Collected Poems 1947-1997 Page 20

  mistaken again!

  Your indifference! my enthusiasm!

  I insist! You cough!

  Lost in the wave of Gold that

  flows thru the Cosmos.

  Agh I’m tired of insisting! Goodbye,

  I’m going to Pucallpa

  to have Visions.

  Your clean sonnets?

  I want to read your dirtiest

  secret scribblings,

  your Hope,

  in His most Obscene Magnificence. My God!

  May 19, 960

  Aether

  11:15 P.M., May 27

  4 Sniffs & I’m High,

  Underwear in bed,

  white cotton in left hand,

  archetype degenerate,

  bloody taste in my mouth

  of Dentist Chair

  music, Loud Farts of Eternity—

  an owl with eyeglasses scribbling in the

  cold darkness—

  All the time the sound in my eardrums

  of trolleycars below

  taxi fender cough—creak of streets—

  Laughter & pistol shots echoing

  at all walls—

  tic leaks of neon—the voice of Myriad

  rushers of the Brainpan

  all the chirps the crickets have created

  ringing against my eares in the

  instant before unconsciousness

  before,—

  the teardrop in the eye to come,—

  the Fear of the Unknown—

  One does not yet know whether Christ was

  God or the Devil—

  Buddha is more reassuring.

  Yet the experiments must continue!

  Every possible combination of Being—all

  the old ones! all the old Hindu

  Sabahadabadie-pluralic universes

  ringing in Grandiloquent

  Bearded Juxtaposition,

  with all their minarets and moonlit

  towers enlaced with iron

  or porcelain embroidery,

  all have existed—

  and the Sages with

  white hair who sat crosslegged on

  a female couch—

  hearkening to whatever music came

  from out the Wood or Street,

  whatever bird that whistled in the

  Marketplace,

  whatever note the clock struck to say

  Time—

  whatever drug, or aire, they breathed

  to make them think so deep

  or simply hear what passed,

  like a car passing in the 1960 street

  beside the Governmental Palace

  in Peru, this Lima

  year I write.

  Kerouac! I salute yr

  wordy beard. Sad Prophet!

  Salutations and low bows from

  baggy pants and turbaned mind and hornèd foot

  arched eyebrows & Jewish Smile—

  One single specimen of Eternity—each

  of us poets.

  Breake the Rhythm! (too much pentameter)

  … My god what solitude are you in Kerouac now?

  —heard the whoosh of carwheels in the 1950 rain—

  And every bell went off on time,

  And everything that was created

  Rang especially in view of the Creation

  For

  This is the end of the creation

  This is the redemption Spoken of

  This is the view of the Created

  by all the Drs, nurses, etc. of

  creation;

  i.e.,—

  The unspeakable passed over my head for

  the second time.

  and still can’t say it!

  i.e. we are the sweepings of the moon

  we’re what’s left over from perfection—

  The universe is an OLD mistake

  I’ve understood a million times before

  and always come back to the same

  scissor brainwave—

  The

  Sooner or later all Consciousness will

  be eliminated

  because Consciousness is

  a by-product of—

  (Cotton & N2O)

  Drawing saliva back from the tongue—

  Christ! you struggle to understand

  One consciousness

  & be confronted with Myriads—

  after a billion years

  with the same ringing in the ears

  and pterodactyl-smile of Oops

  Creation,

  known it all before.

  A Buddha as of old, with sirens of

  whatever machinery making cranging noises in

  the street

  and pavement light reflected in the facade

  RR Station window in a

  dinky port in Backwash

  of the murky old forgotten

  fabulous whatever

  Civilization of

  Eternity,—

  with the RR Sta Clock ring midnight,

  as of now,

  & waiting for the 6th

  you write your

  Word,

  and end on the last chime—and remember

  This one twelve was struck

  before,

  and never again; both.

  ……………… I stood on the balcony

  waiting for an explosion

  of Total Consciousness of the All—

  being Ginsberg sniffing ether in Lima.

  The same struggle of Mind, to reach the

  Thing

  that ends its process with an X

  comprehending its befores and afters,

  unexplainable to each, except in a prophetic

  secret recollective hidden

  half-hand unrecorded way.

  As the old sages of Asia, or the white beards of Persia

  scribbled on the margins of their scrolls

  in delicate ink

  remembering with tears the ancient clockbells of their cities

  and the cities that had been—

  Nasca, Paracas, Chancay & Secrecy of the Priests

  buried, Cat Gods

  of all colors, a funeral shroud

  for a museum—

  None remember but all return to the same thought

  before they die—what sad old

  knowledge, we repeat again.

