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News Item:
"Housing Shortages Threaten Success
of Government Birth Policy , Official
Tells Builders' Convention."
There was a sweet song for the wedding
Lucky the bride and groom
Two trumpets, piano, and baritone
A well-known young man who could croon.
Refrain:
Get married, young people
whenever you please
The sooner the better,
Then take your ease.
No parents to holler
gainst fucking and children
with a State that will pay,
be it by night or by day anyway.
We needed no song for our wedding
Happy the bride and groom
Just smiles, kisses, and drinking folk,
who knew we'd be fucking full soon.
Though I have five children my very own
and no more fucking room,
the state and the builders work hand in hand.
Lucky the bride and groom.
Dear Donor: thank you very much
for your gift of a library full
of whispers, oaken tables to bend over
and doze upon no insult intended
to mine authors for slumping to sleep,
high windows, low lights, cathedral
ceilings, snatches of gossip, wooden
legs and sharp corners to knock knees,
crotch-crunching chairs, hardwood for aching
phisterises, a large clock
for clock-watching, privacy for
pinching pimples thoughtfully,
a well-tempered surface for
annoying tapping, hard silent traverses
for footing and coursing among books on reserve and
books in endless shelves never read
but well-financed whereas publishers
must remainder books as soon as possible because
of taxes so they can make money to donate to their
college libraries, good ol’ boys and girls alumni.
Here is the arena where the world's
battles are fought, far from Bataan and Waterloo,
the victory goes to the ugliest
wierdest loneliest fortified by your bastion
heartened by your bucks,
they fire from behind world's wisdom
some not so wise some too wise
thus many misfires and overshots and
lots of scratches on the tables
where dating couples meet to carry away
unwholesome thoughts of home management
instead of Nietzsche and Soc.150.
I can smell the smells already even while
your money is new and crisp, old varnish,
inhaling sweet as mother's apple pie,
I can see the wear and tear on the
tabooed and required pages of the texts,
on the Inferno instead of Paradiso showing
that students no more than their teachers
can escape the wicked thoughts of life
in the purity of sanctified halls of learning.
If only you could know, Dear Donor,
never mind realize, the world you have
set in motion, the virtues inspired.
Your admirer,
Joe
A drug makes you what you would otherwise not be,
for better or worse, mostly worse.
People, all of them, druggies, hooked.
One, drugged, hates others, drugged.
The madman supplies his drugs physiochemically and gets in trouble.
John Q. Citizen procures his, and gets in trouble too.
Drug abuse is ruinous --- to fathers
to mothers, to sisters and brothers,
to makers to dealers,
to fighters of crime to police,
to good government: the executive branch
legislative branch, the judiciary
(judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers);
to prison systems, correctees and correctors
-- and others too many to name, and
to users of drugs,
but we are all druggies as well!!,
glug, glug, puff, puff,
raging and religious
aggressive and punitive or masochistic,
hormone machines, driven by existential drugs.
The left hemisphere against the right,
We ’uns, dems, us’in all.
Wow! The Cost! The Hurt!
The damned Beast Within!
(Please reply on the attached form in triplicate,
and select a date for your telethon.}
A 15-year-old boy is chasing the females
in an open reformatory for 12-year-olds and less.
It is too crowded for him
in the pen for older juveniles.
Can you make room for him in your house?
An old lady can't see well
or hear well or walk, and
wants to talk your ear off.
Would you mind lending her an ear,
anybody's ear will do,
even your own?
Here's a one, who is befuddled
and black and he can't sing a verse of
"Oh say can you see.."
Can you help him get his lines straight for once?
There are nineteen million persons
depending upon life-support systems, but
not one of them needs to be dependent.
All you have to do is sign on the bottom line and
a stranger will pull out the plug in the wall.
Or would you rather save more taxpayer's money and
pull the plug yourself?
I am a good young lawyer (I prefer the word attorney).
Serious, yet a humorous fellow.
A practice new but prosperous,
in an office, a comfortable one, not costly -- I'm cagey --
not money-hungry, successful though,
that's my idea, and a seat in the Assembly.
Politics now is all advertising,
time was when you could enjoy it,
but there's only blacks and women in politics now,
liberals, Jews of course can stand it,
and there's not much money there.
nothing like a builder's tax deal.
I like funny people, too,
and people aren't funny anymore.
Sure real politics was never in politics,
it's in sin, not government,
real politics, I mean,
and I have all the morals that I can handle
within my own four walls.
So my kids will go to a good college
We'll eat roast beef
My wife will PTA all over the place.
We'll stand by the Church
and I'll take an extra drink when I like.
I'm a successful young Irish lawyer,
suburban squire, last of the line,
but down deep I wish I were Mac the Knife.
(ca.1975)
You don't stop to listen --
though where you are going is nowhere --
so what matters what I say.
