We have to go through the warehouse
to get to the lunchroom —
and he asked me for a date,
and he told me where we were going,
and he told me what time
he would pick me up —
what a doll he is.
We were walking
through the warehouse
hand in hand
and when we got near
the loading platform
he held my fingers
and kissed me
— we had to hide:
if anybody in Accounting
knew, the news
would spread like wildfire.
—New York–California, March 30, 1952
Published in: Voices, no. 158 (September – December 1955), p. 10.
I walked for miles
toward that bedroom
on the starlit highway
in the lonesome night.
I knock. The bridegroom
opens the door.
‘I’ve come on the first
night as due.’
‘Farewell, man,’
his reply.
I go into the house,
he to the wild.
— ca. December 1953
Published in: Yugen, no. 1 ([March 13], 1958), p. 22.
I look like someone else
I don’t like in the mirror
— a floating city heel,
middleclass con artist,
I need a haircut and look
seedy — in late twenties,
shadows under my mouth,
too informally dressed,
heavy eyebrowed, sadistic,
too mental and lonely.
— ca. 1954
Published in: Yugen, no. 1 ([March 13], 1958), p. 23.
in my head?
Self loathing? I
hate myself?
What literary
abstraction!
Ha! I’ll kill
that fly!
—San Jose, 1954
Published in: Beatitude, no. 6 (June [ca. 13] 1959), p. 17.
thus on a long bus ride
my soul woke
arm in arm with a youth:
hours of communion
warm thighs
shoulders touching
bodies moved together
as we rode on
dreaming invisibly
—San Francisco, April 1, 1955
Published in: Take Care of My Ghost, Ghost, (Ghost Press, ca. June 1977), p. 3.
for half a night,
shoulders touching, warmth
between our thighs,
bodies moved together
dreaming invisibly.
I longed for a look of secrecy
with open eyes
— intimacies of New Jersey —
holding hands
and kissing golden cheeks.
Published in: Yugen, no. 1 ([March 13] 1958), p. 22.
to talk to.
San Francisco house
April 12, ‘55
Slam of Neal’s car
door outside
my shade at twilight.
Great art learned in
desolation.
Empty another ashtray.
—San Francisco, April 12, 1955
Published in: Beatitude, no. 2 (May 16, 1959), p. 5.
On Nixon; Chain Poem
(by Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac)
Nixon has a pillow in his mouth in the kitchen
Nixon has chickenfeathers coming out of his fly
Nixon’s hair is purple like the egg-yolk of a saurian reptile
Nixon’s ears whistle
Nixon’s eyes whip back and forth like taxicabs
Nixon has a soul, the roses of the unborn, alas
Nixon never plays a bongo drum & that’s why he’s so lonely
Nixon is deathified towards two lonely cops
Nixon’s head is full of pork
Nixon left his kissing lipstick on his television lensglass
His sweating pissing chin
Nixon wears silk shorts covered with shitscum
Nixon doesn’t know Lafcadio [Orlovsky]
— late 1956 – early 1957
Published in: Bombay Gin, no. 7 (Summer/Fall [1980] 1979), p. 1.
Dawn:
fatigue
— white sky
grey concrete houses
sun rust red —
coming home to the furnished room
— nervewracking lovetalk.
I don’t want her
Stop all fantasy!
live
in the physical world
moment to moment
I must write down
every recurring thought —
stop every beating second
fire-escape, stoop, stairway,
door,
electric light,
drunken sensation
of my own physical eternity.
— ca. Spring 1958 or before
Published in: Chicago Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (Spring 1958), p. 11.
A Lion met America
On the crossroads in the desert
Two figures
Stared at each other.
America screamed
The Lion roared
They leaped desperately
Knives forks submarines.
The Lion bit the head off America
And loped off to the golden hills
That’s all there is to say
About America except
That now she’s
Lionshit all over the desert.
—ca. 1959
Published in: Beetitood [Beatitude], no. 7 (July 4, 1959), p. 16.
Leave the bones behind
they’re only bones
leave the mind behind
it’s only thoughts
leave the man behind
he cannot live
Save the soul! But
Soul is ever Safe
& Sole
Itself Beauty’s representative
Lost in accidental form
that’ll soon be over with
when its nose falls off
and its eyes fall out
and leaves it alone to be itself
lone in One
Gold Be.
— October 6, 1959
Published in: Take Care of My Ghost, Ghost (Ghost Press, ca. June 1977), p. 8.
(Steps to Unconsciousness under Laughing Gas)
High sentience of my presence in the grand harmonious Being
… in which The unknowable disharmony will now take place
de ja-vu — “I’m back here again” — sensation of mechanical illusion relapsing to its stupid fate — with banal triumphant music — I give up
Glimpse of infinite co-incidental structures of horrific Reality risen by mistake and left behind in silly realms of Nowhere consciousness
vanishing into the closing asshole of the void — a Stop Sign whirling & receding to the size of an eye in a peephole — gives me an ignorant wink & we disappear.
—ca. 1959
Published in: Damascus Road, no. 1 (1961), p. 46.