  Only to be lost

  in the sands of Paracas, or wrapped in a mystic shroud

  of Poesy

  and found by some kid in a thousand years

  inspire what dreadful thoughts of his own?

  It’s a horrible, lonely experience. And

  Gregory’s letter, and Peter’s …

  7:30 P.M., May 28

  … In the foul dregs of Circumstance

  ‘Male and Female He created them’

  with mustaches.

  There ARE certain REPEATED

  (pistol shot) reliable points

  of reference which the insane

  (pistol shot repeated outside

  the window)—madman suddenly

  writes—THE PISTOL SHOT

  outside—the REPEATED situations

  the experience of return to the

  same place in Universal Creation

  Time—and every time we return

  we recognize again that we

  HAVE been here & that is the

  Key to Creation—the same pistol shot

  —DOWN, bending over his book of Un

  intelligible marvels with his mustache.

  (my) Madness is intelligible reactions to

  Unintelligible phenomena.

  Boy—what a marvelous bottle,

  a clear glass sphere of transparent

  liquid ether—

  (Chloraethyl Merz)

  9 P.M.

  I know I am a poet—in this universe—but what good does that do —when in another, without these mechanical aids, I might be doomed to be a poor Disneyan Shoe St
ore Clerk—This consciousness an accident of one of the Ether-possible worlds, not the Final World

  Wherein we all look Crosseyed

  & triumph in our Virginity

  without wearing Rabbit’s-foot

  ears or eyes looking sideways

  strangely but in Gold

  Humbled & more knowledgeable, acknowledge

  the Vast mystery of our creation—

  without giving any sign that

  we have heard from the

  GREAT CREATOR

  WHOSE NAME I NOW

  PRONOUNCE:

  GREAT CREATOR OF THE UNIVERS, IF

  THY WISDOM ACCORD IT

  AND IF THIS NOT BE TOO

  MUCH TO ASK

  MAY I PUBLISH YOUR NAME?

  I ASK IN THE LIMA

  NIGHT

  FEARFULLY WAITING

  ANSWER,

  hearing the buses out on

  the street hissing,

  Knowing the Terror

  of the World Afar—

  I have been playing with Jokes

  and His is too mighty to hold

  in the hand like a Pen

  and His is the Pistol Shot Answer

  that brings blood to the brain

  And—

  What can be possible

  in a minor universe

  in which you can see

  God by sniffing the

  gas in a cotton?

  The answer to be taken in

  reverse & Doubled Math

  ematically both ways.

  Am I a sinner?

  There are hard & easy universes. This

  is neither.

  (If I close my eyes will I regain consciousness?)

  That’s the Final Question—with

  all the old churchbells ringing and

  bus pickup snuffles & crack of iron

  whips inside cylinders & squeal of brakes

  and old crescendos of responsive

  demiurgic ecstasy whispering in streets of ear

  —and when was it Not

  ever answered in the Affirmative? Saith the Lord?

  A MAGIC UNIVERSE

  Flies & crickets & the sound of buses & my

  stupid beard.

  But what’s Magic?

  Is there Sorrow in Magic?

  Is Magic one of my boyscout creations?

  Am I responsible? I with my flop?

  Could Threat happen to Magic?

  Yes! this the one universe in which

  there is threat to magic, by

  writing while high.

  A Universe in which I am condemned to write statements.

  ‘Ignorant Judgments Create Mistaken Worlds—’

  and this one is joined in

  Indic union to

  Affirm with laughing

  eyes—

  The world is as we see it,

  Male & Female, passing thru the years,

  as has before & will, perhaps

  with all its countless pearls & Bloody noses

  and I poor stupid All in G

  am stuck with that old Choice—

  Ya, Crap, what Hymn to seek, & in

  what tongue, if this’s the most

  I can requite from Consciousness?—

  That I can skim? & put in words?

  Could skim it faster with more juice—

  could skim a crop with Death, perchance

  —yet never know in this old world.

  Will know in Death?

  And before?

  Will in

  Another know.

  And in another know.

  And

  in another know.

  And

  Stop conceiving worlds!

  says Philip Whalen

  (My Savior!) (oh what snobbery!)

  (as if he cd save Anyone)—

  At least, he won’t understand.

  I lift my finger in the air to create

  a universe he won’t understand, full

  of sadness.

  —finally staring straight ahead in surprise

  & recollection into the mirror of

  the Hotel Comercio room.

  Time repeats itself. Including

  this consciousness, which has seen

  itself before—thus the locust-whistle

  of antiquity’s nightwatch in my eardrum …

  I propounded a final question, and

  heard a series of final answers.

  What is God? for instance, asks the answer?

  And whatever else can the replier reply but reply?

  Whatever the nature of mind, that

  the nature of both question and answer.

