and start feeding them like pets, bites of red meat or red mite, tho at
first I thought the eccentric old town bums wanted them to eat or to sell
(still maybe so) because before I study this I look and see hundreds of
slowly fornicating vulture couples on the town dump
... These are now humanly formed vultures with human shaped arms, legs,
heads, torsos, but they have rainbow colored feathers, and the men are all
quietly sitting behind Vulture Women slowly somehow fornicating at them in
all the same slow obscene movement -- Both man and woman sit facing the same
direction and somehow there's contact because you can see all their feathery
rainbow behinds slowly dully monotonously fornicating on the dumpslopes --
As I pass I even see the expression on the face of a youngish blond vulture
man eternally displeased because his Vulture Mistress is an old Yakker who's
been arguing with him all the time -- His face is completely human but
inhumanly pasty like uncooked pale pie dough with dull seamed buggy horror
that he's doomed to all this enough to make me shudder in sympathy, I even
see her awful expression of middleaged pie dough tormentism -- They're so
human! But suddenly me and the two kid workers are taken to the Vulture
People respectable quarter of town to our apartment where a Vulture Woman
and her daughter show us our rooms Their faces are leprous thick with softy
yeast but painted with makeup to make them like thick Christmas dolls and
dull and fuzzy but human expressions, like with thick lips of rubber muzz,
fat expressions all crumbly like cracker meal, yellow pizza puke faces,
disgusting us tho we say nothing -- The apartment has dirty beatnik beds and
mattresses everywhere but I walk thru the back looking for a sink -- It's
huge... An endless walk thru long greasy pantries and vast washrooms a block
long with single filthy little sink all dark and slimey like underground
Lowell High School crumbling basements... Finally I come to the Kitchen
where we "new workers" are s'posed to cook little meals all summer -- It's
vast stone fireplaces and stone stoves all rancid and greasy from a monthold
Vulture People Banquet Orgy with still dozens of uncooked chickens lying
around on the floor among garbage and bottles -- Rancid stale grease
everywhere, nobody's ever cleaned it up or knew how and the place as big as
a garage -- I push my way out of there pushing a huge greasystink
foodstained tray of some sort hurrying away from the big stinky emptiness
and horror -- The fat golden chickens lie rotten upsidedown on littered
stone slabs -- I hurry out never having seen such a dirty sight in my life.
Meanwhile I learn the two boys are studying a hamper full of Vulture Food
for us and one of them wisely says "Blisters in our sugar, " meaning the
Vultures put their blisters in our sugar so we'll "die" but instead of being
really dead we'll be taken to the Underground Slimes to walk neck deep in
steaming mucks pulling huge groaning wheels (among small forked snakes) so
the devil with the long ears can mine his Purple Magenta Square Stone that
is the secret of all this Kingdom -- You end up down there groaning and
pulling thru dead bodies of other people even your own family floating in
the ooze -- If you succeed you can become a pasty Vulture Person obscenely
fornicating slowly on the dump above, I think, either that or the devil just
invents the Vulture People with what's left over out of the underground Hell
-- "Beans anyone? " I hear myself saying as thump! I'm awake again! Elliott
has thumped his foot just at that moment on the porch! -- I look over
there!... He's doing it on purpose, he knows everything that's going on! --
What on earth have I brought these people for and why just this particular
night of that moon that moon that moon?
I'm up again and pacing up and down and drinking water at the creek,
Dave and Romana's lump figures in the moonlight dont move, like hypocrites,
"Bastard has my only sleeping spot" -- I clutch my head, I'm so alone in all
this -- I go fearfully casting about for control back inside the cabin by
the lighted lamp, a smoke, trying to squeeze the last red drop out of the
rancid port bottle, no go -- Now that Billie's asleep and so still and
peaceful I wonder if I can sleep just by lying beside her and holding her --
I do just this, crawling in with all my clothes which I've put on because
I'm afraid of going mad naked or of not being able to suddenly run away from
everything, in my shoes, she moans a little in her sleep and resumes
sleeping as I hold her with those rigid staring eyes -- Her blonde flesh in
the moonlight, the poor blonde hair so carefully washed and combed, the
ladylike little body also a burden to carry around like my own but so frail,
thinnish, I just stare at her shoulders with tears -- I'd wake her up and
confess everything but I'll only scare her -- I've done irreparable harm
('Garradarable narm! " yells the creek) All my self sayings suddenly
blurting babbles so the meaning cant even stay a minute I mean a moment to
satisfy my rational endeavours to hold, control, every thought I have is
smashed to a million pieces by million pieced mental explosions that I
remember I thought were so wonderful when I'd first seen them on Peotl and
Mescaline, I'd said then (when still innocently playing with words) "Ah, the
manifestation of multiplicity, you can actually see it, it aint just words"
but now it's "Ah the keselamaroyot you rot" -- Till when dawn finally comes
my mind is just a series of explosions that get louder and more "multiply"
broken in pieces some of them big orchestral and then rainbow explosions of
sound and sight mixed. At dawn also I've almost dimmed into sleep three
times but I swear (and this is something I remember that makes me realize I
don't understand what happened at Big Sur even now) the little boy somehow
thumped his foot just at the moment of drowse, to instantly wake me up, wide
awake, back to my horror which when all is said and done is the horror of
all the worlds the showing of it to me being damn well what I deserve anyway
with my previous blithe yakkings about the sufferings of others in books.
Books, shmooks, this sickness has got me wishing if I can ever get out of
this I'll gladly become a millworker and shut my big mouth.
Dawn is most horrible of all with the owls suddenly calling back and
forth in the misty moon haunt -- And even worse than dawn is morning, the
bright sun only GLARING in on my pain, making it all brighter, hotter, more
maddening, more nervewracking -- I even go roaming up and down the valley in
the bright Sunday morning sunshine with bag under arm looking hopelessly for
some spot to sleep in -- As soon as I find a spot of grass by the path I
realize I cant lie down there because the tourists might walk by and see me
-- As soon as I find a glade near the creek I realize it's too sinister
there, like Hemingway's darker part of the swamp where "the fishing would be
more tragic" somehow -- All the haunts and glades having certain special
evil forces concentrated there and driving me away -- So haunted I go
wandering up and down the canyon crying with that bag under my arm: "What on
earth's happened to me? and how can earth be like that? "
Am I not a human being and have done my best as well as anybody else?
