Book of Sketches Read online

push tout be

  dra man talisman

  eyes of the

  King of all the gangs

  & possible Prophets of

  the world, Littler is so

  amazed & what he could

  tell you this minute about

  Tall would fill 17 Visions

  of Codys 8500000

  pages of tight prose

  if he could only talk

  & tell it, in the shack

  what he done yesterday,

  the madness of his

  secret humor, fact,

  let Littler talk”: -

  “Why he in the

  bed mattress is the

  long black funny boy

  Sam I seen him

  tho a rock clear

  thu the smoke &

  had sixteen harmonicas

  in his eyes & in his

  eyes I seen Sixteen

  signs & he says ‘Boy,

  dear Lord, I’m seen

  the ghost agin last

  night & Paw come

  home & Howdie Doodie

  Television Show &

  Silvercup Bread & My

  Sister bought it &

  smile” — however

  one can do it, it is

  the Enormousness of

  the Universe that makes

  the Microcosm its tiniest

  unit even Enormous-er,

  — so 2 little Negro

  boys arm in arm on

  Saturday rainy afternoon

  contain in themselves

  the history of

  mankind if they could

  but talk & tell it

  all about themselves

  & what they done &

  if an observer could

  follow them around

  & see & judge the

  vastness of every tiny

  unit — Who knows

  the vast religiousness

  of that cloth cap

  when it shines radiant

  in the mind of the

  littler boy, or when

  grown up & ’s forgot

  Sam & gone 3,000

  miles to nothing the sudden

  memory of Great Sam

  (MY BOYHOOD PAL)

  will be as remembering

  the Angel of Heaven &

  All Hope,

  since dying

  GIRL IN LUNCHCART

  Girl in front of me

  with green sweater red

  lips gentle thin cold

  fingers at her hair &

  she’s explaining (at her

  high stiff hair like hairdos

  of Africa) explaining to

  girlfriend whose smile I

  see reflected in shiny

  mirror back of Jamaica

  Ave. Lunchcart Cash

  Register — 5 P M of

  an October afternoon, the

  young counterman unshaved

  goodlooking hangs around

  swaying & half smiling

  pretending to work with

  checks at that booth —

  Tired puff eyed Greek

  oldworker who spends

  Sat nites in Turkish

  baths of NY

  voyeuring Americans &

  heroboy queers of

  Lower 2nd Avenue comes in

  for big exciting afterwork

  meal of Chicken Croquettes

  with Sauce & will be

  here T’Giving day for big

  Turkey with works —

  sad to live, quick to

  eat, early to work,

  slow to sleep, long to

  die — Now so the

  girl uncaring of old men

  & pain has her fore finger

  against her temple

  while listening to other girl

  speak & therefore in

  nodding seriousness has

  ravelled all her eyebone

  skin up in a mask

  of ark ugly furrow

  destiny having no relation

  to the hazel glitter,

  the nutty mystery of

  her sweet eyes & suckkiss

  lips & long drawndown

  bosh flop face discontorted

  by further arrangements

  of leanface on palm —

  in her delicate edible

  ear a dull metal thing —

  her lips fully lipsticked

  & curved like Cupid &

  stain the coffee cup —

  her eye on her girlfriend

  cold, watchful, secretive,

  pretending to be curious,

  like she’ll make the

  parody-story of this

  gossip tonight in

  earwigging dreams in

  her fragrant thigh

  sheets! whee

  LATE AUTUMN afternoon,

  the birds are whistle-singing zeet

  feor in the dry tinder twig trees,

  they ‘fleet’ & in the general

  traffic (“Spr-r-e e e t”)

  rush on Atlantic Ave. & the double

  go ahead Diesel BOT - BOT in

  the LIRR yards they wait

  between calls as if, in the

  activity of their own afternoon,

  they had intervals too, time too

  & orders from the parchesi chess

  board to air conditioner machines

  of the Glum Window World

  make their little fluttery wait

  wake, leaves falling not even

  with you could hear the tick

  of their little fall on the concrete

  ground beneath which Indians

  lie ancestral bone by skull in

  tomahawk New York —

  the fishtail back end of

  some new car parked beyond

  the Eternity Porch (like the

  one in San Jose where I was

  so high at gray dawn I heard

  between the vibrating yowls of

  Neal’s baby the great rush

  of wave sounds wave on wave

  shuddering & Vibrating like one

  vast electric or bio electric

  or cosmic gravity “struay

  ill” — — zoongg —

  scared me & made me hear

  the moment moth sound of

  Time, good or bad old Time

  I’m in, and’ll write

  for — So now to

  “INDIANS

  IN THE

  RAILROAD

  EARTH”)

