Soul brightness under blue sky
Assembled before White House filled with mustached Germans
& police buttons, army telephones, CIA Buzzers, FBI bugs
Secret Service walkie-talkies, Intercom squawkers to Narco
Fuzz & Florida Mafia Real Estate Speculators.
One hundred thousand bodies naked before an Iron Robot
Nixon’s brain Presidential cranium case spying thru binoculars
from the Paranoia Smog Factory’s East Wing.
May 9, 1970
Ecologue
In a thousand years, if there’s History
America’ll be remembered as a nasty little Country
full of Pricks, thorny hothouse rose
Cultivated by the Yellow Gardeners.
“Chairman Mao” for all his politics, head of a Billion
folk, important old & huge
Nixon a dude, specialized on his industrial
Island, a clean paranoiac Mechanic—
Earth rolling round, epics on archaic tongues
fishermen telling island tales—
all autos rusted away,
trees everywhere.
•
Rough Wind roar, mapletop mass
shaking in window,
a panic Cry from the garden
Bessie Cow’s loose near the Corn!
The little dakini playing her bells
& listening to late baritone Dylan
dancing in the living room’s forgot almost
th’electric supply’s vanishing
from the batteries in the pasture.
Chairs shifting downstairs, kitchen voices
Smell of apples & tomatoes bubbling on the stove.
Behind the Chicken house, dirt flies from the shovel
hour after hour, tomorrow they’ll be a big hole.
The editor sleeps in his bed, morning Chores are done,
Clock hands move noonward, pig roots by flagstone
pathways, papers & letters lie quiet
on many desks.
Books everywhere, Kabbalah, Gnostic Fragments, Mahanirvana & Hevajra Tantras, Boehme Blake & Zohar, Gita & Soma Veda, somebody reads—one cooks, another digs a pighouse foundation, one chases a Cow from the vegetable garden, one dances and sings, one writes in a notebook, one plays with the ducks, one never speaks, one picks the guitar, one moves huge rocks.
The wind charger’s propeller
whirs & trees rise windy
one maple at woods edge’s turned red.
Chickens bathe in dust at the house wall,
rabbit at fence bends his nose to a handful of Cornsilk,
fly lights on windowsill.
At the end of a long chain, Billy makes a Circle in grass
by the fence, I approach
he stands still with long red stick
stretched throbbing between hind legs
Spurts water a minute, turns his head down
to look & lick his thin pee squirt—
That’s why he smells goat like.
Horse by barbed wire licking salt,
lifts his long head & neighs
as I go down by willow thicket
to find the 3-day-old heifer.
At bed in long grass, wet brown fur—
her mother stands, nose covered with a hundred flies.
The well’s filled up—
the Cast-iron ram
that pushes water uphill
by hydraulic pressure
flowed from gravity
Can be set to motion soon,
& water flow in kitchen sink tap.
some nights in sleeping bag
Cricket zinging networks dewy meadows,
white stars sparkle across black sky,
falling asleep I listen & watch
till eyes close, and wake silent—
at 4 A.M. the whole sky’s moved,
a Crescent moon lamps up the woods.
& last week one Chill night
summer disappeared—
little apples in old trees red,
tomatoes red & green on vines,
green squash huge under leafspread,
corn thick in light green husks,
sleepingbag wet with dawn dews
& that one tree red at woods’ edge!
Louder wind! ther’ll be electric to play the Beatles!
At summer’s end the white pig got so fat
it weighed more than Georgia
Ray Bremser’s 3-year-old baby.
Scratch her named Dont Bite Me under hind leg,
she flops over on her side sweetly grunting,
nosing in grass tuft roots, soft belly warm.
Eldridge Cleaver exiled w/ bodyguards in Algiers
Leary sleeping in an iron cell,
John Sinclair a year jailed in Marquette
Each day’s paper more violent—
War outright shameless bombs
Indochina to Minneapolis—
a knot in my belly to read between lines,
lies, beatings in jail—
Short breath on the couch—
desolation at dawn in bed—
Wash dishes in the sink, drink tea, boil an egg—
brood over Cities’ suffering millions two
hundred miles away
down the oilslicked, germ-Chemicaled
Hudson river.
Ed Hermit comes down hill
breaks off a maple branch
& offers fresh green leaves to the pink eyed rabbit.
Under birch, yellow mushrooms
sprout between grassblades & ragweed—
Eat ’em & you die or get high & see God—
Waiting for the exquisite mycologist’s visit.
Winter’s coming, build a rough wood crib
& fill it with horse dung, hot horse dung,
all round the house sides.
Bucolics & Eclogues!
Hesiod the beginning of the World,
Virgil the end of his World—
& Catullus sucked cock in the country
far from the Emperor’s police.
