Book of Blues Read online

I’ll die, why should you mention

  It now—Why should I worry

  About it—it’ll happen

  It’ll happen—Now

  I want a good time—

  Excuse me—

  It’s a beautiful happy June

  Afternoon I want to walk in—

  Why are you so tragic & gloomy?”

  And on the corner at the

  Pony Stables

  Of Sixth Ave & 4th

  Sits Bodhisattva Meditating

  In Hobo Rags

  Praying at Joe Gould’s chair

  For the Emancipation

  Of the shufflers passing by,

  Immovable in Meditation

  He offers his hand St feet

  To the passers by

  And nobody believes

  That there’s nothing to believe in.

  Listen to Me.

  There is no sidewalk artshow

  No strollers are there

  No poem here, no June

  afternoon of Oh

  But only Imagelessness

  Unrepresented on the iron fence

  Of bald artists

  With black berets

  Passing by

  One moment less than this

  Is future Nothingness Already

  The Chess men are silent, assembling

  Ready for funny war—

  Voices of Washington Sq Blues

  Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem

  Window

  I will describe them:

  Eyt key ee

  Sa la oso

  Fr up t urt

  Etc.

  No need, no words to

  describe

  The sound of Ignorance—

  They are strolling to

  their death

  Watching the Pictures of Hell

  Eating Ice Cream

  of Ignorance

  On wood sticks

  That were once sincere

  in trees—

  But I cant write, poetry,

  just prose

  I mean

  This is prose

  Not poetry

  But I want

  To be sincere

  CANTO DOS

  While overhead is the perfect blue

  emptiness of the sky

  With its imaginary balloons

  of false sight

  Flying around in it

  like Tathagata Flying Saucers

  These poor ignorant things

  mill on sidewalks

  Looking at pitiful pictures

  of what they think

  Is reality

  And one

  a Negro with curls

  Even has a camera

  to photograph

  The pictures

  And Jelly Roll Man

  Pops his Billy Bell

  Good Humor for Sale—

  W Somerset Maugham

  is on my bed

  An ignorant storyteller

  millionaire queer

  But Ezra Pound

  he crazy—

  As the perfect sky

  beginninglessly pure

  Thinglessly perfect

  waits already

  They pass in multiplicity

  Parading among Images

  Images Images Looking

  Looking—

  And everybody’s turning around

  & pointing—

  Nobody looks up

  and In

  Nor listens to Samantabhadra’s

  Unceasing Compassion

  No Sound Still

  S s s s l l

  Seethe

  Of Sea Blue Moon

  Holy X-Jack

  Miracle

  Night—

  Instead, yank & yucker

  For pits & pops

  Look for crashes

  Pictures

  Squares

  Explosions

  Birth

  Death

  Legs

  I know, sweet hero,

  Enlightenment has Come

  Rest in Still

  In the Sun Think

  Think Not

  Think no more Lines—

  Straw hat, hands aback

  Classed

  He exam in a tein distinct

  Rome prints—

  Trees prurp

  and saw—

  The Chessplayers Wont End

  Still they sit

  Millions of hats

  In underwater foliage

  1Over marble games

  The Greeks of Chess

  Plot the Pop

  of Mate

  King Queen

  —I know their game,

  their elephant with the pillar

  With the pearl in it,

  their gory bishops

  And Vital Pawns—

  Their devout frontline

  Sacrificial pawn shops

  Their Stately king

  Who is so tall

  Their Virgin Queen

  Pree ing to Knave

  the Night Knot

  —Their Bhagavad Gitas

  of Ignorance,

  Krishna’s advice,

  Comma,

  The game begins—

  But hidden Buddha

  Nowhere to be seen

  But everywhere

  In air atoms

  In balloon atoms

  In imaginary sight atoms

  In people atoms

  In people atoms

  Again

  In image atoms

  In me & you atoms

  In atom bone atoms

  Like the sky

  Already waits

  For us eyes open to

  —Pawn fell

  Horse reared

  Mate Kiked Cattle

  And Boom! Cop

  shot Bates—

  Cru put Two—

  Out—I cried—

  Pound Pomed—

  Jean-Louis,

  Go home, Man.

