Читать книгу The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas - Lorenzo Thomas - Страница 13

Fit Music

California Songs, 1970

PROEM

When poets beg acceptance for their lines

It’s when ephemera and wisdom intertwine

When dull biography engulfs a poem

The poet shores his patron with a Proem

To raise his thought above the dross of life

Since life intrudes, the Proem is a gloss.

Déjà vu more or less. Most likely, more

Should fit you now to hear this song of strife.

You spent childhood rehearsing the Korean War

You fucked up in college and picked the wrong major

And in 66 everyone faked concern for Asia

It was all more fitting than you thought;

The staging. When the orders come down

For the Nam fourth of July as is fitting

You implored the Muses to fly from their knotting

You totaled the Chevy out of meanness

You whined and wondered how to escape this mess

And Lord who to write to. There should be a Lord

If there must be a Proem you thought.

But there was none. Only your drunkard

Friends your dope fiends and pimps

Demon lovers and lovers. And girls dumb

To the morse code from space still arriving

While Zia suns crackled over the desert,

You fled through archives in your brain

Remembering acidulous hash and devotions

Consecrated by the pain of navigating through wine

In peaceful East Coasts full of bare bodies

And icy streets under neon. Now tropical death

Leaped before you. You wept. Wastefulness when

The car ran them down. And the orders came down

As your prophets demanded. Strange FM stations

And astrological phonecalls hastened to soothe you,

Saying, “don’t give a damn.” It was time

To be going. Vancouver or South Viet Nam.

And Kung said, “Without character you will

be unable to play on that instrument

Or to execute the music fit for the Odes.”

—Ezra Pound, Canto XIII

FIT MUSIC

I

Moon rays like pure snow

What here on this coast three ahem and wine bottles

Shining in the trash

This is my concern for the day

And something new in the evening

Another beautiful whore

Make me grateful O Lord

There is a time for everything

Let alone getting high

What. Here in beautiful California

The surf remembers another form

Of revolution. Nothing. But what

Else do you want to remember

Catherine or the note tacked up on the wall

Where is Bethesda I am lost

II

Wait. What is astrology when people still fucking up

Daily

III

And still it is helpful to be here

Gifted. Solemn. Ridiculously macho

This effeminate county. What

Remains is to be bargained away

For another souvenir medallion

The truth

So thank you Cathy we will get together and smoke dope

Another evening. Maybe tomorrow

And thanking lucky stars too

Sending back reports from the seaside

Sun Yat Sen’s final telegram

Sorry, all that

is CLASSIFIED

We not too sure where you’ll be

When worlds collide

Sending back reports from the seaside

IV

Ooooh oooh. Nothing the magic in the air

We call this aether. Magic and

Science. Shut em down shut em down

But all you want is another

Beautiful whore. A good thing

I am glad you are with me here

And wherever I roam. My friends

Thank you. And love for you

In this place. I am glad the radioactivity

Registers

In my flesh there is the sound

Beaming forth from the glass

As she traces the ring of the bottle

With her soft hands. Smiling