Book of Sketches Read online

  deadbone & wreaths

  it purple, softens it,

  gives it a juicier

  (THE WOODS ARE SHINING)

  sound in the wind,

  droops it, embraces

  it, gives it the

  Autumn kiss for

  harvest stack farewell

  — old Melancholy Frowse

  is wound round in

  Carolina in the

  Morning —

  The piercing blue of

  the first Autumn

  day, the woods

  are shining, the

  Nor’east wind making

  ripples in the

  flooded tarns — all

  is lovely this Sunday morn.

  The Weeping Willow

  no longer hangs but

  waves ten thousand

  goodbyes in the

  direction of the wind

  — The clean

  little tele. pole without

  crossbars stands lost

  in Carolina vegetations,

  some of the corn half

  its height, & that

  lush forest of

  Carolina backs it

  solemnly & with

  a promise — that

  was here for boys killed

  in Palau in 1944, boys —

  that had sisters who

  yet mourn this Sun.

  morning — hope

  that was there for

  the strange Cherokee

  — & now for me

  that wanders round

  my earth — amen.

  Sitting in the middle

  of the woods with

  Little Paul, Princey

  & Bob — Little foxy

  Prince sits panting

  — big mosquitos —

  Big Bob panting

  hard, tongue out,

  licks his mouth,

  blinks eye, big

  tongue flapping over

  sharp teeth —

  drooling — Pine

  needle floor is

  brown, dry cracky

  odorless —

  blue sky

  is sieve above

  tangled dry

  vining green heart

  leafing trunking

  cobwebbing —

  now & then sway

  massedly in upper

  winds — Sun

  makes joy gold

  spots all over

  The sand road

  is blinding old —

  many gnats —

  cars raise storms

  of dust — wind

  sways grass

  in ditch ridges —

  straight thinpines

  stand in vaulty

  raw blue, clean —

  Negroboys bike

  by smiling —

  Princey’s little

  wet nose —

  no more — no more —

  Oh Princey, Bob,

  Little Paul, woods

  of Easonburg, no more

  — (freedom of

  the blue cities calls

  me.)

  SHORT TIC SKETCHES (TICS ARE FLASHES OF MEMORY OR DAYDREAM)

  (1) Hartford — when I was

  a boy poet & wrote

  for myself — no

  frantic fear of “not

  being published,” but

  the joy, the shining

  morning, “This love

  of mine” — leaves,

  houses, Autumn — and

  Immortality

  (2) Hospital, 1951, letting

  the images overwhelm

  me, not rushing out

  to lasso them &

  getting all pooped

  out — NOW Coach

  (3) Oh when I was young &

  had a pretty little Edie

  in bright lavender

  sweater to hug to

  me — big breasts, thighs

  warm, bending-to-me waist,

  — now I’m cold as

  the moon . . . no more women

  for puffy-eyed Jack —

  who once posed in a

  button-down boy sweater

  for a picture — When —

  O when, reading the N.Y.

  Times, he thought he

  was learning everything —

  & has learned but decay

  only — & sadness of partings —

  (4) Mr Whatsisname

  in beat ragged coat

  in r.r. office, has same

  haggard anxious soulneglected

  sorrow as

  he searches among

  ledgers, mouth open,

  as my father in his

  shop of old yore —

  with glasses on

  nose, blue eyes, —

  O doom, death,

  come get me! I cannot

  live but to remember

  — old puff lined

  Jack, go put a

  poor blanket of

  dirt over your

  noble nose.

  Last night, under the

  stars, I saw I belonged

  among the big poets

  (did I read that somewhere?)

  (5) Raw, almost childlike

  slowmotion dinosaur

  ideas of 1947

  bop on So. Main

  L.A. — “You Came

  To Me From out of

  Nowhere” — The

  ideas of serious basic

  thinkers, young, energetic,

  powerful — joy comes

  from the really new —

  Bird was like that, but

  more & most complex

  Be like Bird, find y.self

  little story tunes to

  string yr. complexities

  along a wellknown line

  or you will sound like

  a crazy Tristano of

  the Seymour-record

  (Bartok — Bar Talk)

  ( Bela BarTalk)

  — Bird has visions between

  bridges — So do you

  in visions between chapter

  lines — — !!!