  — late afternoon Autumn in

  Long Island, the leaf slants

  down in the wind & hits the

  ground & bounces & goes ‘chuck’

  — as dry as that — the others

  already fallen lie heaped in

  chlorophyll green grass between

  driveway concretes — the

  sky has a rose tint in its

  gray demeanor — the leaves/rose brown yellow

  transparent/& like drunken poets emptying/

  uselessness in pages

  Never did try to get

  on a car via standing

  on a journal box except

  one time on a splintery

  flatcar & even then

  I was as helpless as

  a baby, one slack

  bang pop I’d have

  been as helpless as

  a bread bun rolling

  off to get run over

  & flattened in the

  middle & be toast

  by Fall — — —

  SAN FRANCISCO SKETCH (1954 now)

  America’s truck and car kick has

  made it place twin radio antennas

  on the last hill of hope overlooking

  the Pacific to the Orient Sea.

  Clouds of sorrow pass over and

  into a nameless blue opening beyond

  the storms of San Francisco. Lonely

  men with open collars an
d gray

  fedoras take long drear street

  walks where oil trucks turn into

  gray garage doorways at 2:30

  Sunday afternoon. Wash hopelessly

  flaps on the roofs of Skid Row

  where the great Proletariat has

  come to stake his claim, or

  claim his stake, one.

  Everything is taking place inside

  dark windows that have the

  quality of inky pools inside which

  white fish are swimming motionlessly

  across extended arm rests, now

  and then peeking out to take a

  quick look at the street, flapping

  grayed muslin curtains back to

  shield the furtive sorrow. Rain

  spats across the scene in a sudden

  shower from the tormented sky

  all radiant with sun holes and

  Frisco Gray and Black rain

  clouds radiating from the sea

  like a vast slow unfolding of

  its rainy tragedy where driving

  rains smash futilely on the

  blank waving void.

  Hopeless blue

  boxes intended for plants or

  for the outdoor coolness of

  Spreckels’ Homo Milk and

  8¢ cubes of Holiday Oleo-

  margarine, stick out from

  windowsills in and around what

  the City Managers call the “blighted

  area” that must be torn down

  within 5, or even 3, years. Dispossession

  and complete loneliness

  haunt the empty sidewalks in

  front of old stores for rent.

  In a tenement a little Negro

  girl in dumb thought at her

  mother’s sofa alone in the

  afternoon room reads “Hardened

  vegetable oils (soybean & cottonseed),

  skim milk, salt, monoglyceride,

  lecithin; isopropyl citrate (0-01%)

  to protect flavor, and vitamin

  A and artificial color added.

  2 oz. supplies 47% of adults

  and 62% of child’s minimum

  daily Vitamin A requirements,”

  from the cube of oleo paper

  and stares for 90 seconds in a

  Buddhist-like trance at the

  little ®(apparently meaning

  ‘registered’ trademark) at the

  side of the brand name

  Holiday, wondering if the

  little ® is meant to be a

  secret of the recipe not mentioned

  in the long paragraph, or a

  sign of some authority hidden

  behind the butter in a suit and

  briefcase withon it and

  ® on his Cadillac and he

  drives around with bulging eyes

  and a Texas Truman hat in

  the streets of the City.

  “I, poor French Canadian Ti Jean become

  a big sophisticated hipster esthete in

  the homosexual arts, I, mutterer to

  myself in childhood French, I, Indian-

  head, I, Mogloo, I the wild one,

  the “wild boy,” I, Claudius Brutus

  McGonigle Mckarroquack, hopper

  of freights, Skid Row habituee,

  railroad Buddhist, New England Modernist,

  20th Century Storywriter, Crum, Krap,

  dope, divorcee, hype, type; sitter in windows

  of life; idiot far from home; no

  wood in my stove, no potatoes in my

  field, no field; hepcat, howler, wailer,

  waiter in the line of time; lazy

  washed-out, workless; yearner after

  Europe, poet manquée; pas tough!

  stool gatherer, food destroyer, war

  evader, nightmare dreamer, angel

  be-er, wisdom seer, fool, bird, cocacola

  bottle — I, am in need of advice

  from God and will not get it, not

  likely, nor soon, nor ever — sad saha

  world, we were born for nothing from

  nothing — Respects to our sensitive

  Keeners up & down the crime.”

  O Melville! thy Soul

  Sustains me

  More than all the Buddhas

  That have passed

  With the water

  Under the Brooklyn Bridge

  NY

  Dont let your New York be modified &

  shrunken by local transitory dislikes (such

  as Tony Bennett-Laurels-bleak N.Y.) (in

  all this Applish Apple) — but the Liberté

  steaming in in brightgold afternoon, of

  the Daily News, 4 AM bars, Birdland,

  Jackie Gleason, Italian restaurants,

  5th Avenue, Lucien, Wolfe, Charley

  Vackner the race results, West St. water-

  front, Friday night fights in the TV saloon,

  the Columbia Campus in May, the Remo, hep-

  cats on corners bent, Pastrami at the Gaiety,

  an ice cream soda at midnight on Broadway,

  beautiful gorgeous blondes, brunettes, —

  But I hate the fumes of 34th St.

