Book of Blues (3 page)

You're a muttering bum

In a brown beat suit

Cant make a woman

On a rainy corner

Your corners open out

San Francisco

To arc racks

Of the Seals

Lost in vapors

Cold and bleak.

You're as useless

As a soda truck

Parked in the rain

With cases of pretty red

Orange green & Coca Cola

Brown receiving rain

Drops like the sea

Receiveth driving spikes

Welling in the navel void.

I also have loud poems:

Broken plastic coverlets

Flapping in the rain

To cover newspapers

All printed up

And plain.

Guys with big pockets

In heavy topcoats

And slit scar

Head bands down

The middle of their hair

All Bruce Barton combed

Stand surveying Harrison

Folsom St the Ramp

And the redbrick clock

Wishin they had a woman

Or some money, honey

Westinghouse Elevators

Are full of pretty girls

With classy cans

And cute pans

And long slim legs

And eyes for the boss

At quarter of four.

Old Age is an Indian

With gray hair

And a cane

In an old coat

Tapping along

The rainy street

To see the pretty oranges

And the stores

On his big day

When the dog's let out.

Somewhere in this snow

I see little children raped

By maniacal sex fiends

Eager to make a break

But the F B I

In the form of Ted

Stands waiting

Hand on gun

In the Paranoiac

Summer time

To come.

I knew an angel

In Mexico City

Call'd La Negra

Who the Same eyes

Had as Sebastian

And was reincarnated

To suffer in the poker

House rain

Who had the same eyes

As Sebastian

When his Nirvana came

Sambati was his name.

Must have had one leg once

And expensive armpit canes

And traveled in this rain

With youthful hidden pain

Beautiful girls

Just primp

But beautiful boys

Do suffer.

White wash rain stain

Gravel roof glass black

Red wood blue neon

Green elevators

Birds that change color

And white ants

Climbing to your knee

Earnest for deliverance.

It was a mournful day

The B O Bay was gray

Old man angry-necks

Stomped to escape sex

And find his Television

In the uptown vision

Of the milk & secret

Blossom curtain

Creak it.

Cheese it the cops!

Ram down the lamb!

700 Camels

In Pakistan!

Milk will curdle, honey,

If you sit on stony penises

Three times moving up & down

And 7 times around

While young boys peek

In the Hindu temple window

To grow

And come

To A-mer-ri-kay

And be long silent types

In the night clerk cage

Waiting for railroad calls

And hints from Pakistan

Beluchistan and Mien Mo

That Mahatmas

Havent left the field

And tinkle bells

And cobra flutes

Still haunt our campfires

In the calm & peaceful

Night—

Stars of India

And speak bashfully

Thru strong brown eyes

Of olden strengths

And bad boy episodes

And a father

With sacred cows

A wandering in his field.

“Rain on, O cloud!”

The taste of worms

Is soft & salty

Like the sea,

Or tears.

And raindrops

That dont know

You've been deceived

Slide on iron

Raggedly gloomy

Falling off in wind.

I got the San Francisco blues

Bluer than misery

I got the San Francisco blues

Bluer than Eternity

I gotta go on home

Fine me

Another

Sanity

I got the San Francisco blues

Bluer than heaven's gate, mate,

I got the San Francisco blues

Bluer than blue paint,

Saint,—

I better move on home

Sleep in

My golden

Dream again

I got the San Acisca blues

Singin in the street all day

I got

The San Acisca

Blues

Wailin in the street all day

I better move on, podner,

Make my West

The Eastern Way—

San

Fran

Cis

Co—

San

Fran

Cis

Co

Oh—

ba

by

Ever see a tired

ba by

Cryin to sleep

in its mother's arms

Wailin all night long

while the locomotive

Wails on back

A cry for a cry

In the smoke and the lamp

Of the hard ass night

That's how I

fee-

eel—

That's how

I fee-eel!

That's
how

I feel—

What a deal!

Yes I'm goin ho

o

ome

Yes I'm goin

on

home

today

Tonight I'll be ridin

The 80 mile Zipper

And flyin down the Coast

Wrapt in a blanket

Cryin

And cold

So brother

Pour me a drink

I got lots of friends

From coast to coast

And ocean to ocean

girls

But when I see

A bottle a wine

And see that it's full

I like to open it

And take of it my fill

And when my head gets dizzy

And friends all laugh

And money pours

from my pocket

And gold from my ears

And silver flies out

and rubies explode

I'll up & eat

And sing another song

And drop another grape

In my belly down

Cause you know

What Omar Khayyam said

Better be happy

With the happy grape

As make long faces

And groan all night

In search of fruit

That dont exist

So Mister Engineer

And Mister Hoghead

Conductor Jones

And you head brakeman

And you, tagman

on this run

Give me a hiball

Boomer's or any kind

Start that Diesel

All 3 Units

Less roll on down that rail

See Kansas City by dawn

Or grass of Amarilla

Or rooftops of Old New York

Or banksides green with grass

In April

Anywhere

I'd better be a poet

Or lay down dead.

Little boys are angels

Crying in the street

Wear funny hats

Wait for green lights

Carry bust out tubes

Around their necks

And roam the railyards

Of the great cities

Looking for locomotives

Full of shit

Run down to the waterfront

And dream of Cathay

Hook spars with Gulls

Of athavoid thought.

Little Cody Deaver

A San Francisco boy

Hung by hair of heroes

Growing green & thin

And soft as sin

From the tie piles

Of the railer road

Track where Tokay

Bottles rust in dust

Waiting for the term

Of partiality

To end up there

In heaven high

So's loco can

Come home

Con poco coco.

Little heroes of the dead

Found a nickle instead

And bought a Borden half & half

Orange Sherbert & vanil milk

Trod the pavements

Of unfall Frisco

Waiting for its earthquake

To waver houses men

And streets to spindle

Drift to fall at Third

Street Number 6–15

Where Bank now stands

Jack London was born

And saw gray rigging

At the ‘barcadero

Pier, His bier

commemorated in marble

To advertise the stone

Of vaults where money rots.

Inquisitive plaidshirt

Pops look at trucks

In the afternoon

While Mulligan's

Stewing on the stove

And Calico spreads

Her milk & creamy legs

For advertising salesman

Passing thru from Largo

Oregon where water

Runs the Willamette down

By blasted to-the-North

Volcanic ashes seft.

Babies born screaming

in this town

Are miserable examples

of what happens

Everywhere.

Bein Crazy is

The least of my worries.

Now the sun's goin down

In old San Fran

The hills are in a haze

Of Shroudy afternoon—

Bent withered Burroughsian

Greeks pass

In gray felt hats

Expensively pearly

On bony suffer heads

And old Indian bo's

With no stockings on

Just Chinese Shuffle

Opium shoes

Take the snaily constitutional

Down 3rd St gray & lost

& Hard to see.

Tragic burpers

With scars of snow

Bound bigly

Huge to find it

To the train

Of time & pain

Waiting at the terminal.

Young punk mankind

Three abreast

Go thriving downwards

In the hellish street.

Red shoes of the limpin whore

Who drags her blues

From shore to shore

Along the stores

Lookin for a millioinaire

For her time's up

And she got no guts

And the man aint comin

And I'm no where.

He aint done nothin

But change hats

And go to work

And light a new cigar

And stands in doorway

Swingin the 8 inch

Stogie all around

Arc ing to see

Mankind's vast

Sea restless crown

Come rolling bit by bit

From offices of gloom

To homes of mortuary

Hidden Television

Behind the horse's

Clock in Hopalong

The Burper's bestfriend

Ten gat waving

Far from children

Sadly waving

From the balcony

Above this street

Where Acme Paper

Torn & Tattered

S'down the parade

Thrown to clebrate

McParity's return:

All ties in

Like anacin.

Well

So unlock the door

And go to supper

And let the women cook it,

Light's on the hill

The guitar's a-started

Playing by itself

The shower of heaven notes

Plucked by a gypsy woman

In some old dream

Will bless it all

I see furling out

Below—

The laundress has bangs

And pursy lips

And thin hips

And sexy walk

And goes much faster

When she knows

The booty in her

laundry bag

Is undiscovered

And unknown

And so no cops watching

she steps on it

t'escape the Feds

of Wannadelancipit

Here in the Standard

Building

Flying High

the

Riding Horse

A Red—

None of this means

anything

For krissakes speak up

& be true

Or shut up

& Go to bed

Dead

The wash is waving goodbye

Towards Oakland's russet

I know there are huge clouds

Ballooning beyond the bay

And out Potato Patch,

The snowy sea away,

The milk is furling

Huge and roly

Poly burly puffy

Pulsing push

To come on in

Inundate Frisco

Fill the rills

And ride the ravines

And sneak on in

With Whippoorwill

To-hoo— To-wa!

The Chinese call it woo

The French les brumes

The British

Fog

L A

Smog

Heaven

Cellar door

Communities of houses

Caparisoned by sunlight

On the last & fading hill

Of America a-rollin

Rollin

To the Western Chill

And delicacies of statues

Hewn by working men

Neoned, tacked on,

Pressed against the sign

Mincin

Mincin

To sell the swellest coupon

Understand?

Light on the fronts

of old buildings

Like in New York

In December dusks

When hats point to sea

This means

that everything

has some home

to come to

Light has windows

balconies of iron

like New Orleans

It also has all space

And I have windows