  Shakespeare, Giroux’s

  Shakespeare Opera

  Books — simple — not

  that simple but use

  story-forms — or phooey,

  do what you please —

  Never will be bored in the

  bottom — at the hut, the

  secret room, the weed,

  the mind — the daVinci

  series —

  I was in my mother’s

  house, in winter — I was

  writing “The Sea is My

  Brother” — what have

  I learned since then?

  I have written Doctor

  Sax since last prattling

  like this —

  NEAR SANDY CROSS N.C.

  Quiet shady

  sand road at

  late afternoon, a

  crick pool-like

  & ripple reflecting

  & brown with

  froth spit motionless,

  & exotic

  underwater leaves,

  & tangled jungly

  banks under dry

  old board bridge

  — vined sides of it

  — a wild claw

  tree protruding from

  silent greeneries —

  with 12 agonies

  of fingers, & one

  twisted guilty body,

  the weatherbeaten bark

  as clean as a

  woman’s good thigh,

  with a climb of

  vines on it — The

  brown & tragic

  cornfield shining in

  the late sun up the

  road — The clearing,

  the negros, the

  flu barn, the white

  horse nibbling —

  Coca Cola sign at

  the lonely golden

  lit
tle bend — a cricket

  I got up this road

  into my Maturity

  And what will that

  corn do for you?

  — will it soothe you

  & put you to bed

  at night? Will

  it call yr name

  when winter blows?

  Or will it just

  mock the bones

  of yr. skeleton,

  when August

  browning breaks

  its Silence camp,

  & blows —

  Immortality just

  passed over me

  — in these woods

  — as it cooled —

  & darked — at

  6 PM —

  The Angel visited me &

  told me to go on

  THESE Mornings in A.C.L.

  office will be remembered

  as happy — the visionary

  tics, the dreams, the delicate

  sensations — must be

  that way on the road

  of rock & rail.

  Repeat — let it come

  to you, dont run after it

  — It would be and is like

  running after sea waves —

  to embrace them up where

  you stand when you catch

  them — aïe —

  TICS

  The long dismal winter

  street where I’d go to see

  Grace Buchanan — & Mary —

  (The prophet is without

  honor in his own family.)

  A “tic” is a sudden thought

  that inflames & immediately

  disappears —

  The Indians see a Little

  Cloud a Shining Traveller

  in the Blue Sky

  TIC

  The yard with the

  brothers & dogs in the

  rickety back of Ozone

  Park back of Aqueduct track

  — Why’ is it have to be Kentucky?