never really trying to hurt anybody or halfhearted cursing Heaven? -- The
words I'd studied all my life have suddenly gotten to me in all their
serious and definite deathliness, never more I be a "happy poet" "Singing"
"about death" and allied romantic matters, "Go thou crumb of dust you with
your silt of a billion years, here's a billion pieces of silt for you, shake
that out of your shaker" -- And all the green nature of the canyon now
waving in the morning sun looking like a cruel idiot convocation. Coming
back to the sleepers and staring at them wild eyed like my brother'd once
stared at me in the dark over my crib, staring at them not only enviously
but lonely in human isolation from their simple sleeping minds -- "But they
all look dead! " I'm carking in my canyon, "Sleep is death, everything is
death! " The horrible climax coming when the others finally get up and pook
about making a troubled breakfast, and I've told Dave I cant possibly stay
here another minute, he must drive us all back to town, "Okay but 1 sure
wish we could stay a week like Romana wants to do, " -- "Well you drive me
and come back" -- "Well I dunno if Monsanta would like that we've already
dirtied up the place aplenty, in fact we've got to dig a garbage pit and get
rid of the junk" -- Billie offers to dig the garbage pit but does so by
digging a neat tiny coffinshaped grave instead of just a garbage hole --
Even Dave Wain blinks to see it -- It's exactly the size fit for putting a
little dead Elliott in it, Dave is thinking the same thing I am I can tell
by a glance he gives me... We've all read Freud sufficiently to understand
something there -- Besides little Elliott's been crying all morning and has
had two beatings both of them ending up crying and Billie saying she cant
stand it any more she's going to kill herself -- And Romana too notices it,
the perfect 4 foot by 3 foot neatly sided grave like you're ready to sink a
little box in it -- Horrifying me so much I take the shovel and go down to
dump junk into it and mess up the neat pattern somehow but little Elliott
starts screaming and grabs the shovel and refuses I go near the hole -- So
Billie herself goes and starts filling the garbage in but then looks at me
significantly (I'm sure sometimes she really did aspire to make me crazy)
"Do you want to finish the job yourself? " -- "What do you mean? " -- "Cover
the earth on, do the honors? " "What do you mean do the honors! " -- "Well I
said I'd dig the garbage pit and I've done that, aint you supposed to do the
rest? " -- Dave Wain is watching fascinated, there's something screwy he
sees there too, something cold and frightening -- "Well okay" I say, "I'll
dump the earth over it and tamp it down" but I go down to do this Elliot is
screaming "NO no no no no! " ('My God, the fishes" bones are in that grave"
I realize too) -- "What's the matter he wont let me go near that hole! why
did you make it look like a grave? " I finally yell... But Billie is only
smiling quietly and steadily at me, over the grave, shovel in hand, the kid
weeping tugging the shovel, rushing up to block my way, trying to shove me
back with his little hands... I cant understand any of it -- He's screaming
as I grab the shovel as tho I'm about to bury Billie in there or something
or himself maybe -- 'What's the matter with this kid is he a cretin? " I
yell. With the same quiet steady smile Billie says "Oh you're so fucking
neurotic! " I simply get mad and dump earth over the garbage and tromp it
all down and say "The hell with all this madness! " I get mad and stomp up
on the porch and throw myself in the canvas chair and close my eyes -- Dave
Wain says he's going down the road to investigate the canyon a bit and when
he comes back the girls will have finished packing and we'll all leave --
Dave goes off, the girls clean up and sweep, the little kid is sleeping and
suddenly hopelessly and completely finished I sit there in the hot sun and
close my eyes: and there's the golden swarming peace of Heaven in my eyelids
-- It comes with a sure hand a soft blessing as big as it is beneficent, i.
e., endless -- I've fallen asleep. I've fallen asleep in a strange way, with
my hands clasped behind my head thinking I'm just going to sit there and
think, but I'm sleeping like that, and when I wake up just one short minute
later I realize the two girls are both sitting behind me in absolute silence
-- When I'd sat down they were sweeping, but now they were squatting behind
my back, facing each other, not a word -- I turn and see them there --
Blessed relief has come to me from just that minute -- Everything has washed
away -- I'm perfectly normal again -- Dave Wain is down the road looking at
fields and flowers -- I'm sitting smiling in the sun, the birds sing again,
all's well again. I still cant understand it.
Most of all I cant understand the miraculousness of the silence of the
girls and the sleeping boy and the silence of Dave Wain in the fields --
Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and
mind -- All the dark torture is a memory -- I know now I can get out of
there, we'll drive back to the City, I'll take Billie home, I'll say goodbye
to her properly, she wont commit no suicide or do anything wrong, she'll
forget me, her life'll go on, Romana's life will go on, old Dave will manage
somehow, I'll forgive them and explain everything (as I'm doing now) -- And
Cody, and George Baso, and ravened McLear and perfect starry Fagan, they'll
all pass through one way or the other -- I'll stay with Monsanto at his home
a few days and he'll smile and show me how to be happy awhile, we'll drink
dry wine instead of sweet and have quiet evenings in his home -- Arthur Ma
will come to quietly draw pictures at my side -- Monsanto will say "That's
all there is to it, take it easy, everything's okay, dont take things too
serious, it's bad enough as it is without you going the deep end over
imaginary conceptions just like you always said yourself -- I'll get my
ticket and say goodbye on a flower day and leave all San Francisco behind
and go back home across autumn America and it'll all be like it was in the
beginning -- Simple golden eternity blessing all -- Nothing ever happened --
Not even this -- St Carolyn by the Sea will go on being golden one way or
the other... The little boy will grow up and be a great man... There'll be
farewells and smiles -- My mother'll be waiting for me glad -- The corner of
the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my
home more homelike somehow -- On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard
under the stars -- Something good will come out of all things yet And it
will be golden and eternal just like that -- There's no need to say another
word.
"SEA'
Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur
'Sea'
Cherson! Cherson!
You aint just whistlin Dixie, Sea
Cherson! Cherson! We calcimine fathers
here below! Kitchen lights on...
Sea Engines from Russia seabirding here below...
When rocks outsea froth I'll know Hawaii
cracked up & scramble up my doublelegged cliff
to the silt of a million years...
Shoo -- Shaw -- Shirsh...
Go on die salt light You billion yeared
rock knocker Gavroom
Seabird Gabroobird
Sad as wife & hill Loved as mother & fog
Oh! Oh! Oh! Sea! Osh!
Where's yr little Neppytune tonight?
These gentle tree pulp pages
which've nothing to do with yr crash roar,
liar sea, ah, were made for rock
tumble seabird digdown footstep hollow weed
move bedarvaling crash? Ah again?
Wine is salt here? Tidal wave kitchen?
Engines of Russia in yr soft talk...
Les poissons de la mer
parle Breton... Mon nom es Lebris
de Keroack...
Parle, Poissons, Loti,
parle... Parlning Ocean sanding
crash the billion rocks...
Ker plotsch... Shore... shoe...
god brash...
The headland looks like a longnosed Collie sleeping
with his light on his nose, as the ocean,
obeying its accommodations of mind, crashes in
rhythm which could & will intrude, in thy
rhythm of sand thought...
... Big frigging shoulders on that sonofabitch
Parle, O, parle, mer, parle. Sea speak to me, speak
to me, your silver you light Where hole opened up in Alaska
Gray -- shh -- wind in The canyon wind in the rain
Wind in the rolling rash Moving and t wedel
Sea Sea
Diving sea O bird -- la vengeance
De la roche Cossez
Ah
Rare, he rammed the gate rare over by Cherson, Cherson,
we calcify fathers here below
... a watery cross, with weeds
entwined -- This grins restoredly, low sleep -- Wave -- Oh, no,
shush -- Shirk -- Boom plop Neptune now his arms extends
while one millions of souls sit lit in caves of darkness
... What old bark? The dog mountain? Down by the Sea
Engines? God rush -- Shore...
Shaw -- Shoo -- Oh soft sigh we wait hair twined like
arks -- Pissit -- Rest not
... Plottit, bisp tesh, cashes,
re tav, plo, aravow, shirsh, -- Who's whispering over
there -- the silly earthen creek! The fog thunders -- We put
silver light on face -- We took the heroes in -- A billion
years aint nothing...
O the cities here below! The men with a thousand
arms! the stanchions of their upward gaze! the
coral of their poetry! the sea dragons tenderized, meat
for fleshy fish... Navark, navark, the fishes
of the Sea speak Breton... wash as soft as people's
dreams -- We got peoples in & out the shore, they call
it shore, sea call it pish rip plosh -- The
5 billion years since earth we saw substantial
chan -- Chinese are the waves -- the woods
are dreaming
No human words bespeak the token sorrow older
than old this wave becrashing smarts the
sand with plosh of twirled sandy
thought -- Ah change the world? Ah set
the fee? Are rope the angels in all the sea?
