Collected Poems 1947-1997

  to the gas students—

  gathered in front of City Hall to redress

  their grievances—

  Surabaya Johnnie not seen Bodrabadur Temple

  in Java next time round this part

  of the world

  All the wire services eating sweet and

  sour pork and fresh cold lichee white-meat

  in sugarwater—

  Discussing the manly truth Gee Fellers—

  Even the fat whitehaired belly boy from

  Time and his Kewpiedoll wife

  Could’ve been seen in the movies dancing

  the rainy night at the border

  Chinese cha-cha, Hysteria

  That UP kid flown down from Vientiane

  Laos fugitive Hepatitis

  Scared of the Yellow Men, or the slow

  Alcohol red face of the Logistics

  Analyst—“I got the Eichmann syndrome”

  said he newsweekly—reporters who

  never committed suicide like

  Hemingway had to, faced

  with the fat newsman with

  Seven children from

  Buddenbrooks

  They were living in Greece while Pound

  was taking a vow of silence

  “I knew too much”

  but it was all a mistake,

  I fled the Mekong delta, fled the 12,000

  Military speaking hot dog guts on the

  downtown aircooled streets,

  fled the Catinat Hotel, flushed my shit

  down the bathroom—

  jumped in the cab suddenly, afraid

  after left Xaloi temple like a

  Negro disintegrated in New Orleans,

  afraid to publish that or they bomb

  my typesetter’s woodsy Balcony

  in Louisiana—

  Everywhere it’s the fear I got in my own

  intestines—Kenyatta Prime Minister

  peacefully with his fly-whisk

  and maybe the Mo Mo’s underground

  Mao-Mao—everywhere is my own Rhodesia

  for Mysterious Choose Up Sides and Die

  like a “Man”

  I never wanted to be a “human” being and

  this is what I got—a himalayan

  striped umbrella I don’t use

  in the jungle rain—my eyes

  Lid-heavy—my mind skips

  back to the overweight knapsack I carry

  all these years’ scribbles bound in

  Ganges towels—

  Down, to drink

  Iced coffee with sweet evaporated milk

  Chinese coffee in small glasses, but

  Manger les Tripes No No—not eat

  that mouthful of snake-apple

  “give up desire for children”

  give up—this Prophecy—

  Everything drifted away in the dream

  even the stone buildings of Low Library,

  even the great dome of Columbia,

  even the great cities of Khmer—weak

  dancers at the portals of Angkor—

  where I saw the praying young

  head shaved peasant kneel at

  the foot of the stairs on a purple

  straw mat,

  The cries of the boy dancers to the

  deliberate slow walking drum’s

  triple beat—Faunlike

  conscious asian steps on the

  stonewalk—My cries of Sex

  in bed echoed in their

  lap-head grass eyes—

  Motorcyclists crying together

  entering the inner gates to

  the huge temple left behind by other

  Hindu dreamers—Kingdom

  Come or Kingdom Yore—

  reassurance from Buddha’s

  two arms, palms out

  stept up to 13th Century

  Sukothai feminacy

  step forward—

  I’ve read the 1910 Guidebook about them

  giant trees strangling the heavy palace

  one altar full of little black bugs I never saw

  before,

  Broken or stray Lingams left over from another

  Imperial History, Goon squads with Moats,

  Kingly reservoirs dried up, must’ve

  been a big city full of wooden poles right

  near here, bamboo thatchments

  Chinese babies screaming at the bearded

  Han traveler—Palms together

  Salute I don’t care I don’t know

  Buddha footprint repetition

  Make that a dozen eggs—split em easy.

  Make that pig—tied up on the running board

  between iron spokes, with a sharp

  wood stick set between his legs to

  carry him squeaking hoarsely protesting

  being man-handled to

  get his throat cut for chinese

  hordes—yes they eat

  So much pork they’ll make a butcher shop

  restaurant of the whole white folks universe

  which should be owned by Negroes but is

  really haircut like Jews or

  Indian Mounties in

  Northern Canada

  They been “throwing up radioactive dolphins

  in their icy bays—”?

  There was a great ice-floe up north I

  saw holes in the sea crust, weir

  cold green brine slurping up, or mist

  on my fingernail—

  I sat in a hammock and waited—a

  big hole appeared in the English

  Channel

  To let the human beings thru, hordes

  from Italy into White Anglia

  England achange—Stonehenge who

  went back that far to worship the

  Sun?