  I mean.—

  As solid as anything

  Is this reality of images

  In the imageless essence,

  Neither of em’ll quit

  —So tho I am wise

  I have to wait like

  anyotherfool

  CANTO TRES

  Lets forget the strollers

  Forget the scene

  Lets close our eyes

  Let me Instruct Thee

  Here is dark milk

  Here is our Sweet Mahameru

  Who will Coo

  To You Too

  As he did to me

  One night at three

  When Iwkelt

  Plee

  knelt to See

  Realit ee

  And I said

  ‘Wilt thou protect me

  for ‘ver?’

  And he in his throatless

  deep mother hole

  Replied ‘Hom’

  (Pauvre Ange)

  Mahameru

  Tathagata of Mercy

  See

  He

  Now

  in dark escrow

  In the middleless dark

  of eyelids’ lash obliviso

  so

 
Among rains of Transcendent

  Pity

  Abides since Ever

  Before Evermore ness

  of Thusness Imagined

  O Maha Meru

  O Mountain Sumeru

  O Mountain of Gold

  O Holy Gold

  O Room of Gold

  O Sweet peace

  rememberance

  O Navalit Yuku

  Of sweet cactus

  Thorn of No Time

  —Ply me onward

  like boat

  thru this Sea

  Safe to Shore

  Ulysses never Sore

  —Bless me Gerard

  Bless thee, Living

  I shall pray for all

  sentient human

  & otherwise sentient

  beings here & everywhere

  now—

  No names

  Not even faces

  One Pity

  One Milk

  One Lovelight

  save

  *

  DESOLATION BLUES

  IN 12 CHORUSES

  1ST CHORUS

  I stand on my head on Desolation Peak

  And see that the world is hanging

  Into an ocean of endless space

  The mountains dripping rock by rock

  Like bubbles in the void

  And tending where they want—

  That at night the shooting stars

  Are swimming up to meet us

  Yearning from the bottom black

  But never make it, alas—

  That we walk around clung

  To earth

  Like beetles with big brains

  Ignorant of where we are, how,

  What, & upsidedown like fools,

  Talking of governments & history,

  —But Mount Hozomeen

  The most beautiful mountain I ever seen,

  Does nothing but sit & be a mountain,

  A mess of double pointed rock

  Hanging pouring into space

  O frightful silent endless space

  —Everything goes to the head

  Of the hanging bubble, with men

  The juice is in the head—

  So mountain peaks are points

  Of rocky liquid yearning

  2ND CHORUS

  Mountains have skin, said Peter

  Orlovsky of San Francisco—

  And gorges shoot up clouds of mist

  That look like planet smoke—

  Dead trees, artistic as a cottage

  on Truro,

  Look like goat horns off a rock,

  —Alpine firs turn evergreen browns

  By August First when summer’s dead

  At high elevations—the creeks roar

  And cataracts tumble pouring

  But it’s all upsidedown & strange

  —Why do I sit here crosslegged

  On this steaming rocky surface

  Of a planet called earth

  Scribbling with a pencil

  Unmusical songs called songs

  And why worry my juicy head

  And rail my bony hand at words

  And look around for more

  And nothing means nothing

  as of yore?—

  T s the primordial essence

  Manifesting forms, of happy

  And unhappy, stuff & no-stuff,

  Matter & space, phenomena

  Front & noumena behind,

  Out of exuberant nothingness

  3RD CHORUS

  Yet birds mumble in the morning,

  And raccoons tumble down the draws,

  I saw one hit by his own rock

  In a lil raccoon avalankey—

  And firs point as ever

  to infinity,

  Their fine points top points too,

  —Birds squeak like mice,

  and moonlight bucks & does

  Graze in my yard like cows

  With big shootable flanks,

  And hooves of eternity, clatter

  on the rocks,

  Run away when I open the door,

  Down the hill, like silly frightened

  schoolteachers—

  Chipmunks are well named—

  Bears & abominable snowmen

  I have not yet seen—

  Proud a that line—

  Rock slides take generations to form,

  I try to rush it along—

  No rain in a month, nor yet

