Paterson (Revised Edition) (21 page)

IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE PLEASE READ THE ENCLOSED

SUNFLOWER SUTRA

—the virgin and the whore, which

most endures? the world

of the imagination most endures:

Pollock’s blobs of paint squeezed out

with design!

pure from the tube. Nothing else

is real     .     .

WALK in the world

(you can’t see anything

from a car window, still less

from a plane, or from the moon!? Come

off of it.)

— a present, a “present”

world, across three states (Ben Shahn saw it

among its rails and wires,

and noted it down) walked across three states

for it     .     .

a secret world,

a sphere, a snake with its tail in

its mouth

rolls backward into the past

.   .   .   The whores grasping for your genitals, faces almost pleading—“two dolla, two dolla” till you almost go in with the sheer brute desire straining at your loins, the whisky and the fizzes and the cognac in you till a friend grabs you   .   .   .   “No   .   .   .   to a real house, this is shit.” A real house, a real house?
Casa real? Casa de putas?
And then the walk through the dark streets, joy of living, in being drunk and walking with other drunks, walking the streets of dust in a dusty year in a dusty century where everything is dust but you are young and you are drunk and there are women ready to love for some paper in your pocket. Through the streets with dozens of bands of other soldiers (they are soldiers even with civilian clothes, soldiers as you are but different and this band is different because you are you — and drunk and Baudelaire and Rimbaud and a soul with a book in it and drunk) A woman steps into the open door of a cafe and puts her hand between her legs and smiles at you   .   .   .   at you a whore smiles! And you yell back and all yell back and she yells and laughs and laughter fills   .   .   .   the   .   .   .   guitar soaked night air.

And then the house,   .   .   .   and see a smooth faced girl against a door, all white   .   .   .   snow, the virgin, O bride   .   .   .   crook her finger and the vestal not-color of it, the clean hair of her and the beauty of her body in the orchid stench, in the vulgar assailing stench the fragility and you walk and sway across the floor, and reel against the dancers and push away the voice that embraces your ear and find her, still standing against the door and she is smooth-faced and wants four dollars but you make it three but four she says you argue and her hand on your belly and she moves it and four and you can hear the music spinning out its tropical redness the beer you gulp and touch the breast, the firmness FOUR no three and smile a girl is carried out of the room by a soldier (bride eternal) smile FOUR no three the hand! the breast, you touch grasp hold lust feel the curve of a buttock silent-smooth sliding under your palm, the dress, the hand!

high heels clack clack laughs noise and her eyes are black and four? please and you pay four? no     .     three     .     and then yes four cuatro   .   .   .   cuatro dolares but twice, I go twice, ’andsome, come on, ’andsome. A child you follow her, the light whirling in your eyes the noise the other girls in the babel friend’s voice unintelligible, edged with laughter his face at which you smile though there is nothing to smile at but smile absurdly because making love to a whore is funny but it is not funny as her blood beneath flesh, her fingers fragile touches yours in rhythm not funny but heat and passion bright and white, brighter-white than lights of whorehouses, than the gin fizz white, white and deep as birth, deeper than death.

G.S.

A lady with the tail of her dress

on her arm     .     her hair is

slicked back showing the round

head, like her cousin’s, the King,

the royal consort’s, young as she     .

in a velvet bonnet, puce,

slanted above the eyes, his legs

are in striped hose, green and brown.

The lady’s brow is serene

to the sound of a huntsman’s horn

— the birds and flowers, the castle showing through the leaves of the trees, a pheasant drinks at the fountain, his shadow drinks there also

.     cyclamen, columbine, if the art

with which these flowers have been

put down is to be trusted — and

again oak leaves and twigs

that brush the deer’s antlers     .     .

the brutish eyes of the deer

not to be confused

with the eyes of the Queen

are glazed with death     .

.     a rabbit’s rump escaping

through the thicket     .

One warm day in April, G.B. had the inspiration to go in swimming naked with the boys, among whom, of course, was her brother, a satyr if there ever was one, to beat anybody up who presumed to molest her. It was at Sandy Bottom, near Willow Point where in later years we used to have picnics. That was before she turned whore and got syphilis. L.M. about that time, a young sailor, went to Rio unafraid of “children’s diseases” as the French (and others) called them—but it was no joke as Gauguin found out when his brains began to rot away

.     the times today

are safer for the fornicators

the moral’s

as you choose but the brain

need not putrefy

or petrify

for fear of venereal disease

unless you wish it

“Loose your love to flow”

while you are yet young

male and female

(if it is worth it to you)

’n cha cha cha

you’d think the brain

’d be grafted

on a better root

“     .     I am no authority on Sappho and do not read her poetry particularly well. She wrote for a clear gentle tinkling voice. She avoided all roughness. ‘The silence that is in the starry sky,’ gives something of her tone,     .     ”

A.P.

Peer of the gods is that man, who

face to face, sits listening

to your sweet speech and lovely

laughter.

It is this that rouses a tumult

in my breast. At mere sight of you

my voice falters, my tongue

is broken.

Straightway, a delicate fire runs in

my limbs; my eyes

are blinded and my ears

thunder.

Sweat pours out: a trembling hunts

me down. I grow paler

than dry grass and lack little

of dying.

13 Nv       Oke Hay       my BilBill       The Bull Bull, ameer.

Is there anything in Ac Bul 2/   vide enc that seems cloudy to you, or INComprehensible/

or that having comprehended you disagree with?