Ah ropey otter barnacle'd be...
Ah cave, Ah crosh! A feathery sea
Too much short -- Where
Miss Nop tonight? Wroten Kerarc'h
in the labidalian aristotelian park
with slime a middle
... And Ranti forner
who pulled pearls by rope to throne
the King by the roll in the
forest of everseas? Not everseas, be seas
... Creep Crash
The woman with her body
in the sea -- The frog who never moves & thunders, sharsh
... The snake with his body under the sand -- The dog
with the light on his nose, supine, with shoulders so
enormous they reach back to rain crack -- The leaves hasten
to the sea -- We let them hasten to be wetted & give
em that old salt change, a nuder think will make you see
they originate from the We Sea anyway... No dooming booms
on Sunday afternoons -- We run thru the core of cliffs,
blam up caves, disengage no jelly or jellied pendant
thinkers...
Our armies of anchored seaweed in the
coves gives of the smell of jellied salt...
Reach, reach, some leaves havent hastened near
enuf -- Roll, roll, purl the sand shark floor
a greeny pali andarva
... Ah back -- Ah forth...
Ah shish -- Boom, away, doom, a day -- Vein we
firm... The sea is We... Parle, parle, boom the
earth -- Aree -- Shaw, Sho, Shoosh, flut,
ravad, tapavada pow, coof, loof, roof,...
No, no, no, no, no, no...
Oh ya, ya, ya, yo, yair... Shhh...
Which one? the one? Which
one? The one ploshed... The ploshed one? the same,
ah boom -- Who's that ant that giant golden saltchange
ant magnifying my mountain of feet? "Tis Finder, finding
the change in thought to join the boomer hangers in the
cave a light -- And built a house above it? Never fear,
naver foir, les bretons qui parlent la langue de la Mar
sont espanol comme le cul du Kurd qui dit le maha
prajna paramita du Sud? Ah oui! Ke Vlum!
Glum sea, silent me...
They aint about to try it them ants who wear
out tunnels in a week the tunnel a million years
won -- no -- Down around the headland slobs for weed,
the chicken of the sea go yak! they sleep...
Aroar, aroar, arah, aroo... Otter me otter me daughter me sea
... me last blue lagoon inside of me, the sea -- Divine is the
substance all over the Sea... Of space we speak &
hasten -- Let no mouth swallow the sea -- Gavril...
Gavro... the Cherson Chinese & Old Fingernail sea -- Is
ringin yr ear? Dier, dee? Is Virgin you trying to
fathom me
Tiresome old sea, aint you sick & tired of all of this merde?
this incessant boom boom & sand walk -- you people
hoary rockies here to Fuegie & never get sad? Or despair
like a German phoney? Just gloom booboom & green
on foggy nights... the fog is part of us...
I know, but tired as I can be listening to all
this silly majesty... Basho
Lao! Pop!
Who is this fish sitting unsunk? Run up
a Hawaii typhoon smash him against his rock... We'll jelly you,
jellied man, show you essential jello of the sea... King
of the Sea.
No Monarc'h ever Irish be?
Ju see the Irish sea? Green winds on tamarack vines
Joyce -- James -- Shhish... Sea -- Sssssss -- see
... Varash
... mnavash la vache
ecriture -- the sea dont say muc'h actually...
Gosh, she,
huzzy, tow, led men on, Ulysses and all them
fair headed moin... Terplash, & what difference
make! One little white spark of light!
Hair woven hands Penelope seaboat
smeller -- Courtiers in Telemachus "sguise
dropedary dropedary creep -- Or...
Franc gold rippled that undersea creek
where fish fish for fisher men -- Salteen
breen the wet Souwesters of old Portugee Prayers
Tsall tangled, changed, salt & drop the sand
& weed & water brains entangled -- Rats
of old Venetian yellers Ariel Calibanned
to Roma Port... Pow -- spell...
Speak you parler, in this my mother's
parlor, wash your undershoes when you
come in, say thanks to foggy moon
Go brash, Topahta
offat, -- we'll gray ye rose -- Morning
primord creeper sees the bird of paravision
dying tweet the yellow mouthroof! How sweet
the earth, yells sand! Xcept when tumble
boom! O we wait too
for Heaven -- all in One...
All is there in fair & sight
I'm going to wash now
old Pavia down, & pack my salt
to Either Town... Cliffs of Antique
aint got no rose, the morning's seen
the ledder pose... Boom de boom dey
the sea is me...
We are the sea... It ain't all snow
We wash Fujiyama down soon, & sand
crookbird back... We hie bash
rock -- ak... Long short...
Low and easy... Wind & many freezing
bottoms and luckrock... Rappaport...
Endymion thou tangled dreamer love my thigh
... Rose, Of Shelley, Rose, O Urns!
Ogled urns in fish eye
Cinco sea the Chico sea the Magellan headland sea
... What hype sidereal did he put down bending beatnik sea goatee
over old goat manuscripts to find the other side of Flat?
See round, see the end of me? Rounden huge bedoom?
Awp hole cave & shwrul... sand & salt & hair eyes
... Strong enuf to make coffee grow in your hair...
Whose plantation Neptune got? That of Atlas still down there,
Hesperid's his feet, Sur his sleet, Irish Sea fingertip
& Cornwall aye his soul bedoom
Shurning -- Shurning -- plop
be dosh -- This sigh old learning's high beside me -- Rough
old hands have played out pedigree, we've sunk more boats
than dreamer'll ever ever see
... Burning -- Burning -- The world
is burning & needs waaater
... I'll have a daughter,
oughter, wait & see... Churning, Churning, Me...
Panties -- Panties... these ancient fancies are
so girling... You've not seen mermaids in my actual sea
... You've not seen sexless babies with breasts of Majesty...
My wife -- My wife... Her name is Oh so really
high life
The low life Kingdom where we part out tea, is sea
side Me... Josh -- coof... patra...
Aye ee mo powsh... Ssst -- Cum here read me...
Dirty postcard... Urchin sea... Karash your name...?
Wanta swim, sink or swim? Ears ringing again?
Sea vibrate rhythm crash sets off cave
hanger blowers whistling dog ear back -- to sea
Arree... Gerudge Napoleon nada
Nada
Pluto eats the sea... Room...
Hands folded by the sea... 'On est tous caches, mange
le silence, " disent les poissons de la mer -- Ah Mar -- Gott
Thalatta -- Merde -- Marde de mer -- Mu mer -- Mak a vash...
The ocean is the mother... Je ne suis pas mauvaise quand j'suis
tranquille -- dans les tempetes j'cries! Comme une folle!
j'mange, j'arrache toutes! Clock -- Clack Milk...
Mai! mai! mai! ma! says the wind blowing sand...
Pluto eats the sea... Ami go -- da -- che pop
Go -- Come Cark... Care -- Kee ter da vo
Kataketa pow! kek kek kek! Kwakiutl! Kik!
Some of theserather taratasters trapped hyra tecere thaped
the anadondak ram ma lat round by Krul to Pat the lat
rat the anaakakalked romon tottek
Kara VOOOM
frup... Feet cold? wade... Mind sore?
sim -- sin -- Horny? -- lay the sea! Corny? try me...