What reason, unseasonable rascals,
betrayers of efficiency,
impels you to hook useful car to useless car,
crowded aisles hitched to rolling wrecks.
Punctual departures are set only
for those days I don't ride.
Mushmouth callings of my train
thankfully caught by luck and
severe interrogations of folk around.
Cooking frizzled shit on a shingle
and sandwiches of gum between dough splats.
Unionized to the last corrupt bargain.
Guaranteeing inoperable windows
(there must be a world out there somewhere).
Managed to the last pompous asininity.
Owned to the last ounce of indifference.
You travesty on time! You paen to venality!
You rack of pain!
You unservicable set of jackasses.
May your accursed fate be endless red signals.
May you go bankrupt.
Every bit of budget imbalance gives pleasure
to an honest man. May you
ride forever on your own wheels!
On your own hotboxes!
Nobody gets what she wants.
Have you not observed?
I need speak only of my Naxos beat:
there you encounter Nikko V. who
mulcted his best friend
to slake his greed and couldn't.
Cynthia came from America to set up
a boutique, and took in roomers to help, then
was evicted from the kastro house she had remodeled.
And the soldier wanted war against the Turks,
but before war could be declared he
died of a burst vermiform appendix.
But what of Swen from Sweden;
who sought a lonely place,
then many came and cut a road alongside,
so he retired to Lapland, reindeer, mosquitoes.
And then there was the lover
whose admirer quickly tired of him,
leaving him to leap from the precipice of Mount Zeus.
I won't speak of myself but, believe me,
nobody gets what he wants.
Bend your back more and more
if you want to see the sky,
but then it blows dirt in your eye.
We moved along the village street.
said son number one, "you walk too fast.
The chestnut man will have cold feet.
His little fire won't last long."
We peered in Ottomanelli's store.
Said son number two. "The sausage there
is like the kind we eat , but I've
never seen such a head of a hog before."
Said the third small boy staring up at the sky,
"That 's a Navy Balloon going by, no it's not,
I fooled you, it's just some steam
coming from the parking lot."
We stopped to hitch his trousers up,
the fourth, that is, he smiled and splashed,
"This dirty puddle comes from rain. When
will it ever be clean again?"
A car zoomed close, big and wide,
the eldest daughter wrinkled her nose,
"Our Triumph's not so large, it's tight inside.
But a car like that -- it's like showy clothes."
A great many books marched by our eyes,
"All by poets," the reader-girl announced.
"If I could read them I would be wise --
But all about sex!" and off she flounced.
The third girl said, "What queers they are,"
as we stepped aside for people to pass,
"their stockings are red and their eyebrows so wide,
it's all because they have something to hide."
Even on crowded streets of Greenwich Village,
all this and more can be said,
whatever in fact pops into your head,
as you weave your way, and straggle along.
An irresponsible after-Christmas tourist crowd,
jostled us among the spinning tops at
F.A.O. Schwartz's toys
where we sought to please an Italian boy
who had a skimpy little yo-yo on a thin string,
"See, in America, we have big fat yo yo's,
they go up and down like greased lightning (how do you say that in Italian?),
and we'll buy you one when we get back
to the Great PX."
Though not among the spinning tops.
In princely disdain,
a crouched beach panther had mounted a counter alone
while the lazy lion and his consort were passing by.
Bears, brown, polar bears, kodiaks, cubs, teddies.
Species having disappeared, or that never were, or
on the fast lane to extinction.
"Where are the yo-yo's?"
Yo-yo's?
Yo-yo's.
Have you tried the magic section?
Magic is stacks of garish boxes, where a ghost in white is doing
a trick so successfully
that he seemed idle.
Dare we break his spell?
"Sir, where are your yo-yo's?"
He looked into our souls, that is,
somewhere else besides our eyes or mouth.
A faint smile twitched his thin pale lipsticked lines.
We saw the trains chugging to St.Louis and Santa Fe,
and vehicles, bulldozers, racing cars,
and airplanes, satellites and space ships --
no yo-yo's here, couldn't be here.
"We have some yo-yo's on the staff,"
said a smart-aleck and we laughed at her,
"but none to sell." Books beyond numbers,
chemistry sets, hi-tech electronics, gyroscopes, microscopes.
Balls, balls, balls, balls,
for tennis, beach, ping-pong and catch and bat, and croquet,
basketballs, volley-balls, water-polo balls.
"We should have them," he said,"but we don't."
Where oh where did the yo-yo go?
Up and down, swishing on its string,
pausing, leaping,
ten thousand five hundred rises, falls.
How can people chew gum
without a yo-yo?
I walked west on Waverly
on my way to Sol Chanelle's
to where Avenue of the Americas joined.
