Book of Blues Read online

  with Lucien & Allen

  & Allied Angels

  In the Vast Manhattan

  Fish—

  O America!

  Songs!

  Poems!

  Altos! Tenors!

  Blow!

  (Poet is Dead)

  THUNDER

  Thunder makes a booming

  noise like windows

  Being hysterically quietly

  closed—

  So Papa fell down the stairs

  of time

  In spite of holy water

  And all yr mixed drinks

  in

  Eternity

  EMILY DICKINSON

  Ere so sober Emily

  Did New England sow

  With brooms of activity

  I’d the tree-rock spoken to.

  But it only said to me

  “This sleet’s crack

  You hear cracking my hide

  Is the voice of olden poets

  Not far from rocks of here

  Did their olden eyes

  On nature bestow blue

  —” I said

  “Ah Oh How So Sad.”

  I said—“And graves?”

  And I said “Darling

  Supposing it should

  To nature

  Suddenly occur

  To make unending poets

  Unendingly Blow”

  Nature Said: “Mean,

  I dont know what you

  Mean”—

  “Ah Nature, Ah Rock,”

  I cried, “Nobody’s Bone

  Has so suffused been,

  No burden of boredom

  Greater

  No love colder

  No love life less

  No grave nearer

  Always

  Than Ye Bard”

  ROSE

  “Ah Rose,” I cried,

  “Shine in the Phosphorescent

  Night.”

  BUG

  And to the little bug which am myself

  I said

  “Bug, lip, tip, tit of time,

  Try, take, take, flake, fly,

  Love is passing yr. cheekbones

  On the phosphorescent transparent

  wing

  Of Kafka’s cheese consuming

  Metamorphosed Bug”

  HORROR

  So then I saw horror,

  And I cried,

  “Horrer, leave me er lone.”

  Horrer-horror laid me bone

  By bone in a bag of dirt,

  I was broiled in the oven

  Of heaven in the silver foil

  Of Devil Jesus God

  Which is Yr Holy Trinity

  SMILES

  Smiles pull flesh from cheek

  Over pearls of bone

  And make the watcher see

  The quake of cream

  In eyes of stone

  ON TEARS

  Tears is the break of my brow,

  The moony tempestuous

  sitting down

  In dark railyards

  When to see my mother’s face

  Recalling from the waking vision

  I wept to understand

  The trap mortality

  And personal blood of earth

  Which saw me in—

  Father father

  Why hast thou forsaken me?

  Mortality & unpleasure

  Roam this city—

  Unhappiness my middle name

  I want to be saved,—

  Sunk—can’t be

  Won’t be

  Never was made to—

  So retch!

  WHEN OLD

  When I began to grow old

  And could feel my left arm

  numben

  And brain resisted hope,

  Will sat sleeping

  Energy thubbd exhausted

  in my eye

  And love fled me—

  When the worst news

  Was brought to me

  And I exulted to be alone

  Go die

  I had a vision of

  the saint

  Misunderstood & too tired

  to explain why

  And sweet intentioned

  in another day—

  Even Stanley Gould’ll

  go to heaven

  BOP

  Sweet little dop a la pee—

  Bit bit piano tip

  tinkle plips

  And smash prop brushes

  In the little numb moment

  um

  I KNOW

  I know that I cannot write

  verse

  But this is my beercan short

  line

  Book so bear with me

  invisible

  Reader and let me goof

  even

  When I’m sick & have no

  ideas

  GOD

  Sitting over our meanings

  Egomaniac God,

  Lonely slick & rain glint

  Also uses irritating us

  In the Real.