Ussens here hang no more here we go, ka va ra ta
plowsh, shhh, and more, again, ke vlook
ke bloom & here comes big Mister Trosh
... more waves coming, every syllable windy
Back wash palaver
paralarle -- paralleling parle pe Saviour
A troublesome spirit hanging here cant make it
in the void... The sea'll only drown me -- These words
are affectations of sick mortality...
We try to make our way in self reliance, aid
not ever comes too quick from wherever & whatever
heaven dear may have suggested to promise us...
But these waves scare me...
I am going to die in full despair...
Wake up where? On second breath in life
the atmosphere is dearer maybe closer to Heaven
... O Paradise... Is the sea really so bad?
Have you sent men here for this cold clown
& monstrous eater at the world? whose sound
I mock?
God I've got to believe in you or live in death!
Will you save us -- all? Soon or now?
Send illumination to our drowning brains
... We're pitiful, Lord, we need yr help!
Save us, Dear... (Save yourself, God man,
ha ha! ) If you were God man
you'd command these waves to very well Tennyson stop
& even Tennyson is dear
now dead Leave it to the light
Concern yourself with supper, & an eye
somebody's eye -- a wife,
a girl, a friend, an animal
... a blood let drop...
he for his sea, he for his fire,
thee for thy desire
"The sea drove me away & yelled "Go to your desire! "
... As I hurried up the valley It added one last yell: --
"And laugh! "'
Even the sea cant stop me from writing something to read in my old age
... This is the chart of brief forms, this sea the briefest -- Shish
yourself...
After scaring me like that, Mar, I'll excoriate yr slum -- yr
iodine weeds & slime hoops, even yr dried hollow seaweed
stinks -- you stink all over... Boom -- Try that, creep...
The little Monterey fishingboat glides downward home 15 miles to go,
be home to fried fish & beer b'five... It guides the sea its bird
routes...
... Silver loss forever outward
... From blue sky of human bridges
to the massive mawkcloud sea center heap -- to the gray...
Some boys call it gunboat blue, or gray, but I call it
the Civil War of Rocks
... Rocks "come air, rocks "come water,
& rock rocks... Kara tavira, mnash grand bash
... poosh 1'abas -- croosh L'a haut -- Plash au pied...
Peeeee -- Rolle test boulles... Manche d'la rache...
The handsome King prevails over boom sing bird head...
"Crache tes idees, " spit yr ideas, says the sea, to me, quite
appro priate ly... Pss! pss! pss!
Ps! girl inside! Red shoes scum, eyes of old
sorcerers, toenails hanging down in the barrel of old firkin cheese
the Dutchman forgot t'eat that tempest
nineteen O sixteen
When torpedoed by gunboat Pedro in the Valley
of a Million Fees?
When Magellan crosseyed ate the Amazonian feet...
And, Ah, when Colombo cross't! When Drake sir francised the waves
with feeding of the blue jay dark -- pounded his aleward
tank before the boom, housed up all thoughts of Erik
the Red the Greenland caperer & builder of rockdungs in New
Port -- New -- yet... Oldport Indian Fishhead...
Oldport Tattoo Kwakiutl Headpost taboo potash Coyotl potlatch?
Old Primitive Columbia....
Named for Colom bus? Name for Aruggio Vesmarica...
Ar! -- Or! -- Da! What about Verrazano?
he sailed!... He Verrazano zailed & we
statened his Island in on deep
in on dashun Rotted the Wallower?
Sinners liars goodmen all sink waterswim drink Neptune's
nectar the zal sotat... Zal sotate name for crota?
Crota ta crotte, you aint 'bout to find (Jesus Christian! )
any dry turds here below... Why fo no?
Go crash yonder rock of bleak with yr filet mignon teeth
& see -- For you, the hearth, the heart, the lock of hair...
For me, for us, the Sea, the murdering of time by eating
lusty cracks of lip feed wave at aeons of sandy artistry
till nothing's left but old age newmorning primordial pain
of sitters by the unborn
bird of roses yet undone...
With weeds your roses,
sand crabs your hummers? With buzzers in the sea!
With runners in the deep! This Sceptred Osh, this wide leg
spanning rock U. S. to rock Ja Pan, this onstable
roller roaming all, this ploosher at yr gory
dry dung door, this mouth of silverwhite arring to hold thee,
this purger of conscience arra for thee...
No mouse in here but's got a little glee -- and
aft, or oft, the osprey in his glee's agley...
Oh purty purty ocean me...
Sop! bring the Scepter down! Again you've accepted me!
Breathe our iodine, filthy yr drink,
faint at feet wet, drop yr profile move it in the sea,
float weeded watery Adonais longs for thee -- & Shelley three,
that's three -- burn in salt with slow most change...
We've had no crack at eternity in a billion years of trying...
one grain of sand possesses 3 thousand worlds of glee...
not to mention me... Ah sea
Ah si -- Ah so... shoot -- shiver -- mix...
ha roll -- tara -- ta ta... curlurck -- Kayash -- Kee...
Pearls pearls in the yellow West
... Yellow sky to China...
Pacific we named here water as always meeting
water -- Pacific Pacific Pacific tapfic -- geroom...
gedowsh... gaka... gaya... Tatha -- gata -- mana...
What sails used old bhikkus? Dhikkus? Dhikkus!
What raft mailed Mose to the hoven dovepost?
What saved Blackswirl from the Kidd plank?
What Go-Bug here? Seet! Seeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeee -- kara... Pounders out yar...
Big Sur they call this sand
these rocks this creek? Raton Canyon by name pours
Coyote leaves & old Pomo bones & old dust of Tomahawks
into your angler'd maw... My salt maw shall salvage
Taylors -- sewing in the room below...
Sewing weed shrat for hikers in the milky silt...
Sewing crosswards for certainty... Sartan
are we of Price Victory in this salt War with thee
& thine thee jellied yink! Look O the sea here called
Pacific Sea! Taki!
My golden empty soul'll
outlast yr salty sill
... the Windows of my jelly eye
& fish head muck look out on thee, slit, with cigar-a-mouth,
some contempt... Yet I hie me to see you
... you hie thee to eat me -- Fair in sight
and worn, aright... Arra! Aroo!
Ger der va... Silly silent cities in the sea
have children playing cardboard mush with eignyard old Englander
beeplates slickered oer with scum of histories below...
No tempest as still & awful
as the tempest within... Sorcerer hip! Buddhalands
& Buddhaseas! What sails Maudgalyayana used
he only knows to tell but got kilt by yellers
screaming down the cliff 'Let's go home!
Now! "
... leave marge smashed djamas
Maudgalyayana was murdered by the seaBut the sea dont tell...
The sea dont murder... The seadrang scholars
oughter know that or
go back to School Hear over there the ocean motor?
Feel the splawrsh of it? Six silly centepedes here, Machree...
Ah Ratatatatatat... the machinegun sea, rhythmie
balls of you pouring in with smooth eglantinee
jn yr pedigreed milkpup tenor...
Tinder marsh aright arrooo... arrac'h -- arrache...
Kamac'h -- monarc'h... Kerarc'h Jevac'h...
Tamana -- gavow... Va -- Voovla -- Via...
Mia -- mine sea
poo
Farewell, Sur...
Didja ever tell him about water meeting water...?
O go back to otter... Term -- Term -- Klerm
Kerm -- Kurn -- Cow... Kow... Cash -- Cac'h -- Cluck...
