Book of Blues (5 page)

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 building 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 York

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.

____

IN THE FORM OF 3 CANTOS

*

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

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

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