Nova Express

  Heavy and calm holding cool leather armchair—­Organizes this wispy mustache—I stopped in front of a mirror—Really magnificent in a starched collar—It is a naborhood in aqualungs with free lunch everywhere yell out “Sweet Sixteen”—I walked without Izzy The Push—

  “Hey Rube!!”

  Came to the Chinese laundry meanwhile—I have forgotten the Chink in front—Fix words hatch The Blue Dinosaur—I was reading them back magnetic—Only way to orient yourself—Traveling with the Chink kid John set throat like already written—“Stone Reading” we call it in the trade—While you wait he packs in Rome—I’ve checked the diving suit like every night—Up on a high pedestal perform this unnatural act—In acid on the walls—Set your watch by it—So that gives us twenty marks out through the side window and collars—

  “But what in St. Louis?”

  Memory picture coming in—So we turn over silver sets and banks and clubs as old troupers—Nova Rap on you that night as we walked out—I don’t like it—Something picking up laundry and my flesh feel it—

  But John says: “Afternoon copper jitters since the caper—Housebreaking can cause this—”

  We are cool just rolling—when things go wrong once—show business—We can’t find poets and organize this cut and the flesh won’t work—And there we are with the air off like beached idiots—Well I think maybe kicks from our condition—They took us—The old dolls on a train burning junk—Thawing flesh showed in aqualungs—Steam a yell out from the crane—

  “Hey Rube!!”

  Three silver digits explode—Meanwhile I have forgotten streets of Madrid—And clear as sunlight pump some air to him and he said: “Que tal Henrique?”

  I am standing through an invisible door click the air to him—Well we hit this town and right away aphrodisiac ointment—

  “Doc goofed here, John—Something wrong—Too much Spanish—”

  “What? It’s green see? A green theatre—”

  So we turn the marks over and rent a house as old troupers—And we flush out this cool pure Chinese H from show business—And he starts the whole Green Rite and organizes this fibrous grey amphitheatre in old turnip—Meanwhile I have forgotten a heavy blue silence—Carbonic Kid is turning to cold liquid metal and run pump some air to him in a blue mist of vaporized flicker helmets—The metal junkies were not making it—These kids intersected The Nova Police—We are just dust falls from demagnetized patterns—Show business—Calendar in Weimar youths—Faded poets in the silent amphitheatre—His block house went away through this air—Click St. Louis under drifting soot—And I think maybe I was in old clinic—Outside East St. Louis—Really magnificent for two notes a week—Meanwhile I had forgotten “Mother”—Wouldn’t you?—Doc Benway and The Carbonic Kid turning a rumble in Dallas involving this pump goofed on ether and mixed in flicker helmets—

  “He is gone through this town and right away tape recorders of his voice behind, John—Something wrong—I can pose a colorless question??”

  “Is all right—I just have the silence—Word dust falls three thousand years through an old blue calendar—”

  “William, no me hagas caso—People who told me I could move on you copping out—said ‘Good-Bye’ to William and ‘Keep it practical’ and I could hear him hit this town and right away I closed the door when I saw John—Something wrong—Invisible hotel room is all—I just have the knife and he said:

  “‘Nova Heat moved in at the seams—Like three thousand years in hot claws at the window’—

  “And Meester William in Tétuan and said: ‘I have gimmick is cool and all very technical—These colorless sheets are the air pump and I can see the flesh when it has color—Writing say some message that is coming on all flesh—’

  “And I said: ‘William tu es loco—Pulled the reverse switch—No me hagas while you wait’—Kitchen knife in the heart—Feel it—Gone away—Pulled the reverse switch—Place no good—No bueno—He pack caso—William tu hagas yesterday call—These colorless sheets are empty—You can look any place—No good—No bueno—Adios Meester William—”

