Written in Jim Hudson's window lookin' out on MacDougal Street
Summer of 1954, when he left me his whole apartment
He went away with his girl someplace:
Parade among Images
Images Images Looking
Looking -
And everybody's turning around
& Pointing -
Nobody looks up
And In
Nor listens to Samantabhadra's
Unceasing Compassion
No Sound Still
S s s s t t
Seethe
Of Sea Blue Moon
Holy X-Jack
Miracle
Night -
Instead yank & yucker
For pits & pops
Look for crashes
Pictures
Squares
Explosions
Birth
Death
Legs
I know, sweet hero,
Enlightenment has Come
Rest in Still
In the Sun Think
Think Not
Think no more Lines -
Straw hat, hands a back
Classed
He exam in atein distinct
Rome prints -
Trees prurp
And saw
The Chessplayers Wont End
Still they sit
Millions of hats
In underwater foliage
Over marble games
The Greeks of Chess
Plot the Pop
Of Mate
King Queen
- I know their game,
Their elephant with the pillar
With the pearl in it,
Their gory bishops
And Vital Pawns -
Their devout frontline
Sacrificial pawn shops
Their stately king
Who is so tall
Their Virgin Queens
Pree ing to Knave
The Night Knot
- Their Bhagavad Gitas
Of Ignorance,
Krishna's advice,
Comma,
The game begins -
Jean-Louis
Go home, Man
- So tho I am wise
I have to wait like
Anyotherfool
Lets forget the strollers
Forget the scene
Lets close our eyes
Let me instruct Thee
Here is dark Milk
Here is Sweet Mahameru
Who will Coo
To you Too
As he did to me
One night at three
When I w k e i t
P l e e
Knelt to See
Realit ee
And I said
'Wilt thou protect me
For 'ver?'
And he in his throatless
Deep mother hole
Replied ' H o m '
Here is the complete text:
MACDOUGAL STREET BLUES
In the Form of 3 Cantos
CANTO UNO
The goofy foolish
Human parade
Passing on Sunday
Art streets
Of Greenwich Village
Pitiful drawings of
Images on an
Iron fence
Ranged there
By self believing
Artists
With no hair
And black berets
Showing green seas
Eating at rock
And Pleiades
Of Time
Pestiferating at moon squid
Salt flat tip fly toe
Tat sand traps
With cigar smoking interesteds
Puffing at the
Stroll
I mean sincerely
Naive sailors buying prints
Women with red banjos
On their handbags
And arts handicrafty
Slow shuffling
Art-ers of Washington Square
Passing in what they think
Is a happy June afternoon
Good God the Sorrow
They dont even listen to me when
I try to tell them they will die
They say "Of course I know
I'll die, Why shd you mention
It now - Why should I worry
About it - It ll happen
It ll happen - Now
I want a good time -
Excuse me -
It's a beautiful happy June
Afternoon I want to walk in -
Why are you so tragic & gloomy?
And in the corner at the
Pony Stables
On Sixth Ave & 4th
Sits Bodhisattva Meditating
In Hobo Rags
Praying at Joe Gould's chair
For the Emancipation
Of the shufflers passing by,
Immovable in Meditation
He offers his hand & feet
To the passers by
And nobody believes
That there's nothing to believe in.
Listen to Me.
There is no sidewalk artshow
No strollers are there
No poem here, no June
Afternoon of Oh
But only Imagelessness
Unrepresented on the iron fence
Of bald artist
With black berets
Passing by
One moment less than this
Is future Nothingness Already
The Chess men are silent, assembled
Ready for funny war -
Voices of Washington Square Blues
Rise to my Bodhisattva Poem
Window
I will describe them:-
Ey t k ey ee
Sa la o s o
F r u p t u r t
Etc.