  HOPES

  Poetry doesnt know:

  The air conditioner

  Not in use in winter

  Is like my hopes—

  Half in, half out,

  Green on a whitewall,

  S’only good to cast

  A long shadow

  In the bleak street light

  TREE

  But a tree has

  a living suffering shape

  Is spread in half

  by 2 limbed fate

  Rises from gray rain

  pavements

  To traffic in the bleak

  brown air

  Of cities radar television

  nameless dumb &

  numb mis connicumb

  Throwing twigs the

  color of ink

  To white souled

  heaven, with

  A reality of its own uses

  TENORMAN

  Sweet sad young tenor

  Horn slumped around neck

  Bearded full of junk

  Slouches waiting

  For Apocalypse,

  Listens to the new

  Negro raw trumpet kid

  Tell him the wooden news;

  And the beat of the bass

  The bass—drives in

  Drummer drops a bomb

  Piano tinkle tackles

  Sweet tenor lifting

  All American sorrows

  Raises mouthpiece to mouth

  And blows to finger

  The iron sounds

  BOWERY BLUES

  For I

  Prophesy

  That the night

  Will be bright

  With the gold

  Of old

  In the inn

  Within.

  Cooper Union Cafeteria—late cold March afternoon, the street (Third Avenue) is cobbled, cold, desolate with trolley tracks—Some man on the corner is waving his hand down No-ing somebody emphatically and out of sight behind a black and white pillar, cold clowns in the moment horror of the world—A Porto Rican kid with a green stick, stooping to bat the sidewalk but changing his mind and halting on—Two new small trucks parked—The withery grey rose stone bu
ilding across the street with its rime heights in the quiet winter sky, inside are quiet workers by neon entablatures practicing fanning lessons with the murderous Marbo—A yakking blonde with awful wide smile is makking her mouth lip talk to an old Bodhisattva papa on the sidewalk, the tense quickness of her hard working words—Meanwhile a funny bum with no sense trys to panhandle them and is waved away stumbling, he doesnt care about society women embarrassed with paper bags on sidewalks—Unutterably sad the broken winter shattered face of a man passing in the bleak ripple —Followed by a Russian boxer with an expression of Baltic lostness, something grim and Slavic and so helplessly beyond my conditional ken or ability to evaluate and believe that I shudder as at the touch of cold stone to think of him, the sickened old awfulness of it like slats of wood wall in an old brewery truck

  Shin Mc Ontario with

  no money, no bets, no

  health, pauls on by

  pawing his inside coat

  no hope of ever

  seeing Miami again

  since he lost his pickles

  on Orchard Street

  and his father

  Stuhtelfedehred

  him to hospitals

  Of gray

  bleak

  bone

  drying

  in the moon

  that mortifies his coat

  and words sing

  what mind

  brings

  Bleeding bloody seamen

  Of Indian England

  Battering in coats

  Of Third Ave noo

  With no sense and their brows

  Streaked with wine sop

  Blood of ogligit

  Sad adventurers

  Far from the pipe

  Of Liverpool

  The bean of bone

  Bottle Liffey brown

  Far hung unseen

  Top tippers

  Of o cean wave.

  God bless & sing for them

  As I can not

  *

  Cooper Union Blues,

  The Musak is too Sod.

  The gayety of grave

  Candidates makes

  My gut weep

  And my brains

  Are awash

  Down the side of the

  blue orange table

  As little sneery snirfling

  Porto Rican hero

  Ba t ts by booming

  His coat pocket

  Fisting to the Vicinity

  Where Mortuary

  Waits for bait.

  (What kind of service

  Do broken barrels give?)

  O have pity

  Bodhisattva

  Of Intellectual

  Ra diance!

  Save the world from her eyebrows

  Of beautiful illusion

  Hope, O hope,

  O Nope, O pope

  _____

  Crowded coat ers

  In a front seat

  Car, gray & grim,

  Push on thru

  To the basketball

  *

  Various absurd parades—

  The strict in tact

  Intent man with

  Broken back

  Balling his suitcase

  Down from Washington

  Building in the night

  Passing little scaggly

  Childreyn with Ma’s

  Of mopey hope.

  —

  Too sad, too sad

  The well kept

  Clean cut

  Ferret man.

  *

  And the old blue Irishman

  With untenable dignity

  Beer bellying home

  To drowsy dowdy TV

  Suppers of gravy

  And bile—

  Wearing old new coats

  Meant to be smooth on youths

  Wrinkled on his barrel

  Like sea wind

  Infatuating sea eyes

  To thinkin

  Ripples & old age

  Are real.

