America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
        17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
        need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
        the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
        it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
        joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
        somebody goes on trial for ******.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
        I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
        in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
        Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
        Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
        candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
        men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
        Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
        marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
        private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
        and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
        underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
        under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
        is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
        I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
        mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
        individual as his automobiles more so they're
        all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
        down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
        munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
        handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
        speeches were free everybody was angelic and
        sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
        cere you have no idea what a good thing the
        party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
        old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
        cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
        must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
        And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
        mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
        garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
        Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
        Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
        tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
        Him need ******* *******. Hah. Her make us
        all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
        the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
        in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
        psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

                                Berkeley, January 17, 1956

hapax legomenon “Texas Women”

(hapax legomenon: a term of which only one instance of use is ever recorded)
(Texas Women: a term of which only one instance of use is ever recorded)

for
ꏳJ LꂦVꏂ  & Cne’

once again, they sweet sweep me off my feet,
carry me to the Court of Finger Wagging,
to be accused of hating and/or loving Texas Women
simultaneously, diffidently, consequentially, unclearly differentially

this is no flower picking exercise, shaking of the head,
“he loves me, he loves me not,” rinse and repeat,
a northern trick to confuse the plano truth,
warns the Judicial Triumvirate

your Honors, I swears,
never wrote those conjunctive words,
Texas, Women,
never ever, until just now,
a genuine hapax legomenon

akin to taking god’s name in vain,
if one dare ever utter these words, and
blows the opportunity,
well, shotgun, if you know what I mean,
one gets only
one chance

so cut me quick to the chase’s conclusion
let’s go to my defense single & singularly:
true, of women I have written, and
“too much,”
is a mere theortical constriction

I love to love women,
and a 57 variety pak is a-ok by me

an inordinate number of poems may have referenced
females hailing from a certain great state,
but never together, side by side, have I ever employed
that phrase, for my imaginations
are more than sufficient

have loved women from many places, too many faces,
some beyond measure, now a forever,
a hoarded memoir unpublishable treasure,
some, it’s true, possessed jeans and a cowboy hat,
and dangerous boots, which one admired from a
goodly distance

they brook no con, tilting their heads quizzically,
there is no maybe with women from this place,
maybe you love us, maybe not, but either way,
there ain’t no maybe in our emotional lexicology!

ok.

the only woman I ever hated is dead and buried,
and yes, I shot her dead for being ornery cactus mean,
so by this roundabout roundup summation,
you may put your head on pillow tonight,
smiling confident thinking that your hapax legomenon,
is deep in the heart of a grown boy hailing from nyc,
still a crazy straight shooter

America**

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
******.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need ******* *******.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

If yet I have not all thy love
For loving is never enough
I must do more than pray
Both increased by gratitude

And the desire to love more
If yet I have not all thy love
I thought, dream it, enjoy it
I cannot deny, I share it

Fiercely and without restraint
If yet I have not all they love
I who am so little wise, so humble
So simple, deare perhaps I

Shall never have thee all
My stature was made small by
Nature, my wit outbid by
More generous fates, my time

More short and partial to trials
If yet I have not all they love
Be it said that love’s riddles were
Unpublishable to me, triumphs

As if out of reach, treasures
Undeserved, comforts unmet
If yet I have not all they love
Do not bargain but say farewell

Deare, well I know, I shall never
Have all of thee, never know thy
Full heart, love doth every day admit
The worthy choice of my lost destiny.

another morning
another chemical coating
another narcissistic lathering
soaping my hair, face, body
antiperspirant, lotion
sunscreen, hair gel, eye drops
toothpaste, mouthwash

there’s nothing real about me
I am fake, head to toe
plastics, aerosols, fragrances
trying to preserve the real real
or mask it or hide it or fix it
as the mirror snickers at me
in 2d flat-screen mockery

I’m a stranger, a hitchhiker in
a borrowed body, a rogue

uncovered, this facade
bared down to its natural
stench and style

is something unpublishable,
something never in vogue

another morning
another chemical coating
another narcissistic lathering
soaping my hair, face, body
antiperspirant, lotion
sunscreen, hair gel, eye drops
toothpaste, mouthwash

there’s nothing real about me
I am fake, head to toe
plastics, aerosols, fragrances
trying to preserve the real real
or mask it or hide it or fix it
as the mirror snickers at me
in 2d flat-screen mockery

I’m a stranger, a hitchhiker in
a borrowed body, a rogue

uncovered, this facade
bared down to its natural
stench and style

is something unpublishable,
something never in vogue