Jimmy's Blues (3 page)

Imagination

creates the situation,

and, then, the situation

creates imagination.

It may, of course,

be the other way around:

Columbus was discovered

by what he found.

Who knows more

of Wanda, the wan,

than I do?

And who knows more

of Terry, the torn,

than I do?

And who knows more

than I do

of Ziggy, the Zap,

fleeing the rap,

using his eyes and teeth

to spring the trap,

than I do!

Or did.

Good Lord, forbid

that morning’s acre,

held in the palm of the hand,

one’s fingers helplessly returning

dust to dust,

the dust crying out,

triumphantly,

take her!

Oh, Lord,

can these bones live?

I think, Yes,

then I think, No:

being witness to a blow

delivered outside of time,

witness to a crime

which time

is, in no way whatever,

compelled to see,

not being burdened with sight:

like me.

Oh, I watch Wanda,

Wanda, the wan,

making love with her pots,

and her frying pan:

feeding her cats,

who, never, therefore,

dream of catching the rats

who bar

her not yet barred

and most unusual door.

The cats make her wan,

a cat

(no matter how you cut him)

not being a man,

or a woman, either.

And, yet,

at that,

better than nothing:

But

nothing is not better than nothing:

nothing is nothing,

just like

everything is everything

(and you better believe it).

And,

Terry, the torn,

wishes he’d never been born

because he was found sucking a cock

in the shadow of a Central Park rock.

The cock was black,

like Terry,

and the killing, healing,

thrilling thing

was in nothing resembling a hurry:

came, just before the cops came,

and was long gone,

baby,

out of
that
park,

while the cops were writing down Terry’s name.

Well.

Birds do it.

Bees endlessly do it.

Cats leap jungles

cages and ages

to keep on doing it

and even survive

overheated apartments

and canned cat-food

doing it to each other

all day long.

It is one of the many forms of love,

and, even in the cat kingdom,

of survival:

but Wanda never looked

and Terry didn’t think he was a cat

and he was right about that.

Enter Ziggy, the Zap,

having taken the rap

for a friend,

fearing he was facing the end,

but very cool about it,

he thought,

selling

what others bought

(he thought).

But Wanda had left the bazaar

tricked by a tricky star.

She knew nothing of distance,

less of light,

the star vanished

and down came night.

Wanda thought this progression natural.

Refusing to moan,

she began to drink

far too alone

to dare to think.

I watch her open door.

She thinks that she wishes

to be a whore.

But whoredom is hard work,

stinks far too much of the real,

is as ruthless as a turning wheel,

and who knows more

of this

than I do?

Oh,

and Ziggy, the Zap,

who took the rap,

raps on

to his fellow prisoners

in the cell he never left

and will never leave.

You’d best believe

it’s cold outside.

Nobody

wants to go where

nothing is everything

and everything adds up

to nothing.

Better to slide

into the night

cling to the memory

of the shameful rock

which watched as the shameful act occurred

yet spoke no warning

said not a word.

And who knows more

of shame, and rocks,

than I do?

Oh,

and Wanda, the wan,

will never forgive her sky.

That’s why the old folks say

(and who knows better than I?)

we will understand it

better

by and by.

My Lord.

I understand it,

now:

the why is not the how.

My Lord,

Author of the whirlwind,

and the rainbow,

Co-author of death,

giver and taker of breath

(Yes, every knee must bow),

I understand it

now:

the why is not the how.

The lady is a tramp

a camp

a lamp

The lady is a sight

a might

a light

the lady devastated

an alley or two

reverberated through the valley

which leads to me, and you

the lady is the apple

of God’s eye:

He’s cool enough about it

but He tends to strut a little

when she passes by

the lady is a wonder

daughter of the thunder

smashing cages

legislating rages

with the voice of ages

singing us through.

Some days worry

some days glad

some days

more than make you

mad.

Some days,

some days, more than

shine:

when you see what’s coming

on down the line!

Some days you say,

oh, not me never – !

Some days you say

bless God forever.

Some days, you say,

curse God, and die

and the day comes when you wrestle

with that lie.

Some days tussle

then some days groan

and some days

don’t even leave a bone.

Some days you hassle

all alone.

I don’t know, sister,

what I’m saying,

nor do no man,

if he don’t be praying.

I know that love is the only answer

and the tight-rope lover

the only dancer.

When the lover come off the rope

today,

the net which holds him

is how we pray,

and not to God’s unknown,

but to each other – :

the falling mortal is our brother!

Some days leave

some days grieve

some days you almost don’t believe.

Some days believe you,

some days don’t,

some days believe you

and you won’t.

