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INTRODUCTION |
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NOUVELLES |
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GROUPE |
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ALBUMS |
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CHANSONS |
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IMAGES |
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CHRONOLOGIE |
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ENTREVUES |
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DIVERS |
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ÉCHANGES |
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FAN CLUB |
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GUESTBOOK |
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FORUM |
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POESIE |
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FICHIERS |
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LIENS |
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O
E
S
I
E
American Night
PARIS JOURNAL
So much forgotten already
So much forgotten
So much to forget
Once the idea of purity
born, all was lost
irrevocably
The Black Musician
in a house up the hill
Nigger in the woodpile
Skeleton in the closet
Sorry. Didn't mean you.
An old man, someone's
daughter
Arises
& sees us still in the room
of off-key piano & bad
paintings
him off to work
&new wife arriving
(The candle-forests of
Notre-Dame)
beggar nuns w/ moving
smiles, small velvet sacks
& cataleptic eyes
straying to the gaudy
Mosaic calendar
Windows
I write like this
to seize you
give me your love, your
tired eyes, sad for
delivery
A small & undiscover'd
park -- we ramble
And the posters scream
safe revolt
& the tired walls barely
fall, graffiti into
dry cement sand
an overfed vacuum
dust-clock
I remember freeways
Summer, beside you
Ocean -- brother
Storms passing
electric fires in the night
"rain, night, misery --
the back-ends of wagons"
Shake it! Wanda,
fat stranded swamp
Woman
We still need you
Shake your roly-poly
Thighs inside that
Southern tent
So what.
It was really wild
She started nude & put
on her clothes.
An old & cheap hotel
w/ bums in the lobby
genteel bums of satisfied
poverty
Across the street, a
famous pool-hall
where the actors meet
former ace -- home of
beat musicians
beat poets & beat
wanderers
in the Zen tradition
from China to the
Subway
in 4 easy lifetimes
Weeping, he left his pad
on orders from police
& furnishings hauled
away, all records &
momentos, & reporters
calculating tears &
curses for the press:
"I hope the Chinese junkies
get you"
& they will
for the poppy
rules the world
That handsome gentle
flower
Sweet Billy!
Do you remember
the snake
your lover
tender in the tumbled
brush-weed
sand & cactus
I do.
And I remember
Stars in the shotgun
night
eating pussy
til the mind runs
clean
Is it rolling, God
in the Persian Night?
"There's a palace
in the canyon
where you & I
were born
Now I'm a lonely Man
Let me back into
the Garden
Blue Shadows
of the Canyon
I met you
& now you're gone
& now my dream is gone
Let me back into your Garden
A man searching
for lost Paradise
Can seem a fool
to those who never
sought the other world
Where friends do lie & drift
Insanely in
Their own private gardens"
The cunt bloomed
& the paper walls
Trembled
A monster arrived
in the mirror
To mock the room
& its fool
alone
Give me songs
to sing
& emerald dreams
to dream
& I'll give you love
unfolding
Sun
underwater, it was
immediately strange
& familiar
the black boy's
from the boat, fins & mask,
Nostrils bled liquid
crystal blood
as they rose to surface
Rose & moved strong
in their wet world
Below was a Kingdom
Empire of still sand
& yes, party-colored
fishes
-- they are the last
to leave
The gay sea
I eat you
avoiding your wordy
bones
& spit out pearls
The little girl gave
little cries of surprise
as the club struck
her sides
I was there
By the fire in the
Phonebooth
I saw them charge
& heard the indian
war-scream
felt the adrenalin
of flight-fear
the exhilaration of terror
sloshed drunk in
the flashy battle blood
Naked we come
& bruised we go
nude pastry
for the slow soft worms
below
This is my poem
for you
Great flowing funky flower'd beast
Great perfumed wreck of hell
Great good disease
& summer plague
Great god-damned shit-ass
Mother-fucking freak
You lie, you cheat,
you steal, you kill
you drink the Southern
Madness swill
of greed
you die utterly & alone
Mud up to your braces
Someone new in your
knickers
& who would that be?
You know
You know more
than you let on
Much more than you betray
Great slimy angel-whore
you've been good to me
You really have
been swell to me
Tell them you came & saw
& look'd into my eyes
& saw the shadow
of the guard receding
Thoughts in time
& out of season
The Hitchhiker stood
by the side of the road
& levelled his thumb
in the calm calculus
of reason.
The sidewalkers moved faster
We joined the current. Suddenly
the cops, plastic shields & visors,
wielding long thin truncheons
like wands, in formation,
clearing the street the other way.
To get near or stay away.
Cafes were taking in tables
putting chairs on upside
down, pulling the steel playpen
safety bars. Whistles as
the vans arrive. Moustached
soldiers. We leave the scene.
Eyes of youth, wary, gleaming.
The church. A pastoral scene
of guitars, drums, flutes,
harps, & lovers. Past
Shakespeare & Co., the restaurants
w/ elegant patrons, cross
street, the small Jazz
district (Story Ville) a
miniature New Orleans.
Negroes in African shirts.
A street brass band.
"Fare well to my web footed friends"
Crowd smiles, jogs, & sings.
Move past. San Michel Blvd.
The Statue. The Seine. Bonfires
of cardboard buzz evilly,
down the blvd. Fire-tenders.
Smell of smoke. Approach closer
nearer. Suddenly screams
long warhoops & the crowd runs
back. And as we flee,
they attack from behind,
Pressed against cafe tables.
Subway & news Kiosk -- A
girl beaten, her cries. Can't
hear blows. Rain. (Man w/ bottle)
Join me at the demonstration
We join groups under trees
& rain. Tall public buildings.
