Chase the Last Beauty with me till we find the author, even if we enter Death Trance with ’im,
rise & gather your Sea gold, all your grassy Emeralds & champagne Amber hidden safe
Under the rune stone at the Hearth Yes Sir your Sparkling diamond treasury
I dreamed it well! Clear Sapphires blue as ice you see in sky! And hoarded rubies
red & multitudinous enough to make Each maiden and each boy on earth blush red with genius joy!
Naked! Naked! rise with me take all your Secrets in the air, the Sun’s at height, the morning’s ope’d blue sky,
Grandfather Clocks bong noon in oriental Carpet living-rooms in the Capital!
Close the stone door behind you, close this tomb lest gulls that swim the sea air
pluck the blind eyes of this lion out of its straw-brained head! Come out horrid Corpse!
But memorize the rune before we go, it’ll encompass our lov’d wanderings!
As Dante had his Virgil & as Blake his own Miltonic Fiend, I your Cherub & Punk Idol
’ll be Companion of th’ Aethereal Ways till we discover of the Secret Eidolon
What Beauteous Paradise is spelled, & what the Speller of the Stanza was
Who chiseled his unearthly riddle on this floor before I was born.”
The old bard trembled pale, at last his heart grew cold, composed to hear the fair youth raving
thru Hells and Heavens, paradise on his red lips, tricking, ravening Commanding,
hissing words half-cursed half prayers! Rending the breathing blue-green globe apart
in Vanity for what is not, aethereal Death and Life, while Love and sorrow ache
in the breast of the living moment under living skin, breath thrilled with sigh,
great Death & Life together One & love but a soul Aware,
For mind in heart is one with the body, Truth is the Depth of that,
and Poetry the Groan of Body lost in the Grave, for Thought is the love of Earth.
“I knew this Rune once long ago, cold Demon inspired kid, bright boy—
thank you for discovering it me again, ’twas meant for you to read in Dreams
and find at your own bare foot one day. I hardly visioned to be here when you came
naked maddened with delight into my room, demanding I respect your lips & loins.
Listen now, my turn to tell the story of a day when I was young as you,
Was in this room, for I was here lone witness to the Stranger, Alien, Wanderer,
Caller of the Great Call, Serpent minded Messenger that came like yourself
Naked from Beauty to Beauty. He came in the door as you did, but no one was home
to greet him, make fire to shine on runes or warm him in beds of Power, Wrath and
Meditation, Service or Tenderness. Nor was Sea gold gathered No nor any rhymed
or unrhymed Rune, not in this house on America’s Eastern Shore.
Some house was here before, but broken down a Century Past, & Uninhabitable.
I gathered icy diamonds in the salt sea, plucked the blue eye of the whale for wisdom,
Green emeralds I found in the growing grass and on tree boughs in their Springtime buds,
For thirty years enriched with witty penury I gathered Amber from the generous laurel
and Rubies rolled out of my heart. I threw away the Pearl, back to the sea
To keep God out of trouble under his blue wet blanket, and be done
with clammy envy and his watery blisses and grasping waves.
I brought the shining fire tongs here from Bardic Mannahatta, & the Red Porphyry Chair of Poetry
from the Ind. I set it beside the hearth and built a fire out of seawracked thrones of wooden kings
I found on the illuminated shore, and lay down on my belly in my healthy youth
and Carved your Beauteous riddle on this bedrock basalt floor with the tooth of an Angel
I imagined one night for Company in Meditation; & Pushed this red porphyry seat
smooth over that Mantric Rune with a Prayer to my visible & invisible teachers—
Beloved Stranger, Naked Beauty, terrible Eidolon O my youth I never dreamt that you would come.”
Washington, January 22, 1977, 3 A.M.–11:30 AM.
III
EPILOGUE
THE ARGUMENT: Last words spoken by the bard to the boy on a train between Washington and NY.
“Some day when we surrender to each other and become One friend,
we’ll walk back to this hermitage, returned from America
thru Cities and Bars and Smoking Factories & State Capitols
Universities, Crowds, Parks and Highways, returned from glass-glittering shrines
& diamond skyscrapers whose windows gleam sunset wealth Golden & Purple,
White & Red & Blue as Clouds that reflect Smog thru Western heavens.
Back here in our bodies we may renew these studies & labors
of Iron & Feather, dream copybooks, & waking Levitation of heavy Mind.
Now still bodied separate in Vanity & minded contrary each in’s Phantasy
only Poetry’s Prophetic beauty Transports us on one Train back to households
in our north Vast City connected with telephones and buses. We may trip out
again into Hidden Beauty, Hearts beating thru the world’s Mills & Wires, Radiant
at Television Noon or on Ecstatic midnite bed with broken bone or body Forgetfulness.
