crowded in one vast space ship toward Andromeda—That all lone soul in Iowa or Hark-land join the Lone, set forth, walk naked like a Hebrew king, enter the human cities and speak free,
at last the Man-God come that hears all Phantasy behind the matter-babble in his ear, and walks out of his Cosmic Dream into the cosmic street
open mouth to the First Consciousness—God’s woke up now, you Seraphim, call men with trumpet microphone & telegraph, hail every sleepwalker with Holy Name,
Life is waving, the cosmos is sending a message to itself, its image is reproduced endlessly over TV
over the radio the babble of Hitler’s and Claudette Colbert’s voices got mixed up in the bathroom radiator
Hello hello are you the Telephone the Operator’s singing we are the daughters of the universe
get everybody on the line at once plug in all being ears by laudspeaker, newspeak, secret message,
handwritten electronic impulse traveling along rays electric spiderweb
magnetisms shuddering on one note We We We, mustached disc jockeys trembling in mantric excitement, flowery patterns bursting over the broken couch,
drapes falling to the floor in St. John Perse’s penthouse, Portugal’s water is running in all the faucets on the SS Santa Maria,
chopping machines descend on the pre-dawn tabloid, the wire services are hysterical and send too much message,
they’re waiting to bam out the Armageddon, millions of rats reported in China, smoke billows out New York’s hospital furnace smokestack,
I am writing millions of letters a year, I correspond with hopeful messengers in Detroit, I am taking drugs
and leap at my postman for more correspondence, Man is leaving the earth in a rocket ship,
there is a mutation of the race, we are no longer human beings, we are one being, we are being connected to itself,
it makes me crosseyed to think how, the mass media assemble themselves like congolese Ants for a purpose
in the massive clay mound an undiscovered huge Queen is born, Africa wakes to redeem the old Cosmos,
I am masturbating in my bed, I dreamed a new Stranger touched my heart with his eye,
he hides in a sidestreet loft in Hoboken, the heavens have covered East Second Street with Snow,
all day I walk in the wilderness over white carpets of City, we are redeeming ourself, I am born,
the Messiah woke in the Universe, I announce the New Nation, in every mind, take power over the dead creation,
I am naked in New York, a star breaks thru the blue skull of the sky out the window,
I seize the tablets of the Law, the spectral Buddha and the spectral Christ turn to a stick of shit in the void, a fearful Idea,
I take the crown of the Idea and place it on my head, and sit a King beside the reptile Devas of my Karma—
Eye in every forehead sleeping waxy & the light gone inward—to dream of fearful Jaweh or the Atom Bomb—
All these eternal spirits to be wakened, all these bodies touched and healed, all these lacklove
suffering the Hate, dumbed under rainbows of Creation, O Man the means of Heaven are at hand, thy rocks & my rocks are nothing,
the identity of the Moon is the identity of the flower-thief, I and the Police are one in revolutionary Numbness!
Yawk, Mercy The Octopus, it’s IT cometh over the Void & makes whistle its lonemouthed Flute You-me forever—
Stop Arguing, Cosmos, I give up so I be, I receive a happy letter from Ray Bremser exiled from home in New Jersey jail—
Clocks are abuilding for a thousand years, ticking behind metalloidesque
electronico-clankered industries smokeless in silent mind city—
Dawn of the Ages! Man thy Alarm rings thru sweet myriad mornings in every desperate-carred street! Saints wait in each metropolis
for Message to Assassinate the old idea, that 20,000 yr old eye-god Man thought was Being Secret mystery,
unbearable Judge above, God alien handless tongueless to poor man, who’ll scream for mercy on his deathbed—Oh I saw that black
Octopus Death, with supernatural antennae spikes raying Awful waves at my consciousness, huge blind Ball invisible behind the rooms in the universe—a not-a-man—a no-one—Nobodaddy—
Omnipotent Telepath more visionary than my own Prophetics & Memories —Reptile-sentient shimmer-feel-hole Here,
Dense Soullessness wiser than Time, the Eater-Darkness hungry for All—but must wait till I leave my body to enter that
One Mind nebula to my recollection—Implacable, my soul dared not die,
Shrank back from the leprous door-mind in its breast, touch Him and the hand’s destroyed,
Death God in the End, before the Timeworld of creation—I mean some kind of monster from another dimension is eating Beings of our own Cosmos—
I saw him try to make me leave my corpse-illusion Allen, myth movie world come to celluloid-end,
I screamed seeing myself in reels of death my consciousness a cinematic toy played once in faded attick by man-already-forgotten
His orphan starhood inked from Space, the movie industry itself blot up its History & all wracked myriad Epics, Space wiped itself out,
lost in a wall-crack dream itself had once disappearing—maybe trailing endless comet-long trackless thru what unwonted dimensions it keeps dreaming existence can die inside of—vanish this Cosmos of Stars I am turning to bones in—
That much illusion, and what’s visions but visions, and these words filled Methedrine—I have a backache & 2 telegrams come midnight from messengers that cry to plug in the Electrode Ear to
my skull downstreet, & hear what they got to say, big lives like trees of Cancer in Bronx & Long Island—Telephones connect the voids island blissy darkness scattered in many manmind—
New York, February 1961
This Form of Life Needs Sex
I will have to accept women
if I want to continue the race,
kiss breasts, accept
strange hairy lips behind
buttocks,
Look in questioning womanly eyes
answer soft cheeks,
bury my loins in the hang of pearplum
fat tissue
I had abhorred
before I give godspasm Babe leap
forward thru death—
Between me and oblivion an unknown
woman stands;
Not the Muse but living meat-phantom,
a mystery scary as my fanged god
sinking its foot in its gullet &
vomiting its own image out of its ass
—This woman Futurity I am pledge to
born not to die,
but issue my own cockbrain replica Me-Hood
again—For fear of the Blot?