Clock -- Gomeat sea need de deep I see you
Enoc'h soon anarf
in Old Brittany
21 August 1960 Pacific Ocean at Big Sur
California
The complete poems written by the sea are to be found at the end of
this book, in the appendix entitled "SEA'. Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at
Big Sur. JK.
first I thought the eccentric old town bums wanted them to eat or to sell
(still maybe so) because before I study this I look and see hundreds of
slowly fornicating vulture couples on the town dump
... These are now humanly formed vultures with human shaped arms, legs,
heads, torsos, but they have rainbow colored feathers, and the men are all
quietly sitting behind Vulture Women slowly somehow fornicating at them in
all the same slow obscene movement -- Both man and woman sit facing the same
direction and somehow there's contact because you can see all their feathery
rainbow behinds slowly dully monotonously fornicating on the dumpslopes --
As I pass I even see the expression on the face of a youngish blond vulture
man eternally displeased because his Vulture Mistress is an old Yakker who's
been arguing with him all the time -- His face is completely human but
inhumanly pasty like uncooked pale pie dough with dull seamed buggy horror
that he's doomed to all this enough to make me shudder in sympathy, I even
see her awful expression of middleaged pie dough tormentism -- They're so
human! But suddenly me and the two kid workers are taken to the Vulture
People respectable quarter of town to our apartment where a Vulture Woman
and her daughter show us our rooms Their faces are leprous thick with softy
yeast but painted with makeup to make them like thick Christmas dolls and
dull and fuzzy but human expressions, like with thick lips of rubber muzz,
fat expressions all crumbly like cracker meal, yellow pizza puke faces,
disgusting us tho we say nothing -- The apartment has dirty beatnik beds and
mattresses everywhere but I walk thru the back looking for a sink -- It's
huge... An endless walk thru long greasy pantries and vast washrooms a block
long with single filthy little sink all dark and slimey like underground
Lowell High School crumbling basements... Finally I come to the Kitchen
where we "new workers" are s'posed to cook little meals all summer -- It's
vast stone fireplaces and stone stoves all rancid and greasy from a monthold
Vulture People Banquet Orgy with still dozens of uncooked chickens lying
around on the floor among garbage and bottles -- Rancid stale grease
everywhere, nobody's ever cleaned it up or knew how and the place as big as
a garage -- I push my way out of there pushing a huge greasystink
foodstained tray of some sort hurrying away from the big stinky emptiness
and horror -- The fat golden chickens lie rotten upsidedown on littered
stone slabs -- I hurry out never having seen such a dirty sight in my life.
Meanwhile I learn the two boys are studying a hamper full of Vulture Food
for us and one of them wisely says "Blisters in our sugar, " meaning the
Vultures put their blisters in our sugar so we'll "die" but instead of being
really dead we'll be taken to the Underground Slimes to walk neck deep in
steaming mucks pulling huge groaning wheels (among small forked snakes) so
the devil with the long ears can mine his Purple Magenta Square Stone that
is the secret of all this Kingdom -- You end up down there groaning and
pulling thru dead bodies of other people even your own family floating in
the ooze -- If you succeed you can become a pasty Vulture Person obscenely
fornicating slowly on the dump above, I think, either that or the devil just
invents the Vulture People with what's left over out of the underground Hell
-- "Beans anyone? " I hear myself saying as thump! I'm awake again! Elliott
has thumped his foot just at that moment on the porch! -- I look over
there!... He's doing it on purpose, he knows everything that's going on! --
What on earth have I brought these people for and why just this particular
night of that moon that moon that moon?
I'm up again and pacing up and down and drinking water at the creek,
Dave and Romana's lump figures in the moonlight dont move, like hypocrites,
"Bastard has my only sleeping spot" -- I clutch my head, I'm so alone in all
this -- I go fearfully casting about for control back inside the cabin by
the lighted lamp, a smoke, trying to squeeze the last red drop out of the
rancid port bottle, no go -- Now that Billie's asleep and so still and
peaceful I wonder if I can sleep just by lying beside her and holding her --
I do just this, crawling in with all my clothes which I've put on because
I'm afraid of going mad naked or of not being able to suddenly run away from
everything, in my shoes, she moans a little in her sleep and resumes
sleeping as I hold her with those rigid staring eyes -- Her blonde flesh in
the moonlight, the poor blonde hair so carefully washed and combed, the
ladylike little body also a burden to carry around like my own but so frail,
thinnish, I just stare at her shoulders with tears -- I'd wake her up and
confess everything but I'll only scare her -- I've done irreparable harm
('Garradarable narm! " yells the creek) All my self sayings suddenly
blurting babbles so the meaning cant even stay a minute I mean a moment to
satisfy my rational endeavours to hold, control, every thought I have is
smashed to a million pieces by million pieced mental explosions that I
remember I thought were so wonderful when I'd first seen them on Peotl and
Mescaline, I'd said then (when still innocently playing with words) "Ah, the
manifestation of multiplicity, you can actually see it, it aint just words"
but now it's "Ah the keselamaroyot you rot" -- Till when dawn finally comes
my mind is just a series of explosions that get louder and more "multiply"
broken in pieces some of them big orchestral and then rainbow explosions of
sound and sight mixed. At dawn also I've almost dimmed into sleep three
times but I swear (and this is something I remember that makes me realize I
don't understand what happened at Big Sur even now) the little boy somehow
thumped his foot just at the moment of drowse, to instantly wake me up, wide
awake, back to my horror which when all is said and done is the horror of
all the worlds the showing of it to me being damn well what I deserve anyway
with my previous blithe yakkings about the sufferings of others in books.
Books, shmooks, this sickness has got me wishing if I can ever get out of
this I'll gladly become a millworker and shut my big mouth.
Dawn is most horrible of all with the owls suddenly calling back and
forth in the misty moon haunt -- And even worse than dawn is morning, the
bright sun only GLARING in on my pain, making it all brighter, hotter, more
maddening, more nervewracking -- I even go roaming up and down the valley in
the bright Sunday morning sunshine with bag under arm looking hopelessly for
some spot to sleep in -- As soon as I find a spot of grass by the path I
realize I cant lie down there because the tourists might walk by and see me
-- As soon as I find a glade near the creek I realize it's too sinister
there, like Hemingway's darker part of the swamp where "the fishing would be
more tragic" somehow -- All the haunts and glades having certain special
evil forces concentrated there and driving me away -- So haunted I go
wandering up and down the canyon crying with that bag under my arm: "What on
earth's happened to me? and how can earth be like that? "
Am I not a human being and have done my best as well as anybody else?