Now we go from our Chambered Cranium forth thru Strangeness:
Careful to respect our Heart, mindful of Beauty’s slow working Calm Machine,
Cigarette Vending Contraption or neon yellow Sun its face to your face—
All faces different, all forms present a Face to look into with Care:
The College boy his ignorant snub nose is a button whereon Sexual mercies
Press their lusty thumbs & wake his studious energy. The grey hair’d dirty
Professor of history’s sought thru ages to find that Country where Love’s face is King,
While the Care on his face is King of Centuries. And thoughts in his mind are
Presidents elected by fresh nerves every seven years to pass new laws of Consciousness.
Each Maple waits our gaze erecting tricky branches in the air we breathe.
Nothing is stupid but thought, & all thought we think’s our own.
My face you’ve seen palsied bearded White & Changing energies
from Slavelike lust to snowy emptiness, bald Anger to fishy-eyed prophecy,
Your voice you’ve heard naked and hard commanding arrogant, pale dandied
in a fit of Burgundy Pique, Childlike delighted fingers twisting my beard
on Lion coverlets in caves far from the Iron Domed Capitol,
Intelligent deciphering runes yours and mine, dreamed & undreamt.
Plebeian Prince of the Suburb, I return to my eastern office pleased with our work
accident of our causes & Eidolons, Planned Careful in your Dreams & in my daylight Frenzies: failed Projections!
Our icy wills resolved in watery black ink’s translucent tears,
Love’s vapors are dissolved on seaboard’s clear noon open to the Sun
shining thru railroad windows on new-revealed faces, our own inner forms!”
January 23, 1977
I Lay Love on My Knee
I nurs’d love where he lay
I let love get away
I let love lie low
I let my love go
I let love go along
I knew love was strong
So I let love go stray
I told love go away
I called love come home
my tongue wasn’t dumb
I kissed love on the neck
& told love to come back
I told love come stay
Down by me love lay
I told love lie down
Love made a fine sound
I told love to Wor
k
as musician or clerk
I sent love to the farm
He could do earth no harm
I told love get married
With children be harried
I said love settle down
with the worms in the ground
I told love have pity
Build me a good city
I taught love to sit
to sharpen his wit
I taught love to breathe
mindful of death
I showed love a straight spine
energetic as mine
I told love take it easy
Manners more breezy
Thoughts full of light
make love last all night
I kissed love on the brow
Where he lay like a cow
moaning and pleasured
his happy heart treasured
I kissed love’s own lips
I laid love on his hips
I kissed love on his breast
When he lay down to rest
I kissed love on his thigh
Up rose his cock high
I bid Love leave me now
rest my feverish brow
I’m sick love goodbye
I must close my eye
No love you’re not dead
Go find a new bed
for a day for a night
& come back for delight
after thought with new health
For all time is our wealth.
New York, February 21, 1977
Stool Pigeon Blues
I was born in Wyoming, Cody is my home town
Got myself busted, the sheriff brought me down
The Feds hit my nose, I felt like a dirty Clown
I turned in my sister, just like they asked me to
I turned in my brother, I had to, wouldn’t you?
If they beat me again, I guess I’d turn you in too
Please don’t blame me, they had me for twenty years
An ounce of weed, they planted it in my ears
They found one seed, and watered it with my tears
I got A’s in highschool, smartest boy in class
Got laid at eleven, the sweetest piece of ass
They found us in bed smoking a stick of grass
Girl broke down crying, the Narcs liked her looks in the nude
Asked us for blowjobs, I told them that was too crude
Took us to jail & accused us of being lewd
Ten years for resisting arrest, ten years for a little joint
Ten years kid, beginning to get the point?
Feds want a big bust, let’s hear you sing oink oink!
Who do you know in highschool, how many’s dealing lids?
Who do you smoke with? We want the names of kids.
They’ll bust all our parents, unless Good God forbids!
I’m just a poor stoolie, got busted in Wyoming
From Cody, to Casper, to Riverton I will sing!
From Gillette to Powell a pigeon I’m on the wing.
Governor Governor Get me out of this fix!
President President decriminalize the sticks,
Out here in Wyoming, Sheriffs play dirty tricks.
Casper, April 16, 1977
Punk Rock Your My Big Crybaby
I’ll tell my deaf mother on you! Fall on the floor
and eat your grandmother’s diapers! Drums,
Whatta lotta Noise you want a Revolution?
Wanna Apocalypse? Blow up in Dynamite Sound?
I can’t get excited, Louder! Viciouser!
Fuck me in the ass! Suck me! Come in my ears!
I want those pink Abdominal bellybuttons!
Promise you’ll murder me in the gutter with Orgasms!
I’ll buy a ticket to your nightclub, I wanna get busted!
50 years old I wanna Go! with whips & chains & leather!
Spank me! Kiss me in the eye! Suck me all over
from Mabuhay Gardens to CBGB’s coast to coast
Skull to toe Gimme yr electric guitar naked,
Punk President, eat up the FBI w/ yr big mouth.
