VIII
THE FALL OF AMERICA
(1965–1971)

Thru the Vortex West Coast to East (1965–1966)

Zigzag Back Thru These States (1966–1967)

Elegies for Neal Cassady (1968)

Ecologues of These States (1969–1971)

Bixby Canyon to Jessore Road (1971)

Thru the Vortex West Coast to East
(1965–1966)

Beginning of a Poem of These States

Memento for Gary Snyder

Under the bluffs of Oroville, blue cloud September skies, entering U.S. border, red red apples bend their tree boughs propt with sticks—

At Omak a fat girl in dungarees leads her big brown horse by asphalt highway.

Thru lodgepole pine hills Coleville near Moses Mountain—a white horse standing back of a 2 ton truck moving forward between trees.

At Nespelem, in the yellow sun, a marker for Chief Joseph’s grave under rilled brown hills—white cross over highway.

At Grand Coulee under leaden sky, giant red generators humm thru granite & concrete to materialize onions—

And gray water laps against the gray sides of Steamboat Mesa.

At Dry Falls 40 Niagaras stand silent & invisible, tiny horses graze

on the rusty canyon’s mesquite floor.

At Mesa, on the car radio passing a new corn silo, Walking Boogie teenager’s tender throats, “I wish they could all be California girls”—as black highway curls outward.

On plains toward Pasco, Oregon hills at horizon, Bob Dylan’s voice on airways, mass machine-made folksong of one soul—Please crawl out your window—first time heard.

Speeding thru space, Radio the soul of the nation. The Eve of Destruction and The Universal Soldier.

And tasted the Snake: water from Yellowstone under a green bridge; darshana with the Columbia, oilslick & small bird feathers on mud shore. Across the river, silver bubbles of refineries.

There Lewis and Clark floated down in a raft: the brown-mesa’d gorge of Lake Wallula smelling of rain in the sage, Greyhound buses speeding by.

Searching neither for Northwest Passage, nor Gold, nor the Prophet who will save the polluted Nation, nor for Guru walking the silver waters behind McNary Dam.

Roundup time in Pendleton, pinched women’s faces and hulking cowboy hats in the tavern, I’m a city slicker from Benares. Barman murmurs to himself, two hands full of beer, “Who wanted that?”

Heavy rain at twilight, trumpets massing & ascending repeat The Eve of Destruction, Georgia Pacific sawmill burners lift smoke thru the dusky valley.

Cold night in Blue Mountains, snow-powdered tops of droopy Tamarack and Fir at gray sunrise, coffee frozen in brown coffeepot, toes chilled in Czechoslovakian tennis sneakers.

Under Ponderosa pine, this place for sale—45th Parallel, half way between equator and North Pole—Tri-City Radio broadcasting clear skies & freezing nite temperatures; big yellow daisies, hay bales piled in square stacks house-high.

“Don Carpenter has a real geologist’s hammer, he can hit a rock & split it open & look inside & utter some mantra.”

Coyote jumping in front of the truck, & down bank, jumping thru river, running up field to wooded hillside, stopped on a bound & turned round to stare at us—Oh-Ow! shook himself and bounded away waving his bushy tail.

Rifles & cyanide bombs unavailing—he looked real surprised & pointed his thin nose in our direction. Hari Om Namo Shivaye!

Eat all sort of things & run solitary—3 nites ago hung bear dung on a tree and laughed

—Bear: “Are you eating my corpses? Say that again!”

Coyote: “I didn’t say nothing.”

Sparse juniper forests on dry lavender hills, down Ritter Butte to Pass Creek, a pot dream recounted: Crossing Canada border with a tin can in the glove compartment, hip young border guards laughing—In meadow the skeleton of an old car settled: Look To Jesus painted on door.

Fox in the valley, road markers dript with small icicles, all windows on the white church broken, brown wooden barns leaned together, thin snow on gas station roof.

Malheur, Malheur National Forest—signs glazed snowfrost, last night’s frozen dreams come back—staring out thru skull at cold planet—Mila-Repa accepted no gifts to cover his jeweled penis—Strawberry Mountain top white under bright clouds.

Postcards of Painted Hills, fossil beds near Dayville, Where have all the flowers gone? flowers gone? Ra and Coyote are hip to it all, nailed footpaw tracks on Day River bottom, cows kneeled at rest in meadow afternoon.

Ichor Motel, white tailfins in driveway, isolate belfried brown farmhouse circled with trees, chain saws ringing in the vale.

Rilled lava overgrown with green moss cracked in cold wind—Blue Heron and American white egret migrate to shrunken waters of Unhappy —mirage lakes wrongside of the road, dust streaming under Riddle Mountain, Steen Range powder white on horizon—

Slept, water froze in Sierra cup, a lake of bitter water from solar plexus to throat—Dreamt my knee was severed at hip and sutured back together—

Woke, icy dew on poncho and saffron sleep bag, moon like a Coleman lantern dimming icicle-point stars—vomited on knees in arroyo grass, nostrils choking with wet red acid in weak flashlight—

Dawn weakness, climbing worn lava walls following the muddy spring, waterfowl whistling sweetly & a tiny raccoon

pawed forward daintly in green mud, looking for frogs burrowed away from Arctic cold—disappeared into a silent rock shelf.

Climbed up toward Massacre Lake road—sagebrush valley-floor stretched South—Pronghorn abode, that eat the bitterroot and dry spice-bush, hunters gathering in trucks to chase antelope—

A broken corral at highway hill bottom, wreck of a dead cow in cold slanting sun set rays, eyes eaten out, neck twisted to ground, belly caved on kneebone, smell of sweet dread flesh and acrid new sage.

Slept in rusty tin feeding trough, Orion belt crystal in sky, numb metal-chill at my back, ravens settled on the cow when sun warmed my feet.

Up hills following trailer dust clouds, green shotgun shells & beer-bottles on road, mashed jackrabbits—through a crack in the Granite Range, an alkali sea—Chinese armies massed at the borders of India.

Mud plate of Black Rock Desert passing, Frank Sinatra lamenting distant years, old sad voic’d September’d recordings, and Beatles crying Help! their voices woodling for tenderness.

All memory at once present time returning, vast dry forests afire in California, U.S. paratroopers attacking guerrillas in Vietnam mountains, over porcelain-white road hump the tranquil azure of a vast lake.

Pyramid rocks knotted by pleistocene rivers, topheavy lava isles castled in Paiute water, cutthroat trout; tomato sandwiches and silence.

Reno’s Motel traffic signs low mountains walling the desert oasis, radio crooning city music afternoon news, Red Chinese Ultimatum 1 A.M. tomorrow.

Up Donner Pass over concrete bridge superhighways hung with gray clouds, Mongolian Idiot chow-yuk the laughable menu this party arrived.

Ponderosa hillsides cut back for railroad track, I have nothing to do, laughing over Sierra top, gliding adventurer on the great fishtail iron-finned road, Heaven is renounced, Dharma no Path, no Saddhana to fear,

my man world will blow up, humming insects under wheel sing my own death rasping migrations of mercy, I tickle the Bodhisattva and salute the new sunset, home riding home to old city on ocean

with new mantra to manifest Removal of Disaster from my self, autumn brushfire’s smoky mass in dusk light, sun’s bright red ball on horizon purple with earth-cloud, chanting to Shiva in the car-cabin.

Pacific Gas high voltage antennae trailing thin wires across flatlands, entering Coast Range 4 lane highway over last hump to giant orange Bay glimpse, Dylan ends his song “You’d see what a drag you are,” and the Pope

cometh to Babylon to address United Nations, 2000 years since Christ’s birth the prophecy of Armageddon

hangs the Hell Bomb over planet roads and cities, year-end come, Oakland Army Terminal lights burn green in evening darkness.

Treasure Island Naval Base lit yellow with night business, thousands of red tail lights move in procession over Bay Bridge,

San Francisco stands on modern hills, Broadway lights flash the center gay honky-tonk Elysium, Ferry building’s sweet green clock lamps black Embarcadero waters, negroes screaming over radio.

Bank of America burns red signs beneath the neon pyramids, here is the city, here is the face of war, home 8 o’clock

gliding down freeway ramp to City Lights, Peter’s face and television, money and new wanderings to come.

September 1965

Carmel Valley

Grass yellow hill,
          small mountain range blue sky
      bright reservoir below road tiny cars
The wing tree green wind sigh
                  rises, falls—
      Buddha, Christ, fissiparous
                        Tendencies—
White sun rays pierce my eyeglasses—
      gray bark animal arms,
                  skin peeling,
      sprig fingers pointing, twigs trembling
            green plate-thins bobbing,
                  knotted branch-sprouts—
No one will have to announce New Age
No special name, no Unique way,
      no crier by Method or
                  Herald of Snaky Unknown,
No Messiah necessary but the Country ourselves
                        fifty years old—
Allah this tree, Eternity this Space Age!
Teenagers walking on Times Sq. look up
      at blue planets thru neon metal
                              buildingtops,
Old men lie on grass afternoons
      old Walnut stands on green mountain hide,
            ants crawl the page, invisible
                  insects sing, birds
                              flap down,
Man will relax on a hill remembering tree friends.

