watch rough from right wrist leaving a clasp-prick skin tiny bruise
‘Shut up and we’ll get out of here’ – and so they left,
as I rose from the cardboard mattress thinking Om Ah Hūm didn’t stop em enough,
the tone of voice too loud – my shoulder bag with 10,000 dollars full of poetry left on the broken floor –
2 November 1974
II
Went out the door dim eyed, bent down & picked up my glasses from step edge I placed them while dragged in the store – looked out –
Whole street a bombed-out face, building rows’ eyes & teeth missing
burned apartments half the long block, gutted cellars, hallways’ charred beams
hanging over trash plaster mounded entrances, couches & bedsprings rusty after sunset
Nobody home, but scattered stoopfuls of scared kids frozen in black hair
chatted giggling at house doors in black shoes, families cooked For Rent some six story houses mid the street’s wreckage
Nextdoor Bodega, a phone, the police? ‘I just got mugged’ I said
to man’s face under fluorescent grocery light tin ceiling –
puffy, eyes blank & watery, sickness of beer kidney and language tongue
thick lips stunned as my own eyes, poor drunken Uncle minding the store!
O hopeless city of idiots empty staring afraid, red beam top’d car at street curb arrived –
‘Hey maybe my wallet’s still on the ground got a flashlight?’
Back into the burnt-doored cave, & the policeman’s grey flashlight broken no eyebeam –
‘My partner all he wants is sit in the car never gets out Hey Joe bring your flashlight –’
a tiny throwaway beam, dim as a match in the criminal dark
‘No I can’t see anything here’…‘Fill out this form’
Neighborhood street crowd behind a car ‘We didn’t see nothing’
Stoop young girls, kids laughing ‘Listen man last time I messed with them see this –’
rolled up his skinny arm shirt, a white knife scar on his brown shoulder
‘Besides we help you the cops come don’t know anybody we all get arrested
go to jail I never help no more mind my business everytime’
‘Agh!’ upstreet think ‘Gee I don’t know anybody here ten years lived half block crost Avenue C
and who knows who?’ – passing empty apartments, old lady with frayed paper bags
sitting in the tin-boarded doorframe of a dead house.
10 December 1974
James Merrill 1926–95
The Broken Home
Crossing the street,
I saw the parents and the child
At their window, gleaming like fruit
With evening’s mild gold leaf.
In a room on the floor below,
Sunless, cooler – a brimming
Saucer of wax, marbly and dim –
I have lit what’s left of my life.
I have thrown out yesterday’s milk
And opened a book of maxims.
The flame quickens. The word stirs.
Tell me, tongue of fire,
That you and I are as real
At least a
s the people upstairs.
My father, who had flown in World War I,
Might have continued to invest his life
In cloud banks well above Wall Street and wife.
But the race was run below, and the point was to win.
Too late now, I make out in his blue gaze
(Through the smoked glass of being thirty-six)
The soul eclipsed by twin black pupils, sex
And business; time was money in those days.
Each thirteenth year he married. When he died
There were already several chilled wives
In sable orbit – rings, cars, permanent waves.
We’d felt him warming up for a green bride.
He could afford it. He was ‘in his prime’
At three score ten. But money was not time.
When my parents were younger this was a popular act:
A veiled woman would leap from an electric, wine-dark car
To the steps of no matter what – the Senate or the Ritz Bar –
And bodily, at newsreel speed, attack
No matter whom – Al Smith or José Maria Sert
Or Clemenceau – veins standing out on her throat
As she yelled War mongerer! Pig! Give us the vote!,
And would have to be hauled away in her hobble skirt.
What had the man done? Oh, made history.
Her business (he had implied) was giving birth,
Tending the house, mending the socks.
Always that same old story –
Father Time and Mother Earth,
A marriage on the rocks.
One afternoon, red, satyr-thighed
Michael, the Irish setter, head
Passionately lowered, led
The child I was to a shut door. Inside,
Blinds beat sun from the bed.
The green-gold room throbbed like a bruise.
Under a sheet, clad in taboos
Lay whom we sought, her hair undone, outspread,
And of a blackness found, if ever now, in old
Engravings where the acid bit.
I must have needed to touch it
Or the whiteness – was she dead?
Her eyes flew open, startled strange and cold.
The dog slumped to the floor. She reached for me. I fled.
Tonight they have stepped out onto the gravel.
The party is over. It’s the fall
Of 1931. They love each other still.
She: Charlie, I can’t stand the pace.
He: Come on, honey – why, you’ll bury us all!
The Penguin Book of American Verse Page 42