never really trying to hurt anybody or halfhearted cursing Heaven? -- The
words I'd studied all my life have suddenly gotten to me in all their
serious and definite deathliness, never more I be a "happy poet" "Singing"
"about death" and allied romantic matters, "Go thou crumb of dust you with
your silt of a billion years, here's a billion pieces of silt for you, shake
that out of your shaker" -- And all the green nature of the canyon now
waving in the morning sun looking like a cruel idiot convocation. Coming
back to the sleepers and staring at them wild eyed like my brother'd once
stared at me in the dark over my crib, staring at them not only enviously
but lonely in human isolation from their simple sleeping minds -- "But they
all look dead! " I'm carking in my canyon, "Sleep is death, everything is
death! " The horrible climax coming when the others finally get up and pook
about making a troubled breakfast, and I've told Dave I cant possibly stay
here another minute, he must drive us all back to town, "Okay but 1 sure
wish we could stay a week like Romana wants to do, " -- "Well you drive me
and come back" -- "Well I dunno if Monsanta would like that we've already
dirtied up the place aplenty, in fact we've got to dig a garbage pit and get
rid of the junk" -- Billie offers to dig the garbage pit but does so by
digging a neat tiny coffinshaped grave instead of just a garbage hole --
Even Dave Wain blinks to see it -- It's exactly the size fit for putting a
little dead Elliott in it, Dave is thinking the same thing I am I can tell
by a glance he gives me... We've all read Freud sufficiently to understand
something there -- Besides little Elliott's been crying all morning and has
had two beatings both of them ending up crying and Billie saying she cant
stand it any more she's going to kill herself -- And Romana too notices it,
the perfect 4 foot by 3 foot neatly sided grave like you're ready to sink a
little box in it -- Horrifying me so much I take the shovel and go down to
dump junk into it and mess up the neat pattern somehow but little Elliott
starts screaming and grabs the shovel and refuses I go near the hole -- So
Billie herself goes and starts filling the garbage in but then looks at me
significantly (I'm sure sometimes she really did aspire to make me crazy)
"Do you want to finish the job yourself? " -- "What do you mean? " -- "Cover
the earth on, do the honors? " "What do you mean do the honors! " -- "Well I
said I'd dig the garbage pit and I've done that, aint you supposed to do the
rest? " -- Dave Wain is watching fascinated, there's something screwy he
sees there too, something cold and frightening -- "Well okay" I say, "I'll
dump the earth over it and tamp it down" but I go down to do this Elliot is
screaming "NO no no no no! " ('My God, the fishes" bones are in that grave"
I realize too) -- "What's the matter he wont let me go near that hole! why
did you make it look like a grave? " I finally yell... But Billie is only
smiling quietly and steadily at me, over the grave, shovel in hand, the kid
weeping tugging the shovel, rushing up to block my way, trying to shove me
back with his little hands... I cant understand any of it -- He's screaming
as I grab the shovel as tho I'm about to bury Billie in there or something
or himself maybe -- 'What's the matter with this kid is he a cretin? " I
yell. With the same quiet steady smile Billie says "Oh you're so fucking
neurotic! " I simply get mad and dump earth over the garbage and tromp it
all down and say "The hell with all this madness! " I get mad and stomp up
on the porch and throw myself in the canvas chair and close my eyes -- Dave
Wain says he's going down the road to investigate the canyon a bit and when
he comes back the girls will have finished packing and we'll all leave --
Dave goes off, the girls clean up and sweep, the little kid is sleeping and
suddenly hopelessly and completely finished I sit there in the hot sun and
close my eyes: and there's the golden swarming peace of Heaven in my eyelids
-- It comes with a sure hand a soft blessing as big as it is beneficent, i.
e., endless -- I've fallen asleep. I've fallen asleep in a strange way, with
my hands clasped behind my head thinking I'm just going to sit there and
think, but I'm sleeping like that, and when I wake up just one short minute
later I realize the two girls are both sitting behind me in absolute silence
-- When I'd sat down they were sweeping, but now they were squatting behind
my back, facing each other, not a word -- I turn and see them there --
Blessed relief has come to me from just that minute -- Everything has washed
away -- I'm perfectly normal again -- Dave Wain is down the road looking at
fields and flowers -- I'm sitting smiling in the sun, the birds sing again,
all's well again. I still cant understand it.
Most of all I cant understand the miraculousness of the silence of the
girls and the sleeping boy and the silence of Dave Wain in the fields --
Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and
mind -- All the dark torture is a memory -- I know now I can get out of
there, we'll drive back to the City, I'll take Billie home, I'll say goodbye
to her properly, she wont commit no suicide or do anything wrong, she'll
forget me, her life'll go on, Romana's life will go on, old Dave will manage
somehow, I'll forgive them and explain everything (as I'm doing now) -- And
Cody, and George Baso, and ravened McLear and perfect starry Fagan, they'll
all pass through one way or the other -- I'll stay with Monsanto at his home
a few days and he'll smile and show me how to be happy awhile, we'll drink
dry wine instead of sweet and have quiet evenings in his home -- Arthur Ma
will come to quietly draw pictures at my side -- Monsanto will say "That's
all there is to it, take it easy, everything's okay, dont take things too
serious, it's bad enough as it is without you going the deep end over
imaginary conceptions just like you always said yourself -- I'll get my
ticket and say goodbye on a flower day and leave all San Francisco behind
and go back home across autumn America and it'll all be like it was in the
beginning -- Simple golden eternity blessing all -- Nothing ever happened --
Not even this -- St Carolyn by the Sea will go on being golden one way or
the other... The little boy will grow up and be a great man... There'll be
farewells and smiles -- My mother'll be waiting for me glad -- The corner of
the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my
home more homelike somehow -- On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard
under the stars -- Something good will come out of all things yet And it
will be golden and eternal just like that -- There's no need to say another
word.
"SEA'
Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur
'Sea'
Cherson! Cherson!
You aint just whistlin Dixie, Sea
Cherson! Cherson! We calcimine fathers
here below! Kitchen lights on...
Sea Engines from Russia seabirding here below...
When rocks outsea froth I'll know Hawaii
cracked up & scramble up my doublelegged cliff
to the silt of a million years...
Shoo -- Shaw -- Shirsh...
Go on die salt light You billion yeared
rock knocker Gavroom
Seabird Gabroobird
Sad as wife & hill Loved as mother & fog
Oh! Oh! Oh! Sea! Osh!
Where's yr little Neppytune tonight?
These gentle tree pulp pages
which've nothing to do with yr crash roar,
liar sea, ah, were made for rock
tumble seabird digdown footstep hollow weed
move bedarvaling crash? Ah again?
Wine is salt here? Tidal wave kitchen?
Engines of Russia in yr soft talk...
Les poissons de la mer
parle Breton... Mon nom es Lebris
de Keroack...
Parle, Poissons, Loti,
parle... Parlning Ocean sanding
crash the billion rocks...
Ker plotsch... Shore... shoe...
god brash...
The headland looks like a longnosed Collie sleeping
with his light on his nose, as the ocean,
obeying its accommodations of mind, crashes in
rhythm which could & will intrude, in thy
rhythm of sand thought...
... Big frigging shoulders on that sonofabitch
Parle, O, parle, mer, parle. Sea speak to me, speak
to me, your silver you light Where hole opened up in Alaska
Gray -- shh -- wind in The canyon wind in the rain
Wind in the rolling rash Moving and t wedel
Sea Sea
Diving sea O bird -- la vengeance
De la roche Cossez
Ah
Rare, he rammed the gate rare over by Cherson, Cherson,
we calcify fathers here below
... a watery cross, with weeds
entwined -- This grins restoredly, low sleep -- Wave -- Oh, no,
shush -- Shirk -- Boom plop Neptune now his arms extends
while one millions of souls sit lit in caves of darkness
... What old bark? The dog mountain? Down by the Sea
Engines? God rush -- Shore...
Shaw -- Shoo -- Oh soft sigh we wait hair twined like
arks -- Pissit -- Rest not
... Plottit, bisp tesh, cashes,
re tav, plo, aravow, shirsh, -- Who's whispering over
there -- the silly earthen creek! The fog thunders -- We put
silver light on face -- We took the heroes in -- A billion
years aint nothing...
O the cities here below! The men with a thousand
arms! the stanchions of their upward gaze! the
coral of their poetry! the sea dragons tenderized, meat
for fleshy fish... Navark, navark, the fishes
of the Sea speak Breton... wash as soft as people's
dreams -- We got peoples in & out the shore, they call
it shore, sea call it pish rip plosh -- The
5 billion years since earth we saw substantial
chan -- Chinese are the waves -- the woods
are dreaming
No human words bespeak the token sorrow older
than old this wave becrashing smarts the
sand with plosh of twirled sandy
thought -- Ah change the world? Ah set
the fee? Are rope the angels in all the sea?
