Book of Blues (8 page)

Harrumph me katt

I think I'll take off

For Cat and fish

Well & well well, so that's

The ancient fainter, the painter

Who tied up blue balloons

—Globas azul—and threw

Them asunder in the thunder

Of the ul—Ur—Obi—Ob-

Fuscate me no more travails,

Pardy hard, this rock mine

We're workin'll yield up diamond

hard

And then we'll cut thru conceptions

And come with answer pard

And what twill it be, sorry pard,

Aint never no mystery

Was imparted to me

Lessn you wanta try Roy McGoon

Who learned it in Innisfree

Or old Yow O Yeats, Blake,

We havent got the diamond tho

That freed Dipankara Buddha

In the Palaeolithic morning

And made him make faces

In Samapattis at me

Let's free

High Cascades or Mexico—

headaches

Travel everywhere

Forms and costumes and noses

All this changing literature

Cyrano de Bergerac, King

of the French underworld

King for a day, Henry V,

Falstaff his father, Henry IV,

Warlike stools frowning in

‘We have no more use

For your caisson iron,

It's too fat

and the water too vile,

I'll vouch for the master

but water your while

had better be bile

to judge from the green

of the innocent liquid'

Reading, naught, words, styles

The only thing matter is otay

English Literature

a School of Writing

French Literature

was closed off

How tight the lips of Zola the

Master

Wont tell how he grips his pen

To consorts of learners

English, Old Shakespeare gathered

bout him minor figures

like Ben Jonson

Maurie O'Tay

Henry Fenelon

And Molly O'Day

Irish Literature—that was

where the brabac originated

from

Wood cracking in the sea

And what is God?

The unspeakable, the untellable,

—

Rejoice in the Lamb, sang

Christopher Smart, who

drives me crazy, because

he's so smart, and I'm

so smart, and both of us

are crazy

No,—what is God?

The impossible, the impeachable

Unimpeachable Prezi-dent

of the Pepsodent Universe

but with no body & no brain

no business and no tie

no candle and no high

no wise and no smart guy

no nothing, no no nothing,

no anything, no-word, yes-word,

everything, anything, God,

the guy that aint a guy,

the thing that cant be

and can

and is

and isnt

Beverly Dickinson, wasnt it,

the distraught perfect poetess

who lived in New Hampshire

and wrote about roots & roses

Sweet old Beverly I remember her well

and her attic was fragrant,

her Attican divine

her storm bird

her fence story

her bee inside

her butterfly

her broom

her Majesty

the Queen

Said, “Emily Dickinson is as great

as Shakespeare sometimes,”

said T. S. Eliot's editor

Robert Giroux, swell fellow—

Her Attic divine, her antic,

—her

Sang in the blue hill

her larks and mimes

And died all a silent

in her prophecy tomb

Dans son tombeau

Elle a gagnée

Toutes les lignes noires

D'Eternité

Que' s' trouve dans la terre

Quand qu'l mouille dans l'Hiver

Salonge!—Mompress!

Traboune!—Partance!

Elle a trouvée dejas

L'ange d'Archanciel

Couchez dans la mer

D'été d'nuée

Aye, oui, mes Anges toutes Francais

Mes tours d'ircanciel

Ma miel, mon or,

Mes ames deshonorées,

Mes troublages, mes lignes,

Mon vin sur la table

Ou sur le plancher

Book of Dreams

(Written in dream language)

Old Hosapho we wont let up

And hear me sing the

hm—Ole Hosapho

he wont let me record

me dream language

Ooogh! he upped & come back

Ole Hosapho

But now he's down's

Gone down boy again

Hay Hosapho, say sumptin!

Hoy Hosapho, Roil!

Nope Hosapho stay lead down

—A mani a Gloria—

Tinkle tinkle laughter

Dingle little pretties

everything's happening everywhere

My real choice was to go

to Princeton—I wanted

to be orange and black

on the football field

and orange Varsity letters

on black wool jackets

with buttons, and elm trees

and Sunday afternoon

the swish of the snow

and Einstein in his yard

and All's Well with

the Emily Dickinson world

And drive to New Hope

for a drink

or lobster

And take the sad train

on the platform of night

And ride into riot New York

On a Saturday Night

To go see Count Basie

Baying at the Lincoln

With Lester Otay Young

On Tenor Saxophone

Boy, sa den du coeur, sa, le bon

vin—Mama, c'est'l'port

si fort, le vin divin—

Aye, oui, mais écoute—dans

les milieus de les nuits,

tu wé, sa den du coeur,

sa den du coeur

Ca fa du bien au beson

Besoigne?—Di mué pas la

besogne maudit, la bédenne,

maudit, la bédenne,

sa fa du bien a bédenne

pauvr' bédenne

A, y parle tu aussi bien

q'ca

a Milan

les Italiens a gueules

Nous autres aussi on a une

belle lagne qui clacke

Dog with mouths, in Navajoa,

bent down to the mud

and slippered shining entrails

in the morning Sinaloa sun

of a dead rabbit

Then the bus come and run

it over, the rabbit, sullen

dog skimpered off a minute,

came back to repeat his

refection

Oh well, shiney priests

eat goodies

in every store they see

Old Navajoa shit dog, you,

your goodies are the goodiest

goodies I ever did see, how

dog you shore look mad

when yer bayin

Hoo Hound-dog!

