THE HEAD SHOP
the head shop
is getting ripped
off so regular
theres hardly
enuf bread
to pay salaries
at the end
of the month
so I put up
a blacklight sign
‘if
you come in here to rip off
cause you
know we wont
call the
Man, yr burning yr
own Bros
& Sisters – this
place supports
7 Freaks’
then we split
to Rick’s &
he breaks out
his Lebanese hash &
Marcie feels
bad about
charging me
$3 for 2 tabs of
Sunshine but
cant get off her
business is
business hangup, cant
just give it
to me but smiles &
digs out a gram
of hash & presses it
into my hand
for a bonus & we
do it up too
& and I’m following her
around the pad
hoping for something
even sweeter
but then her man
slides in the
front door & I pick up
the look in
her eyes & dig that
with just a
little shove
in the right
direction Marcie
will let her
man back in, so I
hum and haw
a bit, say how I’ve
got to get to
class…
Rick doesn’t
want me to ride my
bicycle to campus,
thinks I’m too
stoned –
Marcie offers to drive me
but I tell her
I dropped the Sunshine
with all intentions
of making this
bicycle ride
the hi spot of my
trip –
secretly proud that I dont
push for making
it with her, then
peddle off toward
campus, stop at
the liquor store,
buy a pint of
white port for
insurance
in case the
Trip gets too far out
knowing I have
no downers at home &
believing in
being prepared & then
peddle off again,
am only
about a mile
down the black
road when the
moon comes out
full, the mercury-vapour
street-world
stage –
God, or something, is hummng
down on me,
promising and threatening
vague, wondrous
things…
now, I never
did dig a stage, don’t
even like to
read my poetry aloud
& was Peoria
Illinois’ most enthusiastic
atheist at the
age of 12
but something
is happening
somewhere inside
I hear demands
for another,
heavier
sacrifice, find
a large stone, tenderly
lay the virgin
pint of port on it
ceremoniously
reverently
smash it with
a heavy stick
& ride off
again, somewhat worried
… the
last time things were humming
like this
the molecules
of my matter spread
too far apart
&
I almost fell
thru into the
Universal Dynamo
of Singing Light
but then I grin,
thinking of
Cleaver &
Leary in Algiers fucking up
the revolution
with Power Grabs, & I
glance up into
the humming throbbing
unavoidable
Light & laff & laff – it
takes several
subjective hours to
peddle 2 more
blocks but laffing
hours, laffing
all the way
home
IT WAS 5 AM
it was 5 am
the only station
coming thru
was this 50,000
watt clear-
channel out
of Austin &
this jesus freak
got on for
someplace called
Ambassador
College &
for over an
hour he revealed
how long hair
drugs
youthful disrespect
for the
Father, for
the old standards
& beliefs
& for authority
was destroying
the traditional
family unit was undermining
Democracy &
threatening
our survival
as a great nation
I lit a joint
&
thought how
grateful I was
that he was
right &
thought how
there was
still hope
‘THE GREAT
AMERICAN NOVEL’
- for chas bukowski
I’d been
pounding the underworld all night, sulk-
ing for the
lovely whore of words the nose-flute
of words the
kettledrum reverberating of them in
yr mind yr ears
yr groin & belly & finally sulk-
ing for their
uselessness their inadequacy…&
Bobby Frink
came by & drove me to the Pizza Hut
& bought
me beers beers beers and it was 12.30
closing time
& while walking home slow just
staring at the
maniac rose-full moon I saw this
tall chick with
her Lil Abner Long Sam body &
ass length red
hair… I introduced myself
as the greatest
living poet of Normal Illinois
&
she’d
heard about me cause its always in the local papers
how I’m
in jail for narcotics or
assault or for
trashing telephone booths that
steal yr last
dime – it gets around… we end
up in her bathtub
doing something special & juicy with her
strawberry glycerine
soap & it was one of the
good nights
the fine nights, a night that comes
along once in
a while when you can take off yr
mask & just
freak all night like that some-
times or its
all a drag a mask a role, a Big Rig
truckstop with
lukewarm showers & bad hamburgers
… but
then it was Thursday morning & I fell
asleep just
as her old man came in – I told him
how Bad I was
but he kicked my ass anyway –
well all I really
wanted to say was how some of
us die screaming
some howling with laughter some
just rotting
away in the arms of that Bitch-
Death State… I want to try
it all before I go
& if you
think that strawberry soap wasn’t worth
a crack on the
jaw then yr rotting away already
…
WE MAKE A DEAL…
We make a deal
I dont drink
for 24 hrs
theyll get me
home
Naima gives
me her Mescaline
& we smoke
our last 2 joints
going over the
Golden Gate
bridge, then
standing on
the flight deck
Jim & Irv
& Naima & young John
chant OM…..
loving me off
to Chicago
but
when the seatbelt
sign
flashes off
I run to the
washroom
bolt the door
puke & shiver
drop my last
downer
sink back into
my
cabinclass seat,
&
somewhere over
Kansas City
hit a heavy
pocket of
flashbacks
step out of
myself
stand there
staring down
at the heap
on my seat
the cold sweat
on its face
stinking of
weeks-old wine,
the
grime, the
greasy tics
& temors
& I say
to myself
- There’s
yr body
baby, now
love it or leave it
nows yr last chance
& I do not
suffer preaching gladly
but
I wish you were
here too
standing beside
me
miles above
the twitching
earth
staring down
at Kansas or
China or Chicago as
the sun chases
dying shadows
across our poisoned
land
& I take
yr hand & point down
& preach
a bit, say to you
- Theres our
body
baby, now
love it or leave it
nows our last chance
OPEN LETTER
TO THE UNDERGROUND
Dear Bob Head
This is not
an easy time to be alive in
Poets have been
saying this since hieroglyphics
It is still
true
The motherfuckers
are killing us and
Everybody I
know, almost, & their cases are
excellent
I love the Panthers
I love Burroughs I love the
Underground
They are our
only hope for the Motherfuckers
have marked us
The Motherfuckers
are killing us yet
My hatred my
contempt for violence exceeds the
furthest
imaginable limits
of human calculation
I breed mice
Can I hate the
cats when they kill my mice
Can I slap Ruthie
when she stomps on a cockroach
Things become
intolerable in their complications
yet the
Motherfuckers
continue
I know I have
earned yr contempt for accepting a
Factory job
that sends me home in a blue knot of
pain
Yet the rent
must be paid the kids must eat & I
cannot
Repeat cannot
allow myself to teach in this
system
Even to subvert
it, if
I have well
earned yr contempt
I would not
have it any other way
You & all
the other people I love have a rare
human potential
My hatred my contempt for the State
exceeds the
furthest Imaginable
limits of human calculation
The motherfuckers
continue to kill us
Once, on Acid,
you spoke of how the Counterculture
needs
A vision of
Joy & Power & I felt you were speaking
to me
That vision
does not come now except in moments
after
reading Schweitzer
& Camus & it is called
‘reverence for Life’
As Schwietzer
so simply and at the same time so
complexly
Puts it: ‘We
are life which wills to live
In the midst
of life which wills to live’
Yet the Motherfuckers
continue to kill us
Perhaps yr vision
can be contained in this: We
Are alive here
& now &
The beauty the
breathless improbable joy
Of this fact
cannot ever be surpassed
Love, Bill
*
there are a
few things to note
before I leave
but not many
I haven’t
learned much in 37 years
1. all governments are eventually appalling
2. pain hurts
3. to eat meat is murder
4. to be without love is inexcusable
5. to love is the most difficult of all
Reproduced
with kind permission of Ruth Wantling. Copyright @ Ruth Wantling, 2006
