330 10 TINY BUDDHAS: A little fragment of the twelfth-century miniature Stupa carried by the author from broken-down Hindu garden near Bo Tree as a present to poet Gary Snyder in Kyoto.
330 MEA SHEARIM: Orthodox Hasidic section of modern Jerusalem.
331 PEKING’S JEWELRY FEET: See poem “Magic Psalm.”
331 “MAKE ME READY—BUT NOT YET”: A line from W. H. Auden, out of St. Augustine: “O Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.”
The Change: Kyoto–Tokyo Express
333 “… CONVOLUTED …”: See “The Clouds,” part IV, in William Carlos Williams, The Collected Later Poems (New York: New Directions, 1963), p. 128.
VII
KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE
(1963–1965)
Morning
345 JULIUS: Julius Orlovsky, brother of the poet Peter Orlovsky, rescued by latter 1958 after twelve years’ residence Central Islip State Hospital, N.Y. See Robert Frank film Me and My Brother, 1966.
Today
353 SWAMI SHIVANANDA: (1887–1962) “Your own heart is the guru.” Spoken to author, Rishikesh, 1962. See dedication, Ginsberg, Indian Journals.
354 BENJAMIN PéRET & RENé CREVEL: Péret—French surrealist poet (1899–1959); Crevel—French dada dandy poet suicide (1900–1935).
355 FAINLIGHT: Harry Fainlight, young British poet active N.Y. underground film literary circles early 1960s. Participated Albert Hall, London, Poetry Incarnation, 1965. Died 1982.
355 ED: Edward Sanders (b. 1939) American poet, classicist, and musician, leader of Fugs rock group, editor Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts.
Message II
356 GOLEM: Artificial man created, in one Hebrew legend, by the Kabbalist Rabbi Löw, Prague, end of sixteenth century. Parallel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster.
356 BREUGHEL: Pieter Breughel (1520?-1569) His painting Winter Landscape of Prague (including Vltava panorama) is exhibited in that city.
Big Beat
357 KALKI: Final avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu, appearing at close of Kali Yuga (see “Journal Night Thoughts” note) to destroy world and initiate Maha Yuga, the aeon of greatest spiritual virtue, first Yuga of four in Hindu Kalpa cycle.
357 MAITREYA: Future Buddha, aspect of compassion, personification of love, parallel formation to maitri (Sanskrit), friendship.
The Moments Return
360 SEBASTIAN SAMPAS: Youthtime poet friend of Jack Kerouac, brother of widow Stella, killed at Anzio beachhead WW II a few weeks after sending Kerouac a recording: “I weep for Adonais, he is dead. … Goodbye, Jack.”
360 OZONE PARK: In Queens, N.Y., where Jack Kerouac lived with his family late 1940s and wrote The Town and the City, his first novel.
The author setting forth from hotel with throne and crown on flatbed truck to Prague Culture-Park for May King election; May 1, 1965. Note formal-dressed students for May Day holiday. Photographer unknown.
360 GURU: Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur. See “Wichita Vortex Sutra.”
Kraj Majales
361 KRAL MAJALES: May King. Traditional May Day festival, suspended after German occupation prior to WWII. Previous years’ student disturbances persuaded Czech government to restore May King and Queen crowning ceremony in 1965, the occasion of massive public park demonstration by festive Prague populace. Nominated by Polytechnic students, author was elected May King by 100,000 citizens; ministers of culture and education objected. A week later, detained incommunicado, his Prague notebook confiscated, author was deported by plane to London, poem scribed en route.
361 KABIR: (1450?–1518) Illiterate Benares mystic poet-singer, weaver, disciple of Saint Ramanand, comparable to Blake: “If I heard love in exchange for the head in market is being sold,/I shall lose no time in entering the bargain and instantly sever my head, and offer it.” (Sufis, Mystics and Yogis of India, trans. Bankey Behari [Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962], p. 224.) See Kabir poems also translated by Tagore, Bly, Linda Hess.
361 BOUZERANT: (Czech slang) Homosexual.
361 AND I WAS SENT FROM HAVANA: Author was deported from Cuba, February 1965 for private criticism of speech at Havana University in which Fidel Castro denounced homosexuals and ordered purge of theater school. Detained in hotel room, held incommunicado from Casa de las Americas, which hosted the month-long Interamerican Poetry contest he’d been invited to help judge, author was expelled by plane to Prague.
