“Last glimpse of a sad toy army paid all our strength click of distant heels over the hills and far away remember’ / Laser gun washing in present
Wasn’t anything to say. “Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin” stood there on dead stars heavy with his dusty answer drew September 17, 1899, over New York that morning giving
cepted September 17,1899, over New York’ Klinker is dead I knew him. Had no luck. Whistling ‘Annie Laurie’ against the frayed stars laser guns washing a sad toy
time rockets across the valley / whole sky burning/’ This sad stranger never called retreat, Mister” torn sky in the ashen water frayed stars of youth you my toy soldiers put away steps trailing a lonely dining room world I created quite empty now light years of youth flapping down a windy street with the
soldier down a postcard road books and toys put away bare feet twisted on a fence there by the creek empty as his sad old tune ‘that ne’er forgot will be’
there across the playground against tall black windows of the dormitory last glimpse of a sad toy hand lifted far away:: ‘Goodbye, Mister. I have opened the gates
torn September sky’ / Have I done the job here? Will he hear it?/’ stump of an arm dripping stars across the golf course smell of sickness in the room these
telling you clear as the old sunlight over New York ‘Enemy intercepted.’” / telling me / laser guns washing egg nog’ running two strainers closed down
for you” twisted coat on a bench—barely audible click: a distant voice so painful stopped in Johnny’s mind a distant hand fell from his shoulder just
foreign suburbs here cool remote Sunday telling you boy soldier never called retreat frayed sizzling a distant hand fell here laser guns washing light ye
“Cobble Stone Cody / Any second now the whole fucking shit house goes up / Any-post-shit birds, let’s see your arms / burning stump of mine just telling you c
telling you a soldier spit blood for you here across the valley clear as the luminous sky our flag is still there a transitory magazine must tell you the
ars over New York Little Boy Blue paid on the table far away never came out that afternoon at recess time I watched the torn sky bend with the wind
lear as the sky ‘enemy intercepted over New York’ So, Mister, remember me there on a windy street half buried in sand/” Sad calm boy speaking
price in smoke. We can break radio silence now ‘Annie Laurie’ was a code tune just enemy intercepted September 17, 1899, over New York the Piper pulled
stars splash the silver answer back on lost youth there books and toys trailing blood down windy steps far away smell of ashes rising from the typewriter
here on the shore dead stars splash his cheek bone with silver ash. This is fore you distant hand lifted on a dead star Klinker is dead. A sad toy soldier
down the sky. Now he didn’t go a-looking for to show you the papers clear as ‘Annie Laurie.’ For half a line no repeat performance in any naborhood. Last
a black silver star of broken film rockets across the valley all the light left on a star drifting away down a windy street forever adios from this ad
steps from the lake from the hill from the sky.
Rockets fell here on these foreign suburbs*********************
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gun post erased in a small town newspaper*********************
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dress of blood and excrement. The cabin reeks of exploded star. ********
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You can watch our worn out
film dim jerky far away
shut a bureau drawer *****
LAST AWNING FLAPS ON THE PIER
The town is built on a shelf of grey shale around an inlet of the lake. A pier of rotting wood extends out into the shallow green water over bottomless ooze infested by a species of poisonous worm. There is one small island in the inlet on which grows a twisted swamp cypress. Beyond the inlet the green water extends out into a vast delta with pockets here and there of deep black water and finally the lake itself stretches to the sky. On the inland side the town is surrounded by hardwood forest. The town people depend for food on game from the forest and fish from the lake. Owing to the shallow water unnavigable for a craft drawing more than a few inches, their boats are light structures mounted on pontoons with large sails to catch the faint winds stirring in this area of terminal calm. The sails are made from old photos welded together with a strong transparent glue, the pictures creating a low pressure area to draw the winds of past time. They also fish from dirigibles under which are slung a boat shaped cabin, the fragile craft floating a few feet above the water propelled by pressure jets from a porcelain cylinder (there is no metal in this area). The houses are made from blocks of grey shale soft as soapstone, the entire town forming one hive-like structure built around the inlet. The town people are without words and sit for hours on the pier and on balconies and terraces overlooking the inlet silent and immobile as lizards following with their eyes patterns traced in iridescent ooze by movements of the worm.
