by Edward Dorn
kind a thousand miles long,
and then,
the voices of the unburied dead
and the satisfied symphony
of the truly dead,
along with the secret lurking
of the pure internal marks,
the passage of the pure week—
life turned into a seminar.
The periodic bruise,
the exiting of the blood to work,
the cell count, the inventory
of the shelf life, meaning
the life of the shelf, the tear count
the involuntary drip account
the measure of the mystery of what
remains of the life and times
of the victim, condemned but not delivered,
just the keeper of the count, slowly
joining the counter.
Chemo du Jour: The Impeachment on Decadron
On being offered a room of my own,
the chance to take some notes,
a television/VCR unit, some hot chocolate,
peanut butter crackers, sure, why not,
looking over the common room I’d heard that
collection of testimony—I opted for isolation—
a temporary suspension of my Mass Observation duties
and the chance to look over my recent notes
from Rome and to brood on the pallor
of the Spanish Steps and the moist brow
of Keats’s struggle to die, still palpable, almost
visible through the window of his somber room.
“. . . a week passed and two more days, and John
knew his dying day had come, yet to achieve death
might be a day’s hard labour. Severn held him
as if carrying him to the gate . . . To put off the world
outside—the children’s cries, snatches of song,
a cheeping sparrow . . . the sun streaking the door . . .
a bigger problem was to separate
himself from his body—. . .”16
The butterfly needle. The nurse patting the vein,
searching for a wall to carry the load of Decadron.
Decadron sharpens the senses
around the optic nerve and the neocortex,
enabling one to see through walls and into
the present—there goes the Pope, mobile as ever—
there goes the king home from Sloane Kettering
(yes of course it’s Mayo, the mayonnaise private pets)
to stave off a coup, then to be buried by a squadron of pilots
all wearing the same café Bohème headgear
and into the immediate past,
as the drip is connected to the pump I see W. J. Clinton
full humping St. Monicka panting in the pantry
I see D.C. people walking like negative ghosts
past the Casa Blanca,
I see the public petty ire as a bomb
in the garbage scow, sanctuary to an aborted
human baby, neo-natal trash from this trash social
structure, the product of the policy of Billy & Hilly,
this fetal thing wrapped like pisces in a copy
of the Washington Post, the voice of Babylon,
they wish, but instead nothing but
another methane burner
in a swamp of overpaid busybodies.
I see the slogan FORGIVENESS graffiti style
on the dirty side of the scow, I see Black African
American drive up in the Volvo disposal truck
and commence to onload the pizza engorged scow.
I see now FORGIVENESS crossed out and Repentance
scrawled below and that crossed off
and REMORSEFULNESS replace it before
my tightening optic nerve. The Nurse brings
more Carnation Hot Chocolate, Nestles rises
to the surface of the Third World pooling
over my brow, yea I am super into the steroidal
cognition of Decadron—this must be why athletes
do so much steriodal, to enhance their vision,
and their mammoth paycheck, and the graffiti-like scrawl
proclaiming MISERY rises to the surface of my cocoa,
and floats off on a raft of bubbles and lo, the Africans
drive off into the prozac shrouds of D.C.
past the security gate—through the window,
past the guard shack, hard by
the dim, futile unreality of the pantry.
And then, dear, sweet Bill and Santa Monica
give up the struggle to uncouple
and with a shrug go at it again. The saline drip,
bridging the chasm to Taxus17, Latin for the yew
bridges the chasm of my senses. The conductor
to the ionic connexion, which produces
the violent interface at the holy war
of the short haired puritans with
the screamers and shouters
and yellers and scoffers and pushers
of the media res—acquittal?! Forget Acquittal
or quitting of any kind—“I entered,
but I never came.”
Yet behold! I see W.J.
light up a beeg Stogy from Havana Viejo
and take a call from a Congress person,
while receiving joint rejuvenation from below.
I see him in the Taxol pooling over my brow
move his arky hand from the arm rest
to the Iraqi button and then my
supercharged vision bends and stabilizes
an image of a white woman’s severe
and Germanic demeanor in the Senate Well
Harold Ickes lied I see graffiti-like on the back
of the Volvogarbage collector vehicle plus
a list of renowned same-sex freaks whose names
cannot even be uttered.