Empire got too big, cities too crazy, garbage-filled Rome
full of drunken soldiers, fat politicians,
circus businessmen—
Safer, healthier life on a farm, make yr own wine
in Italy, smoke yr own grass in America.
Pond’s down two feet from drainpipe’s rusty top—
Timothy turned brown, covered with new spread manure
sweet-smelt in strong breeze,
it’ll be covered in snow couple months.
& Leary covered in snow in San Luis Obispo jail?
His mind snowflakes falling over the States.
Did Don Winslow the mason come look at the basement
So we can insulate a snug root cellar
for potatoes, beets, carrots,
radishes, parsnips, glass jars of corn & beans
Did the mortician come & look us over for next Winter?
Black flies walking up and down the metal screen,
fly’s leg tickling my forehead—
“I’ll play a fly’s bone flute
& beat an ant’s egg drum”
sang the Quechua Injun
high on Huilca snuff, Medieval
Peruvian DMT.
Phil Whalen in Japan
stirring rice, eyes in the garden,
fine pen nib lain by notebook.
Jack in Lowell farming worms, master of his
minuscule deep acre.
Neal’s ashes sitting under a table piled with
books, in an oak drawer,
sunlight thru suburb windows.
O wind! spin the generator wheel, make Power Juice
To run the New Exquisite Noise Recorder, & I’ll sing
praise of your tree music.
Squash leaves wave & ragweeds lean, black tarpaulin
plastic flutters over the bass-wood lumber pile<
br />
Hamilton Fish’s Congressional letter
reports “Stiffer laws against peddling smut”
flapping in dusty spiderwebs by the windowscreen.
What’s the Ammeter read by the Windmill? Will
we record Highest Perfect Wisdom all day tomorrow,
or Blake’s Schoolboy uninterrupted next week?
Fine rain-slant showering the gray porch
Returnable Ginger Ale Bottles
on the wood rail, white paint flaked
off into orange flowered
blossoms
Out in the garden, rain
all over the grass, leaves, roofs,
rain on the laundry.
•
Night winds hiss thru maple black masses
Gas light shine from
farmhouse window upstairs
empty kitchen wind
Cassiopeia zigzag
Milky Way thru cloud
September 4
The baby pig screamed and screamed
four feet rigid on grass
screamed and screamed
Oh No! Oh No!
jaw dripping blood
broken by the horse’s hoof.
Slept in straw all afternoon, eyes closed,
snout at rest between paws—
ate hog mash liquid—two weeks
and his skull be healed
said the Vet in overalls.
That bedraggled duck’s sat under the door
June to Labor Day, three hatched
yellow chicks’ dry fur bones found
by the garage side—
two no-good eggs left, nights chillier—
Next week, move her nest
to the noisy chickenhouse.
We buried lady dog by the apple tree—
spotted puppy daughter Radha
sniffed her bloated corpse, flies
whisping round eyeball & dry nostril,
sweet rot-smell, stiff legs, anus puffed out,
Sad Eyes chased the milk truck & got killed.
How many black corpses they found in the river
looking for Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner?
Man and wife, they weep in the attic
after bitter voices,
low voices threatening.
Broken Legs in Vietnam!
Eyes staring at heaven,
Eyes weeping at earth.
Millions of bodies in pain!
Who can live with this Consciousness
and not wake frightened at sunrise?
The Farm’s a lie!
Madmen growing giant organic zucchini
mulching asparagus, boiling tomatoes for Winter,
drying beans, pickling cucumbers
sweet & garlicked, salting cabbage for sauerkraut,
canning fresh corn & tossing Bessie husks—
Marie Antoinette had milkmaid costumes ready,
Robespierre’s eyeball hung on his cheek
in the tumbril to guillotine—
Black Panther’s teeth knocked out in Paterson,
red blood clotted on black hairy skin—
Millions of bodies in pain!
One by one picked orange striped soft potato bugs off
withered brown leaves
dropped them curl’d up in kerosene,
or smeared them on ground with small stones—
Moon rocket earth photo, peacock colored,
tacked to the wood wall,
globe in black sky
living eyeball bathed in cloud swirls—
Is Earth herself frightened?
Does she know?
Oh No! Oh No! the Continuous scream
of the pig
Don’t Bite Me in the backyard,
bloody jawbone askew.
Uphill on pine forest floor
Indian peace pipes curl’d up thru dry needles,
half translucent fungus, half metal blossom
Frog sat half out on mud shallows’
minnow-rippling surface,
& stared at our Universe—
So many fish frog, insect ephemera, swamp fern
—So many Ezekiel-wheeled Dragonflies
hovering over old Hemlock root moss—
They wont even know when humans go
Waking 2 A.M. clock tick
What was I dreaming
my body alert
Police light down this dirt road?
Justice Dogs sniffing field for Grass Seeds?
Would they find a little brown mushroom button
tossed out my window?
BI read this haiku?