361 JOSEPH K: See Kafka, The Trial.
362 BUNHILL FIELDS: Chief nonconformist burial ground of Old London. Site where Blake’s bones are buried, adjacent to gravestones of Daniel Defoe, John Wesley and Isaac Watts.
362 HAMPSTEAD HEATH: “The great old piece of uncultivated common land and woods whose ancient oaks were protected by Royal Charter in North London, haunt of painter John Constable and poet John Keats, who wrote ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ in a house which still stands at the heath’s edge in Hampstead.”—Tom Pickard
Guru
364 Poem occasioned by a nap at dusk on the site of Druid mysteries, the grassy crest of London’s Primrose Hill, overlooking London’s towery skyline.
Who Be Kind To
367 HARRY: Harry Fainlight (see “Today” note).
369 MONK IN THE 5 SPOT: Thelonious Monk (1918–1982) Genius of spare precise “out” piano harmony and innovator of “bop” rhythm, long denied by drug bureaucracy the necessary police “cabaret card” permit to work in N.Y., returned early 1960s to play many months at Bowery’s Five Spot, jazz club.
Studying the Signs
371 STUDYING THE SIGNS: 360-degree panorama sketch of Piccadilly Circus composed after midnight conclusion of Albert Hall International Poetry Incarnation.
371 BRIGGFLATTS: Late long poem by English master Basil Bunting (1900–1985), who’d suggested to Ezra Pound that Poetry be equated with Condensation, as in Briggflatts verse describing a Northumbrian road cart: “Rut thuds the rim …” See his Collected Poems, Oxford University Press, 1980.
VIII
THE FALL OF AMERICA
(1965–1971)
Thru the Vortex West Coast to East (1965–1966)
A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood
388 TITLE: See Earl of Rochester’s satire “Upon Nothing”: “Ere time and place were, time and place were not, / When primitive Nothing something strait begot, / Then all proceeded from the great united—What?”
Wichita Vortex Sutra
403 PRAJNAPARAMITA SUTRA: Highest Perfect Wisdom Sutra, central to Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practice. It includes the phrase “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” and mantra “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.”
404 LA ILLAHA EL (LILL) ALLAH HU: “There is no god but God [Allah],” Sufi chant for trance dance as taught by Bay Area Sufi Sam circa 1967.
405 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN: (1860–1925) Congressman, presidential candidate 1908. Later involved in Baby Doe silver mine speculation; leader of populist silver monetary movement: “Thou shalt not crucify Mankind upon a Cross of Gold.” See Vachel Lindsay’s poem “Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan” (1919):
I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,
Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion,
The one American who could sing outdoors …
Where is Altgeld, brave as the truth,
Whose name the few still say with tears?
Gone to join the ironies with old John Brown,
Whose fame rings loud for a thousand years.
Where is that Boy, the Heaven-born Bryan
That Homer Bryan, who sang from the West?
Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle,
Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadors rest.
—Vachel Lindsay, Collected Poems (New York: Macmillan, 1925), p. 96.
405 WHO DIDN’T WANT TO BE A MONKEY: John T Scopes disobeyed 1920’s Tennessee law prohibiting high-school teaching of Darwin evolution theory. Defended at trial by Clarence Darrow, he was, interestingly, opposed by Biblical fundamentalist W. J. Bryan
, who maintained that God created Adam and Eve in 4004 B.C.
406 AIKEN REPUBLICAN: George D. Aiken (1892–1984) Vermont senator from 1940 through Vietnam War, author, Pioneering with Wildflowers, 1933, other nature books. Interviewed by newsmen on Face the Nation broadcast through Midwest heard by author (through Volkswagen radio) February 20, 1966, on Kansas roads. Senator Aiken pronounced the entire Indochina war involvement “a bad guess” by policymakers who had predicted in 1962 that “8,000 American troops could handle the situation.” Defense Secretary McNamara contended that U.S. was defending South Vietnam from invasion by North Vietnam. “China Lobby” ideologues saw Chinese expansionist plot behind Hanoi and urged nuclear bombing of China.
Senator Aiken argued that the quarter-million South Vietnamese Viet Cong guerrilla army outweighed Hanoi’s troops in confounding the U.S. technologic army then massing toward half-million men. That month, Senator Strom Thurmond backed nuclear arms to win the war.