  & yet one wants to live

  in a single universe

  Does one?

  Must it be one?

  Why, as with the Jews

  must the God be One?

  O what does

  the concept ONE mean?

  IT’S MAD!

  GOD IS ONE!

  IS X

  IS MEANINGLESS—

  ADONOI—

  IS A JOKE—

  THE HEBREWS ARE

  WRONG—(CRIST & BUDDA

  ATTEST, also wrongly!)

  What is One but Formation

  of mind?

  arbitrary madness! 6000 years

  Spreading out in all directions simultaneously—

  I forgive both good & ill

  & I seek nothing, like a painted savage with

  spear crossed by orange black & white bands!

  ‘I found the Jivaros & was

  entrapped in their universe’

  I’m scribbling nothings.

  Page upon page of profoundest nothing,

  as scribed the Ancient Hebe, when

  he wrote Adonoi Echad or One—

  all to amuse, make money, or deceive—

  Let Wickedness be Me

  and this the worst of all

  the universes!

  Not the worst! Not Flame!

  I can’t stand that—(Yes that’s

  for Somebody Else!

  Yet I accept

  O Catfaced God, whatever comes! It’s me!

  I am the Flame, etc.

  O Gawd!

  Pistol shot! Crack!

  Circusmaster’s whip—

  IMPERFECT!

  and a soul is damned to

  HELL!

  And the churchbell rings!

  and there is melancholy, once again, throughout the realm.

  and I’m that soul, small as it is.)

  HAVE FELT SAME BEFORE

  The death of consciousness is terrible

  and yet! when all is ended

  what regret?

  ’S none left to remember or forget.

  And’s gone into the odd.

  The only thing I fear is the Last

  Chance. I’ll see that last chance too

  before I’m done, Old Mind. All them

  old Last Chances that you knew before.

  —someday thru the dream wall

  to nextdoor consciousness

  like thru this blue hotel wall

  —millions of hotel rooms fogging

  the focus of my eyes—

  with whatever attitude I hold the cotton

  to my nose, it’s still a secret joke

  with pinkie akimbo, or with effete queer

  eye in mirror at myself,

  or serious-brow mien

  & darkened beard,

  I’m still the kid of obscene chance awaiting—

  breathing in a chinese Universe

  thru the nose like some old Brahmanic God.

  O BELL TIME RING THY MIDNIGHT FOR THE BILLIONTH SOUNDY TIME, I HEAR AGAIN!

  I’ll go to walk the street,

  Who’ll find

  me in the night, in Lima, in my

  33’d year,

  On Street (Cont.)

  The souls of Peter &

  I answer each other.

  But—
and what’s a soul?

  To be a poet’s a

  serious occupation,

  condemned to that

  in universe—

  to walk the city

  ascribbling in

  a book—just accosted

  by a drunk—

  in Plaza de Armas

  sidestreet under

  a foggy sky, and

  sometimes with no

  moon.

  The heavy balcony

  hangs over the white

  marble of the Bishop’s

  Palace next the Cathedral—

  The fountain plays

  in light as e’er—

  The buses & the

  motorcyclists pass

  thru midnight, the

  carlights shine

  the beggar turns

  a corner with his

  Who’ll find

  cigarette stub &

  cane, the Noisers

  leave the tavern

  and delay, conversing

  in high voice,

  Awake,

  Hasta Mañana

  they all say—

  and somewhere

  at the other end of

  the line, a telephone

  is ringing, once again

  with unknown news—

  The night

  looms over Lima,

  sky black fog—

  and I sit helpless

  smoking with a

  pencil hand—

  The long crack

  in the pavement

  or yesterday’s

  volcano in Chile,

  or the day before

  the Earthquake

  that begat the

  World.

  The Plaza pavement

  shines in the electric

  light. I wait.

  The lonely beard

  workman staggers

  home to bed from

  Death.

  Yes but I’m

  a little tired of

  being alone …

  Keats’ Nightingale—the

  instant of realization

  a single consciousness

  that hears the chimes

  of Time, repeated

  endlessly—

  All night, w/ Ether, wave

  after wave of magic

  understanding. A disturbance

  of the field

  of consciousness.

  Magic night, magic stars,

  magic men, magic moon

  magic tomorrow, magic death,

  magic Magic.

  What crude Magic

  we live in (seeing trolley

  like a rude monster

  in downtown street

  w/ electric diamond

  wire antennae to sky

  pass night café under

  white arc-light by

  Gran Hotel Bolívar.)

  The mad potter of

  Mochica made a

  pot w/ 6 Eyes & 2

  Mouths & half a Nose

  & 5 Cheeks & no Chin

  for us to figure out,

  serious side-track,