  A strange aura of masochism

  and even of homosexuality

  in Christian Catholicism

  — “He will give you a

  taste of joys & delights that

  transcend anything” — etc —

  . . . That’s the homosexuality . . .

  “praying to God to rid you of

  your desires and abase you thus”

  the masochism —

  Why?

  You cant beat the Tao —

  the Buddha — the Guru of

  the Far East — “and Jesus

  will make it easy” — Really

  my dear — Nothin’s easy.

  The difference between Merton

  and me, is, I didnt fall

  for the columbia jester

  TANGIERS 1957

  Blowing in an afternoon wind,

  on a white fence,

  A cobweb

  March wind from the sea — a lonely dobe house

  with red tiled roof, on a highway boulevard,

  by white garages and new apartment buildings

  in ruined field — everything in place in the inscrutable

  sunny air, no meaning in the sky and

  a girl running by coughing! It is very strange how

  the green hills are full of trees and white houses

  without comment. I think Tangiers is some kind

  of city. Man and son cross road, wearing

  green Sabbath fez caps, like papercup cakes

  good nuf to eat — I think I’m sposed to be

  alive — I dont see anything around — Drops

  of whitewash on this red concrete plaza with

  the whitewashed tower by the sea for

  Muezzins of the Sherifian Star — The

  other night, here, Arab bagpipes —

  Spring is coming —

  Yep, all that equipment

  For sighs

  ZOCO CHICO — TANGIERS —

  a weird Sunday in Fellaheen

  Arabland with you’d expect

  mystery white windows &

  do see but b God the broad

  up there in whiten

  my-veil is sitting & peering

  by a Red Cross, above a lil

  sign says PRACTICANTES

  Servicio Permanente

  TF NO.9766

  the cross being red — this

  is over a tobacco shop

  with luggage & pictures,

  a little barelegged boy

  leaning on counter with a

  family of wristwatched

  Spaniards — Limey sailors

  from the submarines pass

  trying to get drunker & drunker

  yet
quiet & lost in home

  regret & two little Arab

  hepcats have a brief musical

  confab (boys of 10) & they

  part with a push of arms

  & wheeling of arms, the cat

  has a yellow skullcap &

  a blue zoot suit

  I am now hi on

  MAHOUN

  MAHOUN

  Cakes of kief boiled with

  spices & candies —

  eaten with hot tea —

  the black & white tiles

  of the outdoor cafe

  are soiled by lonely

  Tangiers time — A

  little bald cropped

  boy walks by, goes

  to men at table,

  says “Yo!” then

  the waiter throws

  him out, “Yig” —

  A brown ragged robe

  priest sits with me at

  table, but looks

  off with hands

  on lap at brilliant

  red fez & red girl

  sweater & red boy

  shirt green scene

  RAILROAD BUFFET IN AVIGNON

  A priest who looks exactly

  like Bing Crosby but with a long gray beard,

  chewing bread, then rushes out, with beret and

  briefcase. . . . .

  PARIS SIDEWALK CAFE

  Now, on sidewalk in

  sun, the racket of going-to-work same as

  in Houston or in Boston and no better —

  But it is a vast promise I feel here, endless

  streets, stores, girls, places, meanings, I can

  see why Americans stay here — First

  man in Paris I looked at was a dignified

  Negro gentleman in a homburg — The human

  types are endless, old French ladies, Malayan

  girls, schoolboys, blond student boys, tall

  young brunettes, hippy pimply secretaries,

  beret’d goggled clerks, beret’d scarved

  earners of milk bottles, dikes in long blue

  laboratory coats, frowning older students striding

  in trench coats like Boston, seedy little

  rummy cops fishing thru their pockets (in

  blue caps), cute pony tailed blondes in high

  heels with zip notebooks, goggled bicyclists

  with motors attached, bespectacled homburgs

  walking reading Le Parisien, bushy headed

  mulattos with long cigarettes in mouth,

  old ladies carrying milkcans & shopping bags,

  rummy WCFieldses spitting in the gutter hands

  a pockets going to their printing shop for

  another day, a young Chinese looking French

  girl of 12 with separated teeth looking

  Like she’s in tears (frowning, & with a bruise

  on her shin, schoolbooks in hand, cute and

  serious like Mardou), porkpie executive

  running and catching bus sensationally