Chez Baez, November 1965

First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels

Cool black night thru the redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

December 1965

Continuation of a Long Poem of These States

S.F. Southward

Stage-lit streets
     Downtown Frisco whizzing past, buildings
     ranked by Freeway balconies
          Bright Johnnie Walker neon
               sign Christmastrees
And Christmas and its eves
     in the midst of the same deep wood
          as every sad Christmas before, surrounded
                    by forests of stars—
Metal columns, smoke pouring cloudward,
          yellow-lamp horizon
               warplants move, tiny
          planes lie in Avionic fields—
Meanwhile Working Girls sort mail into the red slot
     Rivers of newsprint to soldiers’ Vietnam
     Infantry Journal, Kanackee
          Social Register, Wichita Star
And Postoffice Christmas the same brown place
          mailhandlers’ black fingers
          dusty mailbags filled
               1948 N.Y. Eighth Avenue was
     when Peter drove the mailtruck 1955
               from Rincon Annex—
Bright lights’ windshield flash,
     adrenalin shiver in shoulders
               Around the curve
     crawling a long truck
          3 bright green signals on forehead
     Jeweled Bayshore passing the Coast Range
          one architect’s house light on hill crest
……………… negro voices rejoice over radio
     Moonlit sticks of tea
Moss Landing Power Plant
     shooting its cannon smoke
          across the highway, Red taillight
          speeding the white line and a mile away
     Orion’s muzzle
               raised up
                         to the center of Heaven.

December 18, 1965

These States: into L.A.

Organs and War News
     Radio static from Saigon
               “And the Glory of the Lord”
                    Newscaster Voice thru Aether—
The Truce—
     12 hours, 30 hours?
          Thirty Days, said Mansfield.
   Cars roll right lane,
     bridge lights
          rising & falling on night-slope—
     headlights cross speeding reflectors
Handel rejoicing
     chorus whine Requiem, roar in yr Auto
                    window shoulders
Memories of Christmas—
     and the deep Christmas begins:
               U.S. 101 South
The President at home
     in his swinging chair on the porch
          listening to Christmas Carols
     Vice-President returning from Far East
“Check into yourself that you are wrong—
     You may be the Wrong” says Pope His
                    Christmas Message—
Overpopulation, overpopulation
               Give me 3 acres of land
               Give my brother how much?
                    Each man have fine estate?
                    settle giant Communes?
LSD Shakti-snake settles like gas into Consciousness
               —Brightest Venus I’ve ever seen
Canyon-floor road, near
               bursting tides
     & caves they’d slept in earlier years
                    covered with green water
                      height of a man.
     A stranger walked that ground.
          Five years ago we picnicked
                    in this place.
Auto track by a mud log, Bixby Creek
     wove channels
               thru the shifting sands.
I saw the ghost of Neal
          pass by, Ferlinghetti’s ghost
The ghost of Homer roaring at the surf
          barking & wagging his tail
My own footprint at the sea’s lips
          white foam to the rock where I sang Harekrishna
sand garden drying, kelp
          standing head upward in sunlight.
               Dinosaur hard, scabrous
     overgrown with seaweed tendrils,
                    Professors of rock …

Where’s Stravinsky? Theda Bara? Chaplin? Harpo Marx?
  Where’s Laurel and his Hardy?
               Laughing phantoms
               going to the grave—
Last time this town I saw them in movies
     Ending The Road to Utopia‘O Carib Isle!’
     Laurel aged & white-haired Hardy
          Hydrogen Comic smoke billowing
               up from their Kingdom—
Grauman’s Chinese Theater’s drab sidewalk front’s
          concrete footprints, stood there
               stupid, anal, exciting
                    upside down, Crosseyed moviestar’d
     I craned my neck at Myrna Loy & Shirley Temple shoe-marks—

Raccoon crouched at road-edge, praying—
                         Carlights pass—
Merry Christmas to Mr. & Mrs.
                         Chiang Kai Shek
Merry Christmas to President Johnson & pray for Health
Merry Christmas to MacNamara, State Secretary Rusk,
               Khrushchev hid in his apartment house,
                    to Kosygin’s name, to Ho Chi Minh grown old,
Merry Christmas to rosycheeked Mao Tze Tung
     Happy New Year Chou En Lai & Laurel and Hardy
Merry Christmas to the Pope
          & to the Dalai Lama Rebbe Lubovitcher
     to the highest Priests of Benin,
     to the Chiefs of the Faery Churches—
Merry Christmas to the Four Shankaracharyas,
     to all Naga Sadhus, Bauls & Chanting Dervishes from Egypt to
                              Malaya—

Black Sign Los Angeles 140 Miles
     stifling car-heat—
          Music on the tacky radio,
               senseless, senseless coughs of emotion—
The Ally Cease-Fire Will Not Be Extended
               “……. on a densely populated area”
“… —Peking will never join the United Nations as long
as it remains under what it termed American Domination.”

MOBILIZE THE NATIONAL GUARD, sd Senator Anderson
  IY Mental Rejectees will be reexamined
               for service in Vietnam.
Bradley high on acid
     drawing pictures on Army Forms?
     Peter classified Psycho telling his Sergeant
          “An Army is an Army against Love.”

Xmas day work stack of papers on the President’s desk
                         a foot high!
                    he has to finish them tonight!
     this determined NBC News entering Lompoc, famed of
                              W. C. Fields
               who proved that Everyman’s a
                              natural bullshit artist:
          “spends about 75% of his time on Foreign Matters and is,
               uh, very involved …”
                         “and all letters are answered.”
WHAT no Xmas message from the
                    Texas White House?
     The President must be very down—
  He’s maintaining his communications networks
                              circling the Planet.
               Mambo canned music mush
               Ventura radio Xmas sound
                         Commercial announcements,
     Few minutes of live speech, little joy or thanksgiving,
no voice from Himalayas
          Good Cheer Happy Kalpa
for Dominica Vietnam Congo China India America
               Tho England rang with the Beatles!
          “healing all that was oppressed with the Devil.”
     & at Santa Barbara exit
               the Preacher hollered in tongues
               YOUR NAME IS WRITTEN IN HEAVEN
                              passing 38th Parallel

Lodge spoke from Saigon “We are morally right,
     we are Morally Right,
     serving the cause of freedom forever giving these people
               an opportunity … almost like thinking”—
  He’s broadcasting serious-voice on Xmas Eve to America
Entering Los Angeles space age
     three stations simultaneous radio—
               Cut-Up Sounds that fill Aether,
                    voices back of the brain—
               The voice of Lodge, all well, Moral—
               voice of a poor poverty worker,
                    “Well they dont know anybody dont
                    know anything about the poor all
                    the money’s going to the politicians
                    in Syracuse, none of it’s going to the poor.”
               Evers’ voice the black Christmas March
                    “We want to be treated like Men, like human …”
          Mass Arrest of Campers Outside LBJ Ranch
Aquamarine lights revolving along the highway,
          night stars over L.A., exit trees,
     turquoise brilliance shining on sidestreets—

Xmas Eve 1965

A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood

Here at the atomic Crack-end of Time XX Century
History swifting past horse chariot earth wheel
So I in mid-age, finished with half desire
Tranquil in my hairy body, familiar beard face,
                    Same fingers to pen
                    as twenty years ago began
          scribbled Confession to fellow Beings
               Americans—
                         Heavenly creatures,

This universe a thing of dream
     substance naught & Keystone void
          vibrations of symmetry Yes No
          Foundation of Gold Element Atom
     all the way down to the first Wave
     making opposite Nothing a mirror
which begat a wave of Ladies marrying
waves of Gentlemen till I was born in 1926
     in Newark, New Jersey under the sign of
                         sweet Gemini—

Whole universes hived upon the first
     dumb Jerk
               that wasn’t there—The
Only One escape from the black Not Ever
was Itself,
          a extra click of Life woke
because Nothing had no hand to switch off
the Light.
                    The first dumb Jerk,
one wave, Forward! one way too many—
So forward got backward, & Sideways both
     got there simultaneous with up
          and down who got each other
Meanwhile the first Being got its non-Being
     Opposite which never had to be there before
This calamity, this accident, this Goof,
     this Imperceptible Sneak of Dimension,
          Some Move-Push tickle, Aleph or Aum
               swallowed before uttered,
               one-eyed sparkle, giant glint, any tiny fart
               or rose-whiff before roses were
                         Thought Impossible
filled every corner of Emptiness with Symmetries of
     Impossible Universe with no Idea
How Come, & Opposite Possible Kosmoses assembled Doubtless—
One makes two, symmetry’s infinite touch
makes Sound bounce, light sees
          waves reproduce oceans,
vibrations are red white & blue—

     All like a 3 dimensional TV dream
     like Science-fiction opera
          sung by inexistent Gas-brains
               in their N-dimensional bag,
     Some what a bubble, some what dewdrop
     Some what a blossom, some what lightning flash,
     Some what the old Jew in the Hospital—
          snap of dying fingers,
               “Where did it all go?”