  Lady Mort’s wormy intestines,

  always passed the basement in the Louvre

  with that Knight-at-Arms on a stone

  black table carried by hooded monks

  big as huge children getting

  stoned, tired—

  It can can’t go on forever. I’m in the

  Jet Set, according to my memory,

  dissociated in Space from

  Bangkok to Calcutta 2 hours

  from Bangkok to Saigon the

  old elegance of the hitch thumb

  in Texas past the valley

  town and the green river—

  Coughing in the airplane and my ears hurt

  a headache on the local slow

  airboat—over the great

  water, carrying the 10 tiny

  Buddhas of the negligent

  Mahant of Bodh Gaya—

  Jumping in and out of space—soon

  faster than light I’ll go back to the

  Graham Avenue past, and stare out the

  window happily at Paul R——

  passing down the 1942 Broadway—

  the gothic church, the alleys and

  Synagogues of Mea Shearim,

  Jerusalem’s hated Walls—

  I couldn’t get over to the Holy Side and weep

  where I was supposed to by History

  Laws got confused stamped

  in my passport, lost in the refugee

  Station at Calcutta. It

  winds in and out of space and time the

  physical traveler—

  Returning home at last, years later as

  prophesied, “Is this the way that

  I’m supposed to feel?”

  with my nightmare underwear downtown

  in the gray haunted midnight street

  foggy Vancouver was winter

  then now Summer I’ll see

  Thru the clear air the great Northern Mountains

  and aspire that lonely visible

  Space-peak before entering the

  Moils of New Frisco San York Orleans

  Castro Bomb Shade Protest Shelter

  Better write a letter warnin
g against

  the

  Aswan Nile not seen

  Peking’s Jewelry feet not Come true

  Surely I’ll live to take tea in a back yard

  in Kyoto and be calm!

  “Make me ready—but not yet”

  No I am not “ready” to die when that Choke

  comes I’m afraid I’ll scream and

  embarrass everybody—go out

  like a coward yellow fear I done left no

  Louis babies behind me Rebuke in

  Those 70 year eyes and I speak of Murder

  blessing him?—Alas

  to be kinder except I was kind to the

  Man on park bench after the Nite Club

  who “schemed murders” as an

  analyst for air forces.

  They need conscience-stricken analysts, I’m

  a conscious-stricken panelist on this

  university show.

  Forward March, guessing

  which bullet which airplane which nausea

  be the dreadful doomy last

  begun while I’m still

  conscious—I’ll go down and get a cold coffee at

  Midnight

  Siemréap, Cambodia, June 10, 1963

  The Change: Kyoto–Tokyo Express

  I

  Black Magicians

  Come home: the pink meat image

  black yellow image with

  ten fingers and two eyes

  is gigantic already: the black

  curly pubic hair, the

  blind hollow stomach,

  the silent soft open vagina

  rare womb of new birth

  cock lone and happy to be home

  again

  touched by hands by mouths,

  by hairy lips—

  Close the portals of the festival?

  Open the portals to what Is,

  The mattress covered with sheets,

  soft pillows of skin,

  long soft hair and delicate

  palms along the buttocks

  timidly touching,

  waiting for a sign, a throb

  softness of balls, rough

  nipples alone in the dark

  met by a weird finger;

  Tears allright, and laughter

  allright

  I am that I am—

  Closed off from this

  The schemes begin, roulette,

  brainwaves, bony dice,

  Stroboscope motorcycles

  Stereoscopic Scaly

  Serpents winding thru

  cloud spaces of

  what is not—

  “… convoluted, lunging upon

  a pismire, a conflagration, a—”

  II

  Shit! Intestines boiling in sand fire

  creep yellow brain cold sweat

  earth unbalanced vomit thru

  tears, snot ganglia buzzing

  the Electric Snake rising hypnotic

  shuffling metal-eyed coils

  whirling rings within wheels

  from asshole up the spine

  Acid in the throat the chest

  a knot trembling Swallow back

  the black furry ball of the great

  Fear

  Oh!