Ah ropey otter barnacle'd be...
Ah cave, Ah crosh! A feathery sea
Too much short -- Where
Miss Nop tonight? Wroten Kerarc'h
in the labidalian aristotelian park
with slime a middle
... And Ranti forner
who pulled pearls by rope to throne
the King by the roll in the
forest of everseas? Not everseas, be seas
... Creep Crash
The woman with her body
in the sea -- The frog who never moves & thunders, sharsh
... The snake with his body under the sand -- The dog
with the light on his nose, supine, with shoulders so
enormous they reach back to rain crack -- The leaves hasten
to the sea -- We let them hasten to be wetted & give
em that old salt change, a nuder think will make you see
they originate from the We Sea anyway... No dooming booms
on Sunday afternoons -- We run thru the core of cliffs,
blam up caves, disengage no jelly or jellied pendant
thinkers...
Our armies of anchored seaweed in the
coves gives of the smell of jellied salt...
Reach, reach, some leaves havent hastened near
enuf -- Roll, roll, purl the sand shark floor
a greeny pali andarva
... Ah back -- Ah forth...
Ah shish -- Boom, away, doom, a day -- Vein we
firm... The sea is We... Parle, parle, boom the
earth -- Aree -- Shaw, Sho, Shoosh, flut,
ravad, tapavada pow, coof, loof, roof,...
No, no, no, no, no, no...
Oh ya, ya, ya, yo, yair... Shhh...
Which one? the one? Which
one? The one ploshed... The ploshed one? the same,
ah boom -- Who's that ant that giant golden saltchange
ant magnifying my mountain of feet? "Tis Finder, finding
the change in thought to join the boomer hangers in the
cave a light -- And built a house above it? Never fear,
naver foir, les bretons qui parlent la langue de la Mar
sont espanol comme le cul du Kurd qui dit le maha
prajna paramita du Sud? Ah oui! Ke Vlum!
Glum sea, silent me...
They aint about to try it them ants who wear
out tunnels in a week the tunnel a million years
won -- no -- Down around the headland slobs for weed,
the chicken of the sea go yak! they sleep...
Aroar, aroar, arah, aroo... Otter me otter me daughter me sea
... me last blue lagoon inside of me, the sea -- Divine is the
substance all over the Sea... Of space we speak &
hasten -- Let no mouth swallow the sea -- Gavril...
Gavro... the Cherson Chinese & Old Fingernail sea -- Is
ringin yr ear? Dier, dee? Is Virgin you trying to
fathom me
Tiresome old sea, aint you sick & tired of all of this merde?
this incessant boom boom & sand walk -- you people
hoary rockies here to Fuegie & never get sad? Or despair
like a German phoney? Just gloom booboom & green
on foggy nights... the fog is part of us...
I know, but tired as I can be listening to all
this silly majesty... Basho
Lao! Pop!
Who is this fish sitting unsunk? Run up
a Hawaii typhoon smash him against his rock... We'll jelly you,
jellied man, show you essential jello of the sea... King
of the Sea.
No Monarc'h ever Irish be?
Ju see the Irish sea? Green winds on tamarack vines
Joyce -- James -- Shhish... Sea -- Sssssss -- see
... Varash
... mnavash la vache
ecriture -- the sea dont say muc'h actually...
Gosh, she,
huzzy, tow, led men on, Ulysses and all them
fair headed moin... Terplash, & what difference
make! One little white spark of light!
Hair woven hands Penelope seaboat
smeller -- Courtiers in Telemachus "sguise
dropedary dropedary creep -- Or...
Franc gold rippled that undersea creek
where fish fish for fisher men -- Salteen
breen the wet Souwesters of old Portugee Prayers
Tsall tangled, changed, salt & drop the sand
& weed & water brains entangled -- Rats
of old Venetian yellers Ariel Calibanned
to Roma Port... Pow -- spell...
Speak you parler, in this my mother's
parlor, wash your undershoes when you
come in, say thanks to foggy moon
Go brash, Topahta
offat, -- we'll gray ye rose -- Morning
primord creeper sees the bird of paravision
dying tweet the yellow mouthroof! How sweet
the earth, yells sand! Xcept when tumble
boom! O we wait too
for Heaven -- all in One...
All is there in fair & sight
I'm going to wash now
old Pavia down, & pack my salt
to Either Town... Cliffs of Antique
aint got no rose, the morning's seen
the ledder pose... Boom de boom dey
the sea is me...
We are the sea... It ain't all snow
We wash Fujiyama down soon, & sand
crookbird back... We hie bash
rock -- ak... Long short...
Low and easy... Wind & many freezing
bottoms and luckrock... Rappaport...
Endymion thou tangled dreamer love my thigh
... Rose, Of Shelley, Rose, O Urns!
Ogled urns in fish eye
Cinco sea the Chico sea the Magellan headland sea
... What hype sidereal did he put down bending beatnik sea goatee
over old goat manuscripts to find the other side of Flat?
See round, see the end of me? Rounden huge bedoom?
Awp hole cave & shwrul... sand & salt & hair eyes
... Strong enuf to make coffee grow in your hair...
Whose plantation Neptune got? That of Atlas still down there,
Hesperid's his feet, Sur his sleet, Irish Sea fingertip
& Cornwall aye his soul bedoom
Shurning -- Shurning -- plop
be dosh -- This sigh old learning's high beside me -- Rough
old hands have played out pedigree, we've sunk more boats
than dreamer'll ever ever see
... Burning -- Burning -- The world
is burning & needs waaater
... I'll have a daughter,
oughter, wait & see... Churning, Churning, Me...
Panties -- Panties... these ancient fancies are
so girling... You've not seen mermaids in my actual sea
... You've not seen sexless babies with breasts of Majesty...
My wife -- My wife... Her name is Oh so really
high life
The low life Kingdom where we part out tea, is sea
side Me... Josh -- coof... patra...
Aye ee mo powsh... Ssst -- Cum here read me...
Dirty postcard... Urchin sea... Karash your name...?
Wanta swim, sink or swim? Ears ringing again?
Sea vibrate rhythm crash sets off cave
hanger blowers whistling dog ear back -- to sea
Arree... Gerudge Napoleon nada
Nada
Pluto eats the sea... Room...
Hands folded by the sea... 'On est tous caches, mange
le silence, " disent les poissons de la mer -- Ah Mar -- Gott
Thalatta -- Merde -- Marde de mer -- Mu mer -- Mak a vash...
The ocean is the mother... Je ne suis pas mauvaise quand j'suis
tranquille -- dans les tempetes j'cries! Comme une folle!
j'mange, j'arrache toutes! Clock -- Clack Milk...
Mai! mai! mai! ma! says the wind blowing sand...
Pluto eats the sea... Ami go -- da -- che pop
Go -- Come Cark... Care -- Kee ter da vo
Kataketa pow! kek kek kek! Kwakiutl! Kik!
Some of theserather taratasters trapped hyra tecere thaped
the anadondak ram ma lat round by Krul to Pat the lat
rat the anaakakalked romon tottek
Kara VOOOM
frup... Feet cold? wade... Mind sore?
sim -- sin -- Horny? -- lay the sea! Corny? try me...