Made of Ideas, waves, dots, hot projectors
mirror movie screens,
     Some what the Shadow cast at Radio City
               Music Hall Xmas 1939
gone, gone, utterly completely gone
to a world of Snow
     White and the Seven Dwarfs—
Made up of cartoon picture clouds, papier-mâché
               Japanese lantern stage sets strung
     with moon lights, neon arc-flames,
               electric switches, thunder
reverberating from phonograph record tape machine
               Tin sheets of Zeus on
the Microphone jacked to gigantic Amplifiers, gauge
     needle jumping, red lights warning Other
Dimensions off the overloaded public address Sound
     Systems feedback thru blue void
               echoing the Real of Endless Film.

Xmas 1965

Hiway Poesy: L.A.-Albuquerque-Texas-Wichita

up up and away!
          we’re off, Thru America—

Heading East to San Berdoo
          as West did, Nathanael,
California Radio Lady’s voice
          Talking about Viet Cong—
     Oh what a beautiful morning
     Sung for us by Nelson Eddy

Two trailer trucks, Sunkist oranges / bright colored
          piled over the sides
     rolling on the road
Gray hulk of Mt. Baldy under
     white misted skies
Red Square signs unfold, Texaco Shell
          Harvey House tilted over the superhighway—

Afternoon Light
          Children in back of a car
          with Bubblegum
a flight of birds out of a dry field like mosquitoes

“… several battalions of U.S. troops in a search and destroy operation in the Coastal plain near Bong Son, 300 mi. Northeast of Saigon. Thus far the fighting has been a series of small clashes. In a related action 25 miles to the South, Korean troops killed 35 Viet Cong near Coastal highway Number One.”

“For he’s oh so Good
and he’s oh so fine
and he’s oh so healthy
in his body and his mind”

The Kinks on car radio

In Riverside,
     a 1920s song—
          “It’s the only words I know / that you’ll
                         understand”
     For my uncle Max dead 5 years ago
          it’s settled—buried
under the blue mountain wall,
Veined with snow at the top
               clouds passing
                    icy remote heights
Palmtrees on valley floor
     stick up toothpick hairheads—
Toy automobiles piled crushed and mangled
               topped by a hanging crane,
     The planet hanging,
               the air hanging,
                    Trees hang their branches,
               A dirt truck hanging on the highway—
Spectacle of Afternoon,
     giant pipes glistening in the universe
   Magic that weighs tons and tons,
               Old bum with his rough
                    tattered pack hunched
          walking up the hill hanging
                    to Ukipah
          cloth cap pulled over his head
                         black fingernails.

          A wall, a wall, a Mesa Wall, There’s desert
          flat mountain shadows
               miles along the pale pink floor
                         —Indio in space.

The breath of spring, the breath of fear
          Mexican border …
                    The LSD cube—
                              silence.

There’s those Hellies again,
          over hiway, as over Mekong
                    belly lights blinking red
          prob’ly surveying the border—
          shotguns stickin’ out all over
               —Two birds swoop under car dashboard.
                    Purple Mist,
                      motor tire drone.
Sacrifice for Prosperity, says Johnson.
          Joshua Tree Monument
Blue dusk.
          Bomb China
     says Southern Senator Stennis—
Mobil’s neon Pegasus flying overhill.

Colorado River border,
     Two lemons an orange seized,
          Scaly Mites
     and the cube of acid smuggled into Arizona …

“It all comes from Crystal hill”—
        The whole countryside’s Quartzite hereabouts—
Huntley’s Perspective on the News
          Sukarno a Nut? A wildman?
               or potential friend?
     Brought to you by Mercury
               boasting “sweet
               success taste”—
They can go around saying things about people,
     and once their policy’s adopted it’ll rule a decade—
Somebody decided “he’s a nut!”
     official policy, re-echoed to 14 Million Readers of Time
as we drive along in the Bat-mobile thru Arizona—
Approaching Hope, dream maps unfolded
          Waves with larger & larger loops,
          Tree-posts flashing auto headlights
                                   hit my retina
                         I saw what it was
                              light saw light,
                                   a flash in the pan.
Eyes register, nerves send waves along to the brain
Finger touch is electric waves
                    carlights glare thru eyes—
Voice repeating itself,
     wavering over the microphones—
          Meditation passing Hope …

Horrific outskirts’ Eastern Traffic Sign,
          Turn backward…
                    Dull sleep on my eyes

*   *   *   *

Morning Phoenix Gazette, editorial January 27, ’66
          “No time for probe of CIA
          No Good Purpose would be served—
                    Why poke on the Nose?
          … Virtual epidemic of attacks,
Pacifists let Reds take over the world, rather than
                         Fighting Against Them—
     well meaning people … distasteful intelligence
     Sacrosanct… scuttle … demand an investigation …
Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
           Righto! The Navaho trail—
     Crescent moon setting on low hills West—
               Military forces over radio
                         push bombing N. Vietnam.
Lifelines, sponsored by Henry L. Hunt, Beans.
       Dead voiced announcer, denouncing
     “a communist conspiracy among the youth …
     speakers on campuses / trained to condition
                              idealistic brains …”
It’s Chase Manhattan Bank lends money to South African
        White government—Rockfeller boy!
     Unless Chase Bank quits I prophesy blood violence.
     Ford has a factory,
     Ford has a factory there—
          “they’re aw-fly proud
          of being South African.”
     “… A hotbed of anti Semitism too?”

PAINTED DESERT,
     petrified forest
          Leslie Howard’s scratchy ’30s image
          … eating jurassic steak
Petroglyphs over there the Man in the Moon,
     the guy with four fingers …
     over there, this is the sun, with two spikes out the North,
     two spikes South, two spikes ray East & West

     Milky way over here, the Moon,
     … and all the animal tentacles
     Nebula spiraled “… Roger 1943”
And I hit Julius for eating his avocado cheese sandwich too fast.

     Gas flares, oil refinery night smoke,
     high aluminum tubes winking red lights
                    over space ship runways
     petrochemical witches’ blood boiling underground—
     “Looks like they’re gettin ready to go to Mars.”
Approaching Thoreau—
               Fort Wingate Army Depot entrance—
               and there’s the Continental Divide.
Anti Vietnam War Demonstrator soldiers sentenced
               For Contempt of President:
                              Hard Labor—
Learn thyself in Shell Refinery’s Oil Storage Seaboard Rackets,

Lying back on the car seat,
     eyelids heavy,
          legs spread leaned against the table,
Oh that I were young again and the skin in my anus folds rose,
     “La illaba el (lill) Allah bu”
Finally bored,
     Over a hill, singing Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram
Albuquerque Sparkling blue brilliant
     more diamonds & pearls of electricity
     running out of power-plants than ever heard of
               Turkey or Israel—
intense endless iridescence on black
                  velvet desert—
                  Ah what a marvel
orange blue Neon Circling itself Solar System’d
Speed Wash Texaco 19¢ Famous Hamburgers
Lion House Italian Village Pizza ah!
radio warbles Electronic noise
     echo chamber vibrations—
        Albuquerque streets’ fantastic Neon Stars
               collapsing to bright red blinks
Satellite Globes plunging their
                    tiny lamps in and out—
                         the eyeball.

*   *   *   *

Space stretching North dotted with silver gastanks
     to Sandia Range
Hitchhiking student
     supported by National Defense Fund
          with his black horn rimmed glasses,
                    thin blond hair,
“If your country calls you, would you go?”
“If my country drafted me …
               then I would go.”
Selfish young american always interested in his own skin
—and blue car speeding along the highway
          sticker on back
                    “I’m proud I’m an American”
          right front seat, a 10 gallon hat
          driver a fat car salesman—
Sitting icy tipped
          distant earth peaks over Hilltops
& here’s an ugly little oasis, used car tractors
               fenced off by barbed wire
                    below roadside—
Evenings cool clear, sharp
               brilliant blue stars—
Just what we needed, State Penitentiary!
          Two miles off into the brown furze rolling
                    East of the highway
“This is Ford Country what are you driving?” Be a Ford dealer?
Great snow meadows roof Sangre De Cristo
clouds, North, dipping misty rivulet tails of pointy fog.