  The Time-type executive

  — “Ahuh, — yeah —

  That would be about

  500 kegs a month —

  Well alright if

  that takes care of

  yr situation thats

  what they want I

  expect — Yeah —

  hm — We’ll try to do

  that this afternoon

  — anything you want

  just holler — ah huh —

  — bye — same to

  you” — click —

  TICS

  O fogs of South City,

  the rumble of the drag,

  outside, chicory coffee,

  the doom-wind-sheds

  of Armour & Swift —

  waybills in the Night —

  the clean mystery

  of California — these

  sensations — Why makes

  it me shudder to remember,

  if it aint hanted —

  The exams in University

  Gym — Bill Birt, morning —

  those smells, sensations,

  rise to me from just

  standing at requisition

  shelf where fresh paint

  & cool breeze blow — usually

  rouses Frisco RR work —

  Why? — if not hanted,

  charged materially with

  substances that are

  locked in (and as

  Proust says waiting to be

  unlocked.) Ah I’m

  happy — Yet it’s only

  11:30 & Time Crawls —

  & I’m so sick of the

  burden time, everything’s

  already happened, why

  not happen all at

  once, the charge in

  one shot —

  Old clerk to other old

  clerk — 25 yrs. same

  place — “What are you

  today, Columbus?” —

  as he searches lost ledger

  — Sad? It’s abominable

  — The names of old

  lost Bigleaguers Cudworth

  used to paste in his books —

  1934, 1933 — Dusty Cooke,

  lost names — lost suns —

  as more sad than rain —

  — those 2 men drinking

  at the old bar on Third

  & alley — old Meeks

  Bar 1882 — why do I think

  of them? — Pa & Charley

  Morrissette spectralizing

  Frisco-Lowell —

  ROCKY MOUNT oldstreet

  with 90 year old Buffalo

  Bill housepainter spitting

  brown ’bacca juice on

  roof, — & younger painter

  who heartbreakingly white-

  washes that part near the

  porch reminds me of poor

  lost Lowell — And old

  lady sewing little boy

  bluepants on historic

  porch breaks my heart —

  & old black bucket &

  fire in negroyard & little

  gal in scrabble reminds

  me Mexico & the Fella-

  heen peoples I love —

  for old retired couple on

  that porch aint just

  sittin in the sun, sit

  in judgment & Western

  hatred — not all

  of em —

  I am alone

  in Eternity with my Work

  For

  as I sat on the

  burnt out stump on

  the Concord River bank

  staring into the flawless

  blue & thinking of

  earth as a stain,

  suddenly I realized

  the utter absurdity of

  my squatting assy

  humanity too, the

  infinitely empty

  crock of form, like

  suddenly hearing myself

  sneeze in the quiet

  Street night & it

  sounds like somebody

  else — Therefore, is

  my pelvic ambition

  for girl’s bone-cover

  the True Me? — or

  is it not, like the

  sneeze & the ass,

  absurd, like the

  smell of the shit

  of a saint

  THE GREAT FALL is

  rumbling in America —

  in back of the Telephone

  office in R.M. you

  can see it in the profounder

  blue of the late aft sky

  as seen from among

  the downtown Southern

  redbricks — in the

  brown tips of leaves

  on trees over the garage

  wall — The wholesale

  hardware wall — in the

  particular cold deep red

  that has suddenly

  come into the tobacco

  warehouse roof with

  its spotted loft-

  windows — inside,

  faintly in the

  brown like Autumn tobacco

  brown, the piles

  of bacco baskets —

  Here watching Paul’s car I

  sit — poised for the

  continent again, Aug. 27 ’52

  And in San Jose the

  Great Fall is tangled

  brown among the

  greens of sun valley

  trees, deep shadows

  of morning make the

  woodfence black

  against the golden

  flares of sere grass —

  California is always

  morning, sun, & shade

  — & clean —

  lovely motionless green

  leaves — vague

  plaster rocks lost in

  fields — the dazzling

  white sides of houses

  seen thru the tangly

  glade branches —

  the dry sole
mn ground

  of California fit for

  Indians to sleep on

  — the cardboard

  beds of hoboes along

  the S.P. track up at

  Milpitas — & the

  clean blue deep

  night at Permanente,

  the dogs barking under

  clear stars, the

  locomotive flares

  his big hot orange

  fire on sleeping

  houses in the glade

  — sweet California —

  memories of Marin

  & the California night

  are true & real —

  & were right

  And then I went

  South to Mexico

  And then I went North

  to New York

  To New York, to the

  Apple, New York

  (Remember, this isnt chronological)

  Mexico December ’52

  Plant without growth

  in Vegetable bleakness

  The thirst, the mournfulness

  The terrible benzedrine

  depression after big

  night of drinking on

  Organo St. with

  La Negra & the

  courtdancer queer

  children after whore

  sluffed me & I lost

  brakeman’s lantern,

  French dictionary,

  earmuff hat, money,

  pages of writing,

  left piss in my

  new pots & walked

  off — long rides

  in perfect Mexico

  on bus, sad — but

  at Tamazunchale

  begin to feel good &

  see Kingdoms & homes

  & heavy syrup air

  of jungle —

  & at Brownsville

  Missouri Pacific bus — &

  then VICTORIA

  “SIRONIA” —

  my walk — miss’t

  bus — saw Xmas

  in rose brown

  r.r. track

  windows —

  Sweet stars —

  presaging months

  in Winter 1953

  Richmond Hill at

  Ma’s house writing

  gemlike

  LOVE

  IS

  SIXTEEN

  After which flew

  back to Coast to

  work mountains

  at San Luis Obispo

  puttin up & down

  pops — ending I

  sail out the Golden

  Gate on a Japan

  bound freighter that

  first goes to New

  Orleans where I

  drink & take off

  (“Worlds Champion

  shipjumper,” says

  Burroughs) & return

  NY in summer, to

  heat & Subterraneans

  & Alene Love

  & eventual

  RAILROAD EARTH

  book of Fall

  Come - Christmas

  O rushing

  life,

  restless gyre,

  seas, cots,