Book of Sketches Read online

  bough bone of

  the bush-proper &

  shake to the wind with

  heavy weight & thru

  then see the pale

  day light in veins

  absorbed to suck

  blushing phosphor greens

  like chlorophyll

  — the one recently

  stillgreen deadleave

  dangling on a broken stem —

  East River

  The old blackgarbed

  watcher of cities sitting

  on the Live Oak Jim

  NewYork barge in the

  dry cool afternoon —

  watching tugs warp in

  finished excursion boats, river

  tankers, barges pass —

  his interest in the river,

  the names of Tug Captains

  & Excursion Steamer deck-

  hands, the arrival &

  departure of great

  ocean going orange masted

  like the Waterman

  Liberty today docked

  at Jack Frost Sugars

  across the river in L I City

  — This old guy, with

  whitefringe hair around

  baldspot but wearing his

  black soothat, sits on

  the bit on the swaying barge,

  smoking, — to him the

  city & the world is such

  a different thing as it is

  just across the Drive in

  Bellevue Hospital where

  in density of world interest

  now gloomy psychiatrists

  consult with patients &

  aint interested in the sun

  on the river, the free

  gulls floating in the

  sleepy tide, the

  gay littleboats,

  but in problems of

  marriage & emotional adjustment

  & all such dark,

  gloomy, indoor preoccupations

  & with such contempt for

  those like those on the

  river who dont interiorate

  with them in this Byzantine

  Vault of Mind Horror —

  the walls of Bellevue,

  dirty rosebrick grim beneath

  shining purities of clearday

  heaven, the ink of

  the windows, the soot

  darkness of the bars in

  the windows, the formidable

  mass & camp

  & hangup of the

  great structure — & only

  beyond, above the white

  clean modernisms of a

  new bldg. N.Y.U. Medical

  Science bldg. there rises

  the screwpoint phallus

  Empire State Building with

  his new TV French

  tickler on the end,

  clouds of lost hope,

  sweet, impossible, pass

  behind it high, there

  the interests of millionaire

  corporations high above

  the tangled human streets

  — old Live Oak Jim

  aint interested in but just

  the river & that

  Lehigh Valley barge

  with the 2 cuts of cars

  being loaded, meeting of

  railroad & seawater rail

  to railpoint in the

  actual workingman

  afternoon of the real

  world — And yet

  above all, the mystery,

  Live Oak Jim really is

  an old ex Bellevue

  mental patient, flipped

  in ’33, knows it well,

  has his back to it now

  in studies of his river,

  — now’s inside napping,

  his brother is a lawyer

  in the Empire State Bldg.