  The serpent in my bed pitiful

  crawling unwanted babes of

  snake covered with veins and pores

  breathing heavy frightened love

  metallic Bethlehem out the window

  the lost, the lost hungry

  ghosts here alive trapped

  in carpet rooms How can I

  be sent to Hell

  with my skin and blood

  Oh I remember myself so

  Gasping, staring at dawn over

  lower Manhattan the bridges

  covered with rust, the slime

  in my mouth & ass, sucking

  his cock like a baby crying Fuck

  me in my asshole Make love

  to this rotten slave Give me the

  power to whip & eat your heart

  I own your belly & your eyes

  I speak thru your screaming

  mouth Black Mantra Fuck you

  Fuck me Mother Brother Friend

  old white haired creep shuddering in

  the toilet slum bath floorboards—

  Oh how wounded, how wounded, I

  murder the beautiful chinese women

  It will come on the railroad, beneath

  the wheels, in drunken hate screaming

  thru the skinny machine gun, it will

  come out of the mouth of the pilot

  the dry lipped diplomat, the hairy

  teacher will come out of me

  again shitting the meat out of

  my ears on my cancer deathbed

  Oh crying man crying woman

  crying guerrilla shopkeeper

  crying dysentery boneface on

  the urinal street of the Self

  Oh Negro beaten in the eye in my

  home, oh black magicians

  in white skin robes boiling the

  stomachs of your children that

  you do not die but shudder in

  Serpent & worm shape forever

  Powerful minds & superhuman

  Roar of volcano & rocket in

  Your bowels—

  Hail to your fierce desire, your

  Godly pride, my Heaven’s gate

  will not be closed until

  we enter all—

  All human shapes, all

  trembling donkeys & apes, all

  lovers turned to ghost

  all achers on trains &

  taxicab bodies sped away

  from date with desire, old movies,

  all who were refused—

  All which was rejected, the

  leper-sexed hungry of

  nazi conventions, hollow

  cheeked arab marxists of Acco

  Crusaders dying of starvation

  in the Holy Land—

  Seeking the Great Spirit of the

  Universe in Terrible Godly

  form, O suffering Jews

  burned in the hopeless fire

  O thin Bengali sadhus adoring

  Kali mother hung with

  nightmare skulls O Myself

  under her pounding

  feet!

  Yes I am that worm soul under

  the heel of the daemon horses

  I am that man trembling to die

  in vomit & trance in bamboo

  eternities belly ripped by

  red hands of courteous

  chinamen kids—Come sweetly

  now back to my Self as I was—

  Allen Ginsberg says this: I am

  a mass of sores and worms

  & baldness & belly & smell

  I am false Name the prey

  of Yamantaka Devourer of

  Strange dreams, the prey of

  radiation & Police Hells of Law

  I am that I am I am the

  man & the Adam of hair in

  my loins This is my spirit and

  physical shape I inhabit

  this Universe Oh weeping

  against what is my

  own nature for now

  Who would deny his own shape’s

  loveliness in his

  dream moment of bed

  Who sees his desire to be

  horrible instead of Him

  Who is, who cringes, perishes,

  is reborn a red Screaming

  baby? Who cringes before

  that meaty shape in

  Fear?

  In this dream I am the Dreamer

  and the Dreamed I am

  that I am Ah but I have

  always known

  oooh for the hate I have spent

  in denying my image & cursing

  the breasts of illusion—

  Screaming at murderers, trembling

  between their legs in fear of the
>
  steel pistols of my mortality—

  Come, sweet lonely Spirit, back

  to your bodies, come great God

  back to your only image, come

  to your many eyes & breasts,

  come thru thought and

  motion up all your

  arms the great gesture of

  Peace & acceptance Abhaya

  Mudra Mudra of fearlessness

  Mudra of Elephant Calmed &

  war-fear ended forever!

  The war, the war on Man, the

  war on woman, the ghost

  assembled armies vanish in

  their realms

  Chinese American Bardo Thodols

  all the seventy hundred hells from

  Orleans to Algeria tremble

  with tender soldiers weeping

  In Russia the young poets rise

  to kiss the soul of the revolution

  in Vietnam the body is burned

  to show the truth of only the

  body in Kremlin & White House

  the schemers draw back

  weeping from their schemes—

  In my train seat I renounce

  my power, so that I do

  live I will die

  Over for now the Vomit, cut

  up & pincers in the skull,

  fear of bones, grasp

  against man woman & babe.

  Let the dragon of Death

  come forth from his

  picture in the whirling

  white clouds’ darkness

  And suck dream brains &

  claim these lambs for his

  meat, and let him feed

  and be other than I

  Till my turn comes and I

  enter that maw and change

  to a blind rock covered

  with misty ferns that

  I am not all now

  but a universe of skin and breath

  & changing thought and

  burning hand & softened

  heart in the old bed of

  my skin From this single

  birth reborn that I am

  to be so—

  My own Identity now nameless

  neither man nor dragon or

  God

  but the dreaming Me full

  of physical rays’ tender

  red moons in my belly &

  Stars in my eyes circling

  And the Sun the Sun the

  Sun my visible father

  making my body visible

  thru my eyes!

  Tokyo, July 18, 1963

  VII

  KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE

  (1963–1965)

  Nov. 23, 1963: Alone

  Alone

  in that same self where I always was

  with Kennedy throat brain bloodied in Texas

  the television continuous blinking two radar days