On closer inspection the houses are seen to be made from old photos compacted into blocks which give off a sepia haze pervading the rooms streets and terraces of this dead silent rubbish heap of past times—(a parenthesis stagnant as the green water and the postcard sky)—On the inland side of hardwood forests live hunters and subsistence farmers who sell their pictures to the town people in return for the porcelain cylinders—Quote Greenbaum, early explorer.
Sad servant of the inland side shirt flapping trailing the smoke of hardwood forests offered us his pictures of a squirrel hunt—black rainwater and frogs in 1920 roads morning sleep of detour—luminous terraces moulded from old photos and leaves—silent grocer shops in cobblestone streets.
“Remember the needle beer at Sid’s speakeasy?”
On the inland side a thin boy looked for me here on a St. Louis corner bits of silver paper in a wind across the park. Nothing here now shadow structure mounted on old newspapers of the world—(Caught a riot in Tangier from a passing transistor radio. Little winds stir papers on the city desk dirigibles through a violet sky rising from India ink)—Never the broken film opens for me again. Silence falls softly on my vigil from a black Cadillac.
“Remember the needle beer at Sid’s speakeasy?”
Never the 1920 movie open to me again—smell of ashes in stone streets—his smile across the golf course—Last silent film stretches to the postcard sky. India ink shirt flapping down the lost streets a child sad as stagnant flowers.
“Remember I was abandoned long ago empty waiting on 1920 world in his eyes.”
Silence by 1920 ponds in vacant lots. Last awning flaps on the pier last man here now.
February 22,1965
New York
ST. LOUIS RETURN
(ticket to St. Louis and return in a first class room for two people who is the third that walks beside you?) After a parenthesis of more than forty years I met my old neighbor, Rives Skinker Mathews, in Tangier. I was born 4664 Berlin Avenue changed it to Pershing during the war. The Mathews family lived next door at 4660—red brick three-story houses separated by a gangway large back yard where I could generally see a rat one time or another from my bedroom window on the top floor. Well we get to talking St. Louis and “what happened to so and so” sets in and Rives Mathews really knows what happened to any so and so in St. Louis. His mother had been to dancing school with “Tommy Eliot”—(His socks wouldn’t stay up. His hands were clammy. I will show you fear in dancing school)—Allow me to open a parenthesis you see Rives Mathews had kept a scrapbook of St. Louis years and his mother left a collection of visiting cards from the capitals of Europe. I was on my way back to St. Louis as I looked through Rives’s scrapbook dim flickering p
ieces of T. S. Eliot rising from the pages—(But what have I my friend to give you put aside on another tray? Those cards were burned in my winter house fire, October 27,1961—Comte Wladmir Sollohub Rashis Ali Khan Bremond d’ars Marquis de Migre St. John’s College 21 Quai Malaquais Principe de la Tour—Gentilhomo di Palazzo—you’re a long way from St. Louis and vice versa.)
“I want to reserve a drawing-room for St. Louis.”
“A drawing-room? Where have you been?”
“I have been abroad.”
“I can give you a bedroom or a roomette as in smaller.”
“I will take the bedroom.”