  Black Tanker

  Gloomy black tanker

  being tugged in, the gray

  superstructure as tho they

  hadnt in 10 years yet

  scraped the war paint

  camouflage off, the

  blue stack with white

  “T” — the black

  sinister hull, — “Michael

  Tracy” — deck gang

  chipping hatch covers

  upstood — stewards

  huddled at stern in

  idiot white, watching

  waters — “I’m

  gonna git drunk

  tonight!” In from

  Persian Gulf

  New York Panorama

  The UN Building with

  white marble side, little

  laddrs of workers strung

  up the side — Queensboro

  Bridge with archaic

  pinpoint boings & big

  superstructure with

  minute traffic & looking

  Chinese in the

  sod besoiled soot

  stained cleanpale

  lateafternoon sky —

  the river tide swells

  & is somber below

  the sad slow parade

  of truckforms & car

  insects inching to the

  Eternity — In Long

  Island City antique brewery

  red oldbuildings like

  Jamestown in 1752,

  steeples, wine red ware-

  house pier, orange clean

  stacks of ships —

  1837 written on a huge

  grim dirtybrick gallow-

  house nameless iron

  rack cluttered warehouse

  — lost unknown blood

  brick factories spewing

  smoke — behind them

  other smokes of further

  dim cement rack

  factories pale & vague

  as dawn in the pale

  worm of the sky —

  rosy clouds above — like

  off the coast of Manzanillo —

  Subway Sensations

  Smell of burnt nuts

  in the power of the

  car & the aromatic

  almond dusts of the

  tunnel — Growling

  whine of the shurry

  moveahead car as

  it balls from one

  station faster light-

  flashing to another

  till wasting the

  brakes crash to

  stop & the whine

  amid knocks &

  wheel bumps lowers, till

  the stop, the doors,

  the bump, the

  restless churry churry

  wurd wurd wurd of

  the power as it waits

  to resume — cars

  swaying, vestibule swaying

  — The switch

  point ta tap too boom

  like a song crossing

  another track on

  bumpy parts of

  track — The Mexico

  cafeteria tile of

  station walls — the

  start-up again, the

  growing whur of the

  power to fly another

  black halfmile with

  smashing crossings of

  posts & dark reelby

  of pipes, lights,

  concrete curbs, darkness,

  Egyptian mummy niches,

  — till the station

  again,

  the “Quick

  Relief Tums And

  Indigestion” sign

  MY MOTHER’S FRENCH CANADIAN SONGS

  TI SAUVAGE NOIR

  C’est un ti savage noir-e

  Noir tous barbouillez wish-té

  S’en vas’ t’ a la rivière

  C’éta pour se baigner wish-té

  Tou-ma-né-got-a-wilta

  wilta

  Tou-ma-né-gét-a-wilté

  wilté

  Manégé — wish-té

  De la premiere-e plonge

  Le savage a chanter wish-té

 
De la second-eplonge

  Le savage c’ai baigner wish-té

  Tou-ma-né-got-a-wilta

  wilta

  Tou-ma-né-gét-a-wilté

  wilté

  De la second-e plonge —

  Le savage s’ai baigner wish-té

  De la troixieme plonge

  Le savage c’est noyer wish-té

  Tou-ma-né-got-a-wilta

  wilta

  Tou-ma-né-gét-a-wilté

  wilté

  ÉLANCETTE (sung fast) (Caughnawaga Indian)

  Élancette me tonté (Song)

  Ma ka hi

  Ma ka haw

  Baisser

  Ma ka hi cawsette

  O bé go zo

  Ma gou sette-a

  BUTTER SONG

  Encore un ti coup

  Ça raidit toujours

  Vire la manivelle

  Mamoiselle

  Mam-selle-a

  Encore un ti coup

  Ça raidit toujours

  Vire la manivelle

  Mamoiselle

  Ç’est tous

  New York tenement

  window sill, they want to

  hold nature close to their

  lives, they have pathetic

  little pots with dead

  roots & stems — One

  tiny earthen pot sits

  in an asparagus can,

  its produce is 2 stems

  with dry dead leaves

  fawdling houseward &

  as tho falling in —

  Another clay pot

  has a completely just

  died green that has

  shot up & then

  down to die on the outside

  at the base of the pot

  the stem completely bent

  & despairing — Two nameless

  blackpainted tin cans,

  small ones, former frozen

  orange juice cans, with

  just dry white earth in

  em — A larger black

  can with nothing in it —

  A tiny new-shining clay

  pot with a little

  fwit hollow stalk

  like dead cornstalk

  sticking out — Another

  clay pot with a

  sprig of last Autumn’s

  dead leaves torn with

  a stem from some

  tree it would seem —

  One final jar with a

  kind of scallion looking

  green growth the only

  live thing in the sad

  window the sill of

  which is incredibly

  chipped dry slivery

  wood painted onetime

  sick blue — the

  window frame sick

  green — The inside

  wall bilious yellowish

  with stains — the

  outside wall of the

  building at that point

  out in the back alley

  a kind of stucco cement

  with gaps showing

  underneath concretes

  — the sill’s outer

  extremity is a slab of

  rock — Here in the

  hot dogday last days

  of August the windowsill

  hangs in bleary reality

  meaningless with cans

  & dry roots beneath

  an open unwashed windowpane,

  clutters of

  wrinkled huskleaf that

  suddenly jiggle in a

  breeze —

  The person who has it

  is off to work, his

  handiwork window in

  the great symphony of

  NY throws one mite

  little note into the

  general disharmonious

  irrationality of the

  world & its world city,

  as pathetic as a

  job, useless as tightlipped

  mute unhappiness

  of people rising on rainy

  Sunday afternoons to

  their further tasks of

  carrying the burden of

  time to a conclusion they

  cannot know & would

  not want to know

  if they knew — the

  junk in the window

  is like a young woman’s

  disappointed eyes on

  a rainy Sunday, in the

  draining dank gray room

  of tenement life, her

  sad feet shiftless, the

  hang of her thoughts,

  the angel of gray

  brooding reality, the

  Guardian Angel over

  her sorrow, over

  her little humilities

  as humble as clay pots,

  modest as dead

  stalks & fallen vines,

  — as strange & somehow

  pathetically sweet as

  those little frozen O J

  cans painted black

  by concerned hands

  in a moment of

  serious press-lip’d goof

  in this Open Void

  World forever so

  nostalgic with the voices

  of men

  singing

  for nothing & all lies —

  idealistic lies of love —

  “Men are tricky-tricksy”

  — D. H. Lawrence, a

  facetious Englishman who

  stumbled on a serious truth

  about love.