  *

  Poor young husbandry

  With coat of tan

  Digging change in palms

  For bleaker coffees

  Than afternoon gloom

  Where work of stone

  Was endowed

  With tired hope.

  Hope O hope

  Cooper Union Hope

  O Bowery of Hopes!

  O absence!

  O blittering real

  Non staring redfaced

  Wild reality!

  Hiding in the night

  Like my dead father

  I see the crystal

  Shavings shifting

  Out of sight

  Dropping pigeons of light

  To the Turd World

  Enought, sad ones—

  False petals

  Of pure lotus

  In drugstore windows

  Where cups of O

  Are smoked

  Paddy Mc Gilligan

  Muttering in the street

  Just hit town

  From Calci bleak

  Ole Mop Polock Pat

  Angry as a cat

  About to stumble

  Into the movie

  Of the night

  Through which he sees

  M oo da lands

  Un seen

  Like waking in the night

  To transcendental Milk

  In the room

  —

  Sad Jewish respectable

  rag men with trucks

  And watchers

  Shaking cloth

  Into the gutter

  Saying I dunno, no, no,

  As gray green hat

  Sits on their heads

  Protecting them

  From Infinity above

  Which shines with white

  Wide & brown black clouds

  As Liberty Sun

  Honks over the Sea

  Sending Ships

  From inner sea

  Free

  To de rool york

  Pock Town of Part

  Shelf High Hawk

  Man Dung Town.

  Rinkidink Charley is Crazy.

  *

  Ugly pig

  Burping

  In the sidewalk

  As surrealistic

  Typewriters

  Swim exploding by

  And bigger marines

  Lizard thru the side

  Of the gloom

  Like water

  For this

  is the Sea

  Of

  Reality.

  *

  The story of man

  Makes me sick

  Inside, outside,

  I dont know why

  Something so conditional

  And all talk

  Should hurt me so.

  I am hurt

  I am scared

  I want to live

  I want to die

  I dont know

  Where to turn

  In the Void

  And when

  To cut

  Out

  —

  For no Church told me

  No Guru holds me

  No advice

  Just stone

  Of New Yo
rk

  And on the cafeteria

  We hear

  The saxophone

  Of dead Ruby

  Died of Shot

  In Thirty Two,

  Sounding like old times

  And de bombed

  Empty decapitated

  Murder by the clock.

  And I see Shadows

  Dancing into Doom

  In love, holding

  Tight the lovely asses

  Of the little girls

  In love with sex

  Showing themselves

  In white undergarments

  At elevated windows

  Hoping for the Worst.

  I cant take it

  Anymore

  If I cant hold

  My little behind

  To me in my room

  Then it’s goodbye

  Sangsara

  For me

  Besides

  Girls arent as good

  As they look

  And Samadhi

  Is better

  Than you think

  When it stars in

  Hitting your head

  In with Buzz

  Of glittergold

  Heaven’s Angels

  Wailing

  Saying

  We ve been waiting for you

  Since Morning, Jack

  —Why were you so long

  Dallying in the sooty room?

  This Transcendental Brilliance

  Is the better part

  (Of Nothingness

  I sing)

  Okay.

  Quit.

  Mad.

  Stop.

  ____

  MACDOUGAL STREET BLUES

  IN THE FORM OF 3 CANTOS

  *

  CANTO UNO

  The goofy foolish

  human parade

  Passing on Sunday

  art streets

  Of Greenwich Village

  Pitiful drawings of

  images on an

  iron fence

  ranged there

  by selfbelieving

  artists

  with no hair

  and black berets

  showing green seas

  eating at rock

  and Pleiades

  of Time

  Pestiferating at moon squid

  Salt flat tip fly toe

  tat sand traps

  With cigar smoking interesteds

  puffing at the

  stroll

  I mean sincerely

  naive sailors buying prints

  Women with red banjos

  On their handbags

  And arts handicrafty

  Slow shuffling

  art-ers of Washington Sq

  Passing in what they think

  Is a happy June afternoon

  Good God the Sorrow

  They dont even listen to me when

  I try to tell them they will die

  They say “Of course I know