Four in the morning
rib thrill eyes open—
Deep hum thru the house—
Windmill Whir? Hilltop Radar Blockhouse?
Valley Traffic 5 miles downtown?
When’ll Policecar Machinery assemble
outside State pine woods?
Head out window—bright Orion star line,
Pleiades and Dipper shining silent—
Bathrobe flashlight, uproad Milky Way
Moved round the house this month
—remember Taurus’ Horn up there last fall?
White rabbit on goat meadow, got over the chickenwire?
Hop away from flash light? Wait till Godly
Dog wakes up!
Come back! He’ll bite you! Here’s a green beet leaf!
Pwzxst! Pwzxst! Pwzxst!
Attic window lit between trees,
Clouds drift past the sickle moon—
Tiny lights in the dark sky
Stars & Crickets everywhere
Electric whistle-blinks
tweedle-twinks
Squeak-peeks
Locust planet
zephyr sizzle
Squinks—
Grasshoppers in cold dewy fall grass
Singing lovesongs as they die.
•
Morning, the white rabbit stiff, eyes closed,
lain belly up in grass, tooth nosed,
beside the manure pile—dig a hole
—Shoulda introduced him to dogs in daylight—
Cripple Jack drove up
to judge the ducks—
All eggs sterile,
smashed on rock, wet guts
& rotted-throat smell—
Bedraggled duck mother,
dragged off straw nest
& pecking skin at my wrist,
All afternoon walked up and down quacking
thru chickenwire fence
Pig on her side woke up,
slurped beet juice, rooted at porch wood
ignorant of broken head bones—
Morning dew, papery leafs & sharp blossoms
of sunflower ripped off battered stalks,
Who’d do that!? Too late
to fix the barbed wire fence,
intelligent Bessie Cow strays in the moonlight.
Leary’s climbed the chainlink fence & two strands of
barbedwire too
This weekend, “Armed & Dangerous,”
Signed with Weathermen!
Has Revolution begun? World War III?
May no Evil Eye peek thru window, keyhole or
gunsight at his white haired face!
Now’s halfmoon over America,
leaves tinged red fall blush scattered overhill,
down pasture singular trees orange foreheads think
Autumn time in pines—
The maple at woods’ edge fire-red’s brighter
Australian Aborigines’ Eternal Dream Time’s come true—
Usta be bears on East Hill; fox under old Hemlock,
Usta be otter—even woolly mammoths in Eternal
dream time—
Leary’s out in the woods of the world—cockroaches immune
to radiation?
Richard Nixon has means to end human Worlds,
Man has machines for Suicide,
Pray for Timothy Leary in the planet’s
Woods!
Om Mani Padme Hu?
& Hare Krishna!
“ As we forgive those who trespass against us,
Thy Will be done
on Earth as in Heaven”
Oh Bessie you ate my unborn sunflowers!
“God never repeats himself” Harry Smith telephoned tonite.
We may not come back, Richard Nixon.
We may not come back, dear hidden Tim.
Will Peter fix the sink’s hand pump? the basement freeze?
Backyard grasses stink, if kitchen drains
to septic tank, will Bacteria die
of soap, Ammonia & Kerosene?
Get rid of that old tractor or fix it!
Cardboard boxes rotten in garageside rain!
Old broken City desks under the appletree! Cleanum
up for firewood!
Where can we keep all summer’s bottles?
Gas pumps, broken mandolins, old tires—
Ugly backyard—Shelf the garage!
Where stack lumber handy to eye?
Electric generator money? Where keep mops in Wintertime?
Leary fugitive, Sinclair sent up for a decade—
though 83% of World’s illegal opium’s fixed
in Central Intelligence Agency’s Indochinese Brain!
Fed State Local Narcs peddle junk—
Nixon got a hard hat from Mafia,
Pentagon Public Relations boodle’s 190 million A.D. 1969.
J. E. Hoover’s a sexual blackmailer,
Times pities “idealistic students”
Police killed 4 Blacks in New Orleans
Fascism in America:—
i.e. Police control Cities, not Mayors or philosophers—
Police, & Police alone, cause most crime.
Preventive Detention now law in D.C.
Mexico & Senegal close borders to Adam Longhair
So many apples in abandoned orchards,
and such fresh sweet Cider, supper tonite—
onions & cabbage fried on iron—
groundwells overflow, hydraulic ram
works steady again,
Eclogues! the town laundry’s detergent phosphate
glut’s foul’d clear Snyders Creek—
I have a beautiful boy in the house,
learn keyboard notation, chords, & improvise
freely on Blake’s mantras at midnite.
Hesiod annaled Beginnings
I annal ends for No man.
Hail to the Gods, who are given Consciousness.
Hail to Men Conscious of the Gods!
Electric tempest!
Entire hillsides turned wet gold,
Leaf death’s begun, universal September
Collected Poems 1947-1997 Page 44
