Under silver wing
    San Francisco's towers sprouting
                thru thin gas clouds,
    Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
        Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
                                             Declaration
                  typewriter at window
         silver panorama in natural eyeball--

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
        dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
    State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
           to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
           blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'      
                brown wasteland scratched by tires

          Jerry Rubin arrested!  Beaten, jailed,
                 coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...
        persons of tender years...immature
              judgement...pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else   Loonybin or Slam

Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000
         lawyer fees, years' negotiations--
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
       paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe--
         having a baby, a man--
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,

Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
         blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
                 on to Cholon's sidewalks--
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
        Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
    Earplugs in, steak on plastic
                   served--Eyes up to the Image--

What do I have to lose if America falls?
    my body? my neck? my personality?

                                        June 19, 1968

"i would die for you"
was always the utmost declaration of unconditional love.
what more could be wanted than one who
would sacrifice themselves so that you could live?
very few know that some things are worse
than death.

"i would die for you"
is not the the truest test of boundless love.
for some, it is not death that they fear most
some even wish for death to arrive on their doorstep,
to take them away from the hell of living
to the peaceful limbo of after-death.
for many, for someone else is not the only reason
that they would willingly give up their life.

"i would die for you"
means NOTHING to many.
and true love MEANS SOMETHING.
so for sadly too many,
"i would die for you"
is not enough.

after all,
for too many,
you do not truly love the face that drives you towards
the razor, the pill bottle, the frayed rope.
you truly love the face that
stops your shaking hand from
etching your pain permanently onto your skin
you truly love the face that you would
walk through your own personal hell for
you truly love the face that you would
*LIVE FOR.

You're going to read this wrong,
Every single one of you.
Because you are not me,
And you cannot see what I'm saying.

No amount of stressed syllables in these lines can
ever describe what it means.
To me.
Why I wrote it.
Why I let you read it.

You will never understand
My understanding.

And that's okay.

The salty ocean air bit his ears.
The sea was angry.

I'm not like you.
Stay there.
Go away.

Silence.

He turned around and walked.
She would never let him truly kiss her.
But his lips had been all over that skin.

I'm done.
You won't let me in.

He felt something crack inside him.
Like a plank of wood shattering.
He felt the shrapnel.

*Medic...

I can't control myself.
I want it.

"I'm in love with broken.

The weak, the powerless,
Seizable.

I want to help.
          Not them, myself.

"Usage,"
A verb.
A synonym for life.
An alias for Marshall.
_________________
Spa­rked by a girl I was eyeing at the Vanguard performance. She was beautiful with pale skin and dark hair.
Her thigh gap was as large as possible.
Aside from the Jews in the Holocaust, she was one of the skinniest people I've seen.

God. What the hell.
Why must they all be broken?"

Wailing "I miss him," I miss the fabric of his hair,
The roughness of his paws, the brown in his eyes.
I miss the way he smiled and the way he loved.
I miss all of him, his breath even.

But he died.

And by god I will cry every night
To let him know
"I miss you!"