………………………………………………………

It’s a hard question …
     which would you rescue, your mother-in-law
               or the last text of Shakespeare?

*   *   *   *

Two hitchhikers, one Cajun dumb mouth
     who sang brown voiced
          blues his travelin’ baby.
T’other highschool smart
     wavy hair, unbeautiful, unbeautiful and gentle
          pinched pachuco face
     had ideas of his own philosophy—
          thumbing out of Albuquerque
                    To New Orleans Mardigras
$900 a week, working rolling drunks, or
     fixin signs with ladders and hammers
had spent 3 youth years in Siam,
               Champagne & Pussy 50¢
                    kindly eyes
     “I love to eat, and I love girls.”
     Sang them Prajnaparamita Sutra
                    entering Panhandle,
     left them back at Tukumkarie—
     talking in the truckstop booth,
            fat truck drivers
               headed south.

On Radio entering Texas
     Please For Jesus!
     Grunts & Screams & Shouts,
          Shouts for the Poison Redeemer,
     Shouts for the Venomous Jesus of Kansas.
Onward to Wichita!
     Onward to the Vortex!
          To the Birchite Hate Riddles,
       cock-detesting, pussy-smearing
          dry ladies and evil Police
               of Central Plains State
     Where boredom & fury
          magick bars and sirens around
                    the innocent citykid eye
     & Vampire stake of politics Patriotism’s driven
   into the white breast of Teenage
     joyful murmurers
     in carpet livingrooms
          on sidestreets—
Beautiful children’ve been driven from Wichita
McClure & Branaman gone
     J. Alan White departed left no address
Charlie Plymell come Now to San Francisco
     Ann Buchanan passing thru,
Bruce Conners took his joke to another coast—
     in time the White Dove Review
          fluttered up from Tulsa
Flatland entering Great Plains
               Evil gathers in Cities,
               Eye mouth newspapers
     Television concentrates its blue
               flicker of death in the frontal lobe—
     Police department sirens wail,
               The Building Department inspector Negates
               What the Fire Department has failed to burn down—
     Students departing for Iowa & Chicago,
        New York beckoning at the end of the stage—
While Soviets have made soft landing on the moon
Today, be it rock or dust?
     Now’s Solar System born anew?
Red lights, red lights at highway end,
     glass reflectors,
                    there’s no one On the Road.
“… Don’t know what will happen to the proud
               American soldiers in Vietnam”
          said Ex Ambassador Ex General Taylor—

In this great space, Murchison & Hunt,
     Texas millionaires
          sit in Isolate skyscrapers
                    on flatland dotted with lights
or, from cities, isolate from fairies
and screaming european dowagers & sopranos,
               plot conspiracies against Communists,
send messages to New York, Austin, Wichita
          Vancouver, Seattle, to Los Angeles—
Radio programs about the Federal Octopus—
          Seraphs of Money Power on Texas plains
               huge fat-bellied power-men
               shoving piles of Capital
                         by train
                    across grasslands—
Shoving messages into myriad innocent-cleaned ears
     Spiritual messages about spiritual war—
          Come to Jesus
                where the money is!
               Texas voice
               singing Vietnam Blues
                    Twanging
“I don’t like to die / a man I ain’t about t’ crawl”
          In Vital-heart,
Big truck slowly lumbers through town—
Hotels raise signs, neon winks.
Liberal’s the beginning of Kansas
     Martial music filling airwaves—
only the last few weeks
     waves of military music
        drum taps drum beats trumpets
             pulsing thru radiostations
                  not even sad,
     bald Sopranos
     Sacred Tenors from 1920s
     Singing antique music style
What Patriot wrote that shit?
Something to drive out the Indian
     Vibrato of Buffy Sainte-Marie?
     Doom call of McGuire?
The heavenly echo of Dylan’s despair
               before the silver microphone
     in his snake suit,
               a reptile boy
                    disappearing in Time—
     soft shoe dancing on the Moon?
It’ll be a relief when the Chinese take over Texas!
     Lifeline pumping its venom “Communist Conspiracy”
     Secret documents Infiltrate & smash Vatican—
          broadcast to these empty plains,
          Isolate farmhouses with radios
               hearing the Horror Syndicate
                  take over the Universe!

Radiostations whistling & crashing against each other on autoradio—
Full moonlight on blue snow
Loudspeaker blasting midnite static
               thru some European Swansong,
     Dit dat dits of outerspace communication
               blanking out Ear’s substance
Vatican whistles undertone
     bloops and eeeeeps, trillion-antennae’d
        grid of the Shabda
If it’s silent it isn’t there—

*   *   *   *

Entering Kansas
     little red towers blink distance,
          Lifeline, continued over 7 stations—
H. L. Hunt his books read,
          Cold reasoning voice over Kansas plains—
O that’s Liberal Spread before us!
Truck stopped by roadside Weighing Station

*

Heavy Jewish voice heard over Kansas Radio
     Varning the Jews, Take safety in Christ
          —Dr. Michaelson
          and the Hebrew-Christian Hour
               —P.O.B. 707 Los Angeles 53—

In 1866 & 1881 the Carbon Companies paid
$2,500,000 for the bones of Buffalos
     Representing 31,000,000 Buffalos.
Handful of Buffalo, lightbrown back shining in the sun
     Grazing at the edge of River Ginnesca—
Peter says Oooo! What
          visions they must have of human beings—
          silent tolerant, head bent,
                         cropping grass—
‘Right now they’re trying to take the Indian territories
                         away, near Hopiland.’
     Wanna build subdivisions,
                              Mineral rights—
               The last lands of the redskins—
Saw it in the paper t’other day
               on the Highway near Tucson—

Blue morning in Kansas,
     black lambs dotted in snow
     Ice gleaming in brown grass at roadside
          Corn stacks, small
          lined up around tree groves—
Kingman Salvage, rusty autos under rusty hill,
Jodrell Bank reporting Sensational pictures Rocks on the Moon,
            “it’s a hard surface—”
    information about Hog Scallops at Birth,
Meat prices, Grain prices
Steer Meat Dollar values,
    Appeal to end Property Tax

Green signs,
    Welcome to Wichita
    Population 280,000

January 28–29, 1966

Chances “R”

Nymph and shepherd raise electric tridents
    glowing red against the plaster wall,
The jukebox beating out magic syllables,
A line of painted boys snapping fingers
    & shaking thin Italian trouserlegs
        or rough dungarees on big asses
        bumping and dipping
ritually, with no religion but the
        old one of cocksuckers
naturally, in Kansas center of America
      the farmboys in Diabolic bar light
    alone stiff necked or lined up
    dancing row on row like Afric husbands
& the music’s sad here, whereas Sunset Trip or
Jukebox Corner it’s ecstatic pinball machines—
Religiously, with concentration and free
        prayer; fairy boys of the plains
        and their gay sisters of the city
step together to the center of the floor
    illumined by machine eyes, screaming drumbeats,
          passionate voices of Oklahoma City
               chanting No Satisfaction
Suspended from Heaven the Chances R
     Club floats rayed by stars
          along a Wichita tree avenue
     traversed with streetlights on the plain.

Wichita, February 1966

Wichita Vortex Sutra

   I
Turn Right Next Corner
     The Biggest Little Town in Kansas
                    Macpherson
Red sun setting flat plains west streaked
               with gauzy veils, chimney mist spread
          around christmas-tree-bulbed refineries—aluminum
               white tanks squat beneath
          winking signal towers’ bright plane-lights,
                    orange gas flares
          beneath pillows of smoke, flames in machinery—
                    transparent towers at dusk

In advance of the Cold Wave
     Snow is spreading eastward to
               the Great Lakes
     News Broadcast & old clarinets
       Watertower dome Lighted on the flat plain
            car radio speeding acrost railroad tracks—

Kansas! Kansas! Shuddering at last!
            PERSON appearing in Kansas!
     angry telephone calls to the University
     Police dumbfounded leaning on
               their radiocar hoods
     While Poets chant to Allah in the roadhouse Showboat!
Blue eyed children dance and hold thy Hand O aged Walt
     who came from Lawrence to Topeka to envision
          Iron interlaced upon the city plain—
    Telegraph wires strung from city to city O Melville!
          Television brightening thy rills of Kansas lone
I come,
     lone man from the void, riding a bus
     hypnotized by red tail lights on the straight
                         space road ahead—
   & the Methodist minister with cracked eyes
                       leaning over the table
          quoting Kierkegaard “death of God”
                    a million dollars
     in the bank owns all West Wichita
                    come to Nothing!
          Prajnaparamita Sutra over coffee—Vortex
     of telephone radio aircraft assembly frame ammunition
petroleum nightclub Newspaper streets illuminated by Bright
                         EMPTINESS—