No need, no words to
Describe
The sound of ignorance -
They are strolling to
Their death
Watching the Pictures of Hell
Eating Ice Cream
Of Ignorance
On wood sticks
That were once sincere
In trees -
But I cant write, poetry,
Just prose
I mean
This is prose
Not poetry
But I want
To be sincere
CANTO DOS
While overhead is the perfect blue
Emptiness of the sky
With its imaginary balloons
Of false sight
Flying around in it
Like Tathagata Flying Saucers
These poor ignorant things
Mill on sidewalks
Looking at pitiful pictures
Of what they think
Is reality
And one
A Negro with curls
Even has a camera
To photograph
The pictures
And Jelly Roll Man
Pops his Billy Bell
Good Humor for sale -
W Somerset Maugham
Is on my bed
An ignorant storyteller
Millionaire queer
But Ezra Pound
He crazy -
As the perfect sky
Beginninglessly pure
Thinglessly already
They pass in multiplicity
Parade among Images
Images Images Looking
Looking -
And everybody's turning around
& Pointing -
Nobody looks up
And In
Nor listens to Samantabhadra's
Unceasing Compassion
No Sound Still
S s s s t t
Seethe
Of Sea Blue Moon
Holy X-Jack
Miracle
Night -
Instead yank & yucker
For pits & pops
Look for crashes
Pictures
Squares
Explosions
Birth
Death
Legs
I know, sweet hero,
Enlightenment has Come
Rest in Still
In the Sun Think
Think Not
Think no more Lines -
Straw hat, hands a back
Classed
He exam in atein distinct
Rome prints -
Trees prurp
And saw
The Chessplayers Wont End
Still they sit
Millions of hats
In underwater foliage
Over marble games
The Greeks of Chess
Plot the Pop
Of Mate
King Queen
- I know their game,
Their elephant with the pillar
With the pearl in it,
Their gory bishops
And Vital Pawns -
Their devout frontline
Sacrificial pawn shops
Their stately king
Who is so tall
Their Virgin Queens
Pree ing to Knave
The Night Knot
- Their Bhagavad Gitas
Of Ignorance,
Krishna's advice,
Comma,
The game begins -
But hidden Buddha
Nowhere to be seen
But everywhere
In air atoms
In balloon atoms
In imaginary sight atoms
In people atoms
In people atoms
Again
In image atoms
In me & you atoms
In atom bone atoms
Like the sky
Already Waits
For us eyes open to
- Pawn fell
Horse reared
Mate Kiked Cattle
And Boom! Cop
Shot Bates -
Cru put Two -
Out - I cried -
Pound Pomed -
Jean-Louis
Go home, Man
I mean,-
As solid as anything
Is this reality of images
In the imageless essence,
Neither of em 11 quit
- So tho I am wise
I have to wait like
Anyotherfool
CANTO TRES
Lets forget the strollers
Forget the scene
Lets close our eyes
Let me instruct Thee
Here is dark Milk
Here is Sweet Mahameru
Who will Coo
To you Too
As he did to me
One night at three
When I w k e i t
P l e e
Knelt to See
Realit ee
And I said
'Wilt thou protect me
For 'ver?'
And he in his throatless
Deep mother hole
Replied ' H o m '
(Pauvre Ange)
Mahameru
Tathagata of Mercy
See
He
Now
In dark escrow
In the middleless dark
Of eyelids' lash obliviso
So
Among rains of Transcendent
Pity
Abides since Ever
Before Evermore ness
Or thusness Imagined
O Maha Meru
O Mountain Sumeru
O Mountain of Gold
O Holy Gold
O Room of Gold
O Sweet peace
Rememberance
O Nava lit yuku
Of sweet cactus
Thorn of No Time
- Ply me on ward
Like boat
Thru this Sea
Safe to Shore
Ulysses never Sore
- Bless me Gerard
Bless thee, Living
I shall pray for all
Sentient human
& Otherwise sentient
Beings here & everywhere
Now -
No names
Not even faces
One Pity
One Milk
One Lovelight
S a v e