Collected Poems 1947-1997

  Then such knower will delight in secret weapon official Intelligence kodaked in his telegraphic brain

  Home of the Brave thou gavest birth to the Steel Age before the Hydrogen Age the

  Cobalt Age earning power over entire planets all futurity Male-female spouse of the solar system

  Ah me why then shall I not prophesy glorious truths for Thee Ah me folks worship many other

  countries beside you they are brainwashed but I of my own uncontrollable lust for you

  lay my hands on your Independence enter your very Constitution my head absorbed in the lips of your

  Bill of Rights O Liberty whose bliss is union with each individual citizen intercourse

  Alaskan Oklahoman New Jerseyesque dreaming of embraces even Indonesian Vietnamese & those Congolese

  O Liberty Imagewife of Mankind of thy Mercy show thy favor toward each me everywhere helpless

  before thy manifest Destiny by grace may I never be reborn American I and all I’s

  neither Russian Peruvian nor Chinese Jew never again reincarnate outside Thee Mother

  Democracy O Formless One take me beyond Images & reproductions spouse beyond disunion

  absorbed in my own non-Duality which art Thou.

  He O mother American Democracy who in the cremation ground of nations with disheveled hair in sweat of intensity meditates on thee

  And makes over his pubic hair to thee in poetry or electrical engineering he alone knows thy Cosmic You-Me.

  O America whoever on Tuesday at midnite utters This My Country ’Tis of Thee in the basement men’s room

  of the Empire State Building becomes a Poet Lord of Earth and goes mounted on Elephants

  to conquer Maya the Cold War whoever recites this my country ’tis of thee with the least halfhearted

  conviction he becomes himself Big Business & Giant Unions flowing with production and is after

  death father of his country which is the Universe itself and will at night in union with Thee

  O mother with eyes of delightful movies enter at last into amorous play united with all Presidents of US.

  Bombay, 1962

  To P.O.

  The whitewashed room, roof

  of a third-rate Mohammedan hotel,

  two beds, blurred fan

  whirling over yr brown guitar,

  knapsack open on floor, towel

  hanging from chair, Orange Crush,

  brown paper manuscript packages,

  Tibetan tankas, Gandhi pajamas,

  Ramakrishna Gospel, bright umbrella

  a mess on a rickety wooden stand,

  the yellow wall-bulb lights up

  this scene Calcutta for the thirtieth night—

  Come in the green door, long Western gold

  hair plastered down your shoulders

  from shower: “Did we take our pills

  this week for malaria?” Happy birthday

  dear Peter, your 29th year.

  Calcutta, July 8, 1962

  Heat

  Forty feet long sixty feet high hotel

  Covered with old gray for buzzing flies

  Eye like mango flowing orange pus

  Ears Durga people vomiting in their sleep

  Got huge legs a dozen buses move inside Calcutta

  Swallowing mouthfuls of dead rats

  Mangy dogs bark out of a thousand breasts

  Garbage pouring from its ass behind alleys

  Always pissing yellow Hooghly water

  Bellybutton melted Chinatown brown puddles

  Coughing lungs Sound going down the sewer

  Nose smell a big gray Bidi

  Heart bumping and crashing over tramcar tracks

  Covered with a hat of cloudy iron

  Suffering water buffalo head lowered

  To pull the huge cart of year uphill

  Calcutta, July 21, 1962

  Describe: The Rain on Dasaswamedh Ghat

  Kali Ma tottering up steps to shelter tin roof, feeling her way to curb, around bicycle & leper seated on her way—to piss on a broom

  left by the Stone Cutters who last night were shaking the street with Boom! of Stone blocks unloaded from truck

  Forcing the blindman in his gray rags to retreat from his spot in the middle of the road where he sleeps & shakes under his blanket

  Jai Ram all night telling his beads or sex on a burlap carpet

  Past which cows donkeys dogs camels elephants marriage processions drummers tourists lepers and bathing devotees

  step to the whine of serpent-pipes & roar of car motors around his black ears—

  Today on a balcony in shorts leaning on iron rail I watched the leper who sat hidden behind a bicycle

  emerge dragging his buttocks on the gray rainy ground by the glove-bandaged stumps of hands,

  one foot chopped off below knee, round stump-knob wrapped with black rubber

  pushing a tin can shiny size of his head with left hand (from which only a thumb emerged from leprous swathings)

  beside him, lifting it with both ragbound palms down the curb into the puddled road,

  balancing his body down next to the can & crawling forward on his behind

  trailing a heavy rag for seat, and leaving a path thru the street wavering

  like the Snail’s slime track—imprint of his crawl on the muddy asphalt market entrance—stopping

  to drag his can along stubbornly konking on the paved surface near the water pump—

  Where a turban’d workman stared at him moving along—his back humped with rags—

  and inquired why didn’t he put his can to wash in the pump altarplace—and why go that way when free rice

  Came from the alley back there by the river—As the leper looked up & rested, conversing curiously, can by his side approaching a puddle.

