There was this guy who had a card table

 

February 5, 1970  (I was 25)

 

There was this guy who had a card table

set up in the mall of a shopping center.  He had a cardboard

box with some kittens in it.  A marking pen sign said

FREE KITTEN –If you promise to give it a good home.

Another guy with a little girl asked about a kitten.  The

first guy asked if he gave his word of honor to give the

kitten a good home, so the other guy says, yes.  Well the

first guy just holds the kitten and says, “Say it.”  The second

guy turns red.  Then he smiles and says, “I give you my

word of honor, the kitten will have a good home.  He took

the kitten and kept on smiling as he left with the little girl

holding his hand.

 

The older I get

 

November 8, 1970  (I was 25)     -see J Edits for 10/8/74 ?lost?

 

The older I get the more upset

I am to be learning

the flame for which I search

is the same one I’ve been burning

Street Incident

 

from this week of September 26, 1970  (I was 25)

 

        Street Incident

Once I met a pedestrian moth,

a strolling man of the cloth-

had winged his way into the flame

long ago.  Like this, hobbled and lame

I could tell he wasn’t the same.

I asked his mission,

he couldn’t claim one

but said he had begun

exploring terrestrial concepts.

Beatrice Beatrice

 

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

 

Beatrice Beatrice

I’ve sunk to the depths

I’ve walked barefoot

through caves of hot gold

I’ve been to the markets

where men’s blood is sold

I’ve floated in chains

across seas of repentance

I’ve been there before

when Pilate passed sentence

and wherever your name

has escaped my breath

men have shrunk in terror

saying Silence

her name is death

mathematicians

 

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

 

mathematicians

one two three four

five all in a row

like a garden they grow

into numerical eternities

following their ancestors

arguing the point moot

as to whose grandfather

was the greatest square root

Professional Care

 

July 30, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         Professional Care

Report all exclusions, transgressions and intrusions.

Replace that used for your transfusions.

Refrain from fried foods,

but retain sense abilities for future use.

Don’t drink fortified juice of any kind.

When you speak, be sublime

and you’ll be fine if you take one yellow pill

and a blue four times a day.  Still

you’d better see me next week

and I’ll peek down your throat

examine the sclerotic coat of your eyes-

just to be sure, you understand.  I’d be surprised

if the condition doesn’t completely dissipate.

At any rate, there’s no need to worry.

We’re in no hurry.  All the tests have shown

it hasn’t grown and couldn’t possibly be malignant.

The pain is psychosomatic, purely a figment

of your imagination.  Listen, I’ve got to be at the station

by four o’clock.  I lecture your case tonight,

and I’ve got to arrive for dinner at five.

Oh, and you probably shouldn’t drive.

Get some rest; try not to get depressed,

be thankful you’re alive.

And remember, if you don’t feel great

in a couple of weeks we can operate.

Medicine man mind your apothecary

 

from this week in July, 1970  (I was 25)

 

Medicine man mind your apothecary

your manners are atrocious;

your father knew better,

respect.

He’d never leave a customer

to stand unattended in some corner of the store

without so much as a good morning

or how can I help you today.

And you could see him mix the potions

and package them himself.

And you point, “Top shelf, middle of aisle D.”

When you left the store in the old days

it was known who was sick and what he had,

and you felt better

because the prescription was for someone,

even while he was preparing it.

Where the hell is aisle D anyway?

Yes.

You did feel better, and another thing,

small to you maybe-

you use these imprinted slick bags.

Your father used green paper

tied with string that came up through a hole in the counter.

Secure,

a package recognizable on the street.

A dollar seventy-three,

God, it used to be forty-nine cents.

Nobody calls you Medicine Man either,

do they.

We all called your father that.

Apothecary-

that sounded mediciney.

Pharmacist.

Sounds like a farm worker. 

Did you get my change right?

Oh, and don’t forget the Green Stamps.

Yang and Yin

 

from this week in July, 1970 (I was 25)

 

         Yang and Yin

I’ve crept before along the ocean shore

and wondered there across its sloping floor.

Many a time I swore its pulsing brine and blood

of mine were one, union of mother and son.

Yet, that notion is an earthly bond of elements,

and deeper than its deepest reach

thoughts breach like discontented spirits

who grope toward steeper slopes, like bubbles

bounding from sunken fountains, ever whispering

“up the mountains, up the mountains.”

It won’t be news

 

June 2, 1970  (I was 25)

 

It won’t be news

when we tell the Jews

that we will go

over to Cairo

as soon as we bomb

the rest of Viet Nam.

It’ll be a part of the Grand Tour

we provide for our poor

who are judged dumb

but want out of the slum.

They’ll show the world

democracy unfurled.

For now let’s shout a hurrah

to our efficient youth in Asia.

