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Wichita Vortex Sutra I Turn
Right Next Corner The
Biggest Little Town in Kansas Macpherson Red sun
setting flat plains west streaked with gauzy veils,
chimney mist spread around
christmas-tree-bulbed refineries—aluminum white tanks squat
beneath winking signal towers’
bright plane-lights, orange gas flares beneath pillows of
smoke, flames in machinery— transparent
towers at dusk In advance of the
Cold Wave Snow
is spreading eastward to the
Great Lakes News Broadcast & old
clarinets Watertower dome Lighted
on the flat plain car
radio speeding acrost railroad tracks— Kansas!
Kansas! Shuddering at last! PERSON appearing in
Kansas! angry telephone calls to
the University Police dumbfounded
leaning on their radiocar hoods While Poets chant to
Allah in the roadhouse Showboat! Blue eyed
children dance and hold thy Hand O aged Walt who came from Lawrence
to Topeka to envision Iron
interlaced upon the city plain— Telegraph
wires strung from city to city O Melville! Television brightening
thy rills of Kansas lone I come, lone man from the void,
riding a bus hypnotized by red tail
lights on the straight space road ahead— & the
Methodist minister with cracked eyes leaning
over the table quoting Kierkegaard
“death of God” a million dollars in the
bank owns all West Wichita come to Nothing! Prajnaparamita Sutra
over coffee—Vortex of telephone radio
aircraft assembly frame ammunition petroleum
nightclub Newspaper streets illuminated by Bright EMPTINESS— Thy sins
are forgiven, Wichita! Thy lonesomeness
annulled, O Kansas dear! as
the western Twang prophesied thru banjo, when lone
cowboy walked the railroad track past
an empty station toward the sun sinking giant-bulbed
orange down the box canyon— Music
strung over his back and empty handed singing
on this planet earth I’m
a lonely Dog, O Mother! Come,
Nebraska, sing & dance with me— Come
lovers of Lincoln and Omaha, hear my soft voice at
last As Babes need the
chemical touch of flesh in pink infancy lest they die Idiot
returning to Inhuman— Nothing—
So, tender lipt
adolescent girl, pale youth, give me
back my soft kiss Hold me in your innocent
arms, accept my
tears as yours to harvest equal in
nature to the Wheat that made your
bodies’ muscular bones broad shouldered, boy
bicept— from
leaning on cows & drinking Milk in Midwest
Solitude— No more
fear of tenderness, much delight in weeping, ecstasy in singing, laughter
rises that confounds staring
Idiot mayors and stony politicians
eyeing Thy breast, O Man of America, be born! Truth
breaks through! How big is the prick of
the President? How big
is Cardinal Vietnam? How little the prince of the FBI, unmarried all these
years! How
big are all the Public Figures? What kind of flesh hangs, hidden behind their Images? Approaching
Sauna, Prehistoric
excavation, Apache Uprising in the drive-in theater Shelling Bombing
Range
mapped in the distance, Crime Prevention Show,
sponsor Wrigley’s Spearmint Dinosaur Sinclair
advertisement, glowing green— South 9th
Street lined with poplar & elm branch spread over
evening’s tiny headlights— Salina
Highschool’s brick darkens Gothic over
a night-lit door— What wreaths of naked
bodies, thighs and faces, small hairy bun’d vaginas, silver cocks, armpits and breasts moistened by tears for
20 years, for 40 years? Peking
Radio surveyed by Luden’s Coughdrops Attacks
on the Russians & Japanese, Big Dipper leaning above the Nebraska border, handle
down to the blackened plains, telephone-pole ghosts
crossed by
roadside, dim headlights— dark night, & giant
T-bone steaks, and in The Village Voice New Frontier Productions present Camp
Comedy: Fairies I Have Met. Blue
highway lamps strung along the horizon east at Hebron
Homestead National Monument near Beatrice— Language,
language black Earth-circle in
the rear window, no cars
for miles along highway beacon
lights on oceanic plain language,
language over Big
Blue River chanting La illaha el (liii) Allah hu revolving
my head to my heart like my mother chin
abreast at Allah Eyes
closed, blackness vaster
than midnight prairies, Nebraskas of solitary Allah, Joy, I am
I the lone
One singing to myself God come true— Thrills
of fear. nearer
than the vein in my neck—? What if I opened my soul to sing to my
absolute self Singing
as the car crash chomped thru blood & muscle tendon
skull? What if I sang, and
loosed the chords of fear brow? What
exquisite noise wd shiver my
car companions? I am the
Universe tonite riding
in all my Power riding chauffeured thru my self
by a long haired saint with eyeglasses What if I sang till
Students knew I was free of
Vietnam, trousers, free of my own meat, free to die in my thoughtful shivering Throne? freer
than Nebraska, freer than America— May
I disappear in magic
Joy-smoke! Pouf! reddish Vapor, Faustus vanishes weeping
& laughing under
stars on Highway 77 between Beatrice & Lincoln— “Better
not to move but let things be” Reverend Preacher? We’ve
all already disappeared! Space highway open,
entering Lincoln’s ear ground to
a stop Tracks Warning Pioneer
Boulevard— William Jennings Bryan sang Thou
shalt not crucify mankind upon a cross of Gold! O Baby Doe! Gold’s Department
Store hulks o’er 10th Street now —an
unregenerate old fop who didn’t want to be a monkey now’s
the Highest Perfect Wisdom dust and Lindsay’s cry survives compassionate
in the Highschool Anthology— a giant
dormitory brilliant on the evening plain drifts with his
memories— There’s
a nice white door over there for
me O dear!
on Zero Street. February 15, 1966 |