Poetry of Issue #7 Page 46
From Life Poem*
desperate now, i've started to write everything that comes into my head
i just lay it out right here
as if the line paper had become some sort of garbage disposal
accepting and grinding everything i can throw out
if this were a giant baseball game, this paper would be
Willie Say Hey Mays, great center-fielder, making deliciously slow
basket catches of every ball hit by every batter
in either league
somebody asked me today why i wasn't writing more.
i told them my muse is on vacation to the Riviera to get some sun.
'oh,' they said, 'i hope she enjoys it.' 'She will,'
i said 'except she has no breasts to her bikini doesn't work
unless the wind is blowing from behind her, so that the caps
blossom out like little butter cups --'
meanwhile the Uruguay revolution
occupies this section
it is of Luis Cordoles
the 'George Washington of his Country'
and people shout -- 'save us, Luis'
and Luis, he ride on his big horse
and gets the town!
all the children yell & cheer at Luis -- 'Hey! Great! Atta boy!'
and Luis just rides off.
he's very satisfied at night, being the GW of his C
ooh - i see ghosts
i call up the dead!
oh!
who is it but some leukemia victim
gasping right beside me -- oh!
some white tight grip blooded thing
she is choked with fear
and she is choked with blood
not very good blood, this blood has
strange cells and these cells
commit willful murder on themselves
'there's a certain throbbing, i mean i can't explain it.
a sort of steady death pain, i dunno, i get poetical
about it and really i just want to get rid of it, it's
worst when my eyes bleed.'
'does that happen often?'
'only when the lids make quick contact.'
'you mean like a blink? you mean your eyes bleed every time you blink?
'yeah. groovy, huh?'
around this place is a thin strip of Austria
the green central figure of the barren plains
that led us to the Great War -- yes, the first
is always the best
and some little Hungarian peasant runs screaming, holding his penis
blood and intestines leaving a filth path behind him
he yells 'i die for you! i die for you!'
then he does,
to wash, the Ibos
ram their clothes through
small holes in wicker baskets which
scrape the dirt off
occasionally a washerwoman
will be so lucky
as to discover
a left-over pearl
Om Mani Padhme Hum
i smell the blood of an Englishmun
sit beside me, lie beside me
Amen, the thunderbolt
Amen, the Dark Void
Amen, you and holy
Amen, me and holy
why do we play such games
can't we realize our bodies
somebody once taught me to wash behind my ears
now, years later, i have washed layer after layer of dirt and skin
from behind my ears
soon i will hit the bone
that's good -- then i will not have to wash -- i can polish Š
but sex is different
and our bodies become intrinsically offal things
oh! to hold you is so sweet, yet you resist
not even the wild tongs of bath oil and spray deoderants
make me less the dirty thing.
i confess, i think of your vagina
and your little hair hump
and today i shall slick down my old hair
and wear a suit of morning sun
visit you with daisy arm
and finally take you to bed
'i know your mother never taught you these things'
i will whisper, and then -- off with my morning sun suit
and with only our body toys
commence to love on the quilt that took your grandmother
12 years to sew
the fortune teller insisted i had a baby
i smiled & said, 'i don't know of any.'
o! what if there is this little blonde baby somewhere
and his mother feeds him through her bodyŠ
i knew that girl, yes i did
and i left her
now her mother is a grandmother, and she yells at the blonde baby,
'Don't grow up and be like your father, the bum!' Š
i sit here looking at a grass field & feeling the wind
not knowing i even have a baby
somewhere is my baby, looking over a dirty back lot
not even knowing he has a father who loves him very much
and me, well,
i'm the last frantic butterfly of the grass waves
and holiness of me is encompassed only by
the space about me, which
is in turn encompassed by others, eventually
and ultimately you, you of the shy smile
and if i keep on truckin' long enough
i'll just truck all my blues away
Bob Holman
* From Life Poem, a book-length poem I wrote fifty years
ago at age 21.
Will be published by YBK/Bowery Books December 3, 2019.
Order now from YBK http://www.ybkpublishers.com