There is enough pain

 

April 11, 1970  (I was 25)

 

There is enough pain

Not many will question that

Pains strong as blights

They’ve become immune to pesticides

taken refuge in the dark furrows of the brain

They gather in flourishing numbers

I have nourished them with the guilt of a creator

How many pain seeds have I planted today

I farm your mind as you farm mine

with good intentions for a profitable harvest

Then we desert at the first sign of disease

blaming the tenant

hating the seedy wind

I need migrant workers

who have long accepted such things

thoughts with a respect for locusts

black handed surgeons who understand

medicine and agriculture demand more than mechanics

Ideas who know the weeds of others

lie dormant in themselves

I’m gonna write a love poem

 

February 18, 1970  (I was 25)

 

I’m gonna write a love poem

be so sweet it’ll rot your teeth

I’m gonna write a love poem

and send it to ya on a Super Chief

It’ll be about flowers and bees

and it’ll make all sorts of pleas

for your:

1)    attention

2)    love

3)    etc.

Won’t you read my poem?

Please be no scoffer at my offers

Accept my lines into your home

and I’ll open up my coffers

of even golder love

to lavish upon you

like a spring rain of feathers from a dove

hitch-hiker

 

November 10, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         hitch-hiker

I gave a man a ride today

he said he was fifty-six

I only knew he had an old mouth

said he’d slept outside last night

only had a cup of coffee

and that was yesterday morning

We talked of hitch-hiking and I lied

for one reason or another

about understanding what it was to be fifty-six and

on the road  Then rather than lie some more

I stopped talking and listened

Now with Nixon was like then with Hoover

It’s hell to get a job when you’re fifty-six

Unloaded a lot of frozen beef in Oakland

working for those damned Texans who never worked

will barely give you a rag

and won’t buy you a cup of coffee

California is filled to the brim with people

who thought it would be something better

and people think because you’re 56 and hitch-hiking

you got a gun and want to rob them

They never think maybe you want to go somewhere

I dropped him at Big Daddy’s  He took a quarter and said

“Both ways”

fine tuning

 

September 1, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         fine tuning

oh tellovision mellowvision

of soft images and fair

winging smoothly to me

across the turbulent air

what am I to learn from you

heat my heart and warm my tubes

let me create a dream that’s new

let it be an electric miracle

a stability both horizontal and vertical.

I inch along at a pace I understand

 

August 9, 1970  (I was 25)

 

I inch along at a pace I understand

when a spring snaps and I land

somewhere I had not planned

And the sand slips beneath my feet

before I can greet the new air

or meet the inhabitants there

It’s hard to focus and I become afraid

when I can’t determine the locus

of my points  Still I would not yet trade

with he who has stiffened his joints

and become crass in his insistence

holding numb resistance to whacks on his ass

 

The excitement over the young communicators

 

July 29, 1970  (I was 25)

 

The excitement over the young communicators is this:

They love the media!

Be it recorded or visual

they have grown up with it

serving the role of grandparents.

Their message may seem trite;

clichéd yes, trivial no.

Their message is a universal feeling of a new generation

and the applause is for the accomplishment

more than it is for the message

(someone in a position of influence understands

something of what it’s like for me to be alive).

rhubarb poem

 

June 27, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         rhubarb poem

Each summer in a neighboring yard

rhubarb stalks folded their green umbrellas

to squeeze through the picket fence.

I followed the dry transition from leaf to leather

and awaited a moment of divine inspiration.

Rhubarb is swiped alone.

There’s no camaraderie in it

not like the apple trees watched by gangs

in anticipation of darker raids.

This is spontaneous crime, second degree

decided just after dusk, too light to go home

but night enough for fear,

a shock to make fence jumping easier.

Two three four stalks snapped and out

and up the alley before a thought of freedom

so sweet and tart, sour celery dipped in sugar

My wife is out looking for the cat

 

from this week in 1970  (I was 25) 

 

My wife is out looking for the cat,

the eleven o’clock news is on TV

The lead item is George Wallace

who has just been in “the dirtiest

campaign I have ever seen”

I watched a young boy watching

with an indecipherable stare

as the on-scene reporter

summed up the story

 

Next up Nixon and Cambodia

Third banana

George Murphy slipping in congress

After it’s over what do I know?

The cat is scratching at the back door

I once knew a guy

 

May 7, 1970  (I was 32)

 

I once knew a guy

who had a hidden eye

and it would scare me a bit

when he’d lift up his arm

and stare from the pit.

 

And when he used deodorant

my god what a scene,

Arrid under one arm

under the the other, Visine.

silent as the door to the cellar

 

April 25, 1970  (I was 25)

 

silent as the door to the cellar

as open as the night

a deep with teeth like stairs

the future shows us nothing

more carefully than its nothing

we remember nothing that we knew

of cellar dark before and ever

just a single step from knowing more

I am a body rhythm man

 

April 19, 1970  (I was 25)

 

I am a body rhythm man

pulse you a poem

shiver you same

flash you a funny

cough you a couplet

twitch in tetrameter

and ache in absurdity