Some days worry

some days mad

some days more than make you

glad.

Some days, some days,

more than shine,

witnesses,

coming on down the line!

Between holding on,

and letting go,

I wonder

how you know

the difference.

It must be something like

the difference

between heaven and hell

but how, in advance,

can you tell?

If letting go

is saying no,

then what is holding on

saying?

Come.

Can anyone be held?

Can I – ?

The impossible conundrum,

the closed circle,

why

does lightning strike this house

and not another?

Or, is it true

that love is blind

until challenged by the drawbridge

of the mind?

But, saying that,

one’s forced to see one’s definitions

as unreal.

We do not know enough about the mind,

or how the conundrum of the imagination

dictates, discovers,

or can dismember what we feel,

or what we find.

Perhaps

one must learn to trust

one’s terror:

the holding on

the letting go

is error:

the lightning has no choice,

the whirlwind has one voice.

Saul,

how does it feel

to be Paul?

I mean, tell me about that night

you saw the light,

when the light knocked you down.

What’s the cost

of being lost

and found?

It must be high.

And I’ve always thought you must have been,

stumbling homeward,

trying to find your way out of town

through all those baffling signals,

those one-way streets,

merry-making camel drivers

(complete with camels;

camels complete with loot)

going
root-a-toot-toot!

before, and around you

and behind.

No wonder you went blind.

Like man, I can dig it.

Been there myself: you know:

it sometime happen so.

And the stink make you think

because you can’t get away

you are surrounded

by the think of your stink,

unbounded.

And not just in the camels

and the drivers

and not just in the hovels

and the rivers

and not just in the sewers

where you live

and not just in the shit

beneath your nose

and not just in the dream

of getting home

and not just in the terrifying hand

which holds you tight,

forever to the land.

On such a night,

oh, yes,

one might lose sight,

fall down beneath the camels,

and see the light.

Been there myself: face down

in the mud

which rises, rises, challenging

one’s mortal blood,

which courses, races, faithless,

anywhere,

which, married with the mud,

will dry at noon

soon.

Prayer

changes things.

It do.

If I can get up off this slime,

if I ain’t trampled,

I will put off my former ways

I will deny my days

I will be pardoned

and I will rise

out of the camel piss

which stings my eyes

into a revelation

concerning this doomed nation.

From which I am, henceforth,

divorced forever!

Set me upon my feet,

my Lord,

I am delivered

out of the jaws of hell.

My journey splits my skull,

and, as I rise, I fall.

Get out of town.

This ain’t no place to be alone.

Get past the merchants, and the shawls,

the everlasting incense: stroke your balls,

be grateful you still have them;

touch your prick

in a storm of wondering abnegation:

it will be needed no longer,

the light being so much stronger.

Get out of town

Get out of town

Get out of town

And don’t let nobody

turn you around.

Nobody will: for they see, too,

how the hand of the Lord has been laid on you.

Ride on!

Let the drivers stare

and the camel’s farts define the air.

Ride on!

Don’t be deterred, man,

for the crown ain’t given to the also-ran.

Oh, Saul,

how does it feel to be Paul?

Sometimes I wonder about that night.

One does not always walk in light.

My light is darkness

and in my darkness moves, forever,

the dream or the hope or the fear of sight.

Ride on!

This hand, sometimes, at the midnight hour,

yearning for land, strokes a growing power,

true believer!

Will he come again?

When will my Lord send my roots rain?

Will he hear my prayer?

Oh, man, don’t fight it

Will he clothe my grief?

Man, talk about it

That night, that light

Baby, now you coming.

I will be uncovered, on that morning,

And I’ll be there.

No tongue can stammer

nor hammer ring

no leaf bear witness

to how bright is the light

of the unchained night

which delivered

Saul

to Paul.

A lady like landscapes,

wearing time like an amusing shawl

thrown over her shoulders

by a friend at the bazaar:

Every once in a while she turns in it

just like a little girl,

this way and that way:

Regarde.

Ça n’était pas donné bien sûr

mais c’est quand même beau, non?

Oui, Oui.

Et toi aussi.

Ou plutôt belle

since you are a lady.

It is impossible to tell

how beautiful, how real, unanswerable,

becomes your landscape as you move in it,

how beautiful the shawl.

At the dark street corner

where Guilt and Desire

are attempting to stare

each other down

(presently, one of them

will light a cigarette

and glance in the direction

of the abandoned warehouse)

Love came slouching along,

an exploded silence

standing a little apart

but visible anyway

in the yellow, silent, steaming light,

while Guilt and Desire wrangled,

trying not to be overheard

by this trespasser.