Thy sins are forgiven, Wichita!
          Thy lonesomeness annulled, O Kansas dear!
               as the western Twang prophesied
     thru banjo, when lone cowboy walked the railroad track
               past an empty station toward the sun
          sinking giant-bulbed orange down the box canyon—
     Music strung over his back
      and empty handed singing on this planet earth
                    I’m a lonely Dog, O Mother!
Come, Nebraska, sing & dance with me—
     Come lovers of Lincoln and Omaha,
               hear my soft voice at last
   As Babes need the chemical touch of flesh in pink infancy
      lest they die Idiot returning to Inhuman—
                                   Nothing—
So, tender lipt adolescent girl, pale youth,
                         give me back my soft kiss
          Hold me in your innocent arms,
               accept my tears as yours to harvest
               equal in nature to the Wheat
          that made your bodies’ muscular bones
               broad shouldered, boy bicept—
               from leaning on cows & drinking Milk
                    in Midwest Solitude—
No more fear of tenderness, much delight in weeping, ecstasy
     in singing, laughter rises that confounds
          staring Idiot mayors
               and stony politicians eyeing
               Thy breast,
                    O Man of America, be born!
Truth breaks through!
     How big is the prick of the President?
          How big is Cardinal Vietnam?
How little the prince of the FBI, unmarried all these years!
     How big are all the Public Figures?
   What kind of flesh hangs, hidden behind their Images?

                         Approaching Salina,
Prehistoric excavation, Apache Uprising
                      in the drive-in theater
     Shelling Bombing Range mapped in the distance,
     Crime Prevention Show, sponsor Wrigley’s Spearmint
     Dinosaur Sinclair advertisement, glowing green—
South 9th Street lined with poplar & elm branch
          spread over evening’s tiny headlights—
    Salina Highschool’s brick darkens Gothic
                         over a night-lit door—
     What wreaths of naked bodies, thighs and faces,
                         small hairy bun’d vaginas,
                    silver cocks, armpits and breasts
          moistened by tears
                         for 20 years, for 40 years?
Peking Radio surveyed by Luden’s Coughdrops
          Attacks on the Russians & Japanese,
Big Dipper leaning above the Nebraska border,
                    handle down to the blackened plains,
     telephone-pole ghosts crossed
                    by roadside, dim headlights—
     dark night, & giant T-bone steaks,
          and in The Village Voice
       New Frontier Productions present
               Camp Comedy: Fairies I Have Met.
Blue highway lamps strung along the horizon east at Hebron
               Homestead National Monument near Beatrice—

Language, language
     black Earth-circle in the rear window,
                    no cars for miles along highway
          beacon lights on oceanic plain
       language, language
               over Big Blue River
          chanting La illaha el (lill) Allah hu
           revolving my head to my heart like my mother
           chin abreast at Allah
           Eyes closed, blackness
vaster than midnight prairies,
              Nebraskas of solitary Allah,
                  Joy, I am I
                  the lone One singing to myself
                         God come true—
                    Thrills of fear.
                  nearer than the vein in my neck—?
What if I opened my soul to sing to my absolute self
    Singing as the car crash chomped thru blood & muscle
                                   tendon skull?
    What if I sang, and loosed the chords of fear brow?
               What exquisite noise wd
                              shiver my car companions?
                    I am the Universe tonite
                         riding in all my Power riding
chauffeured thru my self by a long haired saint with eyeglasses
What if I sang till Students knew I was free
     of Vietnam, trousers, free of my own meat,
   free to die in my thoughtful shivering Throne?
          freer than Nebraska, freer than America—
                    May I disappear
               in magic Joy-smoke! Pouf! reddish Vapor,
Faustus vanishes weeping & laughing
     under stars on Highway 77 between Beatrice & Lincoln—
     “Better not to move but let things be” Reverend Preacher?
                    We’ve all already disappeared!

Space highway open, entering Lincoln’s ear
     ground to a stop Tracks Warning
                    Pioneer Boulevard—
     William Jennings Bryan sang
   Thou shalt not crucify mankind upon a cross of Gold!
                              O Baby Doe! Gold’s
     Department Store hulks o’er 10th Street now
   —an unregenerate old fop who didn’t want to be a monkey
   now’s the Highest Perfect Wisdom dust
     and Lindsay’s cry
     survives compassionate in the Highschool Anthology—
a giant dormitory brilliant on the evening plain
                         drifts with his memories—
There’s a nice white door over there
                    for me O dear! on Zero Street.

February 15, 1966

     II
Face the Nation
Thru Hickman’s rolling earth hills
          icy winter
               gray sky               bare trees lining the road
     South to Wichita
          you’re in the Pepsi Generation Signum enroute
Aiken Republican on the radio          60,000
     Northvietnamese troops now infiltrated but over 250,000
     South Vietnamese armed men
                    our Enemy—
                         Not Hanoi our enemy
                         Not China our enemy
                              The Viet Cong!
                    McNamara made a “bad guess”
“Bad Guess?” chorused the Reporters.
          Yes, no more than a Bad Guess, in 1962
                    “8000 American Troops handle the
                         Situation”
                              Bad Guess
   in 1954, 80% of the
     Vietnamese people would’ve voted for Ho Chi Minh
wrote Ike    years later     Mandate for Change
                    A bad guess in the Pentagon
And the Hawks were guessing all along
                    Bomb China’s 200,000,000
               cried Stennis from Mississippi
                    I guess it was 3 weeks ago
     Holmes Alexander in Albuquerque Journal
          Provincial newsman
               said I guess we better begin to do that Now,
          his typewriter clacking in his aged office
          on a side street under Sandia Mountain?
          Half the world away from China
Johnson got some bad advice Republican Aiken sang
to the Newsmen over the radio
     The General guessed they’d stop infiltrating the South
          if they bombed the North—
              So I guess they bombed!
Pale Indochinese boys came thronging thru the jungle
               in increased numbers
          to the scene of TERROR!
While the triangle-roofed Farmer’s Grain Elevator
     sat quietly by the side of the road
               along the railroad track
     American Eagle beating its wings over Asia
               million dollar helicopters
               a billion dollars worth of Marines
                    who loved Aunt Betty
               Drawn from the shores and farms shaking
               from the high schools to the landing barge
               blowing the air thru their cheeks with fear
                    in Life on Television
Put it this way on the radio
Put it this way in television language
                         Use the words
                              language, language:
                                   “A bad guess”
Put it this way in headlines
     Omaha World Herald—Rusk Says Toughness
                    Essential For Peace
Put it this way
     Lincoln Nebraska morning Star—
                    Vietnam War Brings Prosperity
Put it this way
          Declared McNamara speaking language
               Asserted Maxwell Taylor
               General, Consultant to White House
     Viet Cong losses leveling up three five zero zero per month
          Front page testimony February ’66
     Here in Nebraska same as Kansas same known in Saigon
               in Peking, in Moscow, same known
          by the youths of Liverpool three five zero zero
          the latest quotation in the human meat market—
                         Father I cannot tell a lie!

A black horse bends its head to the stubble
     beside the silver stream winding thru the woods
     by an antique red barn on the outskirts of Beatrice—
               Quietness, quietness
     over this countryside
          except for unmistakable signals on radio
               followed by the honkytonk tinkle
                         of a city piano
  to calm the nerves of taxpaying housewives of a Sunday morn.
               Has anyone looked in the eyes of the dead?
U.S. Army recruiting service sign Careers With A Future
     Is anyone living to look for future forgiveness?
Water hoses frozen on the street, the
     Crowd gathered to see a strange happening garage—
          Red flames on Sunday morning
                    in a quiet town!
Has anyone looked in the eyes of the wounded?
     Have we seen but paper faces, Life Magazine?
     Are screaming faces made of dots,
          electric dots on Television—
               fuzzy decibels registering
                    the mammal voiced howl
from the outskirts of Saigon to console model picture tubes
          in Beatrice, in Hutchinson, in El Dorado
               in historic Abilene
               O inconsolable!

          Stop, and eat more flesh.
“We will negotiate anywhere anytime”
          said the giant President

Kansas City Times 2/14/66: “Word reached U.S. authorities that Thailand’s leaders feared that in Honolulu Johnson might have tried to persuade South Vietnam’s rulers to ease their stand against negotiating with the Viet Cong.

American officials said these fears were groundless and Humphrey was telling the Thais so.”

AP dispatch
  The last week’s paper is Amnesia.