  THE FISH POISON CON

  I was traveling with Merit Inc. checking store attendants for larceny with a crew of “shoppers”—There was two middle-aged cunts one owning this Chihuahua which whimpered and yapped in a cocoon of black sweaters and Bob Schafer Crew Leader who was an American Fascist with Roosevelt jokes—It happens in Iowa this number comes over the car radio:: “Old Sow Got Caught In The Fence Last Spring”—And Schafer said “Oh my God, are we ever in Hicksville”—Stopped that night in Pleasantville Iowa and our tires gave out we had no tire rations during the war for such a ­purpose—And Bob got drunk and showed his badge to the locals in a road house by the river—And I ran into The Sailor under a potted palm in the lobby—We hit the local croakers with “the fish poison con”—“I got these poison fish, Doc, in the tank transported back from South America I’m a Ichthyologist and after being stung by the dreaded Candirú—Like fire through the blood is it not? Doctor, and coming on now”—And The Sailor goes into his White Hot Agony Act chasing the doctor around his office like a blowtorch—He never missed—But he burned down the ­croakers—So like Bob and me when we “had a catch” as the old cunts call it and arrested some sulky clerk with his hand deep in the company pocket, we take turns playing the tough cop and the con cop—So I walk in on this Pleasantville croaker and tell him I have contracted this Venusian virus and subject to dissolve myself in poison juices and assimilate the passers-by unless I get my medicine and get it regular—So I walk in on this old party smelling like a compost heap and steaming demurely and he snaps at me, “What’s your trouble?”

  “The Venusian Gook Rot, doctor.”

  “Now see here young man my time is valuable.”

  “Doctor, this is a medical emergency.”

  Old shit but good—I walked out on the nod—

  “All he had was one fix, Sailor.”

  “You’re loaded—You assimilated the croaker—Left me sick—”

  “Yes. He was old and tough but not too tough for The Caustic Enzymes Of Woo.”

  The Sailor was thin and the drugstores was closing so I didn’t want him to get physical and disturb my ­medications—The next croaker wrote with erogenous acid vats on one side and Nagasaki Ovens on the other—And we nodded out under the rubber trees with the long red carpet under our feet back to 1910—We could buy it in the drugstore tomorrow—Or lay up in the Chink laundry on the black smoke—drifting through stale rooming houses, pool halls and chili—Fell back on sad flesh small and pretentious in a theatrical boarding house the aging ham cradles his tie up and stabs a vein like Cleopatra applying the asp—Click back through the cool grey short-change artists—lush rolling ghosts of drunken sleep—Empty pockets in the worn metal subway dawn—

  I woke up in the hotel lobby the smell heavy and calm holding a different body molded to the leather chair—I was sick but not needle sick—This was a black smoke yen—The Sailor still sleeping and he looked very young under a wispy mustache—I woke him up and he looked around with slow hydraulic control his eyes unbluffed unreadable—

  “Let’s make the street—I’m thin—”

  I was in fact very thin I saw when I stopped in front of a mirror panel and adjusted my tie knot in a starched ­collar—It was a naborhood of chili houses and cheap saloons with free lunch everywhere and heavy calm bartenders humming “Sweet Sixteen”—I walked without thinking like a horse will and came to The Chinese Laundry by Clara’s Massage Parlor—We siphoned in and The Chink in front jerked one eye back and went on ironing a shirt front—We walked through a door and a curtain and the black smoke set our lungs dancing The Junky Jig and we lay up on our junk hip while a Chinese kid cooked our pills and handed us the pipe—After six pipes we smoke slow and order a pot of tea the Chink kid goes out to fix it and the words hatch in my throat like alread
y written there I was reading them back—“Lip Reading” we call it in the trade only way to orient yourself when in Rome—“I’ve checked the harness bull—He comes in McSorley’s every night at 2:20 AM and forces the local pederast to perform this unnatural act on his person—So regular you can set your watch by it:: ‘I won’t—I won’t—Not again—Glub—Glub—Glub.’”—“So that gives us twenty minutes at least to get in and out through the side window and eight hours start we should be in St. Louis before they miss the time—Stop off and see The Family”—Memory pictures coming in—Little Boy Blue and all the heavy silver sets and banks and clubs—Cool heavy eyes moving steel and oil shares—I had a rich St. Louis family—It was set for that night—As we walked out I caught the Japanese girl picking up laundry and my flesh crawled under the junk and I made a meet for her with the afternoon—Good plan to make sex before a caper—Housebreaking can cause this wet dream sex tension especially when things go wrong—(Once in Peoria me and The Sailor charged a drugstore and we can’t find the jimmy for the narco cabinet and the flash won’t work and the harness bull sniffing round the door and there we are with The Sex Current giggling ourselves off like beached idiots—Well the cops got such nasty kicks from our condition they took us to the RR station and we get on a train shivering burning junk sick and the warm vegetable smells of thawing flesh and stale come slowly filled the car—Nobody could look at us steaming away there like manure piles—) I woke out of a light yen sleep when the Japanese girl came in—Three silver digits exploded in my head—I walked out into streets of Madrid and won a football pool—Felt the Latin mind clear and banal as sunlight met Paco by the soccer scores and he said: “Que tal Henrique?”

