8/27/86

Looking at the images of the saloon
I am reminded of seeing a movie
tonight- "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve
McQueen.When I was in the Resistance
group I burnt my draft card in a Selective
Service office, with pictures snapping-1967.
Now back here 1987- McQueen on T.V.-
he gave the ones who burned their cards his
credit card number to use- you could see the
follow-through in his eyes-reminds me of Paul
Newman, in a way, those eyes-
So I saw the card game last night- this was
going forward one day- I got a few of
the details wrong- but the pattern is to be
seen in many places-


9/8/86 Work

Everybody wants and to some extent
must have a night worlld and a
day world. the Freudian equivalent
of this is "conscious and unconscious"
another dichotomy is "love and work,"
"lieben und arbeiten." But in
contemporary reality- at least the
one I know- this seems to sort
itself out more into night world and
day world. The rising of the Right
conceived as a rising of the light in the
Fundamentalist Christian sense attempts
to submerge the "dark side" which in
their most barbaric id-consciousness
is simply Black people- and in the
Nazi sense their cohorts Jews and Catholics.
The Black person is seen as a cipher for unrestrained energy
(unleashed work).

9/12/86 A Poem- The Illusion of Level

Something precedes it
and how it breaks my heart
that what I don't have
doesn't have me.
I'm applying for a job in eternity.
The hours are terrible but the duties are light
and only the furniture and love
leans on your molecules.
Oh, the embitterment
Oh, the tears cried for a birthday
and the endless waiting.
But it is mostly a trick
due to the kind of siezures
that accompany the holidays.
A portrait of salamanders on wood and glass.
Forgive me kind teacher,
For my miserable Spanish,
my references to globules
both stout and slim.
You put them there anyway
Just to confuse me
(thought's honesty so abrasive)
I ought to just leave, and I do, and I will.
Just one moment!

2.

Finally there's someone to give to
And there so much to give, I'm scared.
A simple decision...oh, that *word!*
I'm tired of it and also of the punctuation,
the pronunciation, light for light and dark for dark.
I'm exhausted, black against white, horrible screams,
white against yellow, brown against brown.
Who determines these things? Don't they listen?
A poet is a voice from the gutter,
a blubbering, terrified, lonely child.
How I gape.
How I stare and let my eyes grow large,
How impatient she is, in her crying,
How patient and irritable mother is,
Never tired of talking and listening.

The men accuse me, whispering and laughing.
Two pants legs, what a riot.
Voices and more voices, *Stimmen und drang.*

Noise isn't what's destroying these maniacs
it's sobbing.

3.

They put me in jail and expect me to talk.
Whose kidding who?
Who is the therapist and who the artist?
This one you can never shut up
And the other one won't start talking.
Dialogue is impossible, better to use
A wet nurse and a television set.

4.

If they use the word "transference" one more time
I'm going to start screaming.

5.

"Resistance" what a laugh.
It's like trying to make a
non-site out of bronze.
They are chocolats instead,
They peel them from pages of Freud
and nibble. No one even steps in the hallway.
and walks around in here like
a neglected "borderline."
Isn't anybody else sick of words?

6.

Bite the hand that feeds you.

7.

They're going after art with an ax.
Don't ask questions in here.
Shut up and please yourself.