Three five zero zero is numerals
Headline language poetry, nine decades after Democratic Vistas
     and the Prophecy of the Good Gray Poet
          Our nation “of the fabled damned”
               or else …
     Language, language
Ezra Pound the Chinese Written Character for truth
        defined as man standing by his word
          Word picture: forked creature
                    Man
               standing by a box, birds flying out
                    representing mouth speech
     Ham Steak please waitress, in the warm café.
     Different from a bad guess.
                    The war is language,
                         language abused
                              for Advertisement,
                    language used
               like magic for power on the planet:
Black Magic language,
     formulas for reality—
          Communism is a 9 letter word
                    used by inferior magicians with
the wrong alchemical formula for transforming earth into gold
               —funky warlocks operating on guesswork,
                    handmedown mandrake terminology
                         that never worked in 1956
     for gray-domed Dulles,
                         brooding over at State,
               that never worked for Ike who knelt to take
                    the magic wafer in his mouth
                         from Dulles’ hand
                    inside the church in Washington:
Communion of bum magicians
          congress of failures from Kansas & Missouri
     working with the wrong equations
     Sorcerer’s Apprentices who lost control
          of the simplest broomstick in the world:
                         Language
O longhaired magician come home take care of your dumb helper
     before the radiation deluge floods your livingroom,
                         your magic errandboy’s
                         just made a bad guess again
                    that’s lasted a whole decade.

NBCBSUPAPINSLIFE
     Time Mutual presents
          World’s Largest Camp Comedy:
                    Magic In Vietnam—
     reality turned inside out
          changing its sex in the Mass Media
          for 30 days, TV den and bedroom farce
Flashing pictures Senate Foreign Relations Committee room
     Generals faces flashing on and off screen
                              mouthing language
      State Secretary speaking nothing but language
      McNamara declining to speak public language
          The President talking language,
               Senators reinterpreting language
          General Taylor Limited Objectives
                         Owls from Pennsylvania
               Clark’s Face Open Ended
                         Dove’s Apocalypse
                         Morse’s hairy ears
      Stennis orating in Mississippi
               half billion chinamen crowding into the
                              polling booth,
          Clean shaven Gen. Gavin’s image
                              imagining Enclaves
               Tactical Bombing the magic formula for
               a silver haired Symington:
      Ancient Chinese apothegm:
                         Old in vain.
          Hawks swooping thru the newspapers
               talons visible
          wings outspread in the giant updraft of hot air
                    loosing their dry screech in the skies
                              over the Capitol
Napalm and black clouds emerging in newsprint
      Flesh soft as a Kansas girl’s
                    ripped open by metal explosion—
      three five zero zero on the other side of the planet
          caught in barbed wire, fire ball
          bullet shock, bayonet electricity
      bomb blast terrific in skull & belly, shrapneled throbbing meat
While this American nation argues war:
          conflicting language, language
                    proliferating in airwaves
      filling the farmhouse ear, filling
          the City Manager’s head in his oaken office
          the professor’s head in his bed at midnight
          the pupil’s head at the movies
               blond haired, his heart throbbing with desire
               for the girlish image bodied on the screen:
                         or smoking cigarettes
                         and watching Captain Kangaroo
                         that fabled damned of nations
                         prophecy come true—
Though the highway’s straight,
      dipping downward through low hills,
      rising narrow on the far horizon
          black cows browse in caked fields
               ponds in the hollows lie frozen,
                         quietness.
Is this the land that started war on China?
      This be the soil that thought Cold War for decades?
      Are these nervous naked trees & farmhouses
                         the vortex
                    of oriental anxiety molecules
      that’ve imagined American Foreign Policy
          and magick’d up paranoia in Peking
                    and curtains of living blood
                         surrounding far Saigon?
Are these the towns where the language emerged
      from the mouths here
                    that makes a Hell of riots in Dominica
      sustains the aging tyranny of Chiang in silent Taipeh city
      Paid for the lost French war in Algeria
          overthrew the Guatemalan polis in ’54
      maintaining United Fruit’s banana greed
                         another thirteen years
          for the secret prestige of the Dulles family lawfirm?

Here’s Marysville—
      a black railroad engine in the children’s park,
                         at rest—
and the Track Crossing
      with Cotton Belt flatcars
                    carrying autos west from Dallas
      Delaware & Hudson gondolas filled with power stuff—
      a line of boxcars far east as the eye can see
                    carrying battle goods to cross the Rockies
          into the hands of rich longshoremen loading
                         ships on the Pacific—
      Oakland Army Terminal lights
                    blue illumined all night now—
Crash of couplings and the great American train
          moves on carrying its cushioned load of metal doom
      Union Pacific linked together with your Hoosier Line
               followed by passive Wabash
                         rolling behind
               all Erie carrying cargo in the rear,
          Central Georgia’s rust colored truck proclaiming
                         The Right Way, concluding
      the awesome poem writ by the train
               across northern Kansas,
      land which gave right of way
      to the massing of metal meant for explosion
                         in Indochina—
Passing thru Waterville,
      Electronic machinery in the bus humming prophecy—
          paper signs blowing in cold wind,
                    mid-Sunday afternoon’s silence in town
          under frost-gray sky
                              that covers the horizon—
That the rest of earth is unseen,
                         an outer universe invisible,
                    Unknown except thru
                                   language
                                        airprint
                                             magic images
      or prophecy of the secret
                    heart the same
                    in Waterville as Saigon one human form:
          When a woman’s heart bursts in Waterville
                    a woman screams equal in Hanoi—
On to Wichita to prophesy! O frightful Bard!
      into the heart of the Vortex
          where anxiety rings
                    the University with millionaire pressure,
          lonely crank telephone voices sighing in dread,
      and students waken trembling in their beds
          with dreams of a new truth warm as meat,
          little girls suspecting their elders of murder
                    committed by remote control machinery,
          boys with sexual bellies aroused
                    chilled in the heart by the mailman
      with a letter from an aging white haired General
          Director of selection for service in Deathwar
          all this black language
                         writ by machine!
               O hopeless Fathers and Teachers
               in Hué do you know
                              the same woe too?

I’m an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas
      but not afraid
          to speak my lonesomeness in a car,
          because not only my lonesomeness
               it’s Ours, all over America,
                         O tender fellows—
               & spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy
               in the moon 100 years ago or in
                    the middle of Kansas now.
It’s not the vast plains mute our mouths
               that fill at midnite with ecstatic language
          when our trembling bodies hold each other
               breast to breast on a mattress—
      Not the empty sky that hides
                         the feeling from our faces
      nor our skirts and trousers that conceal
          the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
               white smooth abdomen down to the hair
                              between our legs,
      It’s not a God that bore us that forbid
          our Being, like a sunny rose
                         all red with naked joy
          between our eyes & bellies, yes
All we do is for this frightened thing
          we call Love, want and lack—
      fear that we aren’t the one whose body could be
          beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,
          kissed all over by every boy of Wichita—
      O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me—
          On the bridge over Republican River
               almost in tears to know
                    how to speak the right language—
          on the frosty broad road
               uphill between highway embankments
          I search for the language
                    that is also yours—
          almost all our language has been taxed by war.
Radio antennae high tension
      wires ranging from Junction City across the plains—
      highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow
               lanes curving past Abilene
                    to Denver filled with old
                              heroes of love—
               to Wichita where McClure’s mind
                    burst into animal beauty
                    drunk, getting laid in a car
                         in a neon misted street
                                   15 years ago—
      to Independence where the old man’s still alive
      who loosed the bomb that’s slaved all human consciousness
               and made the body universe a place of fear—
Now, speeding along the empty plain,
          no giant demon machine
               visible on the horizon
      but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky’s edge
          I claim my birthright!
               reborn forever as long as Man
                    in Kansas or other universe—Joy
          reborn after the vast sadness of War Gods!
A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear,
      imaging the throng of Selves
          that make this nation one body of Prophecy
               languaged by Declaration as Pursuit of
                    Happiness!
I call all Powers of imagination
      to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,
                         all Lords
      of human kingdoms to come
Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash
      Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs
Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded
      Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands
                         give up your desire
Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquillity
      Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void
          Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM
Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru
      William Blake the invisible father of English visions
      Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes
          half closed who only cries for his mother
Chaitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise
      merciful Chango judging our bodies
          Durga-Ma covered with blood
               destroyer of battlefield illusions
          million-faced Tathagata gone past suffering
      Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain
Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable
          Allah the Compassionate One
                         Jaweh Righteous One
                    all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all
      ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis
                    & holymen I chant to—
                         Come to my lone presence
                              into this Vortex named Kansas,
I lift my voice aloud,
      make Mantra of American language now,
          I here declare the end of the War!
               Ancient days’ Illusion!—
          and pronounce words beginning my own millennium.
Let the States tremble,
      let the Nation weep,
          let Congress legislate its own delight
               let the President execute his own desire—
this Act done by my own voice,
               nameless Mystery—
published to my own senses,
               blissfully received by my own form
      approved with pleasure by my sensations
          manifestation of my very thought
          accomplished in my own imagination
               all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
      60 miles from Wichita
                    near El Dorado,
                         The Golden One,
in chill earthly mist
      houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward
                         in every direction
one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord—
      Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower
               where Florence is
                         set on a hill,
               stop for tea & gas

