Book of Blues

  Grange toutes les villes

  les jilles

  Mange toutes les filles

  19TH CHORUS

  The diamond that cuts through

  To the other view

  That I painted all white for you

  I edited your rough stone,

  Produced a diamond show,

  Elephantine was the mine

  Eglantine adamant and mad

  And madly adamantine

  My Allah you mine,

  The diamond of Dipankar

  The prime ripe wreak havoc

  Buddha pra-teeth torn

  Mouth Ya-Hoi-Ya-Hai

  Pastumintapaling porpitoi

  Turnpot of biled pata taters

  Smater Gater the Mater

  O’Shay, rife was the weather

  Was singin was gay,

  Rape were the weathers

  In heaven’s O Shay

  20TH CHORUS

  Old buddy aint you gonna stay by me?

  Didnt we say I’d die by a lonesome tree

  And you come and dont cut me down

  But I’m lying as I be

  Under a deathsome tree

  Under a headache cross

  Under a powerful boss

  Under a hoss

  (my kingdom for a hoss

  a hoss

  fork a hoss and head

  for ole Mexico)

  Joe, aint you my buddy thee?

  And stay by me, when I fall & die

  In the apricot field

  And you, blue moon, what you doon

  Shining in the sky

  With a glass of port wine

  In your eye

  —Ladies, let fall your drapes

  and we’ll have an evening

  of interesting rapes

  inneresting rapes

  21ST CHORUS

  Let fall the interesting fall

  And I lie and be as I be

  He stayed up in my case

  for quite awhile

  Tremendous pace—He was

  A petty thief or he’d sell junk

  One or the other

  I did my best to keep him from

  selling junk

  French fag from Montreal

  Hid the capsules up his ass

  And took em out in a restaurant

  On Broadway and Ninety Sixth

  And I went to Eighty Sixth

  Those girls hit up on me

  “Man is here!”

  And I bought four more caps

  And the fag went home with a girl

  What a beautiful shape

  that woman had

  22ND CHORUS

  Ha well dear and Ah Men

  The wee girl that was comin again

  She was for the books

  The Ursula plea

  That I could not take

  O you better baike

  O you better bake

  A better cake than this

  O you better Miss

  Yes you better miss

  When the thing never will kwiss

  O sweetheart and okay

  Here’s hopin we’ll all be away

  It was great fun

  But it was just one a

  those tings

  23RD CHORUS

  Dom dum dom domry

  Dom—dom—hahem—

  Sum—(creeeeee!)—Hnf—

  Shh—Hnf—Shh—Haf

  Shhh—Shhh—Hiffff—

  —Ma—

  Snffff—(bing bring, se ting)

  —“Yo conee na nache”—

  D ding—d ding—d-ding—

  Cramp!—O ya ta dee

  —ker blum—kheum—

  Hnffff—drrrrrrrr—drosh—

  Pepock—Sniffle—t bda—

  Want a piece a bread

  No

  Jack? Hnff—Ta ra ta ra fuee

  —Te wa ta ra teur—

  Grrr—he na pa powa shetaw—

  Tck tick tick Today is Sunday

  24TH CHORUS

  Eternally the lightning runs

  Through form after form formless

  In positive and negative repose

  It makes no difference that your uncle

  Was black with sufferance & bile,

  The whild childscriming skies will

  Always be the muchacho same

  Much words been written about it

  The message from infinite

  That will be was brought to us

  Is one

  But because it has no name

  We can only call it Bibit

  “It was Liebernaut who had

  the dream of uncovering Carthage”

  The snow in the sea mountains

  25TH CHORUS

  In Egypt under rosebushes

  Fifi’s fruits & sweets

  My Egyptian connection’s

  Gonna be late, the conductor

  Wouldnt take my change

  The Egyptian conductor

  Wouldnt nod

  Sandalwood and piss and pulque

  Burning in every door,

  Mighty Marabuda River

  Flows along

  Sampans and river thieves

  And woodsplitters and blind

  Thieves’ Markets & imbeciles

  “See Milan and see the world”