Ussens here hang no more here we go, ka va ra ta
plowsh, shhh, and more, again, ke vlook
ke bloom & here comes big Mister Trosh
... more waves coming, every syllable windy
Back wash palaver
paralarle -- paralleling parle pe Saviour
A troublesome spirit hanging here cant make it
in the void... The sea'll only drown me -- These words
are affectations of sick mortality...
We try to make our way in self reliance, aid
not ever comes too quick from wherever & whatever
heaven dear may have suggested to promise us...
But these waves scare me...
I am going to die in full despair...
Wake up where? On second breath in life
the atmosphere is dearer maybe closer to Heaven
... O Paradise... Is the sea really so bad?
Have you sent men here for this cold clown
& monstrous eater at the world? whose sound
I mock?
God I've got to believe in you or live in death!
Will you save us -- all? Soon or now?
Send illumination to our drowning brains
... We're pitiful, Lord, we need yr help!
Save us, Dear... (Save yourself, God man,
ha ha! ) If you were God man
you'd command these waves to very well Tennyson stop
& even Tennyson is dear
now dead Leave it to the light
Concern yourself with supper, & an eye
somebody's eye -- a wife,
a girl, a friend, an animal
... a blood let drop...
he for his sea, he for his fire,
thee for thy desire
"The sea drove me away & yelled "Go to your desire! "
... As I hurried up the valley It added one last yell: --
"And laugh! "'
Even the sea cant stop me from writing something to read in my old age
... This is the chart of brief forms, this sea the briefest -- Shish
yourself...
After scaring me like that, Mar, I'll excoriate yr slum -- yr
iodine weeds & slime hoops, even yr dried hollow seaweed
stinks -- you stink all over... Boom -- Try that, creep...
The little Monterey fishingboat glides downward home 15 miles to go,
be home to fried fish & beer b'five... It guides the sea its bird
routes...
... Silver loss forever outward
... From blue sky of human bridges
to the massive mawkcloud sea center heap -- to the gray...
Some boys call it gunboat blue, or gray, but I call it
the Civil War of Rocks
... Rocks "come air, rocks "come water,
& rock rocks... Kara tavira, mnash grand bash
... poosh 1'abas -- croosh L'a haut -- Plash au pied...
Peeeee -- Rolle test boulles... Manche d'la rache...
The handsome King prevails over boom sing bird head...
"Crache tes idees, " spit yr ideas, says the sea, to me, quite
appro priate ly... Pss! pss! pss!
Ps! girl inside! Red shoes scum, eyes of old
sorcerers, toenails hanging down in the barrel of old firkin cheese
the Dutchman forgot t'eat that tempest
nineteen O sixteen
When torpedoed by gunboat Pedro in the Valley
of a Million Fees?
When Magellan crosseyed ate the Amazonian feet...
And, Ah, when Colombo cross't! When Drake sir francised the waves
with feeding of the blue jay dark -- pounded his aleward
tank before the boom, housed up all thoughts of Erik
the Red the Greenland caperer & builder of rockdungs in New
Port -- New -- yet... Oldport Indian Fishhead...
Oldport Tattoo Kwakiutl Headpost taboo potash Coyotl potlatch?
Old Primitive Columbia....
Named for Colom bus? Name for Aruggio Vesmarica...
Ar! -- Or! -- Da! What about Verrazano?
he sailed!... He Verrazano zailed & we
statened his Island in on deep
in on dashun Rotted the Wallower?
Sinners liars goodmen all sink waterswim drink Neptune's
nectar the zal sotat... Zal sotate name for crota?
Crota ta crotte, you aint 'bout to find (Jesus Christian! )
any dry turds here below... Why fo no?
Go crash yonder rock of bleak with yr filet mignon teeth
& see -- For you, the hearth, the heart, the lock of hair...
For me, for us, the Sea, the murdering of time by eating
lusty cracks of lip feed wave at aeons of sandy artistry
till nothing's left but old age newmorning primordial pain
of sitters by the unborn
bird of roses yet undone...
With weeds your roses,
sand crabs your hummers? With buzzers in the sea!
With runners in the deep! This Sceptred Osh, this wide leg
spanning rock U. S. to rock Ja Pan, this onstable
roller roaming all, this ploosher at yr gory
dry dung door, this mouth of silverwhite arring to hold thee,
this purger of conscience arra for thee...
No mouse in here but's got a little glee -- and
aft, or oft, the osprey in his glee's agley...
Oh purty purty ocean me...
Sop! bring the Scepter down! Again you've accepted me!
Breathe our iodine, filthy yr drink,
faint at feet wet, drop yr profile move it in the sea,
float weeded watery Adonais longs for thee -- & Shelley three,
that's three -- burn in salt with slow most change...
We've had no crack at eternity in a billion years of trying...
one grain of sand possesses 3 thousand worlds of glee...
not to mention me... Ah sea
Ah si -- Ah so... shoot -- shiver -- mix...
ha roll -- tara -- ta ta... curlurck -- Kayash -- Kee...
Pearls pearls in the yellow West
... Yellow sky to China...
Pacific we named here water as always meeting
water -- Pacific Pacific Pacific tapfic -- geroom...
gedowsh... gaka... gaya... Tatha -- gata -- mana...
What sails used old bhikkus? Dhikkus? Dhikkus!
What raft mailed Mose to the hoven dovepost?
What saved Blackswirl from the Kidd plank?
What Go-Bug here? Seet! Seeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeee -- kara... Pounders out yar...
Big Sur they call this sand
these rocks this creek? Raton Canyon by name pours
Coyote leaves & old Pomo bones & old dust of Tomahawks
into your angler'd maw... My salt maw shall salvage
Taylors -- sewing in the room below...
Sewing weed shrat for hikers in the milky silt...
Sewing crosswards for certainty... Sartan
are we of Price Victory in this salt War with thee
& thine thee jellied yink! Look O the sea here called
Pacific Sea! Taki!
My golden empty soul'll
outlast yr salty sill
... the Windows of my jelly eye
& fish head muck look out on thee, slit, with cigar-a-mouth,
some contempt... Yet I hie me to see you
... you hie thee to eat me -- Fair in sight
and worn, aright... Arra! Aroo!
Ger der va... Silly silent cities in the sea
have children playing cardboard mush with eignyard old Englander
beeplates slickered oer with scum of histories below...
No tempest as still & awful
as the tempest within... Sorcerer hip! Buddhalands
& Buddhaseas! What sails Maudgalyayana used
he only knows to tell but got kilt by yellers
screaming down the cliff 'Let's go home!
Now! "
... leave marge smashed djamas
Maudgalyayana was murdered by the seaBut the sea dont tell...
The sea dont murder... The seadrang scholars
oughter know that or
go back to School Hear over there the ocean motor?
Feel the splawrsh of it? Six silly centepedes here, Machree...
Ah Ratatatatatat... the machinegun sea, rhythmie
balls of you pouring in with smooth eglantinee
jn yr pedigreed milkpup tenor...
Tinder marsh aright arrooo... arrac'h -- arrache...
Kamac'h -- monarc'h... Kerarc'h Jevac'h...
Tamana -- gavow... Va -- Voovla -- Via...
Mia -- mine sea
poo
Farewell, Sur...
Didja ever tell him about water meeting water...?
O go back to otter... Term -- Term -- Klerm
Kerm -- Kurn -- Cow... Kow... Cash -- Cac'h -- Cluck...
Clock -- Gomeat sea need de deep I see you
Enoc'h soon anarf
in Old Brittany
21 August 1960 Pacific Ocean at Big Sur
California
The complete poems written by the sea are to be found at the end of
this book, in the appendix entitled "SEA'. Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at
Big Sur. JK.