It was ten o-clock A.M. and traffic
was beginning to run amok,
enraged by tourists of late Spring
who defiantly crossed and recrossed
between shops on the one side
and painters on the other,
advertising a portrait of
yourself for five dollars,
where, too, this character,
whom I had noticed
before, a skinny black with a
pug face unreliable eye,
energetically swishing
a black academic gown
was bobbing up and down between
easel and a box where
he leaped up and looking over the many heads
was crying "Come on and sit down here,
nothing to fear, portraits in paint
can't say what you ain't!.
I'll paint you a portrait in words,
two lines that rhyme per dollar,
just two bucks minimum to give
to make you forever live."
On the paper pad was drawn the number,
and he was bawling "21!"
"Another verse, another dollar,
know yourself and holler!"
At the top of the board was written,
"I'm headed for Frisco
needing a hundred bucks for the bus
to play in a cool disco.
Take your seat.Look at me.
I'll write your portrait in a jiffy.
Take the poem with you, signed,
my handwriting alone is worth it,
even if it ain't rhymed."
Number 21 sidled in and sat.
"That's right,
look any way you want,
that's part of you, how you sit,
if you pose like a queen,
that too is you, and true.
But pay me now, two dollars, two verses,
Who knows if you'll think its perverse."
"But if you say bad things?"
"Your portrait painter paints your big nose don't he?"
"How do I know it's true?"
"It's as good as a chinese fortune cookie."
"Sounds crazy."
"You pay now, and you can't peep,"
And the onlookers giggled as he worked
and exclaimed when the
rhyme appeared out of nowhere.
"I see you in the nite-time
I see you in the day,
I see you in my wet dreams
you are a first class lay."
She read it. She couldn't believe it.
He peeled off the sheet, folded it,
and presented it to her with a flourish.
She looked around her bewildered.
Faces, sympathetic, understanding smiles,
She hitched up her pants and
took off through the crowd to applause.
A youth sat himself down.
The poet took a long look and began
deliberately -- it was part of the act and
he had a poor handwriting.
"Do mine now," this one said. "Free.
I never pay for anything."
"Who says so?"
"I'll tell you why. See this cap?"
on it was a medal of the National Police Protective Association.
"See this?": he showed a scar starting
at his neck and running down his back.
"That's Nam, man. Kam-kook Hill 1968.
See these: [each shoe was buckled with a bronze star medal.]
And while he was at it he pulled up his cuffs
to show tatoos and pulled up his sleeves to show more,
Elvira was a love of his onetime.
He was all camouflaged in army dress and
all of his pockets were bulging
with the stuff of life, pocket litter.
His wide leather belt had an even wider
buckle emblazoned with the insignia of the
Bloomington Rifle Club 1979 Champions.
The poet was impressed:
"Two crossed rifles for buddies dear,
they crossed the Mekong one night clear,
I was with them but hit a bomb
and that's why never went along,
course they never neither returned
and I never learned where to go
to find Mike and Joe and
I wander the earth in a fruitless hunt,
consoling myself with booze and cunt."
The crowd clapped vigorously,
the apparition look wildly about,
snatched the sheet of poetry and
stalked off, proud, wary.
So on the next lad he was not so kind.
"Hey boy! keep it in your pants,
save it for your big romance.
your snobby nose, your fancy hose
your twitching toes, they all knows
you're mama's boy, and gotta wait
till mama's figured out for you your fate."
"That's no good, my mother's dead.
What if I don't pay?"
"Hear him say I won't pay?"
"Pay up, pay him!!" the crowd starts baying.
Here's another: "His poor mother died of fright
at the broad he brought home one night."
-- That'll be an extra dollar."
"Yeah, Yeah," goes the crowd.
Just what the country needs, I think,
court jesters for hoi polloi,
the sovereign American people stink.
And then a girl who should have known better:
"Here I am and I got no friends,
Pay my way but sorrows never end.
What's a matter with me now,
ugly fat like a grumpin cow,
no git-up-n-go nohow."
She was so embarrassed
he was too, so he said
"I'll give you your answer,
fifty cents, OK?"
" OK."
"Go and quit your job
so you can't eat like a slob,
put a skirt, no mo' pants
on your elephant's behind.
Keep on grinning cause,
your teeth are pearly white,
everybody knows you’re happy
then, and not so up tight."
And the next customer he
seized from out of the crowd.
Come on, come on
He knew his man.
"What we got in front of us.
a poet damned sure!
see his dirty shirt and pants,
his blond blue-eyes allure.
I bet his boyfriend's working
trying hard to feed him,
writing dog and cat food ads,
as if we ever need em."
"Right on the head, man!"
"It takes one to know one.
Half-a buck, only for you,
professional discount."
The crowd cheered.
A Japanese of serious mien
sidled out of the crooked line,
breast high to the poet,
saying "My turn now, please?"
with the courage that brought
ninety million serfs
of ours to buy out our act.
