Archive

<body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td valign="top" width="105" bgcolor="#111111" text="#F7F7FF"> <div><img src="143a55400.jpg" border="0" width="85" height="64" align="bottom" hspace="0" vspace="0"></div><br> <div><img src="126639310.gif" border="0" width="57" height="49" align="bottom" hspace="0" vspace="0"></div><br> </td> <td valign="top" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#080000" background="079cb9a3.jpg"> <div> <b>The Poetry Archive</b> </div> <div></div> <div> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="stm31.js"></script> </div> <div> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2">  </script> </div> <div></div><br> <div><img src="64d43f00.jpg" border="0" width="323" height="240" align="bottom" hspace="0" vspace="0"></div><br> <div> <a href="#the_flames_of_loneliness" title="Archive"><u><b>"The Flames of Loneliness", by D.J.S</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#lost" title="Archive"><u><b>"Lost", by MHK</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#rain_lovers" title="Archive"><u><b>"Rain Lovers" by Rickey Pittman</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#obsession" title="Archive"><u><b>"Obsession" by McCutcheon</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#sonnet_29" title="Archive"><u><b>"Sonnet 29" by William Shakespeare</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#vii" title="Archive"><u><b>"VII" by e.e. cummings</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#bowery_blues" title="Archive"><u><b>"Bowery Blues" by Jack Kerouac</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#the_blackbirds_are_rough_today" title="Archive"><u><b>"The Blackbirds are Rough Today" by Charles Bukowski</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#the_suicide" title="Archive"><u><b>"The Suicide" by Jorge Luis Borges</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#poem_to_the_mysterious_woman" title="Archive"><u><b>"Poem to the Mysterious Woman" by Robert Desnos</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#return" title="Archive"><u><b>"Return" by Octavio Paz</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#come_slowly" title="Archive"><u><b>"Come Slowly" by Emily Dickinson</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#love_song" title="Archive"><u><b>"Love Song" by William Carlos Williams</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#my_love" title="Archive"><u><b>"My Love" by e.e. cummings</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#lullaby" title="Archive"><u><b>"Lullaby" by Anne Sexton</b></u></a> </div> <div> <a href="#howl" title="Archive"><u><b>"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg</b></u></a> </div><br> <br> <br> <br> <div>  <a name="the_flames_of_loneliness" id="the_flames_of_loneliness"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>The Flames of Loneliness</b></i> </div> <div> by D.J.S. </div><br> <div> My loneliness is sometimes so arresting. </div> <div> At times my solitude becomes detesting. </div> <div> I have felt a love burn so that I must tell. </div> <div> A testimony of love's fiery flames burning, </div> <div> Searing. </div> <div> My very soul to the lower depths of hell, </div> <div> Consuming. </div> <div> But that love is yet fading, </div> <div> Fading. For years I've remained down here brooding. </div> <div> Just looming. </div> <div> Dwelling in this fiery grave. </div> <div> Prepared for me by the love of my affections. </div> <div> Yes the woman I love has sought to extinguish. </div> <div> A love I've held so dear. </div> <div> As such that I had feared, I never could relinquish. </div> <div> Alas that love is yet fading, </div> <div> Fading. </div> <div> Into the oblivion the penitentiary of my minds eye. </div> <div> Still her memory yet invades. </div> <div> The very core of my fired soul. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="lost" id="lost"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Lost</b></i> </div> <div> by MHK </div><br> <div> And I've lost my footing once again </div> <div> While moondrops reflect upon the sea </div> <div> To cushion the love I have for you </div> <div> To cushion the loss of inevitability </div> <div> The driving concern to fill the need </div> <div> The void deepens as I reach, reach. </div> <div> For our last breath </div> <div> And you hold out no arms </div> <div> To brace me </div> <div> From impact </div> <div> So slammed </div> <div> I am </div> <div> Deep within the rocks </div> <div> Stones shelter me </div> <div> Caress the inner workings of my slight </div> <div> Twist of hand </div> <div> To breathe the air you breathe </div> <div> To hear the words you speak </div> <div> I am but the echoes of the love </div> <div> You are to me </div> <div> Up on a pedestal doused in esteem </div> <div> It is the joy I once bathed you in </div> <div> It is the love you do not feel for me </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="rain_lovers" id="rain_lovers"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Rain Lovers</b></i> </div> <div> by Rickey Pittman </div><br> <div> Holding your face, </div> <div> I study your dark hair </div> <div> And eyes in fascination, </div> <div> Lacking the eloquence </div> <div> To say what I feel. </div> <div> Clothes, scattered on the ground, </div> <div> Standing naked in the soft rain, </div> <div> Background sheets of lightning, </div> <div> Illuminating our passion, </div> <div> Distant thunderings, </div> <div> We whisper, oblivious </div> <div> To anything but each other. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="obsession" id="obsession"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Obsession</b></i> </div> <div> by <a href="http://www.paxacidus.com/read/index.html" target="_top" title="http://www.paxacidus.com/read/index.html"><u>McCutcheon</u></a> </div><br> <div> Obsession is not Kate Moss on the side of a bus </div> <div> as I walk up Amsterdam Ave. </div> <div> on a NYC day over 100 degrees </div><br> <div> I’m up past the church and school </div> <div> too far north for my own safety </div> <div> but there is no danger </div> <div> you just have to always watch yourself </div> <div> which I don’t </div><br> <div> I think of you Sabine </div> <div> us together in the café kissing </div> <div> that cold rainy Paris day </div> <div> how my French and your English </div> <div> didn’t help the conversation </div> <div> but our body language was right for the moment </div> <div> and I hardly knew you </div> <div> you in your capital to do your painting </div> <div> me trying to study film </div><br> <div> I think of you Sabine </div> <div> the day we meet under the awning </div> <div> the party when we escaped into the tub with no water </div> <div> the kisses so intimate </div> <div> and how you smoked cigarettes when I would go down on you </div><br> <div> I think of you Sabine </div> <div> when I close my eyes it helps </div> <div> not just lids over eyeballs </div> <div> but when I scrunch my face up tight </div> <div> trying to make the nothing blacker </div> <div> that’s when you come into focus </div><br> <div> Tu me manque </div> <div> Sabine </div><br> <div> I buy a bottle of water from a pretzel vendor </div> <div> he doesn’t try to rip me off </div> <div> there are no tourists up here </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div> <i><b> <a name="sonnet_29" id="sonnet_29"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a></b></i> </div> <div> <i><b>Sonnet 29</b></i> </div> <div> by William Shakespeare </div><br> <div> When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, </div> <div> I all alone beweep my outcast state, </div> <div> And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, </div> <div> And look upon myself and curse my fate, </div> <div> Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, </div> <div> Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, </div> <div> Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, </div> <div> With what I most enjoy contented least; </div> <div> Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, </div> <div> Haply I think on thee, and then my state </div> <div> (Like to the lark at break of day arising </div> <div> From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; </div> <div> For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings </div> <div> That then I scorn to change my state with kings. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="vii" id="vii"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>VII</b></i> </div> <div> by e.e. cummings </div><br> <div> i like my body when it is with your </div> <div> body.  It is so quite a new thing. </div> <div> Muscles better and nerves more. </div> <div> i like your body.  i like what it does, </div> <div> i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine </div> <div> of your body and its bones, and the trembling </div> <div> -firm-smooth ness and which i will </div> <div> again and again and again </div> <div> kiss, i like kissing this and that of you, </div> <div> i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz </div> <div> of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes </div> <div> over parting flesh ...  And eyes big love-crumbs, </div><br> <div> and possibly i like the thrill </div><br> <div> of under me you quite so new </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="bowery_blues" id="bowery_blues"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Bowery Blues</b></i> </div> <div> by Jack Kerouac </div><br> <div> The story of man </div> <div> Makes me sick </div> <div> Inside, outside, </div> <div> I don't know why </div> <div> Something so conditional </div> <div> And all talk </div> <div> Should hurt me so. </div><br> <div> I am hurt </div> <div> I am scared </div> <div> I want to live </div> <div> I want to die </div> <div> I don't know </div> <div> Where to turn </div> <div> In the Void </div> <div> And when </div> <div> To cut </div> <div> Out </div><br> <div> For no Church told me </div> <div> No Guru holds me </div> <div> No advice </div> <div> Just stone </div> <div> Of New York </div> <div> And on the cafeteria </div> <div> We hear </div> <div> The saxophone </div> <div> O dead Ruby </div> <div> Died of Shot </div> <div> In Thirty Two, </div> <div> Sounding like old times </div> <div> And de bombed </div> <div> Empty decapitated </div> <div> Murder by the clock. </div><br> <div> And I see Shadows </div> <div> Dancing into Doom </div> <div> In love, holding </div> <div> TIght the lovely asses </div> <div> Of the little girls </div> <div> In love with sex </div> <div> Showing themselves </div> <div> In white undergarments </div> <div> At elevated windows </div> <div> Hoping for the Worst. </div><br> <div> I can't take it </div> <div> Anymore </div> <div> If I can't hold </div> <div> My little behind </div> <div> To me in my room </div><br> <div> Then it's goodbye </div> <div> Sangsara </div> <div> For me </div> <div> Besides </div> <div> Girls aren't as good </div> <div> As they look </div> <div> And Samadhi </div> <div> Is better </div> <div> Than you think </div> <div> When it starts in </div> <div> Hitting your head </div> <div> In with Buzz </div> <div> Of glittergold </div> <div> Heaven's Angels </div> <div> Wailing </div><br> <div> Saying </div><br> <div> We've been waiting for you </div> <div> Since Morning, Jack </div> <div> Why were you so long </div> <div> Dallying in the sooty room? </div> <div> This transcendental Brilliance </div> <div> Is the better part </div> <div> (of Nothingness </div> <div> I sing) </div><br> <div> Okay. </div> <div> Quit. </div> <div> Mad. </div> <div> Stop. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="the_blackbirds_are_rough_today" id="the_blackbirds_are_rough_today"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>The Blackbirds are Rough Today</b></i> </div> <div> By Charles Bukowski </div><br> <div> Lonely as a dry and used orchard </div> <div> spread over the earth </div> <div> for use and surrender </div><br> <div> shot down like an ex-pug selling </div> <div> dailies on the corner </div><br> <div> taken by tears like </div> <div> an aging chorus girl </div> <div> who has gotten her last check </div><br> <div> a hanky is in order your lord your </div> <div> worship </div><br> <div> the blackbirds are rough today </div> <div> like </div> <div> ingrown toenails </div> <div> in an overnight </div> <div> jail --- </div> <div> wine wine whine, </div> <div> the blackbirds run around and </div> <div> fly around </div> <div> harping about </div> <div> Spanish melodies and bones </div><br> <div> and everywhere is </div> <div> nowhere --- </div> <div> the dream is as bad as </div> <div> flapjacks and flat tires: </div><br> <div> why do we go on </div> <div> with our minds and </div> <div> pockets full of </div> <div> dust </div> <div> like a bad boy just out of </div> <div> school ---- </div> <div> you tell </div> <div> me, </div> <div> you who were a hero in some </div> <div> revolution </div> <div> you who teach children </div> <div> you who drink with calmness </div> <div> you who own large homes </div> <div> and walk in gardens </div> <div> you have killed a man and own a </div> <div> beautiful wife </div> <div> you tell me </div> <div> why I am on fire like old dry </div> <div> garbage </div><br> <div> we might surely have some interesting </div> <div> correspondence </div> <div> it will keep the mailman busy </div> <div> and the butterflies and ants and bridges and </div> <div> cemeteries </div> <div> the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics </div> <div> will still go on a </div> <div> while </div> <div> until we run out of stamps </div> <div> and/or </div> <div> ideas </div><br> <div> don't be ashamed of </div> <div> anything; I guess God meant it all </div> <div> like </div> <div> locks on </div> <div> doors </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="the_suicide" id="the_suicide"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>The Suicide</b></i> </div> <div> by Jorge Luis Borges </div><br> <div> Not a single star will be left in the night. </div> <div> The night will not be left. </div> <div> It will die and, with me, </div> <div> the weight of the intolerable universe. </div> <div> I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions </div><br> <div> the continents and faces. </div> <div> I shall erase the accumulated past. </div> <div> I shall make dust of history, dust of dust. </div> <div> Now I am looking on the final sunset. </div> <div> I am hearing the last bird. </div> <div> I bequeath nothingness to no one. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="poem_to_the_mysterious_woman" id="poem_to_the_mysterious_woman"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Poem to the Mysterious Woman</b></i> </div> <div> by Robert Desnos </div><br> <div> I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. </div><br> <div> Is there still time to reach that living body </div> <div> and kiss on that mouth the birth </div> <div> of the voice which is dear to me? </div><br> <div> I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my </div> <div> chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body. </div> <div> For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many </div> <div> days and years, I would surely become a shadow. </div><br> <div> O scales of feeling </div><br> <div> I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up. </div> <div> I sleep on my feet - prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who </div> <div> counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and </div> <div> face of some passerby. </div><br> <div> I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much </div> <div> with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom </div> <div> among phantoms, a shadow a hundreds times more shadow than the shadow that </div> <div> moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sun-dial of your life. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="return" id="return"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Return</b></i> </div> <div> by Octavio Paz </div><br> <div> You spread out beneath my eyes, </div> <div> a land of dunes - ocher, bright. </div> <div> The wind in search of water stopped, </div> <div> a land of heartbeats and fountains. </div> <div> Vast as the night you fit </div> <div> in the hollow of my hand. </div><br> <div> Later, the motionless hurling down, </div> <div> within and without ourselves. </div> <div> With my eyes I ate darkness, </div> <div> drank the water of time.  I drank night. </div> <div> Then I touched the body of a music </div> <div> heard with the tips of my fingers. </div><br> <div> Dark boats, together, </div> <div> moored in the shadows, </div> <div> our bodies reclined, </div> <div> our souls unleashed, </div> <div> lamps afloat </div> <div> in the water of night. </div><br> <div> In the end you opened your eyes. </div> <div> You saw yourself seen by my eyes, </div> <div> and from my eyes you saw yourself: </div> <div> falling like a fruit on the grass, </div> <div> like a stone in the pond, </div> <div> you fell into yourself. </div><br> <div> A tide rose within me, </div> <div> with a weightless fist I beat </div> <div> at the door of your lids: </div> <div> my death wanted to meet you, </div> <div> my death wanted to meet itself. </div> <div> I was buried in your eyes. </div><br> <div> Our bodies flow through the plains </div> <div> of night: they are time wearing itself out, </div> <div> a presence that disolves in a caress; </div> <div> yet they are infinite, to touch them </div> <div> is to bathe in rivers of heartbeats </div> <div> and return to the perpetual beginning anew. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="come_slowly" id="come_slowly"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Come Slowly</b></i> </div> <div> by Emily Dickinson </div><br> <div> come slowly, Eden </div> <div> lips unused to thee. </div> <div> bashful, sip thy jasmines, </div> <div> as the fainting bee, </div><br> <div> reaching late his flower, </div> <div> round her chamber hums, </div> <div> counts his nectars - alights, </div><br> <div> and is lost in balms! </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="love_song" id="love_song"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Love Song</b></i> </div> <div> by William Carlos Williams </div><br> <div> I lie here thinking of you --- </div><br> <div> the stain of love </div> <div> is upon the world! </div> <div> Yellow, yellow, yellow </div> <div> it eats into the leaves, </div> <div> smears with saffron </div> <div> the horned branches that lean </div> <div> heavily </div> <div> against a smooth purple sky! </div> <div> There is no light! </div> <div> only a honey-thick stain </div> <div> that drips from leaf to leaf </div> <div> and limb to limb </div> <div> spoiling the colors </div> <div> of the whole world -- </div><br> <div> you far off there under </div> <div> the wine-red selvage of the west </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="my_love" id="my_love"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>my love</b></i> </div> <div> by e.e. cummings </div><br> <div> my love </div> <div> thy hair is one kingdom </div> <div> the king whereof is darkness </div> <div> thy forehead is a flight of flowers </div> <div> thy head is a quick forest </div> <div> filled with sleeping birds </div> <div> thy breasts are swarms of white bees </div> <div> upon the bough of they body </div> <div> thy body to me is April </div> <div> in those armpits is the approach of Spring </div> <div> thy thighs are white horses yoked to a chariot </div> <div> of kings </div> <div> they are the striking of a good minstrel </div> <div> between them is always a pleasant song </div> <div> my love </div> <div> thy head is a casket </div> <div> of the cool jewel of thy mind </div> <div> the hair of thy head is one warrior </div> <div> innocent of defeat </div> <div> thy hair upon they shoulders is an army </div> <div> with victory and with trumpets </div> <div> thy legs are the trees of dreaming </div> <div> whose fruit is the very eatage of forgetfulness </div> <div> thy lips are satraps in scarlet </div> <div> in whose kiss is the combinings of kings </div> <div> thy wrists </div> <div> are holy </div> <div> which are the keepers of the keys of thy blood </div> <div> thy feet upon thy ankles are flowers in vases </div> <div> of silver </div> <div> in thy beauty is the dilemma of flutes </div> <div> the eyes are the betrayal </div> <div> of bells comprehended through incense. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="lullaby" id="lullaby"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <i><b>Lullaby</b></i> </div> <div> by Anne Sexton </div><br> <div> It is a summer evening. </div> <div> The yellow moths sag </div> <div> against the locked screens </div> <div> and the faded curtains </div> <div> suck over the window sills </div> <div> and from another building </div> <div> a goat calls in his dreams. </div> <div> This is the TV parlor </div> <div> in the best ward in Bedlam. </div> <div> The night nurse is passing </div> <div> out the evening pills. </div> <div> She walks on two erasers, </div> <div> padding by us one by one. </div><br> <div> My sleeping pill is white. </div> <div> It is a splendid pearl; </div> <div> it floats me out of myself, </div> <div> my stun skin as alien </div> <div> as a loose bolt of cloth. </div> <div> I will ignore the bed. </div> <div> I am linen on a shelf </div> <div> let the others moan in secret; </div> <div> let each lost butterfly </div> <div> go home.  Old woolen head, </div> <div> take me like a yellow moth </div> <div> while the goat calls hush --- </div> <div> a-bye. </div><br> <div> <hr align="center" size="2"> </div> <div>  <a name="howl" id="howl"><img border="0" src="1x1.gif" height="1" align="bottom" width="1" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a> </div> <div> <b><img src="5c665f10.jpg" border="0" width="357" height="241" align="bottom" hspace="0" vspace="0"></b> </div><br> <div> <i><b>Howl</b></i> </div> <div> by Allen Ginsberg </div><br> <div> I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by </div> <div> madness, starving hysterical naked, </div> <div> dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn </div> <div> looking for an angry fix, </div> <div> angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly </div> <div> connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, </div> <div> who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat </div> <div> up smoking in the supernatural darkness of </div> <div> cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities </div> <div> contemplating jazz, </div> <div> who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and </div> <div> saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene- </div> <div> ment roofs illuminated, </div> <div> who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes </div> <div> hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy </div> <div> among the scholars of war, </div> <div> who were expelled from the academies for crazy & </div> <div> publishing obscene odes on the windows of the </div> <div> skull, </div> <div> who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn- </div> <div> ing their money in wastebaskets and listening </div> <div> to the Terror through the wall, </div> <div> who got busted in their pubic beards returning through </div> <div> Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, </div> <div> who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in </div> <div> Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their </div> <div> torsos night after night </div> <div> with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al- </div> <div> cohol and cock and endless balls, </div> <div> incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and </div> <div> lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of </div> <div> Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo- </div> <div> tionless world of Time between, </div> <div> Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery </div> <div> dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, </div> <div> storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon </div> <div> blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree </div> <div> vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brook- </div> <div> lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind, </div> <div> who chained themselves to subways for the endless </div> <div> ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine </div> <div> until the noise of wheels and children brought </div> <div> them down shuddering mouth-wracked and </div> <div> battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance </div> <div> in the drear light of Zoo, </div> <div> who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford's </div> <div> floated out and sat through the stale beer after </div> <div> noon in desolate Fugazzi's, listening to the crack </div> <div> of doom on the hydrogen jukebox, </div> <div> who talked continuously seventy hours from park to </div> <div> pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brook- </div> <div> lyn Bridge, </div> <div> lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping </div> <div> down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills </div> <div> off Empire State out of the moon, </div> <div> yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts </div> <div> and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks </div> <div> and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars, </div> <div> whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days </div> <div> and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the </div> <div> Synagogue cast on the pavement, </div> <div> who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a </div> <div> trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic </div> <div> City Hall, </div> <div> suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grind- </div> <div> ings and migraines of China under junk-with- </div> <div> drawal in Newark's bleak furnished room, </div> <div> who wandered around and around at midnight in the </div> <div> railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, </div> <div> leaving no broken hearts, </div> <div> who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing </div> <div> through snow toward lonesome farms in grand- </div> <div> father night, </div> <div> who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telep- </div> <div> athy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos in- </div> <div> stinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas, </div> <div> who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking vis- </div> <div> ionary indian angels who were visionary indian </div> <div> angels, </div> <div> who thought they were only mad when Baltimore </div> <div> gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, </div> <div> who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Okla- </div> <div> homa on the impulse of winter midnight street </div> <div> light smalltown rain, </div> <div> who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston </div> <div> seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the </div> <div> brilliant Spaniard to converse about America </div> <div> and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship </div> <div> to Africa, </div> <div> who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving </div> <div> behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees </div> <div> and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fire </div> <div> place Chicago, </div> <div> who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the </div> <div> F.B.I. in beards and shorts with big pacifist </div> <div> eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incom- </div> <div> prehensible leaflets, </div> <div> who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting </div> <div> the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, </div> <div> who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union </div> <div> Square weeping and undressing while the sirens </div> <div> of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed </div> <div> down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also </div> <div> wailed, </div> <div> who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked </div> <div> and trembling before the machinery of other </div> <div> skeletons, </div> <div> who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight </div> <div> in policecars for committing no crime but their </div> <div> own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication, </div> <div> who howled on their knees in the subway and were </div> <div> dragged off the roof waving genitals and manu- </div> <div> scripts, </div> <div> who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly </div> <div> motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, </div> <div> who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, </div> <div> the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean </div> <div> love, </div> <div> who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose </div> <div> gardens and the grass of public parks and </div> <div> cemeteries scattering their semen freely to </div> <div> whomever come who may, </div> <div> who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up </div> <div> with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath </div> <div> when the blond & naked angel came to pierce </div> <div> them with a sword, </div> <div> who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate </div> <div> the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar </div> <div> the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb </div> <div> and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but </div> <div> sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden </div> <div> threads of the craftsman's loom, </div> <div> who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of </div> <div> beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a can- </div> <div> dle and fell off the bed, and continued along </div> <div> the floor and down the hall and ended fainting </div> <div> on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and </div> <div> come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness, </div> <div> who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling </div> <div> in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning </div> <div> but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sun </div> <div> rise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked </div> <div> in the lake, </div> <div> who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad </div> <div> stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these </div> <div> poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver-joy </div> <div> to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls </div> <div> in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses' </div> <div> rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with </div> <div> gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely pet- </div> <div> ticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station </div> <div> solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too, </div> <div> who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in </div> <div> dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and </div> <div> picked themselves up out of basements hung </div> <div> over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third </div> <div> Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemploy- </div> <div> ment offices, </div> <div> who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on </div> <div> the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the </div> <div> East River to open to a room full of steamheat </div> <div> and opium, </div> <div> who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment </div> <div> cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime </div> <div> blue floodlight of the moon & their heads shall </div> <div> be crowned with laurel in oblivion, </div> <div> who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested </div> <div> the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of </div> <div> Bowery, </div> <div> who wept at the romance of the streets with their </div> <div> pushcarts full of onions and bad music, </div> <div> who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the </div> <div> bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in </div> <div> their lofts, </div> <div> who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned </div> <div> with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded </div> <div> by orange crates of theology, </div> <div> who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty </div> <div> incantations which in the yellow morning were </div> <div> stanzas of gibberish, </div> <div> who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht </div> <div> & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable </div> <div> kingdom, </div> <div> who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for </div> <div> an egg, </div> <div> who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot </div> <div> for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks </div> <div> fell on their heads every day for the next decade, </div> <div> who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccess- </div> <div> fully, gave up and were forced to open antique </div> <div> stores where they thought they were growing </div> <div> old and cried, </div> <div> who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits </div> <div> on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse </div> <div> & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments </div> <div> of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the </div> <div> fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinis- </div> <div> ter intelligent editors, or were run down by the </div> <div> drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality, </div> <div> who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually hap- </div> <div> pened and walked away unknown and forgotten </div> <div> into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley </div> <div> ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer, </div> <div> who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of </div> <div> the subway window, jumped in the filthy Pas- </div> <div> saic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, </div> <div> danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed </div> <div> phonograph records of nostalgic European </div> <div> 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and </div> <div> threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans </div> <div> in their ears and the blast of colossal steam </div> <div> whistles, </div> <div> who barreled down the highways of the past journeying </div> <div> to each other's hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude </div> <div> watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation, </div> <div> who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out </div> <div> if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had </div> <div> a vision to find out Eternity, </div> <div> who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who </div> <div> came back to Denver & waited in vain, who </div> <div> watched over Denver & brooded & loned in </div> <div> Denver and finally went away to find out the </div> <div> Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes, </div> <div> who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying </div> <div> for each other's salvation and light and breasts, </div> <div> until the soul illuminated its hair for a second, </div> <div> who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for </div> <div> impossible criminals with golden heads and the </div> <div> charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet </div> <div> blues to Alcatraz, </div> <div> who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky </div> <div> Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys </div> <div> or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or </div> <div> Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the </div> <div> daisychain or grave, </div> <div> who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hyp </div> <div> notism & were left with their insanity & their </div> <div> hands & a hung jury, </div> <div> who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism </div> <div> and subsequently presented themselves on the </div> <div> granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads </div> <div> and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding in- </div> <div> stantaneous lobotomy, </div> <div> and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin </div> <div> Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psycho- </div> <div> therapy occupational therapy pingpong & </div> <div> amnesia, </div> <div> who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic </div> <div> pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia, </div> <div> returning years later truly bald except for a wig of </div> <div> blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible mad </div> <div> man doom of the wards of the madtowns of the </div> <div> East, </div> <div> Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid </div> <div> halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rock- </div> <div> ing and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench </div> <div> dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a night- </div> <div> mare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the </div> <div> moon, </div> <div> with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book </div> <div> flung out of the tenement window, and the last </div> <div> door closed at 4. A.M. and the last telephone </div> <div> slammed at the wall in reply and the last fur- </div> <div> nished room emptied down to the last piece of </div> <div> mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted </div> <div> on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that </div> <div> imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of </div> <div> hallucination </div> <div> ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and </div> <div> now you're really in the total animal soup of </div> <div> time </div> <div> and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed </div> <div> with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use </div> <div> of the ellipse the catalog the meter & the vibrat- </div> <div> ing plane, </div> <div> who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space </div> <div> through images juxtaposed, and trapped the </div> <div> archangel of the soul between 2 visual images </div> <div> and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun </div> <div> and dash of consciousness together jumping </div> <div> with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna </div> <div> Deus </div> <div> to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human </div> <div> prose and stand before you speechless and intel- </div> <div> ligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet con- </div> <div> fessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm </div> <div> of thought in his naked and endless head, </div> <div> the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, </div> <div> yet putting down here what might be left to say </div> <div> in time come after death, </div> <div> and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in </div> <div> the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the </div> <div> suffering of America's naked mind for love into </div> <div> an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone </div> <div> cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio </div> <div> with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered </div> <div> out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand </div> <div> years. </div><br> <div> <b>II</b> </div> <div> <b> </b> </div> <div> What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open </div> <div> their skulls and ate up their brains and imagi- </div> <div> nation? </div> <div> Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unob </div> <div> tainable dollars! Children screaming under the </div> <div> stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men </div> <div> weeping in the parks! </div> <div> Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the </div> <div> loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy </div> <div> judger of men! </div> <div> Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the </div> <div> crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of </div> <div> sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! </div> <div> Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stun- </div> <div> ned governments! </div> <div> Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose </div> <div> blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers </div> <div> are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a canni- </div> <div> bal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking </div> <div> tomb! </div> <div> Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! </div> <div> Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long </div> <div> streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose fac- </div> <div> tories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose </div> <div> smokestacks and antennae crown the cities! </div> <div> Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch </div> <div> whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch </div> <div> whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch </div> <div> whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! </div> <div> Moloch whose name is the Mind! </div> <div> Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream </div> <div> Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in </div> <div> Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! </div> <div> Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom </div> <div> I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch </div> <div> who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! </div> <div> Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! </div> <div> Light streaming out of the sky! </div> <div> Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! </div> <div> skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic </div> <div> industries! spectral nations! invincible mad </div> <div> houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs! </div> <div> They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pave- </div> <div> ments, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to </div> <div> Heaven which exists and is everywhere about </div> <div> us! </div> <div> Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! </div> <div> gone down the American river! </div> <div> Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole </div> <div> boatload of sensitive bullshit! </div> <div> Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! </div> <div> gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! De- </div> <div> spairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! </div> <div> Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on </div> <div> the rocks of Time! </div> <div> Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the </div> <div> wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! </div> <div> They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! </div> <div> carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the </div> <div> street! </div><br> <div> <b>III</b> </div><br> <div> Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you're madder than I am </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you must feel very strange </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you imitate the shade of my mother </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you've murdered your twelve secretaries </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you laugh at this invisible humor </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where we are great writers on the same dreadful </div> <div> typewriter </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where your condition has become serious and </div> <div> is reported on the radio </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where the faculties of the skull no longer admit </div> <div> the worms of the senses </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you drink the tea of the breasts of the </div> <div> spinsters of Utica </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the </div> <div> harpies of the Bronx </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you scream in a straightjacket that you're </div> <div> losing the game of the actual pingpong of the </div> <div> abyss </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul </div> <div> is innocent and immortal it should never die </div> <div> ungodly in an armed madhouse </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where fifty more shocks will never return your </div> <div> soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a </div> <div> cross in the void </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you accuse your doctors of insanity and </div> <div> plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the </div> <div> fascist national Golgotha </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where you will split the heavens of Long Island </div> <div> and resurrect your living human Jesus from the </div> <div> superhuman tomb </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where there are twenty-five-thousand mad com- </div> <div> rades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where we hug and kiss the United States under </div> <div> our bedsheets the United States that coughs all </div> <div> night and won't let us sleep </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> where we wake up electrified out of the coma </div> <div> by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the </div> <div> roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the </div> <div> hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls col- </div> <div> lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry </div> <div> spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is </div> <div> here O victory forget your underwear we're </div> <div> free </div> <div> I'm with you in Rockland </div> <div> in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea- </div> <div> journey on the highway across America in tears </div> <div> to the door of my cottage in the Western night </div><br> <div> <i>San Francisco 1955-56</i> </div><br> </td> </tr> </table> </body>