  And I went to see my amigo who was taking medicina again and he had no money to give me and didn’t want to do anything but take more medicina and stood there waiting for me to leave so he could take it after saying he was not going to take any more so I said, “William no me hagas caso—” And met a Cuban that night in The Mar Chica who told me I could work in his band—The next day I said good-bye to William and there was nobody there to listen and I could hear him reaching for his medicina and needles as I closed the door—When I saw the knife I knew Meester William was death disguised as any other person—Pues I saw El Hombre Invisible in a hotel room somewhere tried to reach him with the knife and he said: “If you kill me this crate will come apart at the seams like a rotten undervest”—And I saw a monster crab with hot claws at the window and Meester William took some white medicina and vomited into the toilet and we escaped to Greece with a boy about my age who kept calling Meester William “The Stupid American”—And Meester William looked like a hypnotist I saw once in Tétuan and said: “I have gimmick to beat The Crab but it is very technical”—And we couldn’t read what he was writing on transparent sheets—In Paris he showed me The Man who paints on these sheets pictures in the air—And The Invisible Man said:

  “These colorless sheets are what flesh is made from—Becomes flesh when it has color and writing—That is Word And Image write the message that is you on colorless sheets determine all flesh.”

  And I said: “William, tu éres loco.”

  NO GOOD—NO BUENO

  So many years—that image—got up and fixed in the sick dawn—No me hagas caso—Again he touched like that—smell of dust—The tears gathered—In Mexico again he touched—Codeine pills powdered out into the cold Spring air—Cigarette holes in the vast Thing ­Police—Could give no information other than wind identity fading out—dwindling—“Mr. Martin” couldn’t reach is all—Bread knife in the heart—Shadow turned off the lights and water—We intersect on empty walls—Look anywhere—No good—Falling in the dark mutinous door—Dead Hand stretching zero—Five times of dust we made it all the living and the dead—Young form went to Madrid—Demerol by candlelight—Wind hand—The Last Electrician to tap on pane—Migrants arrival—­Poison of dead sun went away and sent papers—Ferry boat cross flutes of Ramadan—Dead muttering in the dog’s space—Cigarette hole in the dark—give no information other than the cold Spring cemetery—The Sailor went wrong in corridors of that hospital—Thing Police keep all Board Room Reports is all—Bread knife in the heart proffers the disaster accounts—He just sit down on “Mr. Martin”—Couldn’t reach flesh on Nino Perdido—A long time between flutes of Ramadan—No me hagas caso sliding between light and shadow—

  “The American trailing cross the wounded galaxies con su medicina, William.”

  Half your brain slowly fading—Turned off the lights and water—Couldn’t reach flesh—empty walls—Look anywhere—Dead on tracks see Mr. Bradly Mr. Zero—And being blind may not refuse the maps to my blood whom I created—“Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin,” couldn’t you write us any better than that?—Gone away—You can look any place—No good—No bueno—

  I spit blood under the sliding vulture shadows—At The Mercado Mayorista saw a tourist—A Meester Merican fruto drinking pisco—and fixed me with the eyes so I sit down and drink and tell him how I live in a shack under the hill with a tin roof held down by rocks and hate my brothers because they eat—He says something about “malo viento” and laughs and I went with him to a hotel I know—In the morning he says I am honest and will I come with him to Pucallpa he is going into the jungle looking for snakes and spiders to take pictures and bring them back to Washington they always carry something away even if it is only a spider monkey spitting blood the way most of us do here in the winter when the mist comes down from the mountains and never leaves your clothes and lungs and everyone coughed and spit blood mist on the mud floor where I sleep—We start out next day in a Mixto Bus by night we are in the mountains with snow and the Meester brings out a bottle of pisco and the driver gets drunk down into the Selva came to Pucallpa three days later—The Meester locates a brujo and pays him to prepare Ayahuasca and I take some too and muy mareado—Then I was back in Lima and other places I didn’t know and saw the Meester as child in a room with rose wallpaper looking at something I couldn’t see—­Tasting roast beef and turkey and ice cream in my throat knowing the thing I couldn’t see was always out there in the hall—And the Meester was looking at me and I could see the street boy words there in his throat—Next day the police came looking for us at the hotel and the Meester showed letters to the Commandante so they shook hands and went off to lunch and I took a bus back to Lima with money he gave me to buy equipment—