  Kali had pissed standing up & then felt her way back to the Shop Steps on thin brown legs

  her hands in the air—feeling with feet for her rag pile on the stone steps’ wetness—

  as a cow busied its mouth chewing her rags left wet on the ground for five minutes digesting

  Till the comb-&-hair-oil-booth keeper woke & chased her away with a stick

  Because a dog barked at a madman with dirty wild black hair who rag round his midriff & water pot in hand

  Stopped in midstreet turned round & gazed up at the balconies, windows, shops and city stagery filled with glum activity

  Shrugged & said Jai Shankar! to the imaginary audience of Me’s,

  While a white robed Baul Singer carrying his one stringed dried pumpkin Guitar

  Sat down near the cigarette stand and surveyed his new scene, just arrived in the Holy City of Benares.

  Benares, February 1963

  Death News

  Visit to W.C. W. circa 1957, poets Kerouac Corso Orlovsky on sofa in living room inquired wise words, stricken Williams pointed thru window curtained on Main Street: “There’s a lot of bastards out there!”

  Walking at night on asphalt campus

  road by the German Instructor with Glasses

  W. C. Williams is dead he said in accent

  under the trees in Benares; I stopped and asked

  Williams is Dead? Enthusiastic and wide-eyed

  under the Big Dipper. Stood on the Porch

  of the International House Annex bungalow

  insects buzzing round the electric light

  reading the Medical obituary in Time.

  “out among the sparrows behind the shutters”

  Williams is in the Big Dipper. He isn’t dead

  as the many pages of words arranged thrill

  with his intonations the mouths of meek kids

  becoming subtle even in Bengal. Thus

  there’s a life moving out of his pages; Blake

  also “alive” thru his experienced machines.

  Were his last words anything Black out there

  in the carpeted bedroom of the gabled wood house

  in Rutherford? Wo
nder what he said,

  or was there anything left in realms of speech

  after the stroke & brain-thrill doom entered

  his thoughts? If I pray to his soul in Bardo Thodol

  he may hear the unexpected vibration of foreign mercy.

  Quietly unknown for three weeks; now I saw Passaic

  and Ganges one, consenting his devotion,

  because he walked on the steely bank & prayed

  to a Goddess in the river, that he only invented,

  another Ganga-Ma. Riding on the old

  rusty Holland submarine on the ground floor

  Paterson Museum instead of a celestial crocodile.

  Mourn O Ye Angels of the Left Wing! that the poet

  of the streets is a skeleton under the pavement now

  and there’s no other old soul so kind and meek

  and feminine jawed and him-eyed can see you

  What you wanted to be among the bastards out there.

  Benares, March 20, 1963

  Vulture Peak: Gridhakuta Hill

  I’ve got to get out of the sun

  mouth dry and red towel wrapped

  round my head

  walking up crying singing ah sunflower

  Where the traveler’s journey

  closed my eyes is done in the

  black hole there

  sweet rest far far away

  up the stone climb past where

  Bimbisara left his armies

  got down off his elephant

  and walked up to meet

  Napoleon Buddha pacing

  back and forth on the platform

  of red brick on the jut rock crag

  Staring out Lidded-eyed beneath

  the burning white sunlight

  down on Rajgir kingdom below

  ants wheels within wheels of empire

  houses carts streets messengers

  wells and water flowing

  into past-future simultaneous

  kingdoms here gone on Jupiter

  distant X-ray twinkle of the eye

  myriad brick cities on earth and under

  New York Chicago Palenque Jerusalem

  Delphos Macchu Picchu Acco

  Herculaneum Rajagriha

  here all windy with the tweetle

  of birds and blue rocks

  leaning into the blue sky—

  Vulture Peak desolate bricks

  flies on the knee hot shadows

  raven-screech and wind blast

  over the hills from desert plains

  south toward Bodh Gaya—

  All the noise I made with my mouth

  singing on the path up, Gary

  Thinking all the pale youths and

  virgins shrouded with snow

  chanting Om Shantih all over the world

  and who but Peter du Peru

  walking the streets of San Francisco

  arrived in my mind on Vulture Peak

  Then turned round and around on my heels

  singing and plucking out my eyes

  ears tongue nose and balls as I whirled

  longer and longer the mountains stretched

  swiftly flying in circles

  the hills undulating and roads speeding

  around me in the valley

  Till when I stopped the earth

  moved in my eyeballs

  green bulge slowly

  and stopped

  *

  My thirst in my cheeks and tongue

  back throat drives me home.

