Book of Blues

  Will bang & break

  Apon the time clock

  Beat prow stone bong

  Boy

  Before I give YOU

  An idgit of the

  Kind Love Legend”

  63RD CHORUS

  JULIEN LOVE’S JUDGMENT

  “Seriously boy

  This San Francisco

  Blues of yours

  Like shark fins

  the summer before

  And was it Sarie

  Sauter Finnegan

  Some gal before—

  It’s a farce

  For funny you

  you know?

  I dont think I’ll buy it”

  Slit in the ear

  By a bolo knife

  Savannah Kid just nodded

  At the beast that

  Hides.

  Secret

  Poetry

  Deceives

  Simply

  64TH CHORUS

  California evening is like Mexico

  The windows get golden oranges

  The tattered awnings flap

  Like dresses of old Perdido

  Great Peruvian Princesses

  In the form of Negro Whores

  Go parading down the sidewalk

  Wearing earrings, sweet perfume

  Old Weazel Warret

  tradesmen

  sick of selling

  out their stores stand in

  the evening lineup

  before identifying cops

  they cannot understand

  in the clouds of can

  and iron moosing

  marshly morse

  of over head

  65TH CHORUS

  Daughters of Jerusalem

  Prowling like angry felines

  Statuesque & youthful

  From the well

  Embarrassed but implacable

  And watched by hungry worriers

  Filling out the whitewall

  Car with 1000 pounds

  Of “Annergy!

  Thats what I got!

  An-nergy!”

  To burn up Popocatepetl’s

  Torch of ecstasy.

  The neons redly twangle

  Twinkle cute & clean

  Like Millbrae cherry

  Nipptious tostle

  Flowers tattled

  Petal for the joss stick

  Stuck in neon twaddles

  To advertise a bar

  —All over SanFranPisco

  The better is the pain

  66TH CHORUS

  —“Switch to Calvert”

  Runs an arrow eating

  Bulb by bulb

  Across the bulbous

  Whisky bottle

  And under the Calvert clock

  Tastes better! Everyone

  Tastes better

  All the time

  And fieldhands

  That aint got aznos

  But the same south Mexican

  Evening soft shoe

  walk

  Slow in dusts of soft

  in Ac to pan

  Here in Frisco City

  American

  The same way walk

  To buy some vegetables

  67TH CHORUS

  For the bedsprings on the roof

  Not keep the rain on out

  Or bombed out huts

  In dumpland—Blue

  Workjacket, shino pants,

  It’s like Mexico all violet

  At ruby rose & velvet

  Sun on down

  On down

  Sun on down

  Sundown

  Red blood bon neon

  Bon runs don blon

  By Barrett

  Wimpole

  Trackmeet

  68TH CHORUS

  And like Mexico the deep

  Gigantic scorpic haze

  Of shady curtain night

  Bein drawn on civilized

  And Fellaheen will howl

  Where the cows of mush

  Rush to hide their sad

  Tan hides in the stonecrump

  Mumps bump top of hill

  Out Mission Way

  Holy Cows of Cross

  And Lick Monastery

  Velvet for our meat

  Hamburgers

  And doom of pained nuns

  Or painted

  One

  Mexico is like Universe

  69TH CHORUS

  And Third Street a Sun

  Showing just how’s done

  The light the life the action

  The limp of worried reachers

  Crawling up the Cuba street

  In almost dark

  To find the soften bell

  Creaming Meek on corner

  One by one, Tern, Tim,

  Click, gra, rattapisp,

  Ting, Tang—

  Blink! Off

  Run! Arrow!

  Cut! Winkle! Twinkle!

  Fill

  Piss! Pot!

  The lights of coldmilk

  supper hill streets

  make me davenport

  and cancel Ship.