Later, General Curtis LeMay urged America to “bomb North Vietnam back to the Stone Age.” Carpet bombing of north did take place, and Mekong jungle cover was saturated with Agent Orange.
In mid-’70s chaos after American withdrawal, North Vietnam dismantled and bypassed what was left of the same South Vietnamese Provisional Revolutionary Government (P.R.G. or Viet Cong) political infrastructure U.S. had rejected 1966. Traditional hostilities were renewed between Vietnam and China at disputed border areas. By then, U.S. was allied with China. Doves & hawks both lost the war, always “a bad guess.”
406 MCNAMARA: Robert S. McNamara (b. 1916) Defense secretary under President LBJ during 1960s Vietnam War, brought managerial sophistication to Pentagon mechanized warfare, though privately doubted its purpose.
406 MANDATE FOR CHANGE: “It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected Premier.” (p. 337–38) “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader. …” (p. 372) Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change (New York: Doubleday, 1963).
406 STENNIS: John C. Stennis (1901–1995) U.S. senator, Mississippi, Armed Services Committee man and “hawk,” urged nuclear war for Indochina, 1966.
407 AUNT BETTY: Highway billboard advertising bread.
407 RUSK SAYS TOUGHNESS … VIETNAM WAR BRINGS PROSPERITY: Literal headlines, Midwest newspapers February 1966.
407 BEATRICE: Nebraska town, Route 77.
408 HUTCHINSON … EL DORADO: Kansas towns en route between Lincoln, Nebraska, & Wichita.
408 ABILENE: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s hometown, site of his Presidential Library.
408 NATION “ OF THE FABLED DAMNED”: See concluding paragraphs of Whitman’s Democratic Vistas for prophetic warning against America’s hawkish materialism.
410 CLARK: Joseph S. Clark (1901–1990) U.S. senator, Pennsylvania, described Vietnam War at the time as “open-ended”—i.e., could go on forever, including war with China.
410 MORSE: Wayne Morse (1900–1974) U.S. senator, Oregon, outstanding legislative “dove” in active opposition to America’s undeclared war in Vietnam.
411 OR SMOKING CIGARETTES/AND WATCHING CAPTAIN KANGAROO: Pop song of the day referring to children’s TV program.
411 UNITED FRUIT: United Fruit Company’s law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, had employed State Secretary Dulles (see “Who Will Take Over the Universe?” note), whose brother, Allen, heading CIA, coordinated the 1954 then-covert overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz, elected president of Guatemala. The event is notorious throughout Latin America as a mid-twentieth-century example of “banana republic” repression by North American imperium. By 1980, the U.S.-trained Guatemalan military had reportedly genocided 10 percent of jungle Indian population as part of “pacification” program to “create a favorable business climate.”
Birbhum yogi, likely Khaki Baba. Photographer unknown.
411 OAKLAND ARMY TERMINAL: California students had passed leaflets and picketed this Pacific war transshipment center. Gary Snyder & Zen companions had sat meditating at its gates.
412 MILLIONAIRE PRE SSURE: Refers to a Mr. Love from Wichita, second biggest backer of cold-war-conspiracy-obsessed John Birch Society.
412 TELEPHONE VOICES: When Peter Orlovsky and author came to read poetry, Philosophy Department hosts at Wichita’s Kansas State University received many crank phone complaints.
413 AGING WHITE HAIRED GENERAL: Lewis B. Hershey (1893–1977) Selective Service director since Truman appointment 1948, time of first U.S. peacetime draft.
413 REPUBLICAN RIVER: Runs from Kansas City to Junction City.
414 OLD HEROES OF LOVE: Neal Cassady, born in Independence, Mo.
414 MCCLURE: Michael McClure, American Romantic bard and playwright (b. 1932), Marysville, Kansas. See The New American Poetry, Donald M. Allen, ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1960), for McClure’s part as key biological philosopher-poet in 1950s “San Francisco Renaissance” and subsequent “generational” culture.
414 OLD MAN’S STILL ALIVE: Ex-President Harry S. Truman.
414 SHAMBU BHARTI BABA: A Naga (naked) saddhu the author often met at Benares’s Manikarnika Ghat cremation ground. See photographs, Indian Journals.
414 KHAKI BAB A: North Bengali (Birbhum area) 19th-century saint who, dressed in khaki loincloth, is pictured sometimes sitting surrounded by dog friends and protectors. (See photograph on page 786.)