  “Yr. mainspring is broken,

  Walt Whitman.” —

  Whitman should have lived

  so long to hear an

  irrelevant English tubercular

  snarl thus at him as at

  a cocktail party in

  Manchester

  “The Mystery of the Open Road”

  or

  “The Road Opens”

  Great quote from D H

  Lawrence whom I just

  castigated & underestimated

  “Stay in the flesh. Stay in the

  limbs and lips and in the belly.

  Stay in the breast and womb.

  Stay there, O Soul, where you

  belong — ” D. H. Lawrence

  in “Studies in Classic

  American Literature”

  ... on Whitman ...

  The thing that eludes —

  the working walls of

  America, the dry yards,

  the nameless meeoos

  and micks you hear in

  the night as if cats

  were being bitten —

  The endless decision of

  streets.

  like when he waded thru

  that New Mexico flood &

  lay down soaking in a

  raw old gondola, trying

  to light fires, & the

  water all around the

  boxcars of the

  drag

  Bring Visions of Cody

  to Cowley

  Sunday Night TV

  Ed Sullivan looking at

  audience with big dumb

  nod as they applause

  young girl singer with

  sexy female laff —

  audience applauds as

  Ed inveigles them

  further, says “Tremendous

  job” — long-

  faced serious facing

  Sunday night millions

  as my mother in

  kitchen bends tongue on

  lips tying her garbage

  bags carefully from

  roll of strong brown

  twine, she pauses momentarily

  to see TV

  set from the side with

  an expression of

  skeptical peering curiosity

  — “T’s a

  Nigger?” when a

  baritone comes on, with

  huge voice, she

  comes up winding string,

  says, “S go
t a

  good voice huh?”

  as outside in America

  cars gleam dully in

  the August heatwave

  Sunday night of

  humidity no breeze,

  the trees hanging leaves

  still as stone, airplanes

  passing in the overhead

  Long Island softness &

  the Negro is singing

  “Because,” little mustache

  touching almost his nose

  as he says — “to

  me” — clasping hands

  to finish, little hanky

  in suitcoat —

  MY CAT

  Kittigindoo sits

  on his haunches on the

  cement drive in the

  shade turned half

  around listening — he

  now with pricking

  ears is looking up at

  house windows, eyes

  green & dissatisfied

  — when I call him

  he is in a

  trance looking strait

  ahead & his ears

  prick & he moves

  his little mouth —

  Sometimes he hangs

  his head & sulks with

  muscle neck, then

  yawns, then moves

  slowly tail a-

  poppin — He loves

  to eat & lick his

  chops & paws — He

  moves with the majesty

  of a gigantic tiger

  only to sit again,

  lick at his paw &

  look up — I wonder

  how he makes the

  afternoon, the day,

  the time of life

  & its whole long

  burden there with his

  tail & paw lickings

  & chest nibblings &

  cheek-diggings-with-

  foot & neck-workings

  with lowered tense

  body right paw

  supporting him — how

  he overcomes boredom

  & the burden of time

  even in his 8 year

  lifespan (which is

  so long).

  His isolateness in

  the world, the

  ripple afternoons —

  little shadows of

  windows at his

  soft white feet,

  the dumb pricking

  rueful realizations

  he has crossing the

  green span of his

  eyes & the lowered

  pause & male wonder

  of the Fall, the

  consternation of

  lookup, the chew

  on claws with gritting

  greek teeth, the

  long contemplative

  lick on long upheld

  back leg —

  The green eyed

  slit & stretch of

  forepaws & back

  up, y-a-w-w —

  Mangy, he keeps workin

  on that ear of death

  — I noticed in

  him seeds of mange

  last winter on my

  poetry desk (MAGGIE

  CASSIDY) — Now he