  70TH CHORUS

  3rd St is like Moody St

  Lowell Massachusetts

  It has Bagdad blue

  Dusk down sky

  And hills with lights

  And pale the hazel

  Gentle blue in the

  burned windows

  Of wooden tenements,

  And lights of bars,

  music brawl,

  “Hoap!” “Hap!” & “Hi”

  In the street of blood

  And bells billygoating

  Boom by at the ache

  of day

  The break of personalities

  Crossing just once

  In the wrong door

  71ST CHORUS

  Nevermore to remain

  Nevermore to return

  —The same hot hungry

  harried hotel

  wild Charlies dozzling

  to fold the

  Food papers in the

  mahogany talk

  Of television reading room

  Balls are walled

  and withered

  and long fergit.

  Moody Lowell Third Street

  Sick & tired bedsprings

  Silhouettes of brownlace

  eve night dowse—

  All that—

  And outsida town

  The aching snake

  Pronging underground

  To come eat up

  Us the innocent

  And insincere in here

  72ND CHORUS

  And Budapest Counts

  Driving lonely mtn. cars

  On the hem of the grade

  Of the lip curve hill

  Where Rockly meets

  Out Market & More—

  The last shore—

  View of the sea

  Seal

  Only Lowell has for sea

  The imitative Merrimac

  And Frisco has for

  snake

  The crowdy earthquake

  cataract

  And Hydrogen Bombs

  of Hope

  Lost in the blue

  Pacific

 
Empty sea

  73RD CHORUS

  Bakeries gladly bright

  Filled with dour girls

  Buying golden pies

  For sullen brooding boys

  On 3rd St in the night

  But by day

  The Greek Armenian

  Milk of honey

  Bee baclava maker

  Puts his sugars

  On the counter

  For bums with avid jaws

  And hollow eyes

  Eager to eat

  Their last dainty.

  74TH CHORUS

  Marchesa Casati

  Is a living doll

  Pinned on my Frisco

  Skid row wall

  Her eyes are vast

  Her skin is shiny

  Blue veins

  And wild red hair

  Shoulders sweet & tiny

  Love her

  Love her

  Sings the sea

  Bluely

  Moaning

  In the Augustus John

  de John

  back ground.

  75TH CHORUS

  Her eyes are living dangers

  ‘ll Leap you

  From a page

  Wearing the same insanity

  The sweet unconcernedly

  Italian humanity

  Glaring from black eyebrows

  To ask

  Of Renaissance:

  “What have you done now

  After 3 hundred years

  But create the glary witness

  Which out this window

  Shows a pale green

  Friscan hill

  The last green hill

  Of America

  With a cut a band

  76TH CHORUS

  Of brown red road

  Coint round

  By architects of hiways

  To show the view

  To ledge travellers

  Of Frisco, City, Bay

  And Sea

  As all you do is drive around

  —By Groves of lonesome

  Redwood trees

  Isolated

  In physical isolation

  On the bare lump

  Hill like people

  Of this country

  Who walk alone

  In streets all day

  Forbidden

  To contact physically

  Anybody

  So desirable—

  77TH CHORUS

  They kill’d all painters

  Drown’d—Made wash

  The smothering crone

  Of Cathay,

  Flower of Malaya,

  And Dharma saws,

  Gat it all in,

  Like wash,

  Call’d it Renascence

  And then wearied

  From the globe—

  Hill, last hill

  Of Western World

  Is cut around

  Like half attempted

  Half castrated

  Protrudient breast

  Of milk

  From wild staring earth

  78TH CHORUS

  —The last scar

  America was able

  To create

  The uttermost hill

  Beyond which is just

  Pacific

  And no more sc-cuts

  And Alamos neither

  But that can be rolled

  In satisfying sea

  Absolved of suicide—

  Except that now

  They’re blasting fishermen

  Apart?”

  79TH CHORUS

  “Beyond that fruitless sea”

  —So speaks Marchesa

  Mourning the Renaissance

  And still the breeze

  Is sweet & soft

  And cool as breasts

  And wild as sweet dark eyes.

  Sits in her spirit

  Like she wont be long

  And bright about it

  All the time, like short

  star

  An angry proud beauty

  Of Italy

  80TH CHORUS

  San Francisco Blues

  Written in a rocking chair

  In the Cameo Hotel

  San Francisco Skid row

  Nineteen Fifty Four.