The unit ponderously passes through the securigate
and way beyond, reflected in the surface
image collector of the steroid, the curvature of the earth
from the obscure Islet of Diego Garcia East of
the Arabian Peninsula an experimental
missile vibrates and flames and then launches
from the carrier, and Oh Good Lord, minutes later,
as the nurse strips away the Medusan tubes of my oncology,
American dumb missile arrives with punity
in the southern suburbs of Baghdad, ruined Cradle of Civilization,
just north of the Garden of Eden which looks, I must say,
rather abused and tacky now that Bill has had his way—
in the Celestial Light of public approval
And Lo now the Taxol infusion clears the atmosphere
where I see the Superbowl completely superseded
by the superblow, O yes, praise the Tree Lord,
now it is time to go.
The Dull Relief of General Pain—Oxycontin, Roxicodone and Codeine in General
If hundreds of thousands, perhaps
millions of people in North Korea
are succumbing to starvation,
if eighty-five percent of the country’s children
are malnourished, and in some towns
corpses line the streets and rumors of
cannibalism are rife, where’s Bob Geldof?—
are these people not the world?
Are they too late on the world’s stage?
Doesn’t Michael Jackson like children anymore?
Or did he never like communist children?
What’s going on? This is poetry calling!
Poetry is waiting for an answer.
17 January 1999
The Decadron, Tagamit, Benadryl and Taxol Cocktail Party of 1 March 1999
Weighed in at 144, slight loss
Anglo Saxon measure of about ten lbs.
underweight but on the gain
so I wished upon a
star
not about where you are, not about.
I’m wearing new Ariats
with a machine sewn fringe
the latest Chinese arrogance,
cowboy boots—indeed—
they’re light, and might account for
the missing pound,
the missing pound of flesh.
Blood pressure normal to perfect
as usual. My tumor is watching all this.
My tumor is hearing all this. My tumor
is interested in what interests me, and
she detests who and what I detest.
My tumor is not interested in what
or who I love,
My tumor is not interested in love,
no neoplasm is—the blind cells thereof
are not interested in love or affection,
she sends out little colonies, chipped genes
mark their crossing the river, they are
without variation, they keep time with terror.
She’s like Wittgenstein’s lunch, utterly invariable,
and, she’s like your own private third world
she arrives and breeds like guinea pigs,
evermore progeny and evermore food
and the priest cells
demand evermore progeny and then
they all demand independence and this
is in Your territory. But then I see her
puzzled misapprehension and know
what she can never anticipate when my spirit
will watch this Bitch burn at my deliverance
in the furnace of my joyful cremation.
White Rabbit
The bloodworker was in a bad mood
unreasonable as it would be
to imagine she enjoys her work
if she enjoys hurting you as
an aspect of not enjoying her work—
well, I’ll have to interview the alien
on that one. Sometimes I imagine it yawns.
Life for an alien is not any better
than it is for the subject. This fact
is rarely remarked.
The drawing method they use at this clinic
is a spring-loaded blade which slits
the side of the great or the ring finger
very fast, very painful but very brief
mercifully, sweet baby Jesus, very brief.
The bloodworker extracts the blood
with a series of short passes
over the slit,
the blood collects in the rounded
bottom of a small test tube.
Why do it this way rather than
sticking you with another needle?
Exactly, yet another needle
the whole affair is an attack on the veins
to get at the Alien and its migrating colonies.
Cancer is Catholic—it loves to
evangelize, and it will intermarry with anything
to claim the progeny.
I suppose I made a smart remark
as usual, my tongue has been
my genius and my downfall.
The nurse began to collect the specimen
with ever increasing pressure on the split flesh
I nearly fainted, but not a tear
fell from my lid, and not a throb shook my throat
until I’d left the collecting station
and then I shook and wept, and Jesus,
I’m sorry to say I hated that
bloodworker even despite the fact
that I knew she couldn’t help
what she had a great irresistable
need to do, to hurt me deeply
because I was a bearer of cancer.
We had saluted the day when
Jenny said WHITE RABBIT.18
I lay for a while trying to think
what would I wish for if such a genie
really delivered—a dismissal of the alien?
... no. There are wishes too complex to be granted.
I wished (and I’m not supposed to tell you this!)
I wished for a needle worker to
set up my infusion lines
without blowing a vein.
And lo and behold, into the
waiting room came a nurse
like on a half shell
except dressed in white
and led me to a small room
with a TV/video cassette port
which I’d never reached before.