Mabuhay Gardens, May 1977
Love Replied
Love came up to me
& got down on his knee
& said I am here to serve
you what you deserve
All that you wish
as on a gold dish
eyes tongue and heart
your most private part.
Why do you eat
my behind & my feet
Why do you kiss
my belly like this
Why do you go down
& suck my cock crown
when I bare you the best
that is inside my breast
I lay there reproved
aching my prick moved
But Love kissed my ear
& said nothing to fear
Put your head on my breast
There let your skull rest
Yes hug my breast, this
is my heart you can kiss
Then Love put his face
in my tenderest place
where throbbed my breast sweet
with red hot heart’s heat
There, love is our bed
There, love lay your head
There you’ll never regret
all the love you can get.
From the hair to the toes
neck & knees in repose
Take the heart that I give
Give heart that you live
Forget my sweet cock
my buttock like a rock
Come up from my thighs
Hear my heart’s own straight sighs
I myself am not queer
Tho I lie with you naked
tho my own heart has ached
breast to breast with your bare
body, yes tho I dare
hug & kiss you all night
This is straight hearts’ delight.
So bring your head up
from my loins or the cup
of my knees and behind
where you touch your lips blind
Put your lips to my heart
That is my public part
Hold me close and receive
All the love I can give
Boulder, June 18, 1977, 5 A.M.
X
PLUTONIAN ODE
(1977–1980)
What’s Dead?
Clouds’ silent shadows passing across the Sun above Teton’s mountaintop I saw on LSD
Movies dead shadows
ocean 40% dead said expert J. Cousteau A.D. 1968
Shakespeare the magician, Rimbaud visionary dead
silent vamp Alla Nazimova’s corpse-lip black dust
Walt Disney of Mickey Mouse, Buck Rogers in the Twenty-fifth Century, Hollywood lost in shade
Tragedian Sophocles passed this shore with Charon thru Styx
Ex-Emperor Napoleon obituaried in 1821
Queen Liliuokalani giv’n to her reward
Chief Joseph buried on a brown hill in Washington State
General Douglas MacArthur urged atombombs to blow up China
Eisenhower & Xerxes led armies to the grave
The Skeleton Man in 1930 Barnum & Bailey Circus’ Freakshow bony in’s coffin
The mother Cat I played with in the basement Paterson New Jersey when I was ten
with the Lindbergh baby kidnapped found in a swamp of laundry
My father’s grave writ “Answer a riddle with a stone” wet with rain in Newark
Jesus Christ & Mary for all their Assumption, dust in this world
Buddha relieved of his body, empty vehicle parked noiseless
Allah the Word in a book, or muezzin cry on a Tower
Not even Moses reached Promised Land, went down to Sheol.
Tickertape for heroes, clods of dirt for forgotten grandpas—
Television gho
sts still haunt living room & bed chamber
Crooner Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley rock’n’roll Star, Groucho Marx a mustached joker, Einstein invented the universe, Naomi Ginsberg Communist Muse, Isadora Duncan dancing in diaphanous scarves
Jack Kerouac noble Poet, Jimmy Dean mystic actor, Boris Karloff the old Frankenstein,
Celebrities & Nonentities set apart, absent from their paths shadows left behind, breathing no more—
These were the musings of Buddhist student Allen Ginsberg.
Hawaii, October 16, 1977
Grim Skeleton
Grim skeleton come back & put me out of Action
looking thru the rainy window at the Church wall
yellow vapor lamped, 9 P.M. Cars hissing in street water
—woken dizzy from nicotine sleep—papers piled on my desk
myself lost in manila files of yellow faded newspaper Clippings
at last after twenty five years tapes wound thru my brain
Library of my own deeds of music tongue & oratoric yell—
Is it my heart, a cold & phlegm in my skull or radiator
Comfort cowardice that I slumber awake wrapped in Mexican
Blanket, wallet & keys on the white chair by my head.
Is it the guru of music or guru of meditation whose harsh force
I bear, makes my eyelid heavy mid afternoons, is’t Death
stealing in my breast makes me nauseous mornings, work undone
on a typewriter set like a green skull by the window
When I wake unwilling to rise & take the narcotic Times
above a soft Boiled egg and toasted English muffin daily noon?
Beauty, Truth, Revolution, what skeleton in my closet
makes me listen dumb my own skull thoughts lethargic
Gossip of Poets silenced by drunken Mussolinis every Country on Earth?
My own yatter of meditation, while I work and scream in frenzy
at my wooden desk held up by iron filedrawers stuffed w/press paper
& prophetic fake manuscripts, ears itching & scabbed w/anger
at ghost Rockefeller Brothers pay-off of CIA, am I myself the CIA
bought with acid meat & alcohol in Washington, silenced in meditation
on my own duplicity, stuck in anger at puerto rican wounded
beerdrunk fathers walking East 12th street and their thieving kids
violent screaming under my window 4 A.M.? Some Fantasy of Fame