Near Newark Airport my father’ll be
Under a Winston Cigarette sign buried
On Exit 14 Turnpike NJ South
Through the tollgate Service Road 1 my father buried
Past Merchants Refrigerating concrete on the cattailed marshes
past the Budweiser Anheuser-Busch brick brewery
in B’Nai Israel Cemetery behind a green painted iron fence
where there used to be a paint factory and farms
where Pennick makes chemicals now
under the Penn Central power Station
transformers & wires, at the borderline
between Elizabeth and Newark, next to Aunt Rose
Gaidemack, near Uncle Harry Meltzer
one grave over from Abe’s wife Anna my father’ll be buried.
July 9, 1976
VII
What’s to be done about Death?
Nothing, nothing
Stop going to school No. 6 Paterson, N.J., in 1937?
Freeze time tonight, with a headache, at quarter to 2 A.M.?
Not go to Father’s funeral tomorrow morn?
Not go back to Naropa teach Buddhist poetics all summer?
Not be buried in the cemetery near Newark Airport some day?
Paterson, July 11, 1976
“Junk Mail”
I received in mail offer beautiful certificate National Conference Synagogue Youth
invites subscriber Monthly Review Independent Socialist Mag
Congressman Koch reports on collapse of our cities
Epilepsy Foundation misdelivered for Mr. Pantonucci light candle understanding 4 million Americans
Dear Mr. Orlovsky put Salvation Army on your Christmas List $50 return enclosed envelope
American Friends Service Committee act now meet urgent human needs hungry families Prisoners
in remote penal institutions Rehabilitation Vietnam Laos Northern Great Plains Indians block land-destruction by energy seeking industries Contact between Israeli Jews & Arabs
Psychoenergetics workshops in Vermont Green Mountain Quarterly’s Imperialist Ideology in Donald Duck with a new bibliography Sri Aurobindo and the Mother protected by Intnl. copyright laws News of Auroville
Dear Friend: we are Michael & Robert Meeropol, sons of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg executed by U.S. Government 22 years ago.
Sue the Government for the Files duplicating fees alone Twenty-five
Thousand Dollars
Christmas Greetings Help Hospitalized Veterans art or craft Kit enthused busily working for days Bob Hope helps.
Fund For Peace if your blood boils Press accounts C.I.A. blackmail assassination a powerful alternative to World Violence Private Citizens acting Global
Gay Peoples Union NYU faces bankruptcy Dance Halloween
Boycott Gallo Grapes lettuce United Farmworkers of America Our struggle is not over make checks payable Si Se Puede Cesar E. Chavez Union Label
Announcing Energy & Evolution Quarterly how to make harps lyres & dulcimers Quantum Theory Tantra & land reform organic gardening
Give Poets & Writers’ CODA to a friend subscribe United Nations Childrens’ Fund severe malnutrition Starvation faces 400 to 500 million children poorer countries. Dwarfism
disease blindness mental retardation stunted growth crop failures drought flood exhausted wheat rice reserves skyrocketing fuel costs fertilizer shortages Desperately need your help.
Racial motives lead to Innocent Marine’s conviction in Georgia murder trial a thick envelope from Southern Poverty Law Center Julian Bond
“I didn’t mean to harm anyone. I only went into that Police Station to see what they were doing to my brother…” sd Marine Sgt. Roy Patterson
Won’t you help millions in desperate need Thanksgiving urgently bless Carl’s Holiday Food Crusade “Yes! use my tax deductible donation to keep them alive.”
Catholic Peace Fellowship Activist Fund’s special appeal help the Staff to foster Christian Pacifist Continental Walk Disarmament & Social Justice
() I have no money at present but I wish to remain on the mailing list () Please take my name off your mailing list
An important message from Robert Redford about the Environment 80 separate legal actions Dirty air you pay your life Aerosol Spray cancer the National Resources Defense Council needs your support
The Continental Walk itself: the Nations spent $4.5 Trillion military security since 1946 This year $240 Billion join us walk across ? of the Planet’s surface Nonviolent resistance Unilateral Disarmament
Aum Sri Ganeshaya Namah Tantra Non-salacious in tone & intent lecturer Dr. Thackur George Washington Hotel Lexington Avenue NYC
Dear Friend: the War Resisters International is in a desperate financial situation
Nuclear Age pacifist work must advance leafleting soldiers British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign
We are in need of the kind of Miracle you can bring to pass. The huge influx of Russian Immigrants upon Bikur Cholem Hospital in the heart of Jerusalem—Don’t turn your back on the Herculean efforts …
First priority reservation on new gold $100 Canadian Olympic Coin now available at just $110! for American Express Cardmembers—
Ad Hoc Coalition for a New Foreign Policy (formerly Coalition to Stop Funding the War) hopes you will join the network by filling out the enclosed envelope
Human Rights Amendment, end Vietnam Trade Embargo, cut foreign military assistance encourage people to people Friendshipments to Vietnam
A literary miracle 843 poems written in 24 hours by Indian Yogi Sri Chinmoi Aum Publications
If you haven’t joined the Great Falls Development Corp. now’s the time to do so
& subscribe to the William Carlos Williams Newsletter. Penmaen Press: Two fascinating heretofore unpublished letters written in 1956 to Richard Eberhart by Allen Ginsberg …
Please won’t you help Central America Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Subcontinent? Give generously to Planned Parenthood—World Population
Confidential—Memo to supporters of Open Housing from Fund for Open Society a nonprofit mortgage Co. to advance equal housing: fight racial steering
Dear Citizen of the World: First days explosion bomb radioactivity starve Ozone layer? Isn’t it time we did something?