  This pretty white city

  On the other side of the country

  Will no longer be

  Available to me

  I saw heaven move

  Said “This is the End”

  Because I was tired

  of all that portend.

  And any time you need

  me

  Call

  I’ll be at the other

  end

  Waiting

  at the final hall

  RICHMOND HILL BLUES

  DULUOZ

  Name derived from early

  morning sources

  In a newspaper office

  Long Ago in Lowell Mass

  When birds were shitting

  On the canal

  And Sperm was Floating

  among the Redbrick Walls

  Of a Morn that had Smoke

  Pouring from a Christian Hill

  Chimney—

  Ah Sire, Duluoz,

  King of my Thoughts,

  Salute!

  (Kick another can of beer)

  THAT’S WHAT I SAID

  Not what I thot I meant

  O Sin-of-a-Bitch

  But what I out loud said

  Not—again—what in

  retrospect

  And banalizing sedeora ing

  of my garage

  Made it

  Say what you mean

  A poem is a lark

  A pie

  SCHLITZ (A drunken vision of a can of beer)

  Beaded melt hotwave waters

  Of outside hydrated juices

  Flowing down Made in USA

  & Brooklyn New York

  Genuine, holed triangular.

  WIFE & 3

  Little Cathy gladdy

  with sun cheeks

  beeted

  Jamie hiding hugging

  her knees

  Mother Earwicker solemn,

  lovely, flesh legs

  white

  King John Fartitures

  of Hop Top Heap

  Cassadee-ing in

  his Kingdom

  Jamie of mother’s sweetly

  sweet goodheart breast

  Showing oldlady teeth

  of littlegirl glee

  And pudgy arms locked

  Tristesse in the little

  hopeless Fingers,

  Faisse in the shot,

  the radiant sun,

  The shine of San Jose

  O

  Grass

  Peotés of time!

  Steps, lost davenports,

  eternities,

  Hot Night Birds,

  Billy Holiday!

  —Make the quaker

  give his cream

  ANY TIME

  Any time you want

  A write a fucken poem

  Ope this book

  & Scream no more

  But Cream

  Cry

  Fret not

>   Flow

  Flay

  Fray the edge of Froy

  Make Frogs Alliterate

  Bekkek! Bekkek!

  Koak! Koak!

  Carra Quax!

  Carra qualquus

  Kerouacainius!

  EVEN JOYCE

  Even he, Joyce,

  had love—

  Even blind poets

  AUDEN HAD NO ASS

  Auden had no ass

  Butler had no balls

  Carew had no crash

  Dyck had no dick

  Egrets had no erse

  Fart had no fuck

  George had no Gyzm

  His honou had no H

  I J Fox had no wife

  J Fox had no Joke

  Kerou had no Ka

  Ling Woe had no Rice

  M & N had no Moola

  (a lot!)

  Novales had no Nodes

  O vum had no Ollie

  (O’Neill Mc Shanahan)

  P-ew had no Push

  Quasi Quean had no Queasy

  feelings

  R had no heart

  Studentio

  had

  no

  Stok

  To

  v

  e

  l

  e

  n

  l

  s

  h had

  no

  T

  u

  p

  Uvalde had no Upstarts

  Vedichad no Velda

  Velda had no Vim

  Vish had no Rush

  her

  Vim

  hid

  his

  Or pit his ass

  gainst my pen

  U had no V

  V had no Victory

  U V W had no

  Pesco

  X no Y or Z

  THE POET

  So many times since

  I’ve seen the poet

  of Greenwich Village

  Cutting to work in the gray dawn

  With a lunchpail &

  bleak haircut

  Eyes to the Hudson

  Nostril to the street

  To winter, work, beneficence,

  Meals, fare of folly

  So many times since

  I’ve seen the poet

  Who wrote rhythms & rhymes

  To be mad in Minetta’s

  And Minetta Lane

  Go Hurrying to Work

  Sex hung, sexed, psychoanalyzed?

  To work in the unpoetic dawn

  Mornings after I’d got drunk