  a month, within a month—

  The beaked furthereal pine

  points at a crazy

  Upsidedown mid morning moon

  as delicate

  As a slide, like snow

  4TH CHORUS

  All the worries that’ve plagued

  everybody since Moses, Homer,

  Sappho, Uparli, Cannibals and

  Patawatamkonalokunopuh

  Are worrin and playin me

  on this mount of mystery—

  I’ve T S Elioted all the fogs,

  Faulknered all the stone,

  Balanced nothing gainst something,

  played solitaire, smoked,

  Brought bashing sticks to midnight

  frightful long tailed rats

  And ranted at mosquitos,

  And remembered my mother

  her sweet labors of home

  And the cold eyed sister

  who made a bum outa me,

  And friends, & goodtimes,

  & prayed & gave up prayer,

  And pondered history, myths,

  stories, artistic plans, plays,

  French movies, phalanxes

  of disordered human crazy

  Thought, & still it’s upsidedown—

  Silent—stiff—wont yield—

  Wont tell—A big empty

  Puppet stage, with rock

  5TH CHORUS

  Distant valleys in Canada

  look like they’d beckon

  but I know better,—

  I yearn for the flatlands again,

  the gentle hill,—

  At 4 PM the clouds of hope

  Are horizon salmon floaters

  Full of strange promise

  abstracted from the golden age

  in my breast—

  Patches of snow dont do anything

  but be

  Patches of snow, till they melt,

  And then water, it’s nothing

  but water

  Till sun evaporates, then mist,

  It’s (as I look) nothing but mist

  As it rises ululatory responding

  to every shift of wind,

  And will be mist, and will be

  Mist,

  And ants are nothing but just ants,

  And rocks’ll sit where they are

  forever

  Lessn I move em, throw em

  down the gorge,

  And then they spit a minute

  6TH CHORUS

  I just dont understand—

  tho mist’ll be mist till

  Heavens obdure, tho man’ll

  Be man till heavens obdure

  Or hells obscure I just

  dont

  I just dont

  Dont

  Understand

  I dont—

  I want to know—soon’s a do

  I d
ont understand—if I said:

  “I dont care” I understand—

  I understand that

  it doesnt matter.

  Still the birdy clings, to earth,

  He dont go silent on me,

  I dont stop writing,

  I dont stop living,

  What a fool,—bust the bird.

  The only thing that ever happens

  to Hozomeen

  Is that he’ll get a wreath

  of clouds

  Every now & then

  & breed to revel

  Without moving a mighty shoulder

  —I envy him his rock

  7TH CHORUS

  But I want to live, I want

  to get down

  Off this Chinese Han Shan hill

  and make it

  To the city & walk the streets

  And drink good wine

  (Christian Brothers Port)

  Or whiskey (Early Times

  or Old Grand Dad)

  And go to Chinese Movies

  on Saturday Afternoon

  And buy presents in the window

  and watch the dust gather

  On little stationary toys

  In celluloid windows of children

  And go to the vast markets

  And eat tortillas beans

  ice cream

  And crime—and banana splits

  and tea

  And benzedrine & broads—

  and waterfronts

  And plays & play marquees

  and Square Times

  And you—I’d like to celebrate

  upside

  Down in cities

  8TH CHORUS

  Once I saw a giant

  in a building

  He’s here now, bending

  over me,

  Giant diamond gone insane.

  Ta, the Golden Eternity,

  Ta Ta Ta Ta,

  Tathata, trumpet, Ta Ta,

  This giant diamond might

  Here is got some name’r other

  But I dont know

  I dont care

  and it makes no difference

  And now I’m wise.

  When the whole wide world

  is fast asleep I cry.

  Let me offer you

  my reassuring profile

  Saying, “It’s okay, girl, we’ll

  make it

  Till the sun goes down forever

  And until then what you got

  to lose

  But the losing? We’re fallen

  angels

  Who didnt believe

  That nothing means nothing.”

  9TH CHORUS

  We’re hanging into the abyss

  of blue—

  In it is nothing but innumerable

  and endless worlds