Join us at the demonstration
We must tie all these
desperate impressions together
Money, the beauty of
(currency
pale green
greasy
ornate
soft
furrowed
texture)
Skin or leather
Enter the slip
of the warm womb tide
Wet labyrinth kiss
digging the wells
& riding the lies
all holes & poles
Walk down a street
A drive to the beach
Drowning man's flash
A town in siege
The Desert
-- roseate metallic blue
& insect green
blank mirrors &
pools of silver
a universe in
one body
Bibulous compound of
muck & mulch milk
Tenebrous connections
in forest & farm
all-swarming disk-like
elegance
Say No More
- That sure was a mouthful.
- You said it.
you must confront
your life
which is sneaking up
on you
like a rapt coiled
serpent
snail-slime
you must confront
the inevitable
eventually
Bloody Bones has got you!
hope is just a word
when you think in
Table Cloths
Laughter will not end
her funny feeling
or assuage our
strange desire
Children will be born
Welcome to the American Night
where dogs bite
to find the voice
the face the fate the fame
to be tamed
by The Night
in a quiet soft luxuriant
car
Hitchhikers line the Great Highway
Cock-pit
I am real
Take a snapshot of me
He is real, shot
Reality is what has been
concealed from us
for so long
birth sex death
we're alive when we laugh
when we can feel the
rush & spurt of blood
blood is real in its redness
the rainbow is real in
absence of blood
Sudden attack
Stabbed & hacked but no
pain no death
Zone of silence
Sudden powered
mute strangeness
& awareness
most awkward to the mind
alive w/ love & laughter
& memory sweet of kinder
times
when we spoke & words
had soft form by
a fire
This is my forest
a sea of wires.
This gaggle of vision
is my flame.
These trees are men,
the engineers.
And a tribe of farmers
on their Sunday off.
Gods -- the directors.
Cameras, greek
Centaurs on the boom,
sliding w/ silent
Mobile grace
Toward me --
a leaping clown
In the great sun's
eye.
Grand danger there
in curved thigh.
The avenging finger --
lord.
Dancing & thrashing
the reptile summer
They'll be here long
before we're gone
Sunning themselves
on the marble porch
Raging w/in against
the slow heat
Of an invaded Town
The Kingdom is ours
Translations of the divine
in all languages. The Blues,
The records get you high,
in armies / on swift channels.
The new dreamer will sing
to the mind w/ thoughts
unclutched by speech.
Pirate mind stations. Las Vegas T.V.
Midnite showings.
electric storm
from the front
barometer at zero
forest
blue-eyed dog
strangled by snow
Night storm
flight-drive thru deserts
neon capitals, Wilderness
echoed & silenced
by angels
Angel Flight
to tobacco farm
the roadhouse
tomorrow
get ready for the Night
the rumors on waking
a gradual feeling of
learning & remembering
imagine a heaven in the
night-time
would one member be missing?
The form is an angel of soul
from horse to man to boy
& back again
Music sex & idea are the
currents of connection
friendship transition
conductor of soul from the
fat brain of stealth
to sunset
Work out
Welcome to the night
Welcome to the deep good
dark American Night
a man gets time to die
his amber waste
sloven footsteps of swine
in the camps, w/ dark black
lumber
crooked stars have destiny's
number
Lord help us
Leave the informed sense
in our wake
you be Christ
on this package tour
-- Money beats soul --
Last words, last words
out
& the cool fluttering rotten wind
& a child's hand-print on
picture window
& the guncocked held
on the shoulder.
& fire in the night
waiting, in a darkened house
for the cruel insane breed
from town to arrive
& come poking thru smoke
& the fuel & ashes for milk
& the evil leer on their faces
barking w/ triumph
Who will not stop them?
The hollow tree, where
we three slept & dreamed
in the movement of
whirling shadows & grass
Tired rustle of leaves
An oldman stirs the dancers
w/ his old dance
darkening
swift shadows lean on the
meat of forest
to allow breathing
Gently they stir
Gently rise
The dead are new-born
awakening
w/ ravaged limbs
& wet souls
Gently they sigh
in rapt funeral amazement
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman
learning to play the "Ghost
Song" on her baby grand
Was it the wilderness children?
Was it the Ghost-God himself,
stuttering, cheering,
chatting blindly/
--- I called you up to
anoint the earth.
I called you to announce
sadness falling like
burned skin
I called you to wish
you well, to glory in
self like, a new monster
& now I call on you
to pray:
LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF MY COCK
Lament for my cock
Sore & crucified
I seek to know you
acquiring soulful wisdom
you can open walls of
mystery
strip-show
How to get death
On the morning
show
T.V. death
which the child absorbs
death-well
mystery
which makes
me write
Slow train
The death of my cock
gives life
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode
to my cock
caress its lament
stiffen & guide
us
Lost cells
The knowledge of cancer
To speak to the heart
& give the great gift
words
power
trance
This stable friend
& the beasts of his zoo
wild, haired chicks
each color connects
to create the boat
which rocks the race
could any hell be more
horrible than now
& real
"I pressed her thigh
& death smiled"
death, old friend
death & my cock
are the world
I can forgive
my injuries
in the name of
wisdom
luxury
romance
Sentence upon sentence.
Words are healing.
Words got me the wound
& will get me well
If you believe it.
All join now in lament
for the death of my cock
a tongue of knowledge
in the feathered night
boys get crazy in the head
& suffer
I sacrifice my cock
on the altar
of silence
A WAKE
A wake
Shake dream from you hair
My pretty child, my sweet one
Choose the day, & the sign
of your day,
1st thing you see.
A burnt tree, like a giant
primeval bird, a leaf,
dry & bitter, crackling tales
in its warm waves.
Sidewalk gods will do for you.
The forest of the neighborhood,
The empty lost museum, &
The mesa, & the Mt.'s pregnant
Monument above the newsstand
where the children hide
When school ends
CURSES & INVOCATIONS
Weird bait-headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you
to rise
large buxom obese queens
garden hogs & cunt
Veterans
quaint cabbage saints
Shit horders & individualists
drag-strip officials
Tight-lipped losers
& lustful fuck salesmen
My militant dandies
all strange order of monsters
hot on the trail of the
wood vine
We welcome you to our
Procession
THE CROSSROADS
Meeting you at your parent's gate
We will tell you what to do
What you have to do
to survive
Leave the rotten towns
of your father
Leave the poisoned wells
& bloodstained streets
Enter now the sweet forest
I WALKED THRU...
