American Papyrus: 25 Poems Part 3

II And in this plush chair of the Bishop's office i sit a decade And a half later--a Salem witch of the west explaining her Dull, trembling self before three Mormon men bending above me.

But you don't understand me, as if anyone ever has.

i had psychic abilities. But you don't want them, so they're Gone; And i'm good. i no longer believe, Bish'y, that I saw Benson Dying And Yourself rising above the Twelve.

But You're still scared of me. You only want to anoint me And cast me out. You only want me to hide in a barn, And belong to shadows.

You call my abilities a possession of a demon.

Papa doubted i could see; and you see me as perverted.

But you do see that i see...

That i have something with some power.

You and the Missionaries lay your hands on me...

me who left my Protestant roots so as to be rooted in your Family.

You put your cold hands on my forehead, Trying to vacuum out my psychic abilities, Which i tell you are no longer-- Trying to take away my saying that i'm okay...

i'm good. Speak to me. Don't cast me out and leave.

Where, Oh Where, Did The Mall-Lady Go?

They wanted her to drop her thoughts As naturally as her underpants fell, after they were Over the hips, so the steaming winds of her daily showers Could clear her of encroaching stain As she had been cleared away.

They were a function, ignorant of their thinking, charting Charts. She felt she would have to ignore these doctors and Nurses in the mental ward.

She would have to ignore the pacing patients Asking cigarettes from her.

The hall was rectangular.

Everyone moved rectangularly.

She would go to dreams of past realities Where she was watching the shoppers' reflections As they pa.s.sed mall's little fountains-- Different types of people-reflections but all silvery In the still of the waters, Happy and part of the lives of the mall.

She would imagine herself sitting on a metal bench-- packages of her new clothing pulling on arms and chest

Like the recalling torpor that came more easily To her lower legs; the weight of the mink that arched Her aching shoulders more like a lady; And a small sack of chocolate stars Touching her upper neck-- Wondering what packages her fellow-creatures Bought to be brought home and to whom They brought them to.

And then, as the locks of solitude clicked in her consciousness, Came the wondering of where, oh where, Did the Mall-Lady go?

Savior-Searcher In The Bible-Belt

I can see you in those dry moments, then As clearly as if I were there: staring at the cracks Of the white ceiling above the bedpost, wondering if You will slip down three flights to the outer darkness

Like your ex-Mormon roommate, here. Your visual mind, Against your will, probably thinks about your squirm That a few moments ago squirmed you of your juice, Wiggled her skirt back on, resurfaced the lip-spit Crackup in her concrete of makeup, and wordless, Walked like a princess out the door.

As the last of the ecstatic vibrations tides you in the rear You arise from the raft of the mattress.

Then you cover up your nakedness, And move to the light of the living room.

And then I actually see you, Don, in the hour that you had told Me to step back in. You are bending over the end-table stained In the blood of wine. Sunlight, stripped silver from the grey Clouds, pours through the window to the table.

To your right a nine of swords card of a man pierced in the Back gleams as it walls the card of your future lovers., And the redness of Doctrines and Covenants to the far left of That table also looks pure in the light.

You do not see me. Your mind is racked in s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the pack For an answer. You turn another Tarot Card In the order your destiny is to be read.

Your sad eyes look up And your languid voice says that you are late For your meeting with the local Bishop...

A meeting to straighten up your f.u.c.king life.

I laugh! In bitterness that shakes my intestines, I laugh!

Another hillbilly man Has lifted his head above the rest--a foot up from the jug-- And has blown his breath into the air Which 'naps another young and fragmented one To the call of being holy.

But before you arise You turn the gleaming card of number four-- Your eyes in a more motionless trance than before.

New England Was.h.i.+ng (Mental Account, Some day of Gorbechev, 1987)

Another hour.

There is no circulation Beneath the steering wheel for my feet.

Outside myself There is the last of the sun at dusk But like the conquering Hsuing-Nu Pus.h.i.+ng themselves beyond a Great Wall and through an eternal Gathering, it is hardly felt.

There is nothing great to trouble me And nothing substantial descends on my senses, Giving me thoughts other than the fact I'm thinking nothing: Only A flock of birds in the corner of my left eye Blend down with the grey skies As if the fence barricading The farm land does not pertain to them; Thoughts of the center line And not going over it.

Days of Gorbechev, the radio speaks of, But not his nights--where, one time He may have smashed A big, red cigarette in an ashtray With an action stiff and slow; And as he stood up the mattress of his bed may have Raised to touch his rear, again, Like a quick and soothing give-me-five handshake; And opening a window of the emba.s.sy To escape the stuffy dryness Of electric heat to his suite, He may have let the cool American air Attack him with the smells and sights Of its diplomatic car exhausts, Grey and orange from street lamps And store lights...and how The nation breathed for once as it moved.

The third: road; cows, like islanders; Multi-tinted bladed fields broken by acres Of forests and pastures; a black-sun scene with Car lights; a vision blurred and pebbled Through the winds.h.i.+eld-- A truck pa.s.ses my pinto; Muddy water slapping its face; Its stick eyes smoothing it To a duller complexion.

It isn't yet Christmas And I am going home.

My parents one day drooped In front of all, and were old-- We should be having much to say...

I, thinking like them, with The mind of the world, And us smiling unhappily And speaking none of that: But a lot will be said.

I am a b.u.m.

One of their hearts shall give in And their marriage will be a farce...

Even in car accidents the married Die separately. And then the widowed Mother, smoking the cigars of her husband, And coughing them as the husband had done But in the apartment of the son, might Visit away her life: I would Bring her there, thanking G.o.d for a reason Not to try hiding all of me in some p.u.s.s.y As in daylight the main part Goes into underwear.

This is their town Far from trays with saucers And plates and spoons and forks (Sometimes hardened in scalloped potatoes Or bent) and knives and gla.s.ses (Gla.s.ses sometime with folded bread inside)...

But forever coming down the belt for the Dumping and was.h.i.+ng...the trays that disappear In a square hole and come out clean Will continue regardless if I am there.

Men f.u.c.k virgins; a child-worker Is born and all is holy.

There is nothing great to trouble me: The rains that drop and drift next To streets in gutters, take away Smashed Pepsi cups and beer cans Without intent, bound G.o.d knows where, But out of sight.

The San Franciscan's Night Meditations

When I am at a dead-lock In your rear and the language of my body Will not come from The third element of the soul, What am I to say?-- 'ALL BUT ONE DEAD: Mexican immigrants celebrating the Stowing away on a 120 degree boxcar With urine in their stomachs, Acknowledging capitalistic thirsts...

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Double hubble The peso is in trouble And to Mars America plans Jumping over the moon, And all this has disturbed me!"

The night is full of impulses To live and to run and seep heavily Into its dark robes of Silence and morbid rightness; And as I, again, try to thrust on dryly-- A log without a river traveling it To the product of lumber-- and hope to create love in The smackings of night, Like anyone else, I know that soon I am to apologize for lack Of an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, And will promise to have a counselor Tame me to the exclusion of All but work and l.u.s.t.

Sounds of people Kicking around the Night of early morning Beneath my lover's window; And I withdraw under the sheet, lying flat with the dead moonlight.

The Philosophy Of Rita And Herb

Staring fixed at the rows Of flowered Wallpaper a pale gray In the dark efficiency-- The three walls still absent To her consciousness As a shadow of silver lightning Fades the greyness Of one portion in her view-- The "schitzophrenic" lifts up a cigarette hidden behind An ashtray and the flat ground Of ashes on the table, which Skid and resurface with her Hot breathing. She thinks they are Continents drifting, and herself Upon them.