I’ll die, why should you mention
It now—Why should I worry
About it—it’ll happen
It’ll happen—Now
I want a good time—
Excuse me—
It’s a beautiful happy June
Afternoon I want to walk in—
Why are you so tragic & gloomy?”
And on the corner at the
Pony Stables
Of Sixth Ave & 4th
Sits Bodhisattva Meditating
In Hobo Rags
Praying at Joe Gould’s chair
For the Emancipation
Of the shufflers passing by,
Immovable in Meditation
He offers his hand St feet
To the passers by
And nobody believes
That there’s nothing to believe in.
Listen to Me.
There is no sidewalk artshow
No strollers are there
No poem here, no June
afternoon of Oh
But only Imagelessness
Unrepresented on the iron fence
Of bald artists
With black berets
Passing by
One moment less than this
Is future Nothingness Already
The Chess men are silent, assembling
Ready for funny war—
Voices of Washington Sq Blues
Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem
Window
I will describe them:
Eyt key ee
Sa la oso
Fr up t urt
Etc.
No need, no words to
describe
The sound of Ignorance—
They are strolling to
their death
Watching the Pictures of Hell
Eating Ice Cream
of Ignorance
On wood sticks
That were once sincere
in trees—
But I cant write, poetry,
just prose
I mean
This is prose
Not poetry
But I want
To be sincere
CANTO DOS
While overhead is the perfect blue
emptiness of the sky
With its imaginary balloons
of false sight
Flying around in it
like Tathagata Flying Saucers
These poor ignorant things
mill on sidewalks
Looking at pitiful pictures
of what they think
Is reality
And one
a Negro with curls
Even has a camera
to photograph
The pictures
And Jelly Roll Man
Pops his Billy Bell
Good Humor for Sale—
W Somerset Maugham
is on my bed
An ignorant storyteller
millionaire queer
But Ezra Pound
he crazy—
As the perfect sky
beginninglessly pure
Thinglessly perfect
waits already
They pass in multiplicity
Parading among Images
Images Images Looking
Looking—
And everybody’s turning around
& pointing—
Nobody looks up
and In
Nor listens to Samantabhadra’s
Unceasing Compassion
No Sound Still
S s s s l l
Seethe
Of Sea Blue Moon
Holy X-Jack
Miracle
Night—
Instead, yank & yucker
For pits & pops
Look for crashes
Pictures
Squares
Explosions
Birth
Death
Legs
I know, sweet hero,
Enlightenment has Come
Rest in Still
In the Sun Think
Think Not
Think no more Lines—
Straw hat, hands aback
Classed
He exam in a tein distinct
Rome prints—
Trees prurp
and saw—
The Chessplayers Wont End
Still they sit
Millions of hats
In underwater foliage
1Over marble games
The Greeks of Chess
Plot the Pop
of Mate
King Queen
—I know their game,
their elephant with the pillar
With the pearl in it,
their gory bishops
And Vital Pawns—
Their devout frontline
Sacrificial pawn shops
Their Stately king
Who is so tall
Their Virgin Queen
Pree ing to Knave
the Night Knot
—Their Bhagavad Gitas
of Ignorance,
Krishna’s advice,
Comma,
The game begins—
But hidden Buddha
Nowhere to be seen
But everywhere
In air atoms
In balloon atoms
In imaginary sight atoms
In people atoms
In people atoms
Again
In image atoms
In me & you atoms
In atom bone atoms
Like the sky
Already waits
For us eyes open to
—Pawn fell
Horse reared
Mate Kiked Cattle
And Boom! Cop
shot Bates—
Cru put Two—
Out—I cried—
Pound Pomed—
Jean-Louis,
Go home, Man.
I mean.—
As solid as anything
Is this reality of images
In the imageless essence,
Neither of em’ll quit
—So tho I am wise
I have to wait like
anyotherfool
CANTO TRES
Lets forget the strollers
Forget the scene
Lets close our eyes
Let me Instruct Thee
Here is dark milk
Here is our Sweet Mahameru
Who will Coo
To You Too
As he did to me
One night at three
When Iwkelt
Plee
knelt to See
Realit ee
And I said
‘Wilt thou protect me
for ‘ver?’
And he in his throatless
deep mother hole
Replied ‘Hom’
(Pauvre Ange)
Mahameru
Tathagata of Mercy
See
He
Now
in dark escrow
In the middleless dark
of eyelids’ lash obliviso
so
Among rains of Transcendent
Pity
Abides since Ever
Before Evermore ness
of Thusness Imagined
O Maha Meru
O Mountain Sumeru
O Mountain of Gold
O Holy Gold
O Room of Gold
O Sweet peace
rememberance
O Navalit Yuku
Of sweet cactus
Thorn of No Time
—Ply me onward
like boat
thru this Sea
Safe to Shore
Ulysses never Sore
—Bless me Gerard
Bless thee, Living
I shall pray for all
sentient human
& otherwise sentient
beings here & everywhere
No names
Not even faces
One Pity
One Milk
One Lovelight
save
*
DESOLATION BLUES
IN 12 CHORUSES
1ST CHORUS
I stand on my head on Desolation Peak
And see that the world is hanging
Into an ocean of endless space
The mountains dripping rock by rock
Like bubbles in the void
And tending where they want—
That at night the shooting stars
Are swimming up to meet us
Yearning from the bottom black
But never make it, alas—
That we walk around clung
To earth
Like beetles with big brains
Ignorant of where we are, how,
What, & upsidedown like fools,
Talking of governments & history,
—But Mount Hozomeen
The most beautiful mountain I ever seen,
Does nothing but sit & be a mountain,
A mess of double pointed rock
Hanging pouring into space
O frightful silent endless space
—Everything goes to the head
Of the hanging bubble, with men
The juice is in the head—
So mountain peaks are points
Of rocky liquid yearning
2ND CHORUS
Mountains have skin, said Peter
Orlovsky of San Francisco—
And gorges shoot up clouds of mist
That look like planet smoke—
Dead trees, artistic as a cottage
on Truro,
Look like goat horns off a rock,
—Alpine firs turn evergreen browns
By August First when summer’s dead
At high elevations—the creeks roar
And cataracts tumble pouring
But it’s all upsidedown & strange
—Why do I sit here crosslegged
On this steaming rocky surface
Of a planet called earth
Scribbling with a pencil
Unmusical songs called songs
And why worry my juicy head
And rail my bony hand at words
And look around for more
And nothing means nothing
as of yore?—
T s the primordial essence
Manifesting forms, of happy
And unhappy, stuff & no-stuff,
Matter & space, phenomena
Front & noumena behind,
Out of exuberant nothingness
3RD CHORUS
Yet birds mumble in the morning,
And raccoons tumble down the draws,
I saw one hit by his own rock
In a lil raccoon avalankey—
And firs point as ever
to infinity,
Their fine points top points too,
—Birds squeak like mice,
and moonlight bucks & does
Graze in my yard like cows
With big shootable flanks,
And hooves of eternity, clatter
on the rocks,
Run away when I open the door,
Down the hill, like silly frightened
schoolteachers—
Chipmunks are well named—
Bears & abominable snowmen
I have not yet seen—
Proud a that line—
Rock slides take generations to form,
I try to rush it along—
No rain in a month, nor yet
a month, within a month—
The beaked furthereal pine
points at a crazy
Upsidedown mid morning moon
as delicate
As a slide, like snow
4TH CHORUS
All the worries that’ve plagued
everybody since Moses, Homer,
Sappho, Uparli, Cannibals and
Patawatamkonalokunopuh
Are worrin and playin me
on this mount of mystery—
I’ve T S Elioted all the fogs,
Faulknered all the stone,
Balanced nothing gainst something,
played solitaire, smoked,
Brought bashing sticks to midnight
frightful long tailed rats
And ranted at mosquitos,
And remembered my mother
her sweet labors of home
And the cold eyed sister
who made a bum outa me,
And friends, & goodtimes,
& prayed & gave up prayer,
And pondered history, myths,
stories, artistic plans, plays,
French movies, phalanxes
of disordered human crazy
Thought, & still it’s upsidedown—
Silent—stiff—wont yield—
Puppet stage, with rock
5TH CHORUS
Distant valleys in Canada
look like they’d beckon
but I know better,—
I yearn for the flatlands again,
the gentle hill,—
At 4 PM the clouds of hope
Are horizon salmon floaters
Full of strange promise
abstracted from the golden age
in my breast—
Patches of snow dont do anything
but be
Patches of snow, till they melt,
And then water, it’s nothing
but water
Till sun evaporates, then mist,
It’s (as I look) nothing but mist
As it rises ululatory responding
to every shift of wind,
And will be mist, and will be
Mist,
And ants are nothing but just ants,
And rocks’ll sit where they are
forever
Lessn I move em, throw em
down the gorge,
And then they spit a minute
6TH CHORUS
I just dont understand—
tho mist’ll be mist till
Heavens obdure, tho man’ll
Be man till heavens obdure
Or hells obscure I just
dont
I just dont
Dont
Understand
I dont—
I want to know—soon’s a do
I d
ont understand—if I said:
“I dont care” I understand—
I understand that
it doesnt matter.
Still the birdy clings, to earth,
He dont go silent on me,
I dont stop writing,
I dont stop living,
What a fool,—bust the bird.
The only thing that ever happens
to Hozomeen
Is that he’ll get a wreath
of clouds
Every now & then
& breed to revel
Without moving a mighty shoulder
—I envy him his rock
7TH CHORUS
But I want to live, I want
to get down
Off this Chinese Han Shan hill
and make it
To the city & walk the streets
And drink good wine
(Christian Brothers Port)
Or whiskey (Early Times
or Old Grand Dad)
And go to Chinese Movies
on Saturday Afternoon
And buy presents in the window
and watch the dust gather
On little stationary toys
In celluloid windows of children
And go to the vast markets
And eat tortillas beans
ice cream
And crime—and banana splits
and tea
And benzedrine & broads—
and waterfronts
And plays & play marquees
and Square Times
And you—I’d like to celebrate
upside
Down in cities
8TH CHORUS
Once I saw a giant
in a building
He’s here now, bending
over me,
Giant diamond gone insane.
Ta, the Golden Eternity,
Ta Ta Ta Ta,
Tathata, trumpet, Ta Ta,
This giant diamond might
Here is got some name’r other
But I dont know
I dont care
and it makes no difference
And now I’m wise.
When the whole wide world
is fast asleep I cry.
Let me offer you
my reassuring profile
Saying, “It’s okay, girl, we’ll
make it
Till the sun goes down forever
And until then what you got
to lose
But the losing? We’re fallen
angels
Who didnt believe
That nothing means nothing.”
9TH CHORUS
We’re hanging into the abyss
of blue—
In it is nothing but innumerable
and endless worlds