I walked thru the panther's living room
And our summer together ended
Too soon
Stronger than farther
Strangled by night
Rest in my sun burst
Relax in her secret wilderness
This is the sea of doubts
which threads harps
unwithered
& unstrung
Its the brother, not the past
who turns sunlight into glass
It's the valley
It's me
Testimony from
a strange witness
The flowering
of god-like people
in the muted air
would seem
strange
to an intruder
of certain size
but this is all we have left
to guide us
Now that He is gone
The Wild whore laughs
like an ancient spinster
Crone, we see you, come again
in the mind
I lie like fever
Dancing your nubile hush
willing to be possessed
untold stories
dare injuns rise
Trampled, like red-skins
sacred fore-skin
Cancer began w/ the knife's
cruel blow & the damaged
rod has risen again
in the East
like a star
on fire
In this dim cave
we can go no further
Here money is key
to smooth age. Horses,
givers of guilt. Great
bags of gold.
I want obedience!
We examine this ancient
& insane theatre, obscene
like luxuriant churches
altars.
I confess
to scarves
cool floors
stroked curtain
The actors are twice-blessed
before us. This is
too serious & severe.
Great mystery!
Timeless passion
patterned in stillness.
Sex for you
was thread
which binds
us even now
on this pale
planet.
To the poet
& cover-girl,
photo in color,
to armies
that join,
out on a desert,
& to Samson
& all his
generals
bound quiet
now
w/ exotic
arch-angels
of dusk, in
Sumarian
& N. African
slumbers.
The bazaar is crowded
as dancers thrive.
Snake-wreaths & pleasures.
I take you to a low cave
called "Calipah".
Stand there listening
you will hear them
tiny shapes just beyond
the moon
Star-flys, jarts,
dismal fronds
stirring ape-jaws striving
to make the morning
mail call
Cry owl.
Hark to the wood-vine.
Suckle-snake crawls, gnawing
restive
I know you.
The one who left to go
warning. Wishless now
& sullen. Transfer
deferred.
Steal me a peach
from the orange tree
grove-keeper
She fell.
What are you doing
w/ your hand on her
breast?
She fell, mam.
Give her to me.
Yes, mam.
Go tell the master
what you've done.
They killed him.
Later.
Going up the stairs
handcuffed
to his cell.
A shot-gun blast
Behind the back.
I
Untrampled footsteps
Borderline dreams
Occasion for sinners
alive if it seems
given to wander
alone at the shore
wanton to whisper
I am no more
Am as my heart beats
live as I can
wanton to whisper
faraway sands
II
Now come into my pretty isle
My weary westward wanderer
Faraway is as it seems
& so alone shall shelter
Come along unto my sails
as weary islands go
prosper merry as I went
I shall no more the sailor
Shall I ho the sailor
III
Where were you when I needed you?
Where indeed but in some sheltered
Sturdy heaven; wasted, broken
sadly broke & one thin thing to get us thru
IV
Urchin crawl broke
spenders bleeders all
brew North
stained lot
he was lost
out on an aircraft
high above
long awkward brewer's
shelters breed
this ugly crew
our poisoned jet
god get us love & get
us speed
To get us home again
love
Crippled by people
cut by nothing
Public housing
the incredible damage
can be cured
V
She's my girl friend:
I wouldn't tell her
Name but I think
you already know her
Name
is
Square fire insect
marble saffron intro
demi-rag in flames
it's the same game
whether you call it
by her real name
VI
She lives in the city
under the sea
Prisoner of pirates
prisoner of dreams
I want to be w/ her
want her to see
The things I've created
sea-shells that bleed
Sensitive seeds
of impossible warships
Dragon-fly hovers
& wavers & teases
The weeds & his wings
are in terrible fury
To be alone
& watch the dawn
It could create
a silly song
About a girl
I used to know
She was the star
of the lost side show
She wasn't me
She wasn't you
Believe you me
Knew what to do
& say to a man on
the end of his tether
"Hay, fine handsome
Man, there'll be a change
in the weather"
So what am I
Supposed to do
Just sit alone
& chew my shoe
I need love
No more than she
& yet no less
& no regrets
If you can fill me in
on my Telephone
I'd be a sadder,
wiser son of a gun
I'll just this
about all that
I was the mouse
who caught the cat
I don't intend
To give you no points
of view
I just mean to tell
You - I'm alone
There are images I need to
complete my own reality
Time works like acid
Stained eyes
You see time fly
The face changes as the heart beats
& breathes
We are not constant
We are an arrow in flight
The sum of the angles of change
Her face changed in the car
eyes & skin & hair remain
the same. But a hundred similar
girls succeed each other
Dreams are at once fruit & outcry
against an atrophy of the senses.
Dreaming is no solution
We awoke, talking. Telling dreams.
an explosion during the night
A new siren. Not cop, Fire,
New York ambulance or european
movie riot news but the strange
siren predicting war. She ran
to the window. The yellow thing
had risen.
Fear is a porch where winds
slide thru in the North
A face at the Window that
becomes a leaf
An eagle sensing its disaster
But soaring gracefully above
A rabbit shining in the night
Still wet from a strange dream
dawn burst
scarring the chamber's
roof where all things lie
I sat w/ her & sipped cold sherry
Airport.
(Caesura = ante-room to hell)
Start again: Should the events of those
days... Dream of incest & expulsion
from the tribe. Big Sister. It's called
the clap. Get on over here, mother-of-pearl.
I was a virgin. It lasted 10 seconds.
Well don't then. "I can't relax." Roll the
leather pants up tightly for the morrow
hour.
They deserted me, deserted the cause,
message
or word for another god. "We're kicking
you out of our universe!"
He ask'd for you.
I'll bet he did.