The hardest thing to discover is WHY someone else, apparently not an ape or a Roosevelt cannot understand something as simple as 2 plus 2 makes four.

McNair Wilson has just writ me, that Soddy got interested and started to study “economics” and found out what they offered him wasn’t economics but banditry

Wars are made to make debt, and the late one started by the ambulating dunghill FDR has been amply successful.

and the stink that elevated

him still emits a smell.

Also the ten vols/treasury reports sent me to Rapallo show that in the years from departure of Wiggin till the mail stopped you suckers had paid ten billion for gold that cd/have been bought for SIX billion.

Is this clear or do you still want DEEtails?

That sovereignty inheres in the POWER to issue money, whether you have the right to do it or not.

don’t let me crowd you.

If there is anything here that is OBskewer     ,     say so.

don’t worry re Beum,

He didnt say you told him to send me the book, merely that he had metChu. let the young     educ     the young.

Only naive remark I found in Voltaire wuz when he found two good books on econ/     and wrote     :     “Now people will understand it.” end quote.

But if the buzzards on yr(     and Del M’s) list had been CLEAR I wdn’t have spent so much time clarifying their indistinctnesses.

You agree that the offering da shittahd aaabull instead of history is

undesirable     ??????

There is a woman in our town

walks rapidly, flat bellied

in worn slacks upon the street

where I saw her.

Neither short

nor tall, nor old nor young

her

face would attract no

adolescent. Grey eyes looked

straight before her.

Her

hair

was gathered simply behind the

ears under a shapeless hat.

Her

hips were narrow, her

legs

thin and straight. She stopped

me in my tracks — until I saw

her

disappear in the crowd.

An inconspicuous decoration

made of sombre cloth, meant

I think to be a flower, was

pinned flat to her

right

breast — any woman might have

done the same to

say she was a woman and warn

us of her mood. Otherwise

she was dressed in male attire,

as much as to say to hell

with you. Her

expression was

serious, her

feet were small.

And she was gone!

.     if ever I see you again

as I have sought you

daily without success

I’ll speak to you, alas

too late! ask,

What are you doing on the

streets of Paterson? a

thousand questions:

Are you married? Have you any

children? And, most important,

your NAME! which

of course she may not

give me — though

I cannot conceive it

in such a lonely and

intelligent woman

.     have you read anything that I have written?

It is all for you

or the birds     .

or Mezz Mezzrow

who wrote     .

Knocking around with Rapp and the Rhythm Kings put the finishing touches on me and straightened me out. To be with those guys made me know that any white man, if he thought straight and studied hard, could sing and dance and play with the Negro. You didn’t have to take the finest and most original and honest music in America and mess it up because you were a white man; you could dig the colored man’s real message and get in there with him, like Rapp. I felt good all over after a session with the Rhythm Kings, and I began to miss that tenor sax.

Man, I was gone with it — inspiration’s mammy was with me. And to top it all, I walked down Madison Street one day and what I heard made me think my ears were lying. Bessie Smith was shouting the
Downhearted Blues
from a record in a music shop. I flew in and bought up every record they had by the mother of the blues —
Cemetery Blues, Bleedin’ Hearted
, and
Midnight Blues
— then I ran home and listened to them for hours on the victrola. I was put in a trance by Bessie’s mournful stories and the patterns of true harmony in the piano background, full of little runs that crawled up and down my spine like mice. Every note that woman wailed vibrated on the tight strings of my nervous system; every word she sang answered a question I was asking. You couldn’t drag me away from that victrola, even to eat.

.     .     or the Satyrs, a

pre-tragic play,

a satyric play!

All plays

were satyric when they were most devout.

Ribald as a Satyr!

Satyrs dance!

all the deformities take wing

Centaurs

leading to the rout of the vocables

in the writings

of Gertrude

Stein — but

you cannot be

an artist

by mere ineptitude

The dream

is in pursuit!

The neat figures of

Paul Klee

fill the canvas

but that

is not the work

of a child     .

the cure began, perhaps

with the abstraction

of Arabic art

Dürer

with his
Melancholy

was aware of it—

the shattered masonry. Leonardo

saw it,

the obsession,

and ridiculed it

in
La Gioconda.

Bosch’s

congeries of tortured souls and devils

who prey on them

fish

swallowing

their own entrails

Freud

Picasso

Juan Gris.

A letter from a friend

saying:

For the last

three nights

I have slept like a baby

without

liquor or dope of any sort!

we know

that a stasis

from a chrysalis

has stretched its wings     .

like a bull

or a Minotaur

or Beethoven

in the scherzo

from the Fifth Symphony

stomped

his heavy feet

I saw love

mounted naked on a horse

on a swan

the tail of a fish

the bloodthirsty conger eel

and laughed

recalling the Jew

in the pit

among his fellows

when the indifferent chap

with the machine gun

was spraying the heap     .

he had not yet been hit

but smiled

comforting his companions     .

comforting

his companions

Dreams possess me

and the dance

of my thoughts

involving animals

the blameless beasts

(Q.
Mr. Williams, can you tell me, simply, what poetry is?

A.
Well   .   .   .   I would say that poetry is language charged with emotion. It’s words, rhythmically organized   .   .   .   A poem is a complete little universe. It exists separately. Any poem that has worth expresses the whole life of the poet. It gives a view of what the poet is.

Q.
All right, look at this part of a poem by E. E. Cummings, another great American poet: