Book of Blues (4 page)

balconies of iron

like New Orleans

I also have all space

And St Louis too

Light follows rivers

I do too

Light fades, I pass

Light illuminates

The intense cough

Of young girls in love

Hurrying to sell their

future husband

On the Market St

Parade

Light makes his face

reddern

Her white mask

She sucks to bone him dry

And make him happy

Make him cry

Make him baby

Stay by me.

Crooks of Montreal

Tossing up their lighters

To a cigarette of snow

Intending to plot evil

And break the pool machine

Tonight off Toohey's head

And the Frisco fire team

Come howling round

The corner of the dream

Immense the rivets

In the broadsides

Of battleships

Fired upon head on

In face to face combat

In the Philippines

Anchored Alameda

Overtime for toilets

On Labor Day

IL

W

U

Has tough white seamen

Scrapping snow white hats

In favor of iron clubs

To wave in inky newsreels

When Frisco was a drizzle

And Curran all sincere,

Bryson just a baby,

Reuther bloodied up,

—When publications

Of Union pamphleteers

Featured human rock jaws

Jutting Editorialese

Composed by angry funny

redhead editors

Walking with their heads down

To catch the evening fleet

And wave goodbye to sailors

passing rosely dreams

Into a sparkling cannon

Gray & spicked & span

To shine the Admiral

In his South Pacific pan—

No such luck

For Potter McMuck

Who broke his fist

On angry mitts

In fist fights

Falling everywhere

From down Commercial

To odd or even

All the piers

Blang! Bang!

I L W U had a hard time

And so did N A M

And S P A M

And as did A M

YOU INULT ME EVERY NIME, MALN BWANO

Ladies and Gentle-man

The phoney woiker

You here see

Got can one time

In Toonisfreu

Ger ma nyeee

Becau he had

no dime

To give the con duck teur

Yo see he stiffled

For his miffle

And couldnt cough a little

Bill de juice ran

down his Sfam.

JULIEN LOVE'S SOUND

“All

right!

Here we are

with all the little lambs.

Has anyone disposed

of my old man

Last night?

Mortuary deeds,

Dead,

Drink, me down

Table or two,

Wher'd you put it

Kerouac?

The bottoms in your bag

Of cellar heaven doors

And hellish consistencies

Gelatinous & composed

Will bang & break

Apon the time clock

Beat prow stone bong

Boy

Before I give YOU

An idgit of the

Kind Love Legend”

JULIEN LOVE'S JUDGMENT

“Seriously boy

This San Francisco

Blues of yours

Like shark fins

the summer before

And was it Sarie

Sauter Finnegan

Some gal before—

It's a farce

For funny you

you know?

I dont think I'll buy it”

Slit in the ear

By a bolo knife

Savannah Kid just nodded

At the beast that

Hides.

Secret

Poetry

Deceives

Simply

California evening is like Mexico

The windows get golden oranges

The tattered awnings flap

Like dresses of old Perdido

Great Peruvian Princesses

In the form of Negro Whores

Go parading down the sidewalk

Wearing earrings, sweet perfume

Old Weazel Warret

tradesmen

sick of selling

out their stores stand in

the evening lineup

before identifying cops

they cannot understand

in the clouds of can

and iron moosing

marshly morse

of over head

Daughters of Jerusalem

Prowling like angry felines

Statuesque & youthful

From the well

Embarrassed but implacable

And watched by hungry worriers

Filling out the whitewall

Car with 1000 pounds

Of “Annergy!

Thats what I got!

An-nergy!”

To burn up Popocatepetl's

Torch of ecstasy.

The neons redly twangle

Twinkle cute & clean

Like Millbrae cherry

Nipptious tostle

Flowers tattled

Petal for the joss stick

Stuck in neon twaddles

To advertise a bar

—All over SanFranPisco

The better is the pain

—“Switch to Calvert”

Runs an arrow eating

Bulb by bulb

Across the bulbous

Whisky bottle

And under the Calvert clock

Tastes better! Everyone

Tastes better

All the time

And fieldhands

That aint got aznos

But the same south Mexican

Evening soft shoe

walk

Slow in dusts of soft

in Ac to pan

Here in Frisco City

American

The same way walk

To buy some vegetables

For the bedsprings on the roof

Not keep the rain on out

Or bombed out huts

In dumpland—Blue

Workjacket, shino pants,

It's like Mexico all violet

At ruby rose & velvet

Sun on down

On down

Sun on down

Sundown

Red blood bon neon

Bon runs don blon

By Barrett

Wimpole

Trackmeet

And like Mexico the deep

Gigantic scorpic haze

Of shady curtain night

Bein drawn on civilized

And Fellaheen will howl

Where the cows of mush

Rush to hide their sad

Tan hides in the stonecrump

Mumps bump top of hill

Out Mission Way

Holy Cows of Cross

And Lick Monastery

 

Velvet for our meat

Hamburgers

And doom of pained nuns

Or painted

One

Mexico is like Universe

And Third Street a Sun

Showing just how's done

The light the life the action

The limp of worried reachers

Crawling up the Cuba street

In almost dark

To find the soften bell

Creaming Meek on corner

One by one, Tern, Tim,

Click, gra, rattapisp,

Ting, Tang—

Blink! Off

Run! Arrow!

Cut! Winkle! Twinkle!

Fill

Piss! Pot!

The lights of coldmilk

supper hill streets

make me davenport

and cancel Ship.

3rd St is like Moody St

Lowell Massachusetts

It has Bagdad blue

Dusk down sky

And hills with lights

And pale the hazel

Gentle blue in the

burned windows

Of wooden tenements,

And lights of bars,

music brawl,

“Hoap!” “Hap!” & “Hi”

In the street of blood

And bells billygoating

Boom by at the ache

of day

The break of personalities

Crossing just once

In the wrong door

Nevermore to remain

Nevermore to return

—The same hot hungry

harried hotel

wild Charlies dozzling

to fold the

Food papers in the

mahogany talk

Of television reading room

Balls are walled

and withered

and long fergit.

Moody Lowell Third Street

Sick & tired bedsprings

Silhouettes of brownlace

eve night dowse—

All that—

And outsida town

The aching snake

Pronging underground

To come eat up

Us the innocent

And insincere in here

And Budapest Counts

Driving lonely mtn. cars

On the hem of the grade

Of the lip curve hill

Where Rockly meets

Out Market & More—

The last shore—

View of the sea

Seal

Only Lowell has for sea

The imitative Merrimac

And Frisco has for

snake

The crowdy earthquake

cataract

And Hydrogen Bombs

of Hope

Lost in the blue

Pacific

Empty sea

Bakeries gladly bright

Filled with dour girls

Buying golden pies

For sullen brooding boys

On 3rd St in the night

But by day

The Greek Armenian

Milk of honey

Bee baclava maker

Puts his sugars

On the counter

For bums with avid jaws

And hollow eyes

Eager to eat

Their last dainty.

Marchesa Casati

Is a living doll

Pinned on my Frisco

Skid row wall

Her eyes are vast

Her skin is shiny

Blue veins

And wild red hair

Shoulders sweet & tiny

Love her

Love her

Sings the sea

Bluely

Moaning

In the Augustus John

de John

back ground.

Her eyes are living dangers

‘ll Leap you

From a page

Wearing the same insanity

The sweet unconcernedly

Italian humanity

Glaring from black eyebrows

To ask

Of Renaissance:

“What have you done now

After 3 hundred years

But create the glary witness

Which out this window

Shows a pale green

Friscan hill

The last green hill

Of America

With a cut a band

Of brown red road

Coint round

By architects of hiways

To show the view

To ledge travellers

Of Frisco, City, Bay

And Sea

As all you do is drive around

—By Groves of lonesome

Redwood trees

Isolated

In physical isolation

On the bare lump

Hill like people

Of this country

Who walk alone

In streets all day

Forbidden

To contact physically

Anybody

So desirable—

They kill'd all painters

Drown'd—Made wash

The smothering crone

Of Cathay,

Flower of Malaya,

And Dharma saws,

Gat it all in,

Like wash,

Call'd it Renascence

And then wearied

From the globe—

Hill, last hill

Of Western World

Is cut around

Like half attempted

Half castrated

Protrudient breast

Of milk

From wild staring earth

—The last scar

America was able

To create

The uttermost hill

Beyond which is just

Pacific

And no more sc-cuts

And Alamos neither

But that can be rolled

In satisfying sea

Absolved of suicide—

Except that now

They're blasting fishermen

Apart?”

“Beyond that fruitless sea”

—So speaks Marchesa

Mourning the Renaissance

And still the breeze

Is sweet & soft

And cool as breasts

And wild as sweet dark eyes.

Sits in her spirit

Like she wont be long

And bright about it

All the time, like short

star

An angry proud beauty

Of Italy

San Francisco Blues

Written in a rocking chair

In the Cameo Hotel

San Francisco Skid row

Nineteen Fifty Four.

This pretty white city

On the other side of the country

Will no longer be

Available to me

I saw heaven move

Said “This is the End”

Because I was tired

of all that portend.

And any time you need

me

Call

I'll be at the other

end

Waiting

at the final hall

DULUOZ

Name derived from early

morning sources

In a newspaper office

Long Ago in Lowell Mass

When birds were shitting

On the canal

And Sperm was Floating

among the Redbrick Walls

Of a Morn that had Smoke

Pouring from a Christian Hill

Chimney—

Ah Sire, Duluoz,

King of my Thoughts,

Salute!

(Kick another can of beer)

THAT'S WHAT I SAID

Not what I thot I meant

O Sin-of-a-Bitch

But what I out loud said

Not—again—what in

retrospect

And banalizing sedeora ing

of my garage

Made it

Say what you mean

A poem is a lark

A pie

SCHLITZ (A drunken vision of a can of beer)

Beaded melt hotwave waters

Of outside hydrated juices

Flowing down Made in USA

& Brooklyn New York

Genuine, holed triangular.

WIFE & 3

Little Cathy gladdy

with sun cheeks

beeted

Jamie hiding hugging

her knees

Mother Earwicker solemn,

lovely, flesh legs

white

King John Fartitures

of Hop Top Heap

Cassadee-ing in

his Kingdom

Jamie of mother's sweetly

sweet goodheart breast

Showing oldlady teeth

of littlegirl glee

And pudgy arms locked

Tristesse in the little

hopeless Fingers,

Faisse in the shot,

the radiant sun,

The shine of San Jose

O

Grass

Peotés of time!

Steps, lost davenports,

eternities,

Hot Night Birds,

Billy Holiday!

—Make the quaker

give his cream

ANY TIME

Any time you want

A write a fucken poem

Ope this book

& Scream no more

But Cream

Cry

Fret not

Flow

Flay

Fray the edge of Froy

Make Frogs Alliterate

Bekkek! Bekkek!

Koak! Koak!

Carra Quax!

Carra qualquus

Kerouacainius!

EVEN JOYCE

Even he, Joyce,

had love—

Even blind poets

AUDEN HAD NO ASS

Auden had no ass

Butler had no balls

Carew had no crash

Dyck had no dick

Egrets had no erse

Fart had no fuck

George had no Gyzm

His honou had no H

I J Fox had no wife

J Fox had no Joke

Kerou had no Ka

Ling Woe had no Rice

M & N had no Moola

(a lot!)

Novales had no Nodes

O vum had no Ollie

(O'Neill Mc Shanahan)

P-ew had no Push

Quasi Quean had no Queasy

feelings

R had no heart

Studentio

had

no

Stok

To

v

e

l

e

n

l

s

h had

no

T

u

p

Uvalde had no Upstarts

Vedichad no Velda

Velda had no Vim

Vish had no Rush

her

Vim

hid

his

Or pit his ass

gainst my pen

U had no V

V had no Victory

U V W had no

Pesco

X no Y or Z

THE POET

So many times since

I've seen the poet

of Greenwich Village

Cutting to work in the gray dawn

With a lunchpail &

bleak haircut

Eyes to the Hudson

Nostril to the street

To winter, work, beneficence,

Meals, fare of folly

So many times since

I've seen the poet

Who wrote rhythms & rhymes

To be mad in Minetta's

And Minetta Lane

Go Hurrying to Work

Sex hung, sexed, psychoanalyzed?

To work in the unpoetic dawn

Mornings after I'd got drunk

with Lucien & Allen

& Allied Angels

In the Vast Manhattan

Fish—

O America!

Songs!

Poems!

Altos! Tenors!

Blow!

(Poet is Dead)

THUNDER

Thunder makes a booming

noise like windows

Being hysterically quietly

closed—

So Papa fell down the stairs

of time

In spite of holy water

And all yr mixed drinks

in

Eternity

EMILY DICKINSON

Ere so sober Emily

Did New England sow

With brooms of activity

I'd the tree-rock spoken to.

But it only said to me

“This sleet's crack

You hear cracking my hide

Is the voice of olden poets

Not far from rocks of here

Did their olden eyes

On nature bestow blue

—” I said

“Ah Oh How So Sad.”

I said—“And graves?”

And I said “Darling

Supposing it should

To nature

Suddenly occur

To make unending poets

Unendingly Blow”

Nature Said: “Mean,

I dont know what you

Mean”—

“Ah Nature, Ah Rock,”

I cried, “Nobody's Bone

Has so suffused been,

No burden of boredom

Greater

No love colder

No love life less

No grave nearer

Always

Than Ye Bard”

ROSE

“Ah Rose,” I cried,

“Shine in the Phosphorescent

Night.”

BUG

And to the little bug which am myself

I said

“Bug, lip, tip, tit of time,

Try, take, take, flake, fly,

Love is passing yr. cheekbones

On the phosphorescent transparent

wing

Of Kafka's cheese consuming

Metamorphosed Bug”

HORROR

So then I saw horror,

And I cried,

“Horrer, leave me er lone.”

Horrer-horror laid me bone

By bone in a bag of dirt,

I was broiled in the oven

Of heaven in the silver foil

Of Devil Jesus God

Which is Yr Holy Trinity

SMILES

Smiles pull flesh from cheek

Over pearls of bone

And make the watcher see

The quake of cream

In eyes of stone

ON TEARS

Tears is the break of my brow,

The moony tempestuous

sitting down

In dark railyards

When to see my mother's face

Recalling from the waking vision

I wept to understand

The trap mortality

And personal blood of earth

Which saw me in—

Father father

Why hast thou forsaken me?

Mortality & unpleasure

Roam this city—

Unhappiness my middle name

I want to be saved,—

Sunk—can't be

Won't be

Never was made to—

So retch!

WHEN OLD

When I began to grow old

And could feel my left arm

numben

And brain resisted hope,

Will sat sleeping

Energy thubbd exhausted

in my eye

And love fled me—

When the worst news

Was brought to me

And I exulted to be alone

Go die

I had a vision of

the saint

Misunderstood & too tired

to explain why

And sweet intentioned

in another day—

Even Stanley Gould'll

go to heaven

BOP

Sweet little dop a la pee—

Bit bit piano tip

tinkle plips

And smash prop brushes

In the little numb moment

um

I KNOW

I know that I cannot write

verse

But this is my beercan short

line

Book so bear with me

invisible

Reader and let me goof

even

When I'm sick & have no

ideas

GOD

Sitting over our meanings

Egomaniac God,

Lonely slick & rain glint

Also uses irritating us

In the Real.

HOPES

Poetry doesnt know:

The air conditioner

Not in use in winter

Is like my hopes—

Half in, half out,

Green on a whitewall,

S'only good to cast

A long shadow

In the bleak street light

TREE

But a tree has

a living suffering shape

Is spread in half

by 2 limbed fate

Rises from gray rain

pavements

To traffic in the bleak

brown air

Of cities radar television

nameless dumb &

numb mis connicumb

Throwing twigs the

color of ink

To white souled

heaven, with

A reality of its own uses

TENORMAN

Sweet sad young tenor

Horn slumped around neck

Bearded full of junk

Slouches waiting

For Apocalypse,

Listens to the new

Negro raw trumpet kid

Tell him the wooden news;

And the beat of the bass

The bass—drives in

Drummer drops a bomb

Piano tinkle tackles

Sweet tenor lifting

All American sorrows

Raises mouthpiece to mouth

And blows to finger

The iron sounds