Book of Sketches (6 page)

 

& Alene Love
& eventual
RAILROAD EARTH
book of Fall
Come - Christmas
O rushing
life,
restless gyre,
seas, cots,
beds, dreams,
sleeps, larks,
starlights, mists,
moons, knowns —

Winter in No. America,
the sun is falling
feebly from the
South.
Getting rooked of all
my money trying to
get home for Xmas
in time — for a
childhood chimera
blowing all my pay —
flying TWA — Lemme
see, can I find
Jay Landesman’s
saloon?
it’s going to be
a Merry Xmas
one way or the
other

 

Winter in No. America,
the passengers on the
right in the TWA plane
have a sea of incandescent
milk blinding
in their eyes, from
where the feeble
South American sun
comes raying, plus
the dazzling sun
ball herself, but
on the left, on eastbound
58 out of St. Louis,
on the fireman’s
side, they see the pale
blue North out the
window, also blinding,
but more seeable —

 

It’s like facing the
snow on the North side
of the train eastbound
in the morning, in a
strange New England
of snow created by the
ice-cap of overcast
covering the Eastern
lake & seaboard —
like Greenland, from
the top of one of
its highest coastal
mountains seeing
below the enormity
of the continental
inland polar snow
field a thousand,
two thousand miles long —
a field of clouds,
no buttercups there;
a glacier of
fiery mad vapor
extending in the
air sea. Down
on the world Premier
Mossadegh cried.
Notre Dame, Terre
Haute, Africas
below. Unbelievable
endless solid floor
of clouds.

Karagoo Karagin
criastoshe, gobu,
bois-cracke, trou-or,
boisvert, greenwoods
beezy skilliagoo
arrange-câssez,
cracké-vieu,
green-in buzz
bee grash —
Feenyonie
feenyom —
Demashtado
— — Greeazzh —
Grayrj —

 

Or — where a festive
fly makes a blade
of grass snap —
Or — Hurried ant
flies over a leaf —
Or — Deserted village
clearing of my sit
Or — I am dead
Or — I am dead
because everything
has already happened
I must go ahead
beyond this dead
to —
the ground
to —
the vast
to —
the moss of the
Babylon woodstump
to —
mysterious destruction
from —
blisters
bellies
stockings
fingers with hair
tans
sores
muddy shoes
Seulement pas, S.P. —
Aoo reu-reu-reu-
a bee —

 

The Woods Are Ave of Me
Ant town antics
Joan is dead
The flup fell down
I have an ant
criolling thru
the rot
stump
“Yey” voice
of
human
child
“oh! — ” Zzzz
Finally: -
Degradled fling lump
stick stump motion
bump in the brother
mump of —
skreeee — lump —
Terre vert —
sflux — seeee —
Spuliookatuk —
Speetee-vizit,
vizit (bird) —
Vush! the whole
forust! Zhaam
Sabaam Vom —
V-a-a-m —
R-a-o-o-l —
m-n-o-o-l-
z-oo — ZZAY —

 

Tickaluck — (Funny)
fiddledegree — R-R-
R-R-Rising vrez
Zung blump
dee-dooo-domm —
Deelia-
hum
—
Bara
li
doo —
Spitipit — spitipit —
Ahdeeriabum, ah
grey —
Vee!
Eee-lee-lee-
mosquilee —
Rong big bong
bee bong —
Atchap-pee
Atchap-pee
Skior! Viz!
Sit!
Deria-po-
pa
!
Hit-ta-
tzi-po-teel,
Te de li a bo —
Vit! chickalup!
Oooeeeuoom
Vazzh —
V-a-z-z
Flip flip flip flup
Bung ground terre

 

Doo-ri-oo-ri-oo-ra
Zee —
Krrrrrr — r-o-t
Crick
Fueet!?
Fueet!? _ _ _ _
Written in Easonburg
woods, at one point naked,
Sunday, Aug 10 1952
— The Sounds of the Woods

When Buz Sawyer
goes to South America
representing Americans
who only think in
terms of paranoia & oil.
— bkfast. in the
best hotel is only a
time to read the paper,
across the park it’s
empty & just a
paranoiac Indian
photographer — he
talks over the
phone with Mr Boss,
avoids women —
Woogh!