  Heppatity the twat kid

  Hatted by the racetrack

  Horses’ moon barns

  spun on a gibbee

  For lying alone

  26TH CHORUS

  My poems were stolen

  by Fellaheen Thieves

  In the city of the midnight

  The title was “Fellaheen Blues”

  And justice is done to Rome

  I’ll never see them again

  Learn what sweet development

  I’d harbored up to meditate

  All’s left now

  is these hateful

  New Fallaheen Blues

  which mean nothing

  and I hate them

  In the other book I cried

  Ah-da Ah-da

  the parturient spinsters

  that prate i the dining hill

  Are having blue venison

  To goose their old hyms

  Og

  27TH CHORUS

  But I’ll tell you—electricity

  Runs through all these forms

  And we call it electricity

  And notice the forms

  But what’s hoppen in nothin

  Is wha hoppen in nothin

  See?

  The butchers a de Bronx

  Ourter now dat

  —the late night tweed diners

  Italian restaurants on Bleecker

  that sing in the staring blue street

  with cigarettes of legs

  Ourter know dat

  The wild outflow wow open

  O gate of golden honey

  Hopin hill up above

  And below & within

  The kin, aye, my,

  What a roseate balloon

  For lovers of kin

  28TH CHORUS

  Part of the morning stars

  The moon and the mail

  The ravenous X, the raving ache,

  —the moon Sittle La

  Pottle, teh, teh, teh,—

  The tatata of
thusness

  Twatting everywhere—

  The poets in owlish old rooms

  who write bent over words

  know that words were invented

  Because nothing was nothing

  In use of words, use words,

  the X and the blank

  And the Emperor’s white page

  And the last of the Bulls

  Before spring operates

  Are all lotsa nothin

  which we got anyway

  So we’ll deal in the night

  in the market of words

  29TH CHORUS

  And he sits embrowned

  in a brown chest

  Before the palish priests

  And he points delicately

  at the sky

  With palm and forefinger

  And’s got a halo

  of gate black

  And’s got a hawknosed

  watcher who loves to hate

  But has learned to meditate

  It do no good to hate

  So watches, roseate laurel

  on head

  In back of Prince Avolokitesvar

  Who moos with snow hand

  And laces with pearls

  the sea’s majesty

  30TH CHORUS

  The little bug thrasheth

  on the table

  Hungry to burn in the candle

  of flames

  Jerks at the gate-bottoms

  of wax cold hide

  Albions and Albans

  to his little sight

  Leaps to be browned

  in the roast rite

  Soars & tries to reach

  dizzy height

  Falls in the temples

  and quivers & slaps

  Playin like a schoolboy

  in the valleys

  Of silver & ivory hate

  ELEVEN VERSES OF GARVER

  31ST CHORUS

  I

  I had a slouch hat too one time

  The old slouch hat

  I just keep walkin around

  And he keeps walkin around with me

  Around and round that necktie

  counter we went

  When it rained I wore my old

  slouch hat

  It was a good felt that

  I had to carry through many

  rainy day, late fall

  and the early spring

  Perhaps it was a rainy day

  And the house dick mighta saw

  My hat

  Each tie on that ring

  Worth six bucks, Brooks Brothers,

  Sixty bucks wortha ties

  Slacks with peculiarities

  I couldnt even find a pair of slacks

  I thought it was suitable to wear

  32ND CHORUS

  II

  Wrapped one pair around me

  And pinned it with a safety pin

  And pulled up my trousers and

  Went out looked at myself in the mirror

  ‘O no, those wont do’

  And I walked out

  Wrap the slacks around my waist

  Took two other pair

  went to the mirror

  threw them at the salesman

  ‘No those wont do—good

  afternoon’ and walked out

  The slouch hat I got at Harvard

  Club, Yale Club, Princeton Club

  one or the other

  Dartmouth Club

  University Club

  Always barred the Yatch Club

  because it was a little over

  my kin

  33RD CHORUS

  III

  The doorman knew that only

  Mr Astor Mr Vanderbilt

  Mr Whitney belonged

  He couldnt say ‘Good morning

  Mister Astor’ because

  he knew I wasnt Mister

  Astor

  I always figured a way to heel

  into those other clubs

  Not only a member of Who’s

  Who but a Who’s Who

  also have to be a member

  of Who’s Who in New York

  in the special clique of Who’s

  Hoo—slouch hat!