Flawless butterfly insertion
uncomplicated, competent anchoring
I could have wept at my good fortune
but I didn’t, I thanked her
sincerely and asked for a V-8 juice,
I was even drinking it without enzymes.
And soon my vision tightened with Decadron
the first of the drips instilling you
with the fortitude to take the onslaught
of the now looming Taxol before
the sleepy-Alice-in-Wonderland
admixture of Benadryl and stomach
stiller Tagamet, oh wondrous day
Chemo day, Monday, and it must be
obvious to all in this era, obvious to all
telling the truth violates
your right to free speech
violates your expectation of credibility
and downright violates your plausibility
and your sanctity.
Telling the truth will greatly amuse your alien
if you got one.
The Invasion of the 2nd Lumbar Region
They came in spaceships
the size (i.e. dimension)
doesn’t matter
smaller than matter
no matter—submatter—
less than those breathlessly
small particles the
media bombardment
are always squawking about
2
A lone crow
on the high wire
flies north
crossing the first
skylight north
and then arc’d low
crosses the 2nd
flight now
skimming the bottom
edge of the frame
of time, the reminder
3
Torn loose from
the human fabric,
adrift in the human breeze
20 October 1999
The Garden of the White Rose
Lord, your mercy is stretched so thin
to accommodate the need
of the trembling earth—
How can I solicit even
a particle of it
for the relief of my singularity
the single White Rose
across the garden will
return next year
identical to your faith—
the White Rose, whose
house is light against the
threatening darkness.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Selected Publications: Poetry
The Newly Fallen, Totem-Corinth, New York City, 1962.
Hands Up!, Totem-Corinth, New York City, 1963.
From Gloucester Out, Matrix Press, London, 1964.
Geography, Fulcrum Press, London, 1965.
Idaho Out, Fulcrum Press, London, 1965.
North Atlantic Turbine, Fulcrum Press, London, 1967.
Gunslinger, Book I, Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1968.
Gunslinger, Book II, Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles, 1969.
Twenty-four Love Songs, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1969.
The Cycle, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1970.
Songs: Set Two, a Short Count, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1970.
Gunslinger, Book III, The Winterbook, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1971.
Recollections of Gran Apachería, Turtle Island Foundation, Berkeley, 1974.
Collected Gunslinger (with Book IV), Wingbow Press,
Berkeley, 1974.
Collected Poems, 1956-1975, Four Seasons Foundation, Bolinas, CA, 1975.
Manchester Square (with Jennifer Dunbar), Permanent Press, London, 1975.
Hello, La Jolla, Wingbow Press, Berkeley, 1978.
Selected Poems, Grey Fox Press, Bolinas, CA, 1978.
Yellow Lola, Cadmus Editions, Santa Barbara, CA, 1981.
Captain Jack’s Chaps—Houston/MLA, Black Mesa Press, Madison, WI, 1983.
Collected Poems, 1956-1983, 3rd Enlarged Edition, Four Seasons Press, San Francisco, 1984.
From ABHORRENCES, Limberlost Press, Boise, ID, 1989.
Gunslinger, 2nd Edition, with Intro. by Marjorie Perloff, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, and London, 1989.
ABHORRENCES, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, CA, 1990.
The Denver Landing, Uprising Press, Buffalo, NY, 1993.
High West Rendezvous, Etruscan Books, Buckfastleigh, South Devonshire, England, 1997.
Chemo Sábe, Limberlost Press, Boise, ID, 2001.
Way More West: New & Selected Poems, edited by Michael Rothenberg, Penguin, New York, 2007.
Selected Publications: Prose, Fiction & Essay
What I See in the Maximus Poems, Migrant Press, Ventura, CA, 1960.
Rites of Passage, Frontier Press, Buffalo, NY, 1965.
By the Sound, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1969.
The Shoshoneans, Wm. Morrow & Co., New York City, 1966.
Some Business Recently Transacted in the White World, Frontier Press, West Newbury, MA, 1971.
The Poet, The People, The Spirit, Talonbooks, Vancouver, 1976.
Roadtesting the Language: An Interview with Ed Dorn, by Steve Fredman, UC, San Diego, 1978.
Interviews, Four Seasons Press, San Francisco, 1980.
Views, Four Seasons Press, San Francisco, 1980.
By the Sound, New Edition with Intro. by author, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, CA, 1991.
Way West: Stories, Essays and Verse Accounts 1963-1993, Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, CA, 1993.