Face of Death, my Female, as I’m sainted
to my very bone,
I’m fated to find me a maiden for
ignorant Fuckery—
flapping my belly & smeared with Saliva
shamed face flesh & wet,
—have long droopy conversations
in Cosmical Duty boudoirs,
maybe bored?
Or excited New Prospect, discuss
her, Futurity, my Wife
My Mother, Death, My only
hope, my very Resurrection
Woman
herself, why have I feared
to be joined true
embraced beneath the Panties of Forever
in with the one hole that repelled me 1937 on?
—Pulled down my pants on the porch showing
my behind to cars passing in rain—
& She be interested, this contact with Silly new Male
that’s sucked my loveman’s cock
in Adoration & sheer beggary romance-awe
gulp-choke Hope of Life come
and buggered myself innumerably boy-yangs
gloamed inward so my solar plexus
feel godhead in me like
an open door—
Now that’s changed my decades body old
tho’ admiring male thighs at my brow,
hard love pulsing thru my ears,
stern buttocks upraised
for my masterful Rape
that were meant for a private shit
if the Army were All—
But no more answer to life
than the muscular statue
I felt up its marbles
envying Beauty’s immortality in the
museum of Yore—
You can fuck a statue but you can’t
have children
You can joy man to man but the Sperm
comes back in a trickle at dawn
in a toilet on the 45th Floor—
& Can’t make continuous mystery out of that
finished performance
& ghastly thrill
that ends as began,
stupid reptile squeak
denied life by Fairy Creator
become Imaginary
because he decided not to incarnate
opposite—Old Spook
who didn’t want to be a baby & die,
didn’t want to shit and scream
exposed to bombardment on a
Chinese RR track
and grow up to pass his spasm on
the other half of the Universe—
Like a homosexual capitalist afraid of the masses—
and that’s my situation, Folks—
New York, April 12, 1961
Sunset S.S. Azemour
As orange dusk-light falls on an old idea
I gaze thru my hand on the page
sensing outward the intercoiled weird being I am in
and seek a head of that—Seraphim
advance in lightning flash through aether storm
Messengers arrive horned bearded from Magnetic spheres
disappearing radios receive aged galaxies
Immensity wheels mirrored in every direction
Announcement swifting from Invisible to Invisible
Eternity-dragon’s tail lost to the eye
Strange death, forgotten births, voices calling in the past
“I was” that greets “I am” that writes now “I will be”
Armies marching over and over the old battlefield—
What powers sit in their domed tents and decree Eternal Victory?
I sit at my desk and scribe the endless message from myself to my own hand
Marseilles-Tanger, 1961
Seabattle of Salamis Took Place off Perama
If it weren’t for you Mr Jukebox with yr aluminum belly roaring & thirty teeth eating dirty drx.
yr eyes starred round the world, purple diamonds & white brain revolving black disks
in every bar from Yokamama to Pyraeus winking & beaming Saturday Nite
what silence harbor Sabbath dark instead of boys screaming and dancing wherever I go—
Hail Jukebox of Perama with attendant minstrel juvenile whores
on illuminated porches where kids leap to noise bouncing over black oceantide,
leaning into azure neon with sexy steps, delicious idiot smile and young teeth, flowers in ears,
Negro voices scream back 1000 years striped pants pink shirts patent leather shoes on their lean dog feet
exaggerated sneakers green pullovers, long hair, hips & eyes!
They’re jumping & joying this minute over the bones of Persian sailors—
Echoes of Harlem in Athens! Hail to your weeping eyes New York!
Hail to the noise wherever the jukebox is on TOO LOUD,
The Muses are loose in the world again with their big black voice bazooky blues,
Muses with bongo guitars electric flutes on microphones Cha Cha Cha
Feeling happy in Havana Mambo moving delicate London new Lyre in Liverpool
Tin Clarinet prophesying in Delphos, Crete jumping again!
Panyotis dancing alone stepped drunk from a krater, Yorgis slapping his heels & kicking Cerberus’ heads off!
Doobie Doobie reigns forever on the shores! One drachma for Black Jack, one drachma brings Aharisti again, Na-ti-the-Ma-Fez,
Open the Door Richard, I’m Casting a Spell on You, Apocalypse Rock, End of History Rag!