  Benares, April 18, 1963

  Patna-Benares Express

  Whatever it may be whoever it may be

  The bloody man all singing all just

  However he die

  He rode on railroad cars

  He woke at dawn, in the white light of a new universe

  He couldn’t do any different

  He the skeleton with eyes

  raised himself up from a wooden bench

  felt different looking at the fields and palm trees

  no money in the bank of dust

  no nation but inexpressible gray clouds before sunrise

  lost his identity cards in his wallet

  in the bald rickshaw by the Maidan in dry Patna

  Later stared hopeless waking from drunken sleep

  dry mouthed in the RR Station

  among sleeping shoeshine men in loincloth on the dirty concrete

  Too many bodies thronging these cities now

  Benares, May 1963

  Last Night in Calcutta

  Still night. The old clock Ticks,

  half past two. A ringing of crickets

  awake in the ceiling. The gate is locked

  on the street outside—sleepers, mustaches,

  nakedness, but no desire. A few mosquitoes

  waken the itch, the fan turns slowly—

  a car thunders along the black asphalt,

  a bull snorts, something is expected—

  Time sits solid in the four yellow walls.

  No one is here, emptiness filled with train

  whistles & dog barks, answered a block away.

  Pushkin sits on the bookshelf, Shakespeare’s

  complete works as well as Blake’s unread—

  O Spirit of Poetry, no use calling on you

  babbling in this emptiness furnished with beds

  under the bright oval mirror—perfect

  night for sleepers to dissolve in tranquil

  blackness, and rest there eight hours

  —Waking to stained fingers, bitter mouth

  and lung gripped by cigarette hunger,

  what to do with this big toe, this arm

  this eye in the starving skeleton-filled

  sore horse tramcar-heated Calcutta in

  Eternity—sweating and teeth rotted away—

  Rilke at least could dream about lovers,

  the old breast excitement and trembling belly,

  is that it? And the vast starry space—

  If the brain changes matter breathes

  fearfully back on man—But now

  the great crash of buildings and planets

  breaks thru the walls of language and drowns

  me under its Ganges heaviness forever.

  No escape but thru Bangkok and New York death.

  Skin is sufficient to be skin, that’s all

  it ever could be, tho screams of pain in the kidney

  make it sick of itself, a wavy dream

  dying to finish its all too famous misery

  —Leave immortality for another to suffer like a fool,

  not get stuck in the corner of the universe

  sticking morphine in the arm and eating meat.

  May 22, 1963

  Understand That This Is a Dream

  Real as a dream

  What shall I do with this great opportunity to fly?

  What is the interpretation of this planet, this moon?

  If I can dream that I dream / and dream anything dreamable / can I dream

  I am awake / and why do that?

  When I dream in a dream that I wake / up what

  happens when I try to move?

  I dream that I move

  and the effort moves and moves

  till I move / and my arm hurts

  Then I wake up / dismayed / I was dreaming / I was waking

  when I was dreaming still / just now.

  and try to remember next time in dreams

  that I am in dreaming.

  And dream anything I want when I’m awaken.

  When I’m in awakeness what do I desire?

  I desire to fulfill my emotional belly.

  My whole body my heart in my fingertips thrill with some old fulfillments.

  Pages of celestial rhymes burning fire-words

  unconsumable but disappear.

  Arcane parchments my own and the universe the answer.

  Belly to Belly and knee to knee.

 
The hot spurt of my body to thee to thee

  old boy / dreamy Earl / you Prince of Paterson / now king of me / lost Haledon

  first dream that made me take down my pants

  urgently to show the cars / auto trucks / rolling down avenue hill.

  That far back what do I remember / but the face of the leader of the gang

  was blond / that loved me / one day on the steps of his house blocks away

  all afternoon I told him about my magic Spell

  I can do anything I want / palaces millions / chemistry sets / chicken coops / white horses

  stables and torture basements / I inspect my naked victims

  chained upside down / my fingertips thrill approval on their thighs

  white hairless cheeks I may kiss all I want

  at my mercy. on the racks.

  I pass with my strong attendants / I am myself naked

  bending down with my buttocks out

  for their smacks of reproval / o the heat of desire

  like shit in my asshole. The strange gang

  across the street / thru the grocerystore / in the wood alley / out in the open on the corner /

  Because I lied to the Dentist about that chickencoop roofing / slate stolen off his garage

  by me and the boy I loved who would punish me if he knew

  what I loved him.

  That now I have had that boy back in another blond form

  Peter Orlovsky a Chinese teenager in Bangkok ten years twenty years

  Joe Army on the campus / white blond loins / my mouth hath kisses /

  full of his cock / my ass burning / full of his cock

  all that I do desire. In dream and awake

  this handsome body mine / answered

  all I desired / intimate loves / open eyed / revealed at last / clothes on the floor

  Underwear the most revealing stripped off below the belly button in bed.

  That’s that / yes yes / the flat cocks the red pricks the gentle pubic hair / alone with me

  my magic spell. My power / what I desire alone / what after thirty years /

  I got forever / after thirty years / satisfied enough with Peter / with all I wanted /

  with many men I knew one generation / our sperm passing

  into our mouths and bellies / beautiful when love / given.

  Now the dream oldens / I olden / my hair a year long / my thirtyeight birthday approaching.

  I dream I

  am bald / am disappearing / the campus unrecognizable / Haledon Avenue

  will be covered with neon / motels / Supermarkets / iron