  I get in the Athletic Club

  many time

  34TH CHORUS

  IV

  And I’d go up in the Billiard Room

  And I would wander back around

  The room, hands in back,

  And every coat rack I backed

  Up against feel for the wallet

  One day I walked

  Outa there with ten wallets

  Bellboy lookin me over

  Pretty soon a very dignified looking

  gentleman came up and buzzed

  the bell boy

  He says “Who?” and I says

  “Man told me his name, while

  We’re drinkin at the bar,

  And told me to meet him

  In the billiard-room

  of the Athletic Club

  I dont see him—so I best I

  better go”

  35TH CHORUS

  V

  “Tell me about the old slouch

  hat”

  One of my numerous trips

  to one of the numerous clubs

  in New York City

  The hat finally was left

  in the hotel

  which I had to leave

  rather hurriedly one night

  never to return

  so the hat was given

  to the castoffs of the hotel

  which they collect

  and rummage sells

  May now be worn by one

  Of the members of Skid Row

  New York City—the Bowery

  “I seen that hat

  by moonlight”

  36TH CHORUS

  VI

  I had a pointed mustache

  and I mean pointed

  half inch from here

  Double breasted vest

  and a Derby hat

  and striped trousers

  English shoes, black,

  very pointed, they were

  Hannah Shoes

  People on Broadway’d turn

  and look at me

  The worst is yet to come

  I had a pince nez

  with a long black ribbon

  to my buttonhole

  And I wore a carnation

  white or red

  Boy did I look like somethin

  37TH CHORUS

  VII

  A year later I got caught

  I was dressed differently

  and everything

  But boy that mustache

  and that pince nez

  was really out of this world

  I used that outfit six months

  I finally had to pack it in

  because it was too well-worn

  Pince nez was in a coat

  I stole

  Mustache I grew in the

  sanitarium

  While taking one of my

  numerous drug cures

  My mother’d come to see me

  She says “Oh No!

  Cut it off!”

  “I’m just havin a little fun, mother”

  38TH CHORUS

  V
III

  Took it on the lam

  And went to Canada

  late at night I’m fulla

  morphine and I come down

  fulla goofballs too

  This guy had ventriloquist doll

  And he gave out this Texas Guinan

  Routine “Hello Sucker, we

  like your money as well

  as anybody else’s—s matter

  of fact the bigger your roll

  the more we take ya”

  He used to get everybody

  interested with the doll

  and cutout silhouettes

  put stripes in your tie

  Wound up in his room

  gave him a shot of morphine

  39TH CHORUS

  IX

  Out on the highway I thumbed a ride

  into Buffalo and I put the bum

  on the guy for something to eat

  —’Eat in my drugstore’—

  So we went in the back

  And he had corn on the cob

  And boiled potatos, ‘Say fellow

  I always hear people talk

  about morphine, what’s it look

  like?’—he shows me—he

  had a key a cabinet and

  he had bottles of hundreds

  quartergrains halfgrains

  pantapon delauddit everything

  and soon as he tended

  the customers I emptied the

  bottles—got outa there pretty

  quick, bought a safety pin

  in Buffalo and took a shot

  in the toilet

  40TH CHORUS

  X

  Come out and saw a fellow

  shaving, his coat hanging there,

  hung my own coat and gave

  his coat a brush of my hand,

  felt his wallet, washed my hands,

  and went out and took off

  with the wallet

  So I started out on a shoplifting

  campaign in Buffalo

  wasnt very experienced at it

  Started out with a topcoat

  and I sold it in a taxicab stand

  Next day I decided to get myself

  some suits

  and I went up

  I had a suitbox

  I walked about & put the suitbox

  in one of the dressingrooms