6:40 P.M. Loyal Socks Rapids out of New York for St. Louis—Settled in my bedroom surrounded by the luggage of ten years abroad I wondered how small a roomette could be. A space capsule is where you find it. December 23, 1964, enlisting the aid of my porter, a discreet Oriental personage and a far cry indeed from old “Yassah Boss George” of my day, a table was installed in this bedroom where I could set up my Facit portable and type as I looked out the train window. Snapping an occasional picture with my Zeiss Ikon, I could not but lament the old brass spittoons, the smell of worn leather, stale cigar smoke, steam iron and soot. Looking out the train window—click click clack—back back back—Pennsylvania Railroad en route four people in a drawing room::::One leafs through an old joke magazine called LIFE:—(“What we want to know is who put the sand in the spinach?”)—A thin boy in prep school clothes thinks this is funny. Ash gathers on his father’s Havana held in a delicate grey cone the way it holds on a really expensive cigar. Father is reading The Wall Street Journal. Mother is putting on the old pancake, The Green Hat folded on her knee. Brother—“Bu” they call him—is looking out the train window. The time is 3 P.M. The train is one hour out of St. Louis, Missouri. Sad toy train it’s a long way to go see on back each time place what I mean dim jerky far away. /Take/hook out the window of the train. Look. Postulate an observer Mr. B. from Pitman’s Common Sense Arithmetic at Point X one light hour away from the train. Postulate further that Mr. B. is able to observe and photograph the family with a telescopic camera. Since the family image moving at the speed of light will take an hour to reach Mr. B., when he takes the 3 P.M. set the train is pulling into St. Louis Union Station at 4 P.M. St. Louis time George the porter there waiting for his tip. (Are you a member of the Union? Film Union 4 P.M.?) The family will be met at the station by plain Mr. Jones or Mr. J. if you prefer. (It was called Lost Flight. Newspapers from vacant lots in a back alley print shop lifted bodily out of a movie set the Editor Rives Mathews. Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Burroughs and their two sons Mortimer Jr. and William Seward Burroughs of 4664 Berlin Avenue changed it to Pershing during the war. I digress I digress.)
Postulate another observer Mr. B-l at Point X-l two light hours away. The train in his picture is now two light hours out of St. Louis at 2 P.M. still in the diner. The train is stopped by a vacant lot distant 1920 wind and dust /Take/ remote foreign suburbs—end of a subdivision street—What a spot to land with a crippled ship—sad train whistles cross a distant sky. See on back what I mean each time place dim jerky far away not present except in you watching a 1920 movie out the train window? Returning to 1964 or what’s left of it—December 23, 1964, if my memory serves I was thinking about a friend in New York name of Mack Sheldon Thomas not a finer man in Interzone than old S.T. has this loft apartment and every time he leaves the bathroom door open there is a rat gets in the house so looking out the train window I see a sign: Able Pest Control /Take/
“I tell you boss when you think something you see it—all Mayan according to the Hindu philosophizers,” observed B. J. who fortunately does not take up any space in the bedroom.
“B. J. there is no call to theorize from a single brass spittoon or even a multiple smell of worn leather. You know I dislike theories.”
“George! the nudes!”—(He knew of course that the nudes would be waiting for me in front of the Union Station.)
Look out the train window/Take/’. acres of rusting car bodies—streams crusted with yesterday’s sewage—American flag over an empty field—Wilson Stomps Cars—City of Xenia Disposal—South Hill a vast rubbish heap—Where are the people? What in the name of Christ goes on here? Church of Christ / Take/ crooked crosses in winter stubble—The porter knocks discreetly.
“Half an hour out of St. Louis, sir.”
Yes the nudes are still there across from the station recollect once returning after a festive evening in East St. Louis hit a parked car 60 MPH thrown out of the car rolled across the pavement and stood up feeling for broken bones right under those monumental bronze nudes by Carl Milles Swedish sculptor depict the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi river waters. It was a long time ago and my companion of that remote evening is I believe dead. (I digress I digress.)
But what has happened to Market Street the skid row of my adolescent years? Where are the tattoo parlors, novelty stores, hock shops—brass knucks in a dusty window—the seedy pitch men—(“This museum shows all kinds social disease and self abuse. Young boys need it special”—Two boys standing there can’t make up their mind whether to go in or not—One said later “I wonder what was in that lousy museum?”)—Where are the old junkies hawking and spitting on street corners under the gas lights?—distant 1920 wind and dust—box apartments each with its own balcony—Amsterdam—Copenhagen—Frankfurt—London—anyplace.
Arriving at the Chase Plaza Hotel I was shown to a large double room a first class room in fact for two people. Like a good European I spent some time bouncing on the beds, testing the hot water taps, gawking at the towels the soap the free stationery the television set—(And they call us hicks).
“This place is a paradise,” I told B. J.
And went down to the lobby for the local papers which I check through carefully for items or pictures that intersect amplify or illustrate any of my writings past present or future. Relevant material I cut out and paste in a scrapbook—(some creaking hints—por eso I have survived) Relevant material I cut out and paste in a scrapbook—(Hurry up please it’s time)—For example, last winter I assembled a page entitled Afternoon Ticker Tape which appeared in My Magazine published by Jeff Nuttall of London. This page, an experiment in newspaper format, was largely a rearrangement of phrases from the front page of The New York Times, September 17, 1899, cast in the form of code messages. Since some readers objected that the meaning was obscure to them I was particularly concerned to find points of intersection, a decoding operation you might say relating the text to external coordinates: (From Afternoon Tieker Tape: “Most fruitful achievement of the Amsterdam Conference a drunk policeman”). And just here in the St. Louis Globe Demoerat for December 23, I read that a policeman has been suspended for drinking on duty slobbed out drunk in his prowl car with an empty brandy bottle—(few more brandies neat)—(From A. T. T.: “Have fun in Omaha”)—And this item from Vermillion, S.D.: “Omaha Kid sends jail annual note and $10”—Please use for nuts food or smokes for any prisoners stuck with Christmas in your lousy jail” signed “The Omaha Kid”—(From A. T. T.: “What sort of eels called Retreat 23.”)—St. Louis Globe Democrat: “A sixth army spokesman stated two more bodies recovered from the Eel River. Deaths now total 23.”—(From A T. T.; “Come on Tom it’s your turn now”)—St. Louis Post Dispatch: “Tom Creek overflows its banks.”
Unable to contain himself B.J. rolled on the bed in sycophantic convulsions: “I tell you boss you write it and it happens. Why if you didn’t write me I wouldn’t be here.”
I told him tartly that such seeming coincidence was no doubt frequent enough if people would just keep their eyes and ears open. We descended to The Tenderloin Room for dinner where I was introduced to an American speciality: baked potato served with sour cream. Ausgezeichnitt.
“I tell you boss you couldn’t touch this food in Paris for anywhere near the price.”
The next day very mild and warm I walked around the old neighborhood which is not far to walk
now the old Bixby place used to be right where the hotel is now and I passed it every day as a child on my way to Forest Park with brother “Bu” and our English governess who always told me:—“Don’t ask questions and don’t pass remarks”—. This cryptic injunction I have been forced to disregard for professional reasons, you understand. So prowling about with my camera looking for 1920 scraps—bits of silver paper in the wind—sunlight on vacant lots—The Ambassador—“Home With A Heart”—where an old friend Clark St. lived—4664 still there looking just the same—(“Do you mind if I take a few pictures? used to live here you know.”)—so few people on the street—Convent Of The Sacred Heart—This message on a stone wall—“Gay—Lost—” the houses all look empty—It was not given to me to find a rat but I did photograph several squirrels (offered us his pictures of a squirrel hunt)—So back to my quiet remote room and my scrapbooks.
“Ash pits—an alley—a rat in the sunlight—It’s all here,” I tapped my camera, “all the magic of past times like the song says right under your eyes back in your own back yard. Why are people bored? Because they can’t see what is right under their eyes right in their own back yard. And why can’t they see what is right under their eyes?—(Between the eye and the object falls the shadow)—And that shadow, B.J., is the pre-recorded word.”
“Oh sir you slobbered a bimfull.”
“Like I come out here to see ‘a bunch of squares in Hicksville’? Well I will see just that. I come here to see what I see and that’s another story. Any number of stories. Walk around the block keeping your eyes open and you can write a novel about what you see—down in the lobby last night—smoky rose sunset across the river.”
“The river is in the other direction boss.”
“So what? Shift a few props. Now would you believe it people are sitting there with their back to that sunset.”
Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader Page 42