Mechanized Saturday
night — the foggy
Watsonville Main Drag on
the Mexican side has
people on the sidewalks
milling but Mexican field
& section hands dismally
knowing they cant find
love till they return to
Mexico, just wander, &
mostly look into workclothes
stores (!) like I do and
a group of anxious Indians
finished with the beet
& lettuce season have
bought an enormous suitcase
at the Army Navy
store & are going home
to stern fathers

 

& good mothers who
have taught them
gentleness & the Virgin
Mother so they dont
clack around wise guys
like the Mexican American
Pachucos — but only
have great sad eyes
searching into the lost
blue eyes of America,
& in the “American”
part of the Main Drag
there are no people,
empty sidewalks, empty
pink neons for bars
(like Sunnyvale) just
cars in the street — a
mechanized Saturday,

 

with occupants who
look anxiously out for
companionship of Sat
nite mill crowds but
the steel of the
machines is walling them
off — argh!
Meanwhile I dig
the woman in her
sad furnished room above
Mex Mainstreet, her
little boy in window
looking out on the whiteness
& mystery of
Nov. 8, 1952 — & the
old wood building’s been
covered at front with
plaster — She’s in the
window in her pink
dress, radiant, transparent,
lost — I would be
great if I could just
sit in a panel truck
sketching Main Streets
of world — will do.
God will save me
for what I do now,
help my Mom —
he will —

 

In his idealistic youth on
railroad in Maine Old Bull
says “Why should I have a
radio when I can hear
the music of a crackling fire
& the steam engines in
the yard?” — railroad Thoreau
— he sits alone in his
caboose, in the dark, with
the fire, drinking — Old
Bull Baloon the Man
of America — Guillaume
Bernier of Gaspé —
& says “All that
matters is the healthy
color of that fire” —
but too much bottle,
not enough sottle, brings
him to his last late
years —

The Mortal Story
(Haunted Ugly Angles of Mortality)
Did I ever get my
kicks as a kid with
date pie & whipt cream
combining with “Shrine
North South All star
football game Christmas
night in the Orange Bowl”
— dug sports then
as something rich
& at its peak on
holidays when
it went with turkey
dinners & peach shortcake
— Also, remember
the joyous snowy mornings
when you played
Football Game Board
with Pop & Bobby
Rondeau? — the oranges
& walnuts in a bowl,
the heat of the house,
the Xmas tinsel on
the tree, the boys
of the Club throwing
snowballs below
corner Gershom —
Moody? —
On the Road
that
if you will, Sex
Generation
that
if you will —

 

Made Sick by The Night

 

My Father Was a Printer

 

Face it, the really
great fucks in a
young man’s life was
when there was no
time to take yr.
clothes off, you
were too hot & she
was too hot — none
of yr. Bohemian leisure,
this was middleclass
explosions against
snowbanks, against
walls of shithouses
in attics, on sudden
couches in the lobby —
Talk about yr. hot peace

The Sea is My Brother —
a figment of the gray
sea & the gray America,
of my childhood dreams —

 

Walked from Easonburg
on old walking-road but
3 miles — in gray thrilling —
with bag — saw Negro
pulled by a mule on a
bike! — to junction 64,
immediate ride young hot-
rod speedsters to Spring
Hope, pickt up Wake
Forest boy too — he
got off, went downroad
— Hotrod told, as he
went 90, of man
tried pass truck hit