414 DEHORAHAVA BABA: A yogi author met at Ganges River across from Benares, 1963.
414 SATYANANDA: Calcutta swami encountered by author 1962, had twin-thumbed hands, and said, “Be a sweet poet of the Lord.”
414 KALI PADA GUHA ROY: Tantric acharya or guru visited by author in Benares, 1963.
414 SHIVANANDA: Swami, teacher to Satchitananda, visited by author, Peter Orlovsky, Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger, Rishikesh, 1962: “Your own heart is your Guru.”
415 SRIMATA KRISHNAJI: Contemporary Brindaban lady saint, translator of poet Kabir, advised author thus.
415 BRINDABAN: Holy town near Delhi where Krishna spent childhood in play as cow herder.
415 CHAITANYA: 16th-century North Bengali saint, founder of Hare Krishna Mahamantra lineage, pictured dancing, singing.
415 DURGA-MA: Mother Durga, aspect of Shiva’s consort Parvati emphasized in Bengali Hindu mythology, 10-armed goddess of war fields, who consumes evil through violence.
415 TATHAGATA: (Sanskrit) Buddha characterized as “He who has passed through,” or “that which passed.” (“Thus come,” and also “Thus gone”: “Thus come [One].”)
415 DEVAS: Indian gods, seen as aspects of human or divine being.
415 MANTRA: Sacred verbal spell or prayer composed of elemental sound “seed” syllables, used in meditative concentration practice. Literally, “mind protection” speech.
416 “KENNEDY URGES CONG GET CHAIR” …: February 14, 1966, news headlined Senator Robert Kennedy’s proposal that U.S. offer Viet Cong share of power in South Vietnam. This was major break with administration war policy.
416 CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE: In February 14, 1966, Wichita Eagle.
416 BONG SON: 100 Viet Cong soldiers were killed close to Bong Son and were reported struck by many bullets before falling.
417 LA DRANG: Vietnamese battlefield mentioned in news reports third week February 1966.
417 BURNS: Tiny Kansas town near Wichita.
418 KELLOGG: Main drag in Wichita.
418 HOTEL EATON: On Douglas Street, near local Vortex Gallery patronized by Charles Plymell and Kansas artists.
418 CARRY NATION: “(b. Garrard Co., 1846; d. Leavenworth, Kans., 1911), temperance agitator. An ignorant, unbalanced, and contentious woman of vast energies, afflicted with an hereditary paranoia, she was subjected to early hardships that fused all her great physical and emotional powers into a flaming enmity toward liquor and its corrupt purvey
ors. From her first saloon-smashing ventures at Medicine Lodge, Kans., she carried her campaign to Wichita (1900), where her distinctive weapon, the hatchet, was first used, and then on to many of the principal American cities. Arrested thirty times for ‘disturbing the peace,’ she paid fines from sales of souvenir hatchets, lecture tours, and stage appearances. Her autobiography was published, 1904.”—Concise Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1964), p. 721.
419 NIGGERTOWN: Area of Wichita between Hydraulic and 17th streets.
Kansas City to Saint Louis
421 CHARLIE PLYMELL: American poet, filmmaker and pioneer editor, accompanied author in Kansas-Nebraska travel.
421 THE JEWEL-BOX REVIEW: Transvestite club show, Kansas City.
421 SEX FACTORIES: Kinsey Institute, University of Indiana, Bloomington, gave birth to this jump-cut phrase.
421 BURCHFIELD: Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) American painter, best known for portraits of particular solitary gabled Victorian houses in bare U.S. regional landscapes.
421 WALKER EVANS: (1903–1975) Classic American photographer whose record of Boston houses, poets’ faces, Cuban visages, Southern agrarian scenes (for Farm Security Administration Project, 1930s), billboards, junkyards, main streets, subway riders, Chicago corners and train glimpses helped define a second generation of American photography, and influenced younger eyes, including Robert Frank’s.
423 KENNEY … MORPHY: Friends of William S. Burroughs in 1930s St. Louis.
423 W.S.B.: William Seward Burroughs
425 FRENCH TRUTH, DUTCH CIVILITY: “French Truth, Dutch prowess, British Policy,/Hibernian Learning, Scotch civility,/Spaniards Dispatch, Danes wit,/are mainly seen in thee.”—Earl of Rochester, “On Nothing”