Mystery of the dream
a woman or girl is trying
to appear
The Killer -- Mexican, naked
except for shoes.
People, a family not connected
move at hypnotic cross lines
out of still frame
2 men, detectives, following
searching, sifting thru
back & side lit rooms, holding
muted counsel. Hats, suits.
Brothers.
People in a wood, a park.
The Killer lurks in his
own world.
dreams of children & families
return to the sub-world
to assimilate & guide events
New Orleans, sleep, (death's
friend, death's sister)
cattle, horses
faces get rubbery, clown-painted,
stupid sly & wise & knowing
The mystery of flight
To be inside the brain of a bird
goal -- the end of a goddess
to slide gracefully &
knowledgeably into graveland
The Big dream
vs
Violent assassination of
Spirit & neck & skull
wounded he arrived
The dark American Sunset
The night like a vast
conspiracy to dream, hold
court in the swaying sand
Tijuana -- the anus of Night
a cartoon of civilization
Whores are bores in the
American Night
What will we see in the
bowels of the night, in
The frosted cave where dreams
are made, right before your
eyes. Prophecy w/out money.
This song must have the sad
common strangeness of currency
coin of the realm. Bitter
embers. Scent of pine smoke
Fire-Night, special breeding
exercises. An excuse for
crime. High School of the
Night. Silence of a school
at night.
L'AMERICA
Acid dreams & Spanish Queens
L'america (another?, lone?, voice)
Asthma child, the fumidor
Lamerica
Duchess, rabbit, the woods by the road
Lamerica
Pearl Harbor -- Shot off the road
Lamerica
Conceived in a beach Town
Lamerica
Relevance of beach or Lakes
Lamerica
Sinks, snakes, caves w/ water
Florida
Homo/-sex/-uality
Lamerica
Religion & the Family
Lamerica
Plane crash in the Eastern Woods
Virginia
Bailing-out over rice-fields
Lamerica
Guerrilla band inside the town
Lamerica
Bitter tree of consciousness
Lamerica
A fast car in the night -- the road
Lamerica
Progress of The Good Disease
Lamerica
AMERICA AS BULLRING ARENA
Those indians, dreams, &
the cosmic spinal bebop in blue.
The cosmic horrors. The cosmic
heebeejeebies. A combo of brain
tissue, blood, shit, sweat
sperm & steel, mixed w/ grease
& liquid fire, ovaric calendars
Magnified on inner
Television lust-face, mirrors
into Nothing, great silence
opens layers of prehistoric
chinese monsters. The mouths,
the mouths, the cellular MAW.
A young Witch from
N.Y. is laying novice hexes
on my brain-pan, projecting
images of embryo development
on my psychology.
Her terrified wildness
disturbs my generals.
Baby, now I dig your
nightmare visions, & your
sadness & your bitchery
But, yet, thank you for
These spells. It gets my
pen moving.
The screaming maggot
group-grope called life.
It's time for the desert wild.
Lust capital.
Time for an island, get
drunk, write & sail.
"I saw the Hell of women
back there."
Women are obsolete
"Little Wine -- dig that girl"
We placate women w/
food & song
w/ sex, marriage, babies
You dig kids, Jim
Yeah, some of them are nice
I like your wife
Democracy of souls
The guided tour
"I am a guide to the labyrinth"
city is inside of body made manifest
meat organs & electrical
power plants
The place where, walking down
death-row ("You look like you're"),
maps -- AMERICUS -- a river-vein
we ride along.
give form to the passing world
Freeways are a drama, a new
art form. Signs. Houses.
Faces. Loud gabble of Blacks
at a bus-stop.
car cemetery
The abandoned cars
The color of car paint, new at night
under neon
The dead reside in cars
-- the old man, filthy,
keeper of the graveyard
Children, curious, throw stones
please like me
says the shrew
what can I do?
I love her.
Woman's Voice:
The palace of sperm seems warm tonight
Man:
Umm. gloom gloom doom ruin.
Woman:
Marble porches. The grand ball room.
Silver smiles. Trumpets. Dancing
Man
I want only you
Woman
This time come in me like an astronaut
Send snakes in my orbit
Man
We can accomplish miracles
when we're together.
Woman
Alone
Man
w/ the night to guide us
Don't start that panic
Love Street parade
No one's afraid of the law
Someone escaped
To the shore
Your image of me / my image of you
in
one-night scenes
out on the coast
Won't work anymore
Soft parade
Love Street brigade
I bring these few rags
back home this evening
& lay them at your feet
Miserable witness
to a day of tragic
sadness & disbelief
Hope you'll find me wanting
Take me to bed
Get me drunk (lay me out)
The bride-to-be lies in her bed
listening to
Festivities below
He steals her -- in a dream
Star fish gluttony
What are the word-forms
for co(s)mic encounter
wedding flesh & mind
in one body
Tender island Night
And a promise of fever
& scars that burst
at blossom depths
& more green silver
Us wrestling in the warm temple of summer
beside the temple
cool inside
-- He took my hand.
He spoke to me --
Black horse hooves galloping sun
mad chariot race burning
mad fiery chariot race
mad girl & mad boy
My feathered son flew
too near to the sun.
a moving
or movement
away from
a station
(weigh station)
Sound of lone car & low radio
A waving [good-bye to relations]
a way from |
a waving |
a motion
amazement
a moment
amazing
a waving
(call radio breaks in)
Uh, we have a message
brak brak
He follows a woman into the firmament
The solids, sonnets
elaborate requisitions for the god-soul
ah my bright jewelled town
a Widow's band
roping sailors & hill-folk together
congeal on this flat spire
to partake of mineral jets
"he's sick" he should be sleeping
peaceful by air, a movie of dead nights
in a wound, suffer to give out
your red-blue lighter's flame
w/ calm precision
your certainty lives in a match
or a mind
The huts are free evening cliff-dwellers
The trees, losing their variance, die sadly
w/ grandeur
O soft redness & palest blue
like a babie's window
This is the hour you rule
& invite Ventures, quests,
trips to the electric valley down
"Mana Man"
He gets them into the dark hour
By playing singing stories hypnosis
wilderness the island
Led out of bondage (back there)
Viciously peeling fruit
Disguised as "Players"
command Performance
See-thru village
old hot forest of cars
cruel ambience
Leopard snake dance
swift lions of doubt
crouch in the window
& wait
for her to come
do you have
straight jackets
for the guests
yes we do
When the still sea conspires an armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters,
True sailing is dead.
Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned,
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop,
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over
The original temptation was to destroy.
The Cliffs. The Road. The Walls.
Original heroism -- to bluff the elements
of fire. To call creatures into the storm.
The original heroism was to fall. To ball.
The All. Natural man.
To participate in the creation.
To screw things up. To bring Things
into being.
The Crossroads where the car hides.
Lies. Resides. A meeting-place
of Worlds. Where dreams are made.
Where anything is possible. Demons
lie.
The car is steel & chrome. The wood-pile.
Top of the pile. The heap. The graveyard.
Where metal is reduced to its common
mute element. To be reborn. A tale
of rebirth in the wilderness. To become
chaos & come back.
2 spade chicks, or a king & queen,
comment from the balcony.
The types of society pass on the boards.
Microcosm in a thimble
times change, damaged
cat's blood rectify in haste
cactus furrows, wild
thrift catalog of grace
The chase bore inward
raise'd wet & westward shadows
To the strange trust
on the south bow
Augment pure shouter's drawl
& light the candle
Night is comin' on
& we're outnumbered
By the waves, each soldier
bristling w/ his trowel
To search & claim us
Teach our burial
The mind works wonders
for a spell, the lantern breathes
enlightens, then farewell
Each shipmate oars to under-
stand & eyes unoptic strains
to hear:
We came from over here,
to over there
Then old we wonder
mindless to degree
Most seldom furls
in slumber, burns
begins a century
Planes are groaning mothers
In our feeble insect wars.
Nylon condoms stream behind her Trojan
Warriors on their dreadful writhing flight.
Bailed out, sucked
from her metal belly,
one thin wire is left to prophecy return,
jump freely.
Swallowing air in the brief canal.
The ground leaps up like dogs
to snap, the field, & rolling pain.
Swamps, rice fields, danger.
Gunned down, over ten of them
struggling w/ the wet placenta
While some land back in oceans.
Skin-divers float, free-float,
in the uterus.
The sea is a Vagina which
may be penetrated at any point.
Ah, the rule was war, as friendship
faltered. Families quarrelled, as usual,
in their chambers. The race suffered.
We traveled. We left home & beauty.
Ah, into these ship, again, we hastened.
The creation of power is slow-wasted.
Borrowed fillings. Brace for the brine.
Heaven kept, hour dated. Winds fermented
madness & kept parlour rife & rancid.
Crews took leave of sour concubines
& habits. The sea is no place for a lady.
Lads larked & frolicked, pulvering waves
they would seek into the deep. Ark! Ark!
Cathay or Venice. Worlds beyond, &
Worlds after.
This story has no moral.
Trust not sleep or sorrow.
The fife-man croons the lull to wake
& Brings strong soldiers to a windy beach
India ink, ink of India
There are no more rich colors
Black neon, blocks away,
Escapes back smooth
in the desert sea.
There's an appearance of sweat
on Italian silk skin.
Slap the rude face, & twist
into the doorway.
Then reappear, w/ drums & glass
in jewels of laughter as one
called "The Gladiator,"
Hair claimed by flame of fire
(Insulting to be back.
The dreaded, dismal day.)
Jail is a pussy coil,
dry as meat, dog-faced,
clever.
(Handsome dog & the shot gun eye.)
We leap the wall, dog & I,
To hang choking on fence collar chain.
Mate follows leap to suffer
String-throat, hollow, madness cry.
(In this "hollow" we were born.)
Mexican Khaki, the green womb.
Distrust all lovely words like green & womb.
(Obey the father.
Run.)
Escape back into the landscape,
dry as meat, dusty, narrow.
Dog licks shit
Mexican girl whore sucks my prick.
(Open windows on the town.
Open pores on foreign air.)
The car rasps quiet.
Motor destroys itself on rotten fuel.
The pump is ill.
The hose has a steel nozzle.
Flesh of her rolls flesh away
in waves, The waters part
dry scalps beneath the hair
nude-white & very rare
And when she exits bed, the barge
To bathe in ocean's tile & under
surgeon's glare, blinking
I bask on the red floor of a Red Sea
Crime begins in the bed, the home,
It's a low tide that talks
to rocks, & leaves
rust in its wake, & dry things crackling.
I fucked the dregs of the ruins
of an empire
I fucked the dust and the
horrible queen
I fucked the chick at the
gates of the Maya
I fucked all your women
& treated the same
w/ respect for your warriors
returned from the
Kingdom
fucked w/ the Negroes
in cabs of the drivers
Fucked little infants of North
Indo-China
Branded w/ Napalm & screaming
in pain
pencilled heaven
my regards
no when to stop
There's someone at the door.
A rapist rushes in.
No pain. No death.
It's us, over & over again.
We're coming in.
All right, search the place.
You won't find anything.
Seeing all perspectives at once.
When everything freezes
& kind of turns back
in on itself.
feast green beast, spurred on by
sex, seasoned in silence, w/held
from slumber, silent in the deep pale
night beast languid a cool a cunt
a forest flower awoken now breathe
utter a word of reproach for fair
swifty flyers agon of night
The dream car the outlaw star
now he sits reclines in a terrible mansion
made more monstrous by the dark stroke
of slumber
The car is purple foil beast dead in the
night. Neon is its sign his rich home
soft luxuriant car death gave grace
shaken to the soil He stood in a strange
centre by the meeting pt. of worlds
This crossroads of desert flies the
corpse of sand batteries the ignition
What did happen! He screams at camera
Here she lie bleeding, blue wounds
just to tell us in our floppy hats
it's over. The cops are rubber animals
w/ surgeons cold pride, w/out their
glamour. The ambulance attendants
are sudden amateurs, good-natured in
this foreign chore. The cliffs no longer
contain faces. "I know what jail is
like" & "I know about time."
