RUDIMENTS, pt. 945
(intimations of immortality)
I used to find myself
saying things like, 'I'm tired
of this, I've had it with that,
I'm changing this, it's the
last time this will happen...'
I don't say that stuff any longer,
being beyond in years now; I
end up saying. 'I'll take it. I'll
deal with it as is. Hell, I'll
accept everything, anything,
now.' Just an aside that a bit
funny. Go ahead. Laugh. You'll
be here someday too.
-
Over my unheralded NYCity
years, a lot hung. Allen Ginsberg.
Ed Sanders. Peace Eye. Fugs.
Cat Mother. Diggers. Angels.
Mad Hatters. Cops and criminals
too. I survived. I dug my rants
at the Psychedelicatessant, still
being unsure of how they spelled
that crappy name. William Burroughs
too; and W. H. Auden, when he
lived on St. Mark's. I really
tried staying with it, but a lot of
it just came off wrong to me. Like
Ginsberg; as much as I really did
like the directional energy of his
work, some, or even most, of the
poetry just seemed way off to me.
One thing that really annoyed me,
and he seemed to have promulgated
it for everyone else, was how he'd
write without articles. I found that
really annoying; as if, instead of
calmly and reasonable poetically,
saying, 'the cold car was running
like ice on a small town lake,' he'd
have it as, 'cold car runs, ice-town
sits cold like angel-ice rabid.' I
admit, he actually said neither of
those; I did. But I'm making the
point of his rather truncated and
telegraphic manner. Which to me
grated. But, apparently, that was
the direction these guys were
going. 1950's - 1960's Bop prosody.
'All arbitrary discriminations
hereby abolished. Russia America -
the Robin, he just jumped into my
tree in the raindrops.'
-
It was a funny time to live through.
My favorites were the Digger girls.
They ran a free store on 10th, they
lived down on like 3rd or 6th, I
forget. Avenue A area. The Free Store
was cool, inside it was a neat jumble,
with a little stink to it, to everything,
but down where the girls lived (there
were maybe 5 or 6 of them, usually)
they lived naked. Or at least they
were unclothed the times I went there.
I forget what it was all about but I
sometimes would be asked, instead
of picking through junk or arranging
piles, to go take this or that down
to the girls, whoever it was by
name. What can I say? I never
refused the assignment. I Always
felt, in the same way as Ginsberg
slipped articles, so too did they,
except theirs were articles of clothing,
which they were otherwise, right up
the street, giving away for free. Go
figure. Fraught with temptation.
-
Now it's 55 years later somehow,
and I look back over wreckage.
A good wreckage because all that
once held vibrancy still has it but
only for a very small contingent of
participants. I can recall most every
dot and iota of - not so much what
exactly occurred, but more of what
exactly, I was thinking as it all went on.
'America with your atom bomb and
flagrant misdirection boxcar cables
heavy on the filthy Passaic. Falls
over top time moans long God
wheezes once more over dirty,
befouled land. Go back America,
take steps over, turn inward again
oh sunflower lord sutra of turnkey
go-out open door : land of pharoahs
and fakers queers Jesus and holy
roller minstrel Presidents. Never
come back again!'
-
That one was for LBJ Nixon
McNamara Bundy. I
made it up.
-
As it stands now, I dodder; all
my teeth hurt and ache. My eyes
fail, my fingers cramp. I live
with it. Slower times and more
complicated moments that should
have rolled away to nothing already.
By now. But I linger about, traipsing
lightly my old dirty streets and my
old dirty moments. I look like a bum,
walking wayward across time. The
top of my head, I swear, feels at
moments bad, as if it was going to
blow. Pop. You'd hear it. I'd tell
you my lessons but either I'd fall
asleep telling them or you'd fall
asleep having to listen. I love a
million things. 'After that age we
get another type. In Cleveland. The
guys who stay around, already
fitted with a set of false teeth; he
who puffs and pants and insists on
wearing a belt though he should
be wearing a truss.' I'll need to
ask Henry Miller what he was
thinking. I can see this back in
1945, but did he ever think it
would make it to 2020 and no
one would have a clue about a
'truss?' For this is now a world
suited for monomaniacs obsessed
with the idea of 'progress,' what
they call it anyway. But a false
progress, a progress which stinks.
I wouldn't want to have to live
in it, but I will. Me and the Digger
girls. Baby, let me take you over
to South Plainfield. There's a
place called 'Get Snatched.' They
tell me those policewomen you
gals got clean up pretty good.
(See, 70 years ago I could never
say that). Me and Milton Berle.
Sounds like the end of Beaver
to me. Somehow, by 1968, we'd
gone from Beaver Cleaver (what
kind of name was that, TV guys?)
to Eldridge Cleaver.
-
As John Marin said once, in a
letter to Alfred Steiglitz, "Some
men's singing time is when they
are gashing themselves; some
when they are gashing others.'
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