Oiling its patients.
That day
The figures on the trucks inspired no one
Some threw the water
On their heads.
They was Baptists
And that day Horus bathed him in the water
Again
And orisha walked amid the waters with hatchets
Where Allah’s useful white men
Came there bearing the water
And made our street Jordan
And we stepped into our new land
Praise God. As it has been since the first time
Through the tear of a mother
THE LION IS THE LAMB
for Ben & Marylin
So that is why you miss certain people
Looking for them
A day. But the impressions
Are so different
Curtis is out on his own
A master, like the man said
On the radio
Ba ba ka ra ba ka
Ab ib rb ra brer
This is what is happening
Life. Ile lfe
The witness:
This is you one two hours ago
Now as real as a snapshot
Coming to Berkeley with the wrong
Magazine
In my hand. No wonder
I am not myself
But I’m learning
Within you
The stars wheel
And cakewalk
As usual, you think up
Something else to complain of
Since the day and the women
Are beautiful
You are not yourself
For which you are thankful
They thinking abt you and things
You know to tell them
They listening to Huey on the radio
Today’s lesson in temporary English
We say “you” politely
To avoid pronouncing your name
You are the one and the name
Of you is ancient, magic and powerful
Holy
We want you to be beautiful and
You are.
ANUBIS
A tiger stripped
Of passion
Is not equal
To a dove
The jackal is
A sentry
In his greed
A lamp beneath the mountain
Is a hieroglyph
For love. A man
Should never want
Less than he need
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