So we played the carnival. Car. Carne.
Feast of meat. Celebration of blood.
O lucky ones who enjoy the dumb show
The reptile farm. The snake farm.
Woman & Monkey. The sign. The sign.
Search for the Tree. The place. The sink
Big Dismal
Goes in 2 ways. Spirit & Meat. (sex)
You cannot join what can't be joined
You cannot travel 2 roads
(He road off in all directions)
Hand Grenade
Very brave
all the rage
to tempt loneliness
upon Front page
gold head lines
w/ Ali Khan & all the rest
Onassis, Blues
BB Albert Collins
gin & tonic
give him a high martin i
get him down
the prancing clown
will bring the empire
swooping swirling
Tunneling Thundering Tumbling
hell, O, down
(That's as down as I can
get right now, on a
Mainstream, & I am pretty
high, far gone)
Thank god I have the
Sweet warm promise of
a woman there to keep
me warm
So this is where my fine warm
poetry (pottery) has got
me,
led me
back to Madness
& the men who made
me
You think I don't know that!
your poetry is so obsessed
I like my madmen cold
The abandoned Hotel
flowers dirt on its walls
The labyrinth of bowels
Moves slowly in grim waste
Children play here, wait
& sway here, tiring to her
swoon arched summer
and languid by the bow
Sits Esther, made up
like a queen, port in
a storm, striking fire-bells
in her drawers, chalking
the black street w/ wild lies
O how could this be done to me
great dancer's Witness
God, you are a satyr in disguise
Thus cruelly & uselessly to
Rend my life awry
I'll lie here stolen, in cold wind
in the road, until peace freezes
over,
& hallows me.
Rude ghost bastard.
Ah! Who comes now.
an afternoon of summer
dread
I'm afraid to meet all
the rest of my brothers
in distress
Couldn't we get in one
big Movie
Blow it all on one
Grand Floozie
& end it all
YAH
YEAH
an autograph sends respects
to her Twin
everyone wants a Christ
& no one will give it to him
Mohammed, the enchanter
Keeper of Harems
Buddha, inkindergardened
under his tree, w/
not a moon-glow
mindless Thought for you
& me
(This does not mean I want
or wish to be prey to people
God forbid)
& look at the steeple
a mindless wit am I
dickless, looking at the sky
a hole in the clouds
where a mind hides
Pagodas -- temples
in child's raw hope
animal in a tunnel
defined by the light
around him
These evil subsidies
these shrouds
surround
If it's no problem, why mention it.
Everything spoken means that,
it's opposite, & everything else.
I'm alive, I'm dying.
The end of the rainbow
put all my screaming phantasies
into one giant
Box-trap
image of self-image-propagation
image of elation
Ungulation
limit 1st tree
image of Utopia
a slaughter of phantoms
innocent -- guilty
The Human World
bounded by words
& dust
sweet soft & velvet
dust
medium trust
Heaven or Hell the circus
of your actions
To Play
(chance is god here)
at Carnival
assuage the guilt
The deep fear
The separate loneliness
open Sinygog
open sesame
The Party of new connections
mind made free
Love cannot save you
from your own fate
Art cannot soothe
Words cannot tame
The Night
Scour the mind w/ diamond
brushes. Cleanse into Mandalas.
Memory keeps us wicked & warm.
The Time temple. Who'll go 1st?
Cloaked figures huddled by walls.
A head moves clocklike slowly.
I'm coming. Wait for me.
Lessons on becoming
a revolutionary
an actor
(prophet!)
or a poet
There's still good friends
to assist & relieve you
Mercenary whim
for her or for him
First become a
Visionary-Scientist
radiocal biochemical
aviationary sky-diver
Then contact your local pub-
lic accountant (he'll tell you
how to spread the seeds of doubt)
Maids are bickering in the hall
The day is warm
Last night's perfume
I lie alone in this
cool room
My mind is calm & swirling
like the marble pages of an
old book
I'm a cold clean skeleton
scarecrow on a hill
in April
Wind eases the arches
of my boney Kingdom
Wind whistles thru my mind
& soul
My life is an open book
or a T.V. confession
I wish a storm would
come & blow this shit
away. Or a bomb to
burn the Town & scour
the sea. I wish clean
death would come to me.
If only I
could feel
The sound
of the sparrows
& feel child hood
pulling me
back again
If only I could feel
me pulling back
again
& feel embraced
by reality
again
I would die
Gladly die
It has been said that
on birth we are trying
to find a proper womb
for the growth of our
Buddha nature, & that
on dying we find a
womb in the tomb of the
earth. This is my
father's greatest
fear. It shouldn't be.
Instead, he should
be trying to find me
a better tomb.
The end of the dream
will be when it
matters
all things lie
Buddha will forgive me
Buddha will
-- The cycle begins anew
a luring lulling sick-sad maddening
haunting ego-familiar strain
calls the wayward wanderer
home again
a music mosaic made of all image
tune preceding
The whistle or warm woman's cry that
calls the child home from play
THE SCREEN IS BLACK. We hear a young man's voice in
casual conversation with friends.
No, this guy told me you can go
down across the border and buy a
girl and bring her back and that's
what I'm goin' to do, I'm gonna go
down there and buy one of them and
bring her back and marry her. I am.
An older woman's voice
Billy, are you completely crazy?
We hear the good-natured laughter of the woman, a man
and another friend as Billy's insistent voice rises through
saying:
BILLY
No, it's true. Really. This guy told
me. It's true. I'm really gonna do it.