Piraeus, September 1, 1961
Galilee Shore
With the blue-dark dome old-starred at night, green boat-lights purring over water,
a faraway necklace of cliff-top Syrian electrics,
bells ashore, music from a juke-box trumpeted,
shadow of death against my left breast prest
—cigarette, match-flare, skull wetting its lips—
Fisherman-nets over wood walls, light wind in dead willow branch
on a grassy bank—the saxophone relaxed and brutal, silver horns echo—
Was there a man named Solomon? Peter walked here? Christ on this sweet water?
Blessings on thee Peacemaker!
English spoken
on the street bearded Jews’ sandals & Arab white head cloth—
the silence between Hebrew and Arabic—
the thrill of the first Hashish in a holy land—
Over hill down the valley in a blue bus, past Cana no weddings—
I have no name I wander in a nameless countryside—
art gallery closed, pipe razor & tobacco on the floor.
To touch the beard of Martin Buber
to watch a skull faced Gershom Scholem lace his shoes
to pronounce Capernaum’s name & see stone doors of a tomb
to be meek, alone, beside a big dark lake at night—
to pass thru Nazareth dusty afternoon, and smell the urine down near Mary’s well
to watch the orange moon peep over Syria, weird promise—
to wait beside Galilee—night with Orion, lightning, negro voices, Burger’s
Disease, a glass of lemon tea—feel my left hand on my shaved chin—
all you have to do is suffer the metaphysical pain of dying.
Art is just a shadow, like cows or tea—
keep the future open, make no dates it’s all here
with moonrise and soft music on phonograph memory—
Just think how amazing! someone getting up and walking on the water.
Tiberias, October 1961
Stotras to Kali Destroyer of Illusions
O Statue of Liberty Spouse of Europa Destroyer of Past Present Future
They who recite this Anthem issuing from empty skulls the stars & stripes
certainly makes a noise on the radio beauteous with the twilight
should one skinny Peruvian only spell your name right O thou who
hast formidable eyebrows of spiritual money & beareth United Nations in your hair
such Peruvian becomes higher Jaweh charming countless moviestars with disappearing eyes
O republic female mouth from which two politics trickle they who recite
the name thy 28th star OMAHA subjugate hungry ghost-hoards ascreech under Gold Reserve
O fortress America Guardian Blueprint who in thy nether right hand hangs a bathroom
in thy nether left the corpse of Edgar Poe in front right hand hanging the skull
of Roosevelt with gray eyeballs & left hand George Washington his tongue hanging out like a fish
Your huge goddess eye looming over his severed head your bottomless throat open
with great machinery roars inside teeth made of white radios & mountainous red tongue
licking vast bubbles of atomic gum left eye rolled to gray heavens above Dewline
right eye staring into magic engine wheels hissing with railroad steam
arm after arm snaking into place in aether battleships dangling from one hand to another
the black corpse Thelonious Monk the flayed skin of Gertrude Stein held down
fluttering over the gaping Yoni, hands reaching o
ut to honk all the horns of Broadway
William Randolph Hearst’s bones circled in mystic ring on third toe & breast hung
with newspapers shining with Earl Browder’s cancer the 1964 Elections flapping in her left
nostril if you sneeze you’ll destroy the western hemisphere right Vajra hand
playing mah-jongg with her astrolabes it keeps her mind occupied especially with rhythmic
breathing exercises & interpretive dancing one foot goddesslike on the corpse of Uncle Sam
Top hand bearing the Telephone nobody’s on the other end she’s talking to herself
because when the ear gets disconnected from the brain you still hear noise
but who remembers what it means somebody else will pay the bill as fast as it takes
for vultures to clean up a corpse at Tower of Silence That will be five minutes and
extra charges if you go on talking the eleventh hand presenting an electric chair
twelfth hand in the mudra of Foreign Aid and thirteenth palm closed in sign of Disarmament
O Freedom with gaping mouth full of Cops whose throat is adorned with skulls of Rosenbergs
whose breasts spurt Jazz into the robot faces of thy worshippers grant that recitation
of this Hymn will bring them abiding protection money & dance in White House
for even a dope sees Eternity who meditates on thee raimented with Space crosseyed
creatrix of Modernity whose waist is beauteous with a belt of numberless Indian scalps
mixed with negro teeth Who on the breast of James Dean in the vast bedroom of Forest Lawn
Cemetery enjoyest the great Passion of Jesus Christ or seated on the bone-yard ground
strewn with the flesh of Lumumba haunted by the female shoes of Khrushchev & Stevenson’s long red tongue
enjoyest the worship of spies & endless devotions intoned by mustached radio announcers
If by night thy devotee naked with long weird hair sit in the park & recite this Hymn
while his full breasted girl fills his lap with provincial kisses and meditates on Thee
Such such a one dwells in the land the supreme politician & knows Thy mystery
O Wife of China should thy patriot recite thy anthem & China’s cut-up & mixed together
with that of Russia Thy elephant-headed infant mighty in all future worlds
& meditate one year with knowledge of thy mystic copulation with China this next age