Writ On The Steps Of Puerto Rican Harlem - Gregory Corso

from Long Live Man

There’s a truth limits man

A truth prevents his going any farther

The world is changing

The world knows it’s changing

Heavy is the sorrow of the day

The old have the look of doom

The young mistake their fate in that look

That is truth

But it isn’t all truth

Life has meaning

And I do not know the meaning

Even when I felt it were meaningless

I hoped and prayed and sought a meaning

It wasn’t all frolic poesy

There were dues to pay

Summoning Death and God

I’d a wild dare to tackle Them

Death proved meaningless without Life

Yes the world is changing

But Death remains the same

It takes man away from Life

The only meaning he knows

And usually it is a sad business

This Death

I’d an innocence I’d a seriousness

I’d a humor save me from amateur philosophy

I am able to contradict my beliefs

I am able able

Because I want to know the meaning of everything

Yet sit I like a brokenness

Moaning: Oh what responsibility

I put on thee Gregory

Death and God

Hard hard it’s hard

I learned life were no dream

I learned truth deceived

Man is not God

Life is a century

Death an instant

Snake Eyes - Amiri Baraka

That force is lost
which shaped me, spent
in its image, battered, an old brown thing
swept off the streets
where it sucked its
gentle living.
                    And what is meat
to do, that is driven to its end
by words? The frailest gestures
grow like skirts around breathing.
                                                     We take
unholy risks to prove
we are what we cannot be. For instance,
I am not even crazy.

A poem for speculative hipsters - Amiri Baraka

He had got, finally,to the forest
of motives. There were no
owls, or hunters. No Connie Chatterleys
resting beautifully
on their backs, having casually
brought socialism
to England.
Only ideas,
and their opposites.
Like,
he was really
nowhere.

American Defense - Son House

No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears,
This war may last you for years.

American defense will run you some cents
Just had to take care of your boys.
You must raise more, produce far more cents than they use
Just to save all your worries and toils.

No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears,
This war may last you for years.

Well, the red, white and blue that represent you
You ought to do everything that you can.
Buy war saving stamps; young men go to the camps;
Be brave and take this stand.

No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears,
This war may last you for years.

Don’t let troubles sometimes all upset your mind;
For you won’t know just what to do.
Keep pushing, keep shoving, don’t be angry, keep loving,
Be faithful, be honest and true.

No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears,
This war may last you for years.

You can say yes or no, but we got to win this war
Because General McArthur’s not a friend.
There won’t be enough Japs to shoot a little game of craps
Because the biggest of them all will be dead.

No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears,
This war may last you for years.

This war sure do bother our mother and father,
Our sisters and brothers too.
Dear friends and relations, the war’s end creation,
Don’t let this worry you.

CONCAVE CEILINGS - Francis Picabia

CONCAVE CEILINGS

why like a monstrous old man
in this cemetary of rags
with your turban of coffins
barren crop of coarse grass
incomprehensible gymnasiarch
domestic stir
chinese lantern
don't you see enemy of light
that i am the genius virtue.

Special Delivery - Peter Blegvad

Everyone's too nice to me, the way Vincent Price would be
with midnight coming on
They say everything twice to me, they look me in the eye and say
we love you like a son (we love you like a son)
But it's just sinister diplomacy, and anyone with eyes can see
they're leading me on

Oh, soon it will come: Special delivery!
though there's nothing to deliver me from

And everything in life could be a cutting edge or a knife
so we'd better watch our eyes
Through pinholes in the meat we see portions of eternity
that go unrecognized
While our cells obey biology and do what we do endlessly:
the great divide

Oh, soon it will come: Special delivery!
though there's nothing to deliver me from
(Delivered in an unknown tongue)

The king protects his subjects, drawing all his strength from objects
we pay for with our blood
And the prince is a catastrophe, but only cos he's asked to be
he's bad for the public good
The old moth-eaten monarchy, the cretinous aristocracy
nostalgia for the mud

Oh, soon it will come (What's gonna come?)
Sight to the blind! (Oh, sure)
Conversation to the dumb
And courage to the cowardly
Sensation to the numb!

Delphic - Hyman J. Sobiloff

Darkness surrounds the question
I ask my drowsy owl:
In which old year did laughter die?

I listen to a forest clock of crickets,
Watch opposite windows between branches
Divide and redouble the moon.

My blinking owl
My bleak austerity
Hoots across the silence.