The film changes to COLOR. A couple sit at a small table in
a simulated border town nightclub. It is a CLOSE shot,
reminding us possibly of Picasso's "Absinthe Drinkers." The
atmosphere is suggested by peripheral sounds such as bois-
terous young voices, curses in a foreign language, the tin-
kling of glasses and music from a small rock band. Perhaps a
dancer is visible in the background. Perhaps topless. An
anonymous waitress could enter the frame and leave, serving
drinks.
The HERO is drunk and he's trying to persuade an attractive
Mexican girl, a waitress in the bar, a whore, to cross the
border and marry him. The girl tolerates him. She is work-
ing, hustling drinks, and has to listen but also she likes him.
In some way, he interests her.
BILLY
I bet only reason you won't come
with me is because I ain't got any
money. Well, listen. I'm tellin' you.
I'm gonna go back up there and get
me some money, lots of it, maybe
even ten thousand. And then I'm
comin' back for you. I'm comin'
back.
He weaves offscreen, determined, drunk, camera hold on
girl, smiling wistfully and ironically after him. Then she
grabs another young American and pulls him down beside
her.
THE GIRL
Hey, man, you want to buy me a
drink?
TITLE
THE HITCHHIKER
(An American Pastoral)
Film changes to BLACK and WHITE. It is dawn on the
American desert; it's cold, and he stands hunched in his
jacket, by the side of the highway. The sun is rising. We
hold on him as a few cars go by at long intervals. We hear
the car coming, watch his eyes watching, he sticks his thumb
out. CUT TO profile shot, as a car swishes by. The third
car stops and he runs, not too energetically and get inside.
INTERIOR car. Middle-aged man in a business suit. He asks
the hitchhiker where he is going.
BILLY
(mumbling)
L.A.
He is obviously reluctant to do any talking.
THE DRIVER
I can take you as far as Amarillo and
then you'll have to go on from there.
BILLY
(No reply. No recognition.)
DRIVER
What are you going to do when you
get to L.A.? Have you got a job lined
up?
BILLY
(No answer. He is beginning to nod.)
The man drives on. We see glimpses of the American land-
scape out the window of the car. The man glances sideways
occasionally at Billy who is sleeping.
CLOSE UP of the man's right hand moving snake-like to-
wards the hiker's left leg. He hesitates and then touches it
above the knee. Immediately, a .38 revolver appears from
Billy jacket and points at the driver.
BILLY
Pull over.
Profile of car, left side, extremely long shot. We hear a shot.
The hitchhiker comes around the rear of the car, opens the
door, and pulls the driver toward camera, his corpse that is,
to the gully, and, after stripping his wallet of all the cash,
gets into the car and drives away.
The kid is standing beside the car with his thumb out. The
hood is raised. The engine has failed. A State Patrolman (we
learn this from his uniform, western hat, and badge) stops in
his own unmarked car. Billy gets in the car. The sheriff is
friendly. He talks a lot. He tells Billy that he's just getting
back home after delivering two lunatics from his local jail to
the state asylum.
SHERIFF
I had to put them both in straight-
jackets and throw them in the back
of the wagon. I had to. They were
totally uninhibited. I mean, if I let
'em loose, they just start jerking off
and playing with each other, so I had
to keep them tied up.
The killer is trying to stay awake. He's strung out on ben-
nies, and also just plain exhausted, and he's fighting to fol-
low the man's conversation. The sheriff rambles on. Billy is
in that weird state between what's being said in reality and what
he hears in his dream. The sheriff asks a question. He an-
swers and then jerks up suddenly to realize that he's been
inventing his own dialogue inside his head. Finally, he can
take it no longer. He pulls the gun out and orders the sheriff
to pull over to the side of the road. Then he forces him to
unlock the trunk, orders him inside and slams the lid.
INTERIOR of car. The hitchhiker is driving on.
As the car slows down for an upgrade, the trunk flies open
and the sheriff tumbles out into the dust. Billy sees it in the
rearview mirror. He slams on the brakes, jumps out of the
car and runs back to the spot. From off in the desert, we see
the sheriff racing insanely toward the camera. He suddenly
leaps and throws himself flat on the ground behind a sand
dune, next to the camera. From this point of view, the sheriff
crouched and breathing in heavy gasps, we watch the kid
stand on the side of the road, stare out into the desert and
finally get back into the car and drive away.
Billy is hitchhiking again. Obviously, he has ditched the
sheriff's car somewhere along the way. A car pulls over.
There is a young man driving and in the back seat are his
wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. The driver is
friendly, tells him he used to hitchhike a lot himself and
volunteers the information that he has just returned home
from two years in Viet Nam, where he was a pilot. Billy
pulls out the gun and lets them know immediately that he
wants them to take him anywhere he wants to go. Other-
wise, he'll kill them.
It is NIGHT. They pull into a gas station. Billy is hungry,
so are the kids. So he goes with the ex-aviator into a small
country store that's part of the station. He warns the family
to keep quiet or he'll kill everyone.
INSIDE the country store. A seedy old man behind the
counter. They ask him for a bunch of ham sandwiches. In
close-up, we watch him slice the meat, the knife hesitating
minutely, deciding on the thickness of each slice. The two
men stand there watching him. Suddenly, the husband
wheels around and gets a grip on the hitchhiker from behind.
They whirl madly around the store, the father screaming for
the proprietor to call the police.
THE MAN
Stop him! He's got a gun!! He's
gonna kill us!!! Help me!!!!
Billy somehow manages to get his gun out and forces the
man to the car. The store owner stares after him, mouth
agape, then picks up the receiver to call the police.
MORNING. A young boy finds the car, pulled off on a side
road, splattered with blood. He opens the door and sees the
little girl's baby doll, the naked, flesh-colored rubber kind,
and in close-up, we see blood on it.
The EXTERIOR of a run-down shack in the country. We
hear the sounds from inside. INTERIOR of shack. Televi-
sion and radio and newspaper reporters, including an attrac-
tive woman with a notebook, are interviewing the killer's
father. He's a very old man, an alcoholic, who is slightly
pleased to be thrust suddenly into the spotlight, but who
treats the situation with a grave sense of public image and
self-irony.