"Very polite the Japanee,"
our poet says, "tee-hee.
I am no slave of thee,
I charge you double
don't make no trouble
you no like, you get it free
how fairer I ask
can anyone be?".
Hooray shouts the crowd
"Sound off, Homer," I shout
exhilarated and then
exuberated retire behind
the two other Japanese
over whose heads I watch.
"You little squirts
will run the Earth.
and enjoy life on the side,
with a village tour here,
and hi-tech over there,
you claim to be satisfied.
Where's the mirth?
Where's the celestial stair?
Whatever you will come to be
adds up to merely misery."
The subject grins in satisfaction,
folds the sheet under his arm,
and shakes hands. The mob cheers.
The crowd is larger, his time has come,
the poet is sweating and whirling
like a dervish, like the Delphic
oracle starting to scream between her teeth,
his knotted black hair whipping
long around his cape and
his black eyes rolling at the sky.
"Number 32!
After this I got to piss
if I find a door, there aint no more,
got to go, ain't no mo.
who'll it be?
some girlie wee
some spade from afar
guy with a guitar
visitor from a star?
Come back again, all you good folk,
but now put your change into my hat,
just because I'm a poet
don't mean don't know where it's at."
He picked up several dollars that way.
**
After dinner, it was dark
and he was back at work,
and he was mean and just
scratching out the word "jerk"
because some people booed him
It was a young girl, clutching her page
and ready to burst into tears.
Midnight with the number 43
and the traffic lights and noises,
A Gentleman, A Captain Midnight
disengages himself delicately
from his sweet potato and steps up
OK, do your stuff, here you go.
and a fiver fluttered to the walk.
"I got it! I got it!"
and as the man stood blocking
half the night with his bulk,
too large to sit on the box,
the poet closed his eyes,
opened them, closed,
open, intoning nonsense,
then stepped back to recite
as the man turned to read:
"Way, down along the scrawny river,
thass where I begin to roam,
thass where they called me
Big Buck Nigger,
thass where I ain't gwine home...
See it? There it is,"
the poet read proudly.
The gentleman stood,
shaking his head a little,
as the boxer who has taken a hard jab and
the bull clears his head before charging.
Now the only noises came from the streets around.
His legs, already straddling a square yard,
stiffened like fast-drying concrete,
his shoulders bulged in his Barney's suit
fit to split it at the seams.
The poet looked up, anxiously
-- as from far below.
"Look I can tap dance!
Ever see me tap dance?"
He went into a crazy buck and wing
"Listen to me sing!"
he began to sing,
"Jes because my color's shady,
and cause, I'm different maybe.
That's why they call me Shine!"
I threw a fistful of change down,
so did other people.
Dollars were fluttering,
coins were ringing.
The gentleman cracked the ice
with a broad benevolent smile.
He folded the paper neatly into his pocket :
"Tut, tut, my good man.
Art would be free,
If you left it to me.
Play it again Sam."
He shook the poet's shoulder fondly,
this one being by now
collapsed in a fetal position
who sprang up though and
wrote on his tablet quickly,
"Whoever dwells above,
abides below.
The gods of earth
should be devils
and the devils of earth
be gods.
The world around
has got it wrong,
That's this devil's
divinity song.
Could you tell it right you would,
but brother Buck here knows who's good."
Just at the moment of 45 he hit 50.
Some man had yelled, "I'm giving five free!"
"Step right up!" the poet shouted, "Hear that?"
So five were bribed, pushed, cajoled,
to be broiefly, nastily besmeared.
At 50, he shouted "Hoorah!"
and the crowd cried "Hooray!".
He picked up the box and smashed it.
He pushed the easel down toward me..
I stopped him as he escaped.
"Take another, do another, do me!"
He looked at me and knew me well,
disdainfully, he muttered,
"You've had your chance."
Then, inspired, he orated loud,
"You've had your chance,
I can tell at a glance,
your pinched white nose,
your neat tight clothes.
Nor will you win
through happenstance
no likely girl will
slip you her pants --
and so it goes." And he ducked
off and down the subway entrance.
People laughed at me and I shouted
conveniently late for him to hear,
"You're just a black bourgeois rapper!
Look, you don't even have to rhyme,
rhyming is for jerks!"
(the crowd murmered angrily at me.)
I scribbled on the tablet
but when I looked around
the crowd was gone as if I'd sung
the Star Spangled Banner.
"Though I teach young poets,
you appreciate,
to pronounce him good
I hesitate,
I came early and stayed late
I"m aged 51, the 51st state
to adorn that black
bourgeois rapper’s slate."
Twentieth
She, though, was still there,
not one of my better students,
but the type that sticks by you.
"Come on, Professor,
I"ll buy you a beer,"
she said in a kindly manner.
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