Poems 1959-2009 Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ninety-second Street and Broadway I have come.
    Outside the windows is New York.
    I came here from St. Louis in a covered wagon overland
    Behind the matchless prancing pair of Eliot and Ezra Pound.
    And countless moist oases took me in along the way, and some
    I still remember when I lift my knife and fork.
    The Earth keeps turning, night and day, spit-roasting all the tanned
    Tired icebergs and the polar bears, which makes white almost contraband.
    The biosphere on a rotisserie emits a certain sound
    That tells the stars that Earth was moaning pleasure while it drowned.
    The amorous white icebergs flash their brown teeth, hissing.
    They’re watching old porn videos of melting icebergs pissing.
    The icebergs still in panty hose are lesbians and kissing.
    The rotting ocean swallows the bombed airliner that’s missing.

OOGA-BOOGA (2006)
    Â 
KILL POEM
    Huntsman indeed is gone from Savile Row,
    And Mr. Hall, the head cutter.
    The red hunt coat Hall cut for me was utter
    Red melton cloth thick as a carpet, cut just so.
    One time I wore it riding my red Ducati racer—what a show!—
    Matched exotics like a pair of lovely red egrets.
    London once seemed the epitome of no regrets
    And the old excellence one used to know
    Of the chased-down fox bleeding its stink across the snow.
    We follow blindly, clad in coats of pink,
    A beast whose nature is to run and stink.
    I am civilized in my pink but
    Civilized is about having stuff.
    The red coats are called “pinks.” Too much is almost enough.
    No one knows why they are. I parade in the air
    With my stuff and watch the disappearing scut
    Of a deer. I am civilized but
    Civilized life is actually about too much.
    I parade in the air
    And wait for the New Year
    That then will, then will disappear.
    I am trying not to care.
    I am not able not to.
    A short erect tail
    Winks across the winter field.
    All will be revealed.
    I am in a winter field.
    They really are everywhere.
    They crawl around in one’s intimate hair.
    They spread disease and despair.
    They rape and pillage
    In the middle of Sag Harbor Village.
    They ferry Lyme disease.
    The hunters’ guns bring them to their knees.
    In Paris I used to call the Sri Lankan servants “Shrees.”
    I am not able not to.
    Winter, spring, Baghdad, fall,
    Venery is written all
    Over me like a rash,
    Hair and the gash,
    But also the Lehrer
NewsHour
and a wood fire and Bach.
    A short erect tail
    Winks across the killing field.
    All will be revealed.
    I am in a killing field.
    I remember the
chasse à courre
in the forest in the Cher.
    I remember the English thoroughbreds ridden by the frogs.
    I remember the weeping stag cornered by the dogs.
    The stag at bay in the pond literally shed a tear.
    A hunt servant in a tricorn hat waded out to cut its throat.
    Nelson Aldrich on his horse vomited watching this.
    The huntsman’s heraldic horn sounded the
hallali
.
    The tune that cuts off the head.
L’hallali!
    Back to the château to drink the blood.
L’hallali!
    I am in Paris being introduced at Billy’s,
    1960, avenue Paul-Valéry.
    One of her beautiful imported English Lillys or Millys
    Is walking around on her knees.
    It is rather like that line of Paul Valéry’s.
    Now get down on all fours, please.
    We are ministers of state and then there is me chez Billy.
    Deer garter-belt across our field of vision
    And stand there waiting for our decision.
    Our only decision was how to cook the venison.
    I am civilized but
    I see the silence
    And write the words for the thought balloon.
    When the woods are the color of a macaroon,
    Deer, death is near.
    I write about its looks in my books.
    I write disappearing scut.
    I write rut.
    The title is
Kill Poetry
,
    And in the book poetry kills.
    In the poem the stag at bay weeps, literally.
    Kill poetry is the
hallali
on avenue Paul-Valéry.
    Get rid of poetry. Kill poetry.
    Label on a vial of pills. Warning: Kill kill kill kills.
    Its title is
Kill