dont eat that dead rabbit

in front of my face raw

—cook it a lil bit

I had a scrap with a doctor

one night

We were both drunk

I said “Just because you're

a doctor you think you're

so smart, if you're

going to report me go

ahead you prick”

And I fell off the stool

I was fulla goofballs

He went to the other doctor

“You better look this guy

up, he must be some kind

of a phoney”

Pony the pony the pony

the pra

Pony the pony the pony

the pra

I got a grass jaw, boys,

I say, and knock out Ray

Robinson in the first minute

of the first round

Then they bring in Tiger Jones

because I made no bones

about how I was out to

Kayo Robinson, moonbless him

Tiger Jones comes on me all

fists, hard puncher, I got

nothing to do but retreat

or turn into grass, so

I dance

right in

to his arms

reach

and plow him all over

with crazy little punches

some of which are hard

and we wake up

Someday they'll have monuments

set up to reverend the mad

people of today in madhouses

As early pioneers in the knowing

that when you lose your reason

you attain highest perfect knowing

Which is devoid of predicates

such as: “I am, I will, I reason—”

—devoid of saying:-“I will do it”

—devoid

Devoid of insanity as well by virtue

of no contact

But meanwhile these deterministic

doctors really do believe that mad

is mad—

And have erected a billion-dollar

religion to it, called, Psycho-medicine,

and ah—

Well we'll know the sanity

of Ard Bar

In the morning, some time, alone

Some'll go mad with numbers

Some'll go mad with words

Some'll pretend to lose reason

And lose reason anyway

Some wont, some'll be secret,

Some'll screw in long black

rooms

With the fantastic short-haired

Beauty who lies on the bed

listening

To Sinatra—some'll be candleflame

jiggling gently in the night

Some'll be racetrack operators,

some'll have soap in their pockets

Some'll sing in the Bronx Jail

and some wont sing in Riker's

Some'll come out of it

with iron heads

Some'll wear coats

and hard of it

The monstrous jailer, he wouldnt let me

outa that jailhouse—

till I had smoked all the tea

I could smoke, ‘Finish up!'

he said, & prodded me

And I gotta take big long hikes

of draw on that cigarette tree

How'd I get outa that jail?

By forgetting all about me

Which was the best rasperry tree

They ever ternevented in ole

Donnesfree

Cause I figure there's no difference

twixt me and dead dog mud

Made of bones and take your pick,

sulphur or Innisfree

How'd they ever get that tap

outa me?

Wasnt I tired givin?

hard tap

Family tree.

I wasnt sweet givin.

Las ombras vengadora

they say in little taco joints

when the shadows are coming

at about dusk-time, in Azteca,

modern Fellaheena Mexico,

Las ombras vengadora

Lass ombras venga dora

Most beautiful sound in the world

hep!

Swing up the team, bring up

the gangs, say, didnt I yell

at you a minute ago?

Hoy!

Las ombras vengadora

in little taco sad joints

on Sunday Afternoon

and fathers are home

honoring their sons

Fantasm crazam crazam

Joe Kennedy stops me on

the sidewalk of the Immemorial

University—ack hook

You got your prick out.

I look down, no such thing

What are your two balls

doing hanging on the sidewalk?

I think I'll squat & shit—

We both squat facing each

other on the campus

If ya know what I mean,

cream, we squat

practice ‘mitate Aristophanes

and sit there too laughing

and talking, Kennedy,

one of my first mature

Irishmen

Face each other with feet

partly out, like in Esquire

the phonies showing their shoes

Squat n Shit!

I purified language early in my

young days, I purified & squatted

& beshitted on pages, sophomore,

on my typewriter, all the dirty

words I could think of

squrify & squat & shit

And slit—and finally I'm

in history class & the professor

says ‘Kerouac—what you

dreamin about?'

And I shhoudda said Ack—

Pack—Squrify and squat

and shit, who wants to hear

about the aniards and breast

plates of warriors of the

Medieval Ages

I wanta know about the people

on the street, what they doin?

And what the high art

hark squambling in his quiet

temple moonlit gambymoon

writing jingles & jongles

for the pretties on the square

Orizaba Rooftop blues

Listenin to the street news

Saturday night down there

Pleep! went the new little bike

horn

As the cat pleeped it with his

Foot zinging the bike across

the fantastic bus-driven corners

Barging everywhere, he just angles

and amples

like Stan Getz on tenor

And swings around right around

the fender okay

Orizaba rooftop, Orizaba Rooftop,

Blue, blue, blue

Blue's made of shiny everyway

Orizaba honk-honk, bus motors

Riding high for the clutch, tired,

Faces green on the benches,

Ikons in the corner

Tails of little fenelet

serpents hanging from the fender

Aik, motorcycle of no-cops,

Hotrods & Deans of Mexico,

Aik, aik, aik Mexico

BORRACHO GUAPO BANJO

Pipestoon the Ribber & wobbed

old ladies of shame. the same.

party twan twit Twittenden

Charley, ‘Awfully good fuck!'

he yells out the train window,

to his waving host of the weekend,

‘I say old chap, really!!'

and then Commando Poltroon