and the needy-yap of my youth
has gone from ear to ear:
I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:–I did those then
but that was then
that was then–
O I would quiet old men
say to them:–I am your friend
what you once were, thru me
you’ll be again–
Then at night in the confidence of their homes
rip out their apology-tongues
and steal their poems.
and finally I look my age, if not more.Is it a good face what’s no more a boy’s face?It seems fatter. And my hair,it’s stopped being curly. Is my nose big?The lips are the same.And the eyes, ah the eyes get better all the time.32 and no wife, no baby; no baby hurts,but there’s lots…
The world is changingThe world knows it’s changingHeavy is the sorrow of the dayThe old have the look of doomThe young mistake their fate in that lookThat is truthBut it isn’t all truthLife has meaningAnd I do not know the meaningEven when I felt it were meaninglessI hoped and prayed and sought a meaningIt wasn’t…
Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteriestell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinetsthen desire her and kiss her and all the preliminariesand she going just so far and I understanding whynot getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstoneand woo…
I am almost nationalistic about it!I love America like a madness!But I am afraid to return to AmericaI’m even afraid to go into the American Express—2They are frankensteining Christ in Americain their Sunday campaignsThey are putting the fear of Christ in Americaunder their tents in their Sunday campaignsThey are driving old ladies mad with Christ…
O sovereign was my touchupon the tan-inks’s fragile page!Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,sought for smell for dust for lacefor dry hair!I would have taken the pagebreathing in the crime!For no evidence have I wrung from dreams–yet what triumph is there in private credence?Often, in some steep ancestral book,when I find myself entangled with leopard-applesand torched-skin…
alone, not far from my body did I wander,walked with a hope of a sudden dreamy forest of gold.O rose, downfallen, bend your huge vegetic back;eye down the imposter sun…in winter dreamsulk your rosefamed head into the bile of golden giant,ah, rose, augment the rose further still!whence upon that self-created dive in Edenyou blossomed where…
