MacDougal Street Blues

Written in Jim Hudson's window lookin' out on MacDougal Street Summer of 1954, when he left me his whole apartment He went away with his girl someplace: Parade among Images Images Images Looking Looking - And everybody's turning around & pointing - Nobody looks up And In Nor listens to Samantabhadra's Unceasing Compassion No Sound Still S s s s t t Seethe Of Sea Blue Moon Holy X-Jack Miracle Night - Instead yank & yucker For pits & pops Look for crashes Pictures Squares Explosions Birth Death Legs I know, sweet hero Enlightenment has Come Rest in Still In the Sun Think Think Not Think no more Lines - Straw hat, hands a back Classed He exam in atein distinct Rome prints - Trees prurp And saw Because The Chessplayers Won't End Still they sit Millions of hats In underwater foliage Over marble games The Greeks of Chess Plot the Pop Of Mate King Queen - I know their game Their elephant with the pillar With the pearl in it Their gory bishops And Vital Pawns - Their devout frontline Sacrificial pawn shops Their stately king Who is so tall Their Virgin Queens Pree ing to Knave The Night Knot - Their Bhagavad Gitas Of Ignorance Krishna's advice Comma The game begins - Clip Jean-Louis Go home, Man Clip - So tho I am wise I have to wait like Anyotherfool Lets forget the strollers Forget the scene Lets close our eyes Let me instruct Thee Here is dark Milk Here is Sweet Mahameru Who will Coo To you Too As he did to me One night at three When I w k e i t P l e e Knelt to See Realit ee And I said 'Wilt thou protect me For 'ver?' And he in his throatless Deep mother hole Replied ' H o m ' ================================ Here is the complete text: MACDOUGAL STREET BLUES In the Form of 3 Cantos CANTO UNO The goofy foolish Human parade Passing on Sunday Art streets Of Greenwich Village Pitiful drawings of Images on an Iron fence Ranged there By self believing Artists With no hair And black berets Showing green seas Eating at rock And Pleiades Of Time Pestiferating at moon squid Salt flat tip fly toe Tat sand traps With cigar smoking interesteds Puffing at the Stroll I mean sincerely Naive sailors buying prints Women with red banjos On their handbags And arts handicrafty Slow shuffling Art-ers of Washington Square Passing in what they think Is a happy June afternoon Good God the Sorrow They dont even listen to me when I try to tell them they will die They say "Of course I know I'll die, Why shd you mention It now - Why should I worry About it - It ll happen It ll happen - Now I want a good time - Excuse me - It's a beautiful happy June Afternoon I want to walk in - Why are you so tragic & gloomy? And in the corner at the Pony Stables On Sixth Ave & 4th Sits Bodhisattva Meditating In Hobo Rags Praying at Joe Gould's chair For the Emancipation Of the shufflers passing by Immovable in Meditation He offers his hand & feet To the passers by And nobody believes That there's nothing to believe in Listen to Me There is no sidewalk artshow No strollers are there No poem here, no June Afternoon of Oh But only Imagelessness Unrepresented on the iron fence Of bald artist With black berets Passing by One moment less than this Is future Nothingness Already The Chess men are silent, assembled Ready for funny war - Voices of Washington Square Blues Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem Window I will describe them:- Ey t k ey ee Sa la o s o F r u p t u r t Etc No need, no words to Describe The sound of ignorance - They are strolling to Their death Watching the Pictures of Hell Eating Ice Cream Of Ignorance On wood sticks That were once sincere In trees - But I can't write, poetry Just prose * * * I mean This is prose Not poetry But I want To be sincere CANTO DOS While overhead is the perfect blue Emptiness of the sky With its imaginary balloons Of false sight Flying around in it Like Tathagata Flying Saucers These poor ignorant things Mill on sidewalks Looking at pitiful pictures Of what they think Is reality And one A Negro with curls Even has a camera To photograph The pictures And Jelly Roll Man Pops his Billy Bell Good Humor for sale - W Somerset Maugham Is on my bed An ignorant storyteller Millionaire queer But Ezra Pound He crazy - As the perfect sky Beginninglessly pure Thinglessly already They pass in multiplicity Parade among Images Images Images Looking Looking - And everybody's turning around & pointing - Nobody looks up And In Nor listens to Samantabhadra's Unceasing Compassion No Sound Still S s s s t t Seethe Of Sea Blue Moon Holy X-Jack Miracle Night - Instead yank & yucker For pits & pops Look for crashes Pictures Squares Explosions Birth Death Legs I know, sweet hero Enlightenment has Come Rest in Still In the Sun Think Think Not Think no more Lines - Straw hat, hands a back Classed He exam in atein distinct Rome prints - Trees prurp And saw The Chessplayers Won't End Still they sit Millions of hats In underwater foliage Over marble games The Greeks of Chess Plot the Pop Of Mate King Queen - I know their game Their elephant with the pillar With the pearl in it Their gory bishops And Vital Pawns - Their devout frontline Sacrificial pawn shops Their stately king Who is so tall Their Virgin Queens Pree ing to Knave The Night Knot - Their Bhagavad Gitas Of Ignorance Krishna's advice Comma The game begins - But hidden Buddha Nowhere to be seen But everywhere In air atoms In balloon atoms In imaginary sight atoms In people atoms In people atoms Again In image atoms In me & you atoms In atom bone atoms Like the sky Already Waits For us eyes open to - Pawn fell Horse reared Mate Kiked Cattle And Boom! Cop Shot Bates - Cru put Two - Out - I cried - Pound Pomed - Jean-Louis Go home, Man I mean,- As solid as anything Is this reality of images In the imageless essence Neither of em 11 quit - So tho I am wise I have to wait like Anyotherfool CANTO TRES Lets forget the strollers Forget the scene Lets close our eyes Let me instruct Thee Here is dark Milk Here is Sweet Mahameru Who will Coo To you Too As he did to me One night at three When I w k e i t P l e e Knelt to See Realit ee And I said 'Wilt thou protect me For 'ver?' And he in his throatless Deep mother hole Replied ' H o m ' (Pauvre Ange) Mahameru Tathagata of Mercy See He Now In dark escrow In the middleless dark Of eyelids' lash obliviso So Among rains of Transcendent Pity Abides since Ever Before Evermore ness Or thusness Imagined O Maha Meru O Mountain Sumeru O Mountain of Gold O Holy Gold O Room of Gold O Sweet peace Rememberance O Nava lit yuku Of sweet cactus Thorn of No Time - Ply me on ward Like boat Thru this Sea Safe to Shore Ulysses never Sore - Bless me Gerard Bless thee, Living I shall pray for all Sentient human & otherwise sentient Beings here & everywhere Now - No names Not even faces One Pity One Milk One Lovelight S a v e