1942

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
twenty-six years old, dead
and homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka,
his coffin travels
like the fingers
of Beethoven
over a glass
of wine.

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
a legend of my childhood, dead,
they send him back
to Tacoma.
At night his coffin
travels like the birds
that fly beneath the sea,
never touching the sky.

Piano tree, play
in the dark concert halls
of my uncle,
take his heart
for a lover
and take his death
for a bed,
and send him homeward bound
on a ship from Sitka
to bury him
where I was born.

THE WHEEL

The wheel: it\'s a thing like pears
rotting under a tree in August.
O golden wilderness!
The bees travel in covered wagons
and the Indians hide in the heat.

THE PUMPKIN TIDE

I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea.

THE SIDNEY GREENSTREET BLUES

I think something beautiful
and amusing is gained
by remembering Sidney Greenstreet,
but it is a fragile thing.

The hand picks up a glass.
The eye looks at the glass
and then hand, glass and eye

fall away.

THE QUAIL

There are three quail in a cage next door,
and they are the sweet delight of our mornings,
calling to us like small frosted cakes:

bobwhitebobwhitebobwhite,

THE SYMBOL

When I was hitch-hiking down to Big Sur,
Moby Dick stopped and picked me up. He was driving
a truckload of sea gulls to San Luis Obispo.
   "Do you like being a truckdriver better than you
do a whale?" I asked.
   "Yeah," Moby Dick said. "Hoffa is a lot better
to us whales than Captain Ahab ever was.

   The old fart."

A POSTCARD FROM CHINATOWN

The Chinese smoke opium
in their bathrooms.
They all get in the bathroom
and lock the door.
The old people sit in the tub
and the children sit

on the floor.

SIT COMMA AND CREELEY COMMA

It\'s spring and the nun
like a black frog
builds her tarpaper shack
beside the lake.
How beautiful she is
(and looks) surrounded
by her rolls of tarpaper.
They know her name
and they speak her name.

THE RAPE OF OPHELIA

Her clothes spread wide and mermaid-like while
they bore her up: which time she chanted snatches
of old tunes, and sweet Ophelia floated down the river
past black stones until she came to an evil fisherman
who was dressed in clothes that had no childhood,
and beautiful Ophelia floated like an April church
into his shadow, and he, the evil fisherman of our dreams,
waded out into the river and captured the poor mad girl,
and taking her into the deep grass, he killed her
with the shock of his body, and he placed her back
into the river, and Laertes said, Alas, then she is drown\'d!
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia.

THE LAST MUSIC IS NOT HEARD

It was a river in the mountains, I guess there are many
rivers in the mountains, flowing through our dreams into
death and deep pools. The water was so clear that I could
see the expressions on their faces as they looked up at me
from their glass coffins. I looked under the water and saw
an old lady smiling, she had no teeth nor hair,
I think she was the sister of Jesus, and I saw
a beautiful girl in her coffin, she was holding onto a dry
toy while trout swam across her face. There must have
been five thousand people buried in glass coffins under the
river, and I walked along the bank, looking down at them
as if they were fingers on my left hand.

THE OCTOPUS FRONTIER

1

A pleasure palace
on the octopus frontier.
Perhaps that\'s
the answer.
An eight-armed whore
in the cabin
of a sunken ship,
the walls covered
with obscene octopus pictures.
She beckons to me.
Passion and gin.
Why not?

2

A homestead
on the octopus frontier.
Perhaps that\'s
the answer.
A flock of chickens
in front of a cabin
at the bottom
of the ocean.
They seem contented
scratching in the sand
for oysters.

THE POTATO HOUSE OF JULIUS CAESAR

O Potatoes!
The Roman Empire of Potatoes!
All peelings lead to Rome
and Julius Caesar eats French fries
while the ides of March
have potato eyes…
(Then Brutus to the Idaho of Death
Then Marc Antony to
Idaho.)

THE FEVER MONUMENT

I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque read

We got hot and died.

THE WINOS ON PORTRERO HILL

Alas, they get
their bottles
from a small
neighborhood store.
The old Russian
sells them port
and passes no moral
judgement. They go
and sit under
the green bushes
that grow along
the wooden stairs.
They could almost
be exotic flowers,
they drink so
quietly.

MIKE

We walked along the pier
that curved like Einstein\'s breakfast
out into eternity,
and there were people fishing off the pier,
mostly Chinese.
Mike ran up to an old woman
and asked her if she liked to kill fish,
to murder living things,
and she smiled at him,
her mouth going on forever.

HORSE RACE

July 19, a dog has been run over by an airplane,
an act that brings into this world the energy
that transforms vultures into beautiful black
race horses
Yes, the horses are waiting at the starting gate,
now the sound of the gun and this fantastic race begins,
the horses are circling the track.

THE OLD FOLK\'S HOME

The only thing
that you can do
to gain back
some human dignity
after you crap
in bed like a baby,
is to pretend that
you are Hannibal
crossing the Alps.

THE POSTMAN

The smell

of vegetables

on a cold day

Carrots, peppers and berries.
Nerval, Baudelaire and Rimbaud.

SURPRISE

I lift the toilet seat

as if it were the nest of a bird

all around the edge of the bowl.

THE NATURE POEM

The moon
is Hamlet
on a motorcycle
coming down
a dark road.
He is wearing
a black leather
jacket and
boots.
I have
nowhere
to go.
I will ride
all night.

PRIVATE EYE LETTUCE

Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man\'s imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of this world.
I think I\'ll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.