1) Send cooperators ten addresses w/ zip codes 2) Mail friends endorsement 3) Write your Congressman President Newspaper editor & Presidential Candidate.
As a final move, the World Authority would destroy all Nuclear Weapons.
Opened Midnight, New York, September 4, 1976
“You Might Get in Trouble”
Opening a bus window in N.Y.
with the left hand in front of
Bellevue you might get a
hernia.
Walking across First avenue
you might stumble in a
pothole
& get your head run over by
taxicab
Plowing the field by Cherry
Creek your trailer might
turn over & fall on your ear
you might get your ear cut off
arresting a junkie
or having an angry conversation with
a speedfreak on E. 10 street
or arguing your case before the
supreme court
someone might shoot you in
the brain
There’s nothing you can do to
keep your nose clean
taking baths plunging in the
ice & snow
you might catch cold, the
flu Swine epidemic’s
“in” this year
according to the Authorities.
September 18, 1976
Land O’Lakes, Wisc.
Buddha died and
left behind a
big emptiness.
October 1976
“Drive All Blames into One”
It’s everybody’s fault but me.
I didn’t do it. I
didn’t start the universe.
I didn’t steal Dr. Mahler’s tiles from his garage roof for my chicken coop
where I had six baby chicks I paid for so I could attract
my grammar school boyfriends to play with me in my backyard
They stole the tiles I’m going across the street to the candystore
and tell the old uncle behind the glass counter I’m mad at my boyfriends
for stealing that slate I took all the blame—
Last night I dreamt they blamed me again on the streetcorner
They got me bent over with my pants down and spanked my behind I was ashamed
I was red faced my self was naked I got hot I had a hard on.
New York, October 25, 1976
Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin: Vajrayana Seminary
Candle light blue banners incense
aching knee, hungry mouth—
any minute the gong—potatoes and sour cream!
Sunlight on the red zafu,
clank of forks & plates—
I’ll never be enlightened.
*
Did you ever see yourself
a breathing skull
looking out the eyes?
*
Under wooden roof beams
a hundred people
sit
sniffling, coughing, clearing throat
sneezing, sighing
breathing through nose
shifting on pillows in clothes
swallowing saliva,
listening.
November 11, 1976
For Creeley’s Ear
The whole
weight of
everything
too much
my heart in
the subway
pounding
subtly
head ache
from smoking
dizzy
a moment
riding
uptown to see
Karmapa Buddha
tonight.
New York, December 13, 1976
Haunting Poe’s Baltimore
I POE IN DUST
Baltimore bones groan maliciously under sidewalk
Poe hides his hideous skeleton under church yard
Equinoctial worms peep thru his mummy ear
The slug rides his skull, black hair twisted in roots of threadbare grass
Blind mole at heart, caterpillars shudder in his ribcage,
Intestines wound with garter snakes
midst dry dust, snake eye & gut sifting thru his pelvis
Slimed moss green on his phosphor’d toenails, sole toeing black tombstone—
O prophet Poe well writ! your catacomb cranium chambered
eyeless, secret hid to moonlight ev’n under corpse-rich ground
where tread priest, passerby, and poet
staring white-eyed thru barred spiked gates
at viaducts heavy-bound and manacled upon the city’s heart.
January 10, 1977
II HEARING “ LENORE ” READ ALOUD AT 203 AMITY STREET
The light still gleams reflected from the brazen fire-tongs
The spinet is now silent to the ears of silent throngs
For the Spirit of the Poet, who sang well of brides and ghouls
Still remains to haunt what children will obey his vision’s rules.
They who weep and burn in houses scattered thick on Jersey’s shore
Their eyes have seen his ghostly image, though the Prophet walks no more
Raven bright & cat of Night; and his wines of Death still run
In their veins who haunt his brains, hidden from the human sun.
Reading words aloud from books, till a century has passed
In his house his heirs carouse, till his woes are theirs at last:
So I saw a pale youth trembling, speaking rhymes Poe spoke before,
Till Poe’s light rose on the living, and His fire gleamed on the floor—
The sitting room lost its cold gloom, I saw these generations burn
With the Beauty he abandoned; in new bodies they return:
To inspire future children ’spite his Ravens “Nevermore”
I have writ this antient riddle in Poe’s house in Baltimore.
January 16, 1977
Contest of Bards
For Jonathan Robbins
I
THE ARGUMENT: Old bard lived in solitary stone house at ocean edge three decades retired from the world, Young poet arrives naked interrupting his studies & announces his own prophetic dreams to replace the old Bard’s boring verities. Young poet had dreamed old poet’s scene & its hidden secret, an Eternal Rune cut in stone at the hearth-front hidden under porphyry bard-throne. Young bard tries to seduce old Boner with his energy & insight, & makes him crawl down on the floor to read the secret riddle Rhyme.
And the youth free stripling bounding along the Hills of Color
And the old man bearded, wrinkled, browed in his black cave
Meet in the broken house of stone, walls graven by Prophet Hands,
& contend for the Mysteries, vanity against vanity, deciphering
Eternal runes of Love, & Silence, & the Monster of Self
Covered with Blood & Lilies, covered with bones and hair and skin:
They glory in Night & Starvation the Fat Bright Cherub of Resurrection,
Bard after Bard orating and perishing, casting his image behind on men’s brains
thru sounds symboled on the mind’s stone walls reverberating Syllables Visionary
Perfect formed to ’dure Millennia, but Phantom is such Rock,
Phantom as the Cellular Believer in’s own tangible re-creation.
“I hear the Bard’s stone words Build my Immortal Architecture:
This body stone hands and genitals this Heart stone Tenderness
and Delight This head Stone language to Rafter the Stone Bed of Love.
Come lay down on this rock pillow, kid, lay down your tender breast,
Pale face, red hair, soft belly hairy tender foot and Loins
Under the hard immortal blanket, mattress of Rock sheeted with Vocables!
In twenty years I’ll vanish from this shore & Solitary Eternal Cave—
Here I studied & Deciphered the Granite Alphabet surrendered
from Graves from Sands that swirled at the door, from star-fish
spotted boulders in seas’ low tide when full-moon-gleam
Pulls bones of Leviathan & tiny bass-fins tide-pool’d
many in ancient nights.” So one spoke, ocean serpents curl’d around
his whitened beard, eyes wide in horror he be left by the Dark Shore,
to burn his memories in the rocky hearth & keep his cold loins warm
in winter-rain days or in snowy night’s vastness filled
with stars and planets, spring summer & autumn mortality.
Sly, craven, conquering he spoke, his words like rainbows,
or firelight, or shadows, moving humorous thru his beard,
falling in the air, clothing his body in hypocritic webs of truth,
to hide his shame, his empty nakedness. He meditated
remembering deeper Buddhic prophecies, abhoring his own runes solid
immovable but by time and storm inexorable, half visible on his walls.
The youth the color of the hills laughed delighted at his Vanity
and cried, “Under the hearth stone’s a rune, old Bard of Familiarity,
your eyes forgot, or tempest-addled brain, so busy boiling meat
and tending to your threadbare cares and household hermitage
& fishing day by day for thirty years for thoughts! Behold!”
He naked bent and moved the porphyry-smooth red fire-seat aside:
“Read what’s writ on earth here before you Ignorant Prophet,
Learn in your age what True Magicians spelled for
all Futurity,
Cut in the vanity of rock before your feeble hand grasped iron Pen
Or feather fancy tickled your gross ear: There have been sages here
before you, and I am after to outlive your gloomy miserous
hospitality. I loved you Ungrateful Unimaginative Bard
And Came over hills thru small cities to companion your steadfast study.
I dreamed of your eyes and beard and rocks and oceans, I dreamed
this room these pitted moss green walls & runes you scraped
deciphered and memorized, pillars worn by tide and smoke
of your lamp You Grow near blind reading mind on your own house walls,
I dreamt you sitting on your fire-seat reading the vaporous language of flame tongues
nescient to the airy rune cut in the Bedrock under yr very Shamanic Throne
You stare at the ceiling half asleep, or sit on your pillow with heavy eyelid
murmuring old bards Truths to your brain, repetitive
imagining me, or some other red-buttocked stripling savior come
to yr stone bed naked to renew your old body’s intelligence
and help you read again when blind now what you already memorized
and forgot, peering like a boor illiterate in Shadows 30 years—
Yes I have come but not for your feeble purpose, come of my own dreamed will
To show you what you forgot dreamt, Immortal Text neglected
under your groaning seat as you sat self-inspired by your mortal fire.
O Self Absorbed vulgar hungry Demon, leave your body & mine
Take eyes off your own veined hands and worm thoughts, lower
Your watery selfish infatuate eyes from my breast to my feet
& read me aloud in Bardic Voice, that Voice of Rock you boast so well so many decades,
Yea Face inland to the fields and railroads skyscrapers & Viaducts.
Youths maddened by Afric jukeboxes & maidens simpering at Picture shows
Read thru smoky air to a hopeless hundred million fools!
Read what young mind’s Pearl Majesty made round oracular Beauteous
More unworldly than your own self-haunted snaily skull & stony household shell.”
Pointing downward, his arm stiff in disdain dismissing lesser Beauty,