      Cars passing their messages along country crossroads
      to populaces cement-networked on flatness,
                    giant white mist on earth
      and a Wichita Eagle-Beacon headlines
      “Kennedy Urges Cong Get Chair in Negotiations”
The War is gone,
      Language emerging on the motel news stand,
                    the right magic
      Formula, the language known
      in the back of the mind before, now in black print
                    daily consciousness
Eagle News Services Saigon—
      Headline Surrounded Vietcong Charge Into Fire Fight
          the suffering not yet ended
                         for others
          The last spasms of the dragon of pain
                    shoot thru the muscles
               a crackling around the eyeballs
               of a sensitive yellow boy by a muddy wall
Continued from page one area
      after the Marines killed 256 Vietcong captured 31
      ten day operation Harvest Moon last December
                         Language language
      U.S. Military Spokesmen
                    Language language
                         Cong death toll
               has soared to 100 in First Air Cavalry
               Division’s Sector of
                         Language language
                    Operation White Wing near Bong Son
Some of the
      Language language
               Communist
                    Language language soldiers
charged so desperately
      they were struck with six or seven bullets before they fell
      Language Language M 60 Machine Guns
               Language language in La Drang Valley
      the terrain is rougher infested with leeches and scorpions
               The war was over several hours ago!
Oh at last again the radio opens
      blue Invitations!
          Angelic Dylan singing across the nation
                    “When all your children start to resent you
                    Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?”
      His youthful voice making glad
                    the brown endless meadows
      His tenderness penetrating aether,
          soft prayer on the airwaves,
               Language language, and sweet music too
               even unto thee,
                    hairy flatness!
               even unto thee
                         despairing Burns!

Future speeding on swift wheels
          straight to the heart of Wichita!
Now radio voices cry population hunger world
                    of unhappy people
          waiting for Man to be born
                    O man in America!
      you certainly smell good
                    the radio says
      passing mysterious families of winking towers
      grouped round a quonset-hut on a hillock—
          feed storage or military fear factory here?
Sensitive City, Ooh! Hamburger & Skelley’s Gas
                    lights feed man and machine,
      Kansas Electric Substation aluminum robot
          signals thru thin antennae towers
          above the empty football field
                                   at Sunday dusk
to a solitary derrick that pumps oil from the unconscious
                         working night & day
      & factory gas-flares edge a huge golf course
          where tired businessmen can come and play—
Cloverleaf, Merging Traffic East Wichita turnoff
                    McConnell Airforce Base
                              nourishing the city—
      Lights rising in the suburbs
      Supermarket Texaco brilliance starred
                    over streetlamp vertebrae on Kellogg,
          green jeweled traffic lights
                    confronting the windshield,
Centertown ganglion entered!
          Crowds of autos moving with their lightshine,
          signbulbs winking in the driver’s eyeball—
      The human nest collected, neon lit,
                    and sunburst signed
          for business as usual, except on the Lord’s Day—
      Redeemer Lutheran’s three crosses lit on the lawn
                    reminder of our sins
      and Titsworth offers insurance on Hydraulic
      by De Voors Guard’s Mortuary for outmoded bodies
                    of the human vehicle
          which no Titsworth of insurance will customize for resale—
So home, traveler, past the newspaper language factory
      under Union Station railroad bridge on Douglas
      to the center of the Vortex, calmly returned
          to Hotel Eaton—
Carry Nation began the war on Vietnam here
                    with an angry smashing ax
                         attacking Wine—
      Here fifty years ago, by her violence
began a vortex of hatred that defoliated the Mekong Delta—
      Proud Wichita! vain Wichita
          cast the first stone!—
                    That murdered my mother
          who died of the communist anticommunist psychosis
               in the madhouse one decade long ago
complaining about wires of masscommunication in her head
               and phantom political voices in the air
                    besmirching her girlish character.
      Many another has suffered death and madness
               in the Vortex from Hydraulic
                    to the end of 17th—enough!
The war is over now—
      Except for the souls
                    held prisoner in Niggertown
still pining for love of your tender white bodies O children of Wichita!

February 14, 1966

Auto Poesy: On the Lam from Bloomington

Setting out East on rain bright highways
               Indianapolis, police cars speeding past
               gas station—Stopped for matches
PLOWL of Silence,
      Street bulbs flash cosmic blue—darkness!
          POW, lights flash on again!
               pavement-gleam
                    Mobil station pumps lit in rain
ZAP, darkness, highway power failure
          rain hiss
                    traffic lights dead black—
Ho! Dimethyl Triptamine flashing circle vibrations
          center Spiked—
          Einsteinian Mandala,
      Spectrum translucent,
… Television eyeball dots in treehouse Ken Kesey’s
Power failure inside the head,
      neural apparatus crackling—
So drift months later past
                    Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals’ tower walls
      asleep in early morning dark outside Indianapolis
Street lamps lit humped along downtown Greenfield
News from Dallas, Dirksen declareth
      “Vietnam Protesters have forgotten the lessons of History”
Across Ohio River, noon
      old wire bridge, auto graveyards,
      Washington town covered with rust—hm—

February 1966

Kansas City to Saint Louis

Leaving K.C. Mo.     past Independence     past Liberty
Charlie Plymell’s memories of K.C. renewed
               The Jewel-box Review,
               white-wigged fat camps yakking abt
               Georgie Washington and Harry T.
      filthier than any poetry reading I ever gave
               applauded
      by the police negro wives Mafia subsidized

To East St. Louis on the broad road
          Highway 70 crammed with trucks
      Last night almost broke my heart dancing to
                    Cant Get No Satisfaction
      lotsa beer & slept naked in the guest room—
                                   Now
Sunlit wooded hills overhang the highway
rolling toward the Sex Factories of Indiana—
                    Automobile graveyard, red cars dumped
                    bleeding under empty skies—
      Burchfield’s paintings, Walker Evans’ photos,
                    a white Victorian house on a hill—
Trumble & Bung of chamber music
                    pianoesque on radio—midwest culture
                         before rock and roll

If I knew twenty years ago what I know now
I coulda led a symphony orchestra in Minneapolis
                    & worn a tuxedo

Heart to heart, the Kansas voice of Ella Mae
                    “are you afraid of growing old,
      afraid you’ll no longer be attractive to your husband?”
      “… I dont see any reason” says the radio

                                   “for those agitators— Why dont they move in with the negroes? We’ve been separated all along, why change things now? But I’ll hang up, some other Martian might want to call in, who has another thought.”

                              The Voice of Leavenworth
                    echoing thru space to the car dashboard

“… causes and agitations, then, then they’re doing the work of the communists as J. Edgar Hoover says, and many of these people are people with uh respectable, bility, of a cloak of respectability that shows uh uh teachers professors and students …”

               hollow voice, a minister
                    breathing thru the telephone
“God created all the races … and it is only men who tried to mix em up, and when they mix em up that’s when the trouble starts.”

No place like Booneville though, buddy—
                    End of the Great Plains,
                         late afternoon sun, rusty leaves on trees
One of these days those boots will walk all over you

We the People—shelling the Viet Cong

“Inflation has swept in upon us … Johnson administration rather than a prudent Budget… discipline the American people rather than discipline itself…”

I lay in bed naked in the guest room,
      my mouth found his cock,
          my hand under his behind
               Till the whole body stiffened
                    and sperm choked my throat.

Michele, John Lennon & Paul McCartney
      wooing the decade
          gaps from the 30s returned
      It’s the only words I know that
                    You ll understand…

Old earth rolling mile after mile patient
                    The ground
                         I roll on
                              the ground
                    the music soars above
The ground electric arguments
                    ray over
The ground dotted with signs for Dave’s Eat Eat
      scarred by highways, eaten by voices
                    Pete’s Café—
                         Golden land in setting sun
Missouri River icy brown, black cows,
      grass tufts standing up hairy on hills
                    mirrored to heaven—
                    Spring one month to come.
Sea shells on the ground strata’d by the turnpike—
               Old ocean evaporated away,
                    Mastodons stomped, dinosaurs groaned
                         when these brown hillocks were
                    leafy steam-green-swamp-think Marsh nations
      before the Birch Society was a gleam in the
                              Pterodactyl’s eye
—Aeroplane sinking groundward
      toward my white Volkswagen prehistoric
      white cockroach under high tension wires—
          my face, Rasputin in car mirror.