 

school child & turned
over — Old thin bum
at S Hope, hitching east,
from Atlanta, “Almost
got stuck in old car 10
miles out” — A blond
husky Hal Chase-truck-
ride to Raleigh, arr. 4:30
P.M. — hates South —
nothin to do, bars close
— New Caledonia, Louis
Transon, Noumea —
he said is Paradise —
— A bleakness I dont
like in air — dull
trees of Raleigh —
I feel forsaken —
Old goodhearted taxi-
driver to corner — Curious
Raleigh Judge-type
to corner —

 

Girls crossing — man
stops — Relief mgr
of restaurants —
Corn likker test, up
in Old Port — Mickey
Spillane, Faulkner —
Is going to rest finally at a
steady Maryland restaurant
— Then young kid in
old truck, married, who in
1946 hitched to Wash. State
with $500 & came back
with 21¢ — Then
incredible beat old car
with old fat bum, one
mile, incredible heat
from motor, incredibly
dirty shirt — Then
2 bleak eternal bakery

 

workers driving home dogtired
from work thru red clay
cuts of Time, with wine
faintly in gray western
horizon, beefing about work
— I thought “Why do
you want men to be
better or different than
this” — One talked, other
didnt; one urged, other
brooded; left me off
at truckstop road to
Greensboro N.C. — broke
$5 on coffee — “Dinning Room”
Tics of Eternity
called me
buddy
— good
hearted Charley Morrisettes
of Time — I must find
langue
for them — frazzly
eager one & Charley Mew-
Leo Gorcey used-out legended
ripened-beyond sad fat one
— O Lord

 

Great big G.J. burper picked
me up in the rain, dark —
after I talked to old bum
(70) in railroad hat who
said country was worse off
than in 1906 (truckdriver
from Liberty Tex. to
Baton Rouge worried Mex,
called it “tarpolian”)
— GJ burper in new
huge Chrysler, was Chief
in Navy gun crews on Liberties,
also bought requisition
food (for Bainbridge Officers),
at North River wholesale
houses — ate 5 pound steak
— ate 2 lobsters
at Old Union Oyster House,
Boston — used to
screw redhead at 7 PM
on her beauty parlor couch —
used to beat up queers in
Washington — Drove me
into bloody Western horizon
beyond rain (!) into the
glittering Lowell town of
Greensboro, gave me card
Robt J Simmons Lily
Cup Corp. — to Salvation
Army — was only gym,
old Negro born in Hollywood
(“used to have a show
on the corner with my
sister & etc.”) directed
me accurately “That
Esso Sign, this side,
them
real
bright lights,
707 Bill
bro
St. —
bed & breakfast” —
Sho enuf — a little
ramshackle house —
dorm bedroom — man
was 50, thin, gray;
Red
got up in undershirt —
to talk about routes

 

(“No sir, Winston Salem
to Charleston waste your
time, you in Charleston
& Bluefield & you in the
mountains”
— hanging
bulb, table, pictures of
wanted criminals on
flowery wallpaper —
bathroom — “take
70 right on down the
river — ”) Tennessee
River, from Knoxville to
Nashville — rain
starts — go to bed
at 9 — no eat — talk

 

with Red an hour about
rolling, wandering, sleep
police stations, quit jobs,
drink whiskey, itch —
etc. — Dream all
night wild dreams of
big Chicago Salvation
Army with wild young
gang with me, & girl
horrors of my
wallet, Salvation Army
underwear — incredulously
all over me I see six
inch long & thick sponges
of fungus growing off
me — so awful I dont
believe it even in
dream — spectral happenings,
cellar, stairs,
rooms, bathroom, girl, boys,
wallet, (had it in my
pillow case so Red mightnt
steal it) — Up at 6:30
“Gotta go” says boss
— breakfast: 2 coffees,
weak, cornflakes &
evap. milk — & my banana
— & blowing drizzle out
but I go — & get spot
ride to junction — & get
slow ride to High Point,
dampwet, dry in car
man was at New
Zealand & Melbourne,
— dry further in
High Point Greek
lunchcart with mottled
marble greasy counter