  SHIFT COORDINATE POINTS

  K9 was in combat with the alien mind screen—­Magnetic claws feeling for virus punch cards—pulling him into vertiginous spins—

  “Back—Stay out of those claws—Shift coordinate points—” By Town Hall Square long stop for the red light—A boy stood in front of the hot dog stand and blew water from his face—Pieces of grey vapor drifted back across wine gas and brown hair as hotel faded photo showed a brass bed—Unknown mornings blew rain in ­cobwebs—Summer evenings feel to a room with rose wallpaper—Sick dawn whisper of clock hands and brown hair—Morning blew rain on copper roofs in a slow haze of apples—Summer light on rose ­wallpaper—Iron mesas lit by a pink volcano—Snow slopes under the Northern shirt—Unknown street stirring sick dawn whispers of junk—Flutes of Ramadan in the distance—St. Louis lights wet cobblestones of future life—Fell through the urinal and the bicycle races—On the bar wall the clock hands—My death across his face faded through the soccer scores—smell of dust on the surplus army blankets—Stiff jeans against one wall—And KiKi went away like a cat—Some clean shirt and walked out—He is gone through unknown morning blew—“No good—No bueno—Hustling myself—” Such wisdom in gusts—

  K9 moved back into the combat area—Standing now in the Chinese youth sent the resistance message jolting clicking tilting through the pinball machine—Enemy plans exploded in a burst of rapid calculations—­Clicking in punch cards of redirected orders—Crackling shortwave static—Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeep—Sound of thinking metal—

  “Calling partisans
of all nations—Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room—Pinball led streets—Free doorways—Shift coordinate points—”

  “The ticket that exploded posed little time so I’ll say ‘good night’—Pieces of grey Spanish Flu wouldn’t photo—Light the wind in green neon—You at the dog—The street blew rain—If you wanted a cup of tea with rose wallpaper—The dog turns—So many and sooo—”

  “In progress I am mapping a photo—Light verse of wounded galaxies at the dog I did—The street blew rain—The dog turns—­Warring head intersected Powers—Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room—”

  He is gone away through invisible mornings leaving a million tape recorders of his voice behind fading into the cold spring air pose a colorless question?

  “The silence fell heavy and blue in mountain ­villages—Pulsing mineral silence as word dust falls from demagnetized patterns—Walked through an old blue calendar in Weimar youth—Faded photo on rose wallpaper under a copper roof—In the silent dawn little grey men played in his block house and went away through an invisible door—Click St. Louis under drifting soot of old newspapers—‘Daddy Longlegs’ looked like Uncle Sam on stilts and he ran this osteopath clinic outside East St. Louis and took in a few junky patients for two notes a week they could stay on the nod in green lawn chairs and look at the oaks and grass stretching down to a little lake in the sun and the nurse moved around the lawn with her silver trays feeding the junk in—We called her ‘Mother’—Wouldn’t you?—Doc Benway and me was holed up there after a rumble in Dallas involving this aphrodisiac ointment and Doc goofed on ether and mixed in too much Spanish Fly and burned the prick off the Police Commissioner straight away—So we come to ‘Daddy Longlegs’ to cool off and found him cool and casual in a dark room with potted rubber plants and a silver tray on the table where he liked to see a week in advance—The nurse showed us to a room with rose wallpaper and we had this bell any hour of the day or night ring and the nurse charged in with a loaded hypo—Well one day we were sitting out in the lawn chairs with lap robes it was a fall day trees turning and the sun cold on the lake—Doc picks up a piece of grass—