Funky barn, black hills approaching Fulton
          where Churchill rang down the Curtain
                    on Consciousness
          and set a chill which overspread the world
               one icy day in Missouri
                    not far from the Ozarks—
          Provincial ears heard the Spenglerian Iron
                         Terror Pronouncement
               Magnificent Language, they said,
                              for country ears—
St Louis calling St Louis calling
          Twenty years ago,
               Thirty years ago
                    the Burroughs School
Pink cheeked Kenney with fine blond hair,
          his almond eyes aristocrat
               gazed,
          Morphy teaching English & Rimbaud
               at midnight to the fauns
          W.S.B. leather cheeked, sardonic
               waiting for change of consciousness,
                    unnamed in those days—
               coffee, vodka, night for needles,
               young bodies
               beautiful unknown to themselves
               running around St Louis
      on a Friday evening
          getting drunk in awe & honor of the
                    terrific future these
red dry trees at sunset go thru two decades later
                    They could’ve seen
          the animal branches, wrinkled to the sky
               & known the gnarled prophecy to come,
if they’d opened their eyes outa the whiskey-haze
                    in Mississippi riverfront bars
      and gone into the country with a knapsack to
                              smell the ground.

                    Oh grandfather maple and elm!
Antique leafy old oak of Kingdom City in the purple light
               come down, year after year,
                    to the tune
                    of mellow pianos.
Salute, silent wise ones,
                    Cranking powers of the ground,
      awkward arms of knowledge
      reaching blind above the gas station
                    by the high TV antennae
      Stay silent, ugly Teachers,
let me & the Radio yell about Vietnam and mustard gas.

               “Torture … tear gas legitimate weapons …
Worries language beyond my comprehension” the radio
               commentator says himself.
Use the language today
          “… a great blunder”
               in Vietnam, heavy voices,
“A great blunder … once you’re in, uh,
      one of these things, uh …”
      “Stay in.” Withdraw,
          Language, language, uh, uh
          from the mouths of Senators, uh
               trying to think of Senators, uh
                    trying to think on their feet
                         Saying uhh, politely
Shift linguals, said Burroughs, Cut the Word Lines!
          He was right all along.
                         “… a procurer of these dogs

… take them from the United States … Major Caty … as long as it’s not a white dog … Sentry Dog Procurement Center, Texas … No dogs, once trained, are ever returned to the owner …”

                    French Truth,
                              Dutch Civility
                         Black asphalt, blue stars,
                    tail light procession speeding East,
The hero surviving his own murder,
      his own suicide, his own
                    addiction, surviving his own
      poetry, surviving his own
                    disappearance from the scene—
returned in new faces, shining
      through the tears of new eyes.
          New small adolescent hands
                    on tiny breasts,
      pale silken skin at the thighs,
          and the cherry-prick raises hard
                    innocent heat pointed up
                    from the muscular belly
of basketball highschool English class spiritual Victory,
      made clean at midnight in the bathtub of old City
                              hair combed for love—
millionaire body from Clayton or spade queen from E St Louis
                    laughing together in the TWA lounge
Blue-lit airfields into St Louis,
      past billboards ruddy neon,
          looking for old hero renewed,
               a new decade—
Hill-wink of houses,
      Monotone road gray bridging the streets
      thin bones of aluminum sentineled dark
      on the suburban hump bearing high wires
                    for thought to traverse
          river & wood, from hero to hero—

Crane all’s well, the wanderer returns
                    from the west with his Powers,
      the Shaman with his beard
                    in full strength,
      the longhaired Crank with subtle humorous voice
                         enters city after city
          to kiss the eyes of your high school sailors
          and make laughing Blessing
               for a new Age in America
      spaced with concrete but Souled by yourself
                              with Desire,
or like yourself of perfect Heart, adorable
          and adoring its own millioned population
                              one by one self-wakened
      under the radiant signs
          of Power stations stacked above the river
      highway spanning highway,
                              bridged from suburb to suburb.

March 1966

Bayonne Entering NYC

Smog trucks mile after mile high wire
      Pylons trestled toward New York
          black multilane highway showered w/blue arc-lamps,
                         city glare horizoning
                    Megalopolis with burning factories—
Bayonne refineries behind Newark Hell-light
      truck trains passing trans-continental gas-lines,
          blinking safety signs KEEP AWAKE
Giant giant giant transformers,
          electricity Stacks’ glowing smoke—
      More Chimney fires than all Kansas in a mile,
Sulphur chemical Humble gigantic viaducts
                              networked by road side
                    What smell burning rubber, oil
                                   “freshens your mouth”
          Railroad rust, deep marsh garbage-fume
                                   Nostril horns—
      city Announcer jabbering at City Motel,
          flat winking space ships descending overhead
                    GORNEY GORNEY MORTUARY
      Brilliant signs the
          10 P.M. clock churchspire lit in Suburb City,
          New Jersey’s colored streets asleep—
      High derrick spotlites lamped an inch above
                              roofcombs
          Shoprite lit for Nite people before the vast
      Hohokus marshes and Passaic’s flat gluey
                    Blackness ringed with lightbulbs.
Blue Newark airport,
                    Lights at the field edge,
                         Robot towers blazon’d Eastern Air TWA
                         above the lavender bulbed runway
                    across the barrage of car bridges—

I was born there in Newark
      Public Service sign of the twenties
          visible miles away through smoke
               gray night over electric fields
My aunts and uncles died in hospitals,
are buried in graves surrounded by Railroad Tracks,
      tombed near Winking 3 Ring Ballantine Ale’s home
          where Western Electric has a Cosmic plant,
      Pitt-Consoles breathes forth fumes
          acrid above Flying Service tanks
          Where superhighway rises over Monsanto
               metal structures moonlit
          Pulaski Skyway hanging airy black in heaven my childhood
          neighbored with gigantic harbor stacks,
                         steam everywhere
      Blue Star buses skimming skyroads
          beside th’antennae mazes
                         brilliant by Canalside—

Empire State’s orange shoulders lifted above the Hell,
New York City buildings glitter
                    visible over Palisades’ trees
               Guys From War put tiger in yr Tank—
          Radio crawling with Rockmusic youngsters,
                         STOP—PAY TOLL
          let the hitchhiker off in the acrid Mist—
      Blue uniformed attendants rocking on their heels in green booths
          Light parade everywhere
      Cliff rooms, balconies & giant nineteenth century schools,
          reptilian trucks on Jersey roads
Manhattan star-spread behind Ft. Lee cliffside
               Evening lights reflected across Hudson water—
          brilliant diamond-lantern’d Tunnel
               Whizz of bus-trucks shimmer in Ear
                                   over red brick
                    under Whitmanic Yawp Harbor here
                    roll into Man city, my city, Mannahatta
                                   Lower East Side ghosted &
      grimed with Heroin, shit-black from Edison towers
                                   on East River’s rib—

Green-hatted doormen awaken the eve
                                   in statuary-niched yellow lobbies—
      zephyrous canyons brightlit, gray stone Empire State
                                   too small to be God
          lords it over sweet Macy’s & Seafood City
               by junkie Grant Hotel—
Ho Ho turn right by the Blackman who crosses the street
                    lighting his cigarette, lone on asphalt
                         as the Lord in Nebraska—
      Down 5th Avenue, brr—the irregular spine
                              of streetlights—
                    traffic signals all turned red at once—
                    insect lamps blink in dim artery
          replicated down stone vales to Union Square—
                         In silence wait to see your home
      Cemented asphalt, wire roof-banked,
                    canyoned, hived & churched with mortar,
                         mortised with art gas—
                         passing Ginsberg Machine Co.
th’axhead antique Flatiron
      Building looms, old photographs
                         parked in the mind—
      Cannastra your 21st Street lofts dark no more raw
                                   meat law business
      Tonite Naomi your 18th Westside Stalinesque
                    madstreet’s blocked by a bus,
      Dusty your 16th (drunk in yr party dress) walls
                    emptiness Hudson River perspectiv’d
      Dali in London? Joe Army yr brokenbone Churches
                                   stand brown in time—
          How quiet Washington Monument!
      & fairy youth turns head downstreet
          crossing 5th Avenue under trafficlite,
      doorman playing poodledog
          on brilliant-lit sidewalk No. 1.
      an old reporter w/ brown leather briefcase
          leaves the shiny-pillared apartment—
Gee it’s a Miracle to be back on this street
          where strange guy mustache
               stares in the windowshield—
      Lovely the Steak Sign! bleeps on & off
               beneath Woman’s prison—
      Sixth Avenue bus back-window bright glass
               Lady in kerchief leans backward,
      corner Whalen’s Drugs, an old Beret familiar face
                         nods goodbye girl
Humm, Macdougal I lived here,
          Humm, perfect, there’s empty space
               Park by the bright-lit bookstore—
          Where I’ll find my mail
          & Harmonium, new from Calcutta
Waiting I come back to New York & begin to Sing.

March 1966