THE FATHER
He was always a pretty strange boy,
specially after his mother passed
away. Then he got real quiet. He
didn't have many friends. Just his
brothers and sisters.
GIRL REPORTER
Mr. Cooke, is there anything you'd
like to tell your son?
FATHER
Yes, there is. Billy, if you can hear
me, son, please turn yourself in.
Cause what you're doin', it just ain't
right. You're not doin' right, son.
And you know it.
During this appeal, the camera has moved slowly into a
CLOSE-UP of the old man's face.
INTERIOR. Car. Night. Rain. A car radio. The light glows
yellow in the dark car. The radio is playing a country gospel
hour. A revival meeting. The preacher and his flock. As Billy
listens, we flash back into his past, over the rain and wind-
shield wipers. We see an old man and a young boy in the
woods. The man is Billy's father and the boy is Billy himself
at about age seven or eight. The father teaches his son how
to shoot a gun. He tell him to aim at a rabbit.
THE FATHER
Don't be afraid, son. Don't be afraid.
Just squeeze one off.
We see a rabbit pinioned in a rifle's telescopic sight.
A small town high school, 3:30, bell rings, school is out. The
kids gush from the building and flow like a human stream to
the favorite drive-in restaurant.
INTERIOR of car. Billy is eating a cheeseburger and Coke.
Through his windows he watches the movements of one of
the carhops. She is wearing slacks and with him we watch
her ass and thighs. When she comes to collect, he asks her to
come for a ride with him. We hear him say this but the
ensuing dialogue is shown in pantomime. The actual voices
are drowned out by the sounds of radios, kids talking.
They are driving up a mountain road. The Rolling Stones'
"I Can't Get No Satisfaction" comes on the radio. Billy sings
along with the record with wild abandon and squirms in his
seat like a toad.
The car is parked on a rocky view overlooking the ocean.
He gets out of the car and dances around it, acting crazy, and
howling like an Indian. He ducks up and down, appearing
and reappearing in different windows. She laughs at his
clowning.
The couple are in the back seat, vaguely we see their move-
ments, hear them whispering, laughing, talking. CUT TO
outside of car. They get out of the back of the car, hair and
clothes disarranged and move side by side into a rough ter-
rain behind some rocks. Camera holds on the rocks. A pri-
meval rock formation. At a rhythm that is peculiarly
excruciating, we hear three gunshots.
A rest room in an LA service station. EXTERIOR. Billy
enters rest room.
INTERIOR rest room. Billy shaves with soap in rest room
mirror, runs his wet hands through his hair.
EXTERIOR, downtown LA. Camera follows him from a
car, as he wanders through the downtown crowds of Broad-
way and Main Street. Many times he is lost to our view. We
see him in an arcade, where he plays a pinball machine.
CLOSE-UP of pinball game in progress.
Billy in photo booth. Flash of the lights.
CLOSE-UP of four automatic photos: flash flash flash flash.
Four faces of Billy.
Billy in downtown hamburger stand. He is eating, seen from
behind, Gun enters frame left. He turns and sees it, stares
back blankly.
CUT TO EXTERIOR, street. In hand-held confused close-
up sequence, we see him dragged and shoved into the back
seat of a car (police car). He is kicked and beaten. During the
struggle, we hear many men's voices, gloating righteous ex-
clamations.
MEN
So you're the little bastard that
killed all those people! (Kick) You
had a good time, didn't you? (Kick)
You really killed 'em, didn't you?
Hands cuffed behind his back, he looks up with a confused
expression and says:
BILLY
But I'm a good boy.
The men laugh.
Film switches to COLOR. A montage of extant photo-
graphs representing death. The body of Che Guevara, a
northern Renaissance Dutch crucifixion, bullfight, slaugh-
terhouse, mandalas and into abstraction. A nature film of a
mongoose killing a cobra, a black dog runs free on the beach.
FADE INTO BLACKNESS.
EXTERIOR night. On the steps of City Hall of Justice we
see the hitchhiker descend dreamlike in slow motion, move
languorously across a deserted city square toward the camera
until he covers the lens and seems to pass through it.
Seen now from behind, as he moves away from lens, he
enters a desert outskirt region where he finds an automobile
graveyard. He is wandering in Eternity. In the junkyard,
three people squat around a small fire. They're cooking po-
tatoes in the coals, an older man named DOC pokes the fire
with a stick. There is an older woman, funky, glamorous,
and the third person is a young boy, a mute, of indeterminate
age. He is slightly made up with white makeup. They are
hoboes in Eternity and are not surprised to see him. He nears
the fire.
DOC
Well, how ya doin', kid? I see you
did it again. Ya hungry? There's
some food here if ya want it.
Billy doesn't speak. He stares at the moon. The woman has
kept her head down, her hair covering her face.
DOC
Billy's back. Blue Lady, didja hear
me? I said Billy's back.
She looks up for the first time.
BLUE LADY
Hi, Billy.
BILLY
Hello, Blue Lady.
He looks at the boy.
Hiya, Clown Boy.
CLOWN BOY claps his hands and nods, his face contorted
grotesquely in greeting. They sit for a while like this, and
stare at the fire. They eat the potatoes. Then Doc rises and
says:
DOC
The sun's gonna be up in a while. I
guess we'd better move on.
Slowly, one by one, the other two rise. Doc puts out the fire
with dirt and says:
DOC
Ya comin' with us, Billy?
BILLY
(thinking hard)
I don't know, Doc, I just don't know.
Doc smiles.
DOC
Well, we'll see ya later, kid. The rest
of the gang will be real glad to see
ya. They sure will. Well...
Doc, Clown Boy and the Blue Lady start moving toward
the rising sun into the mountain desert. Every now and then
they turn and wave, Clown Boy leaping up and down madly
and waving good-bye.
As they slowly disappear, camera changes focus to Billy, the
hitchhiker, the kid, the killer, hunkered over the dead smol-
dering fire.
THE END
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