jim's american tale...

Can we resolve the past,
Lurking jaws, joints of time?
The Base
To come of age in a dry place,
Holes and caves.

My friend drove an hour each day from the mountains.
The bus gives you a hard-on with books in your lap.
Someone shot the bird in the afternoon dance show.
They gave out free records to the best couple.
Spades dance best, from the hip.

The music was new,
black polished chrome
And came over the summer
like liquid night.
The DJ's took pills to stay awake
and play for seven days.
They went to the studio
and someone knew him;
Someone knew the TV showman.
He came to your homeroom party
and played records
And when he left in the hot noon sun
and walked to his car,
We saw the chooks had written
F-U-C-K on his windshield
He wiped it off with a white rag
and smiling coolly drove away.
He's rich. Got a big car.

My gang will get you...
Scenes of rape in the arroyo
Seductions in cars, abandoned buildings.
Fights at the food stand.
The dust.
The shoes.
Open shirts and raised collars.
Bright sculptured hair.

Hey man, you want girls, pills, grass? C'mon...
I show you good time.
This place has everything. C'mon...
I show you.

Angels and sailors,
rich girls,
backyard fences,
tents,
Dreams watching each other narrowly,
Soft luxuriant cars.
Girls in garages, stripped
out to get liquor and clothes,
half gallons of wine and six packs of beer.
Jumped, humped, born to suffer,
made to undress in the wilderness.

I will never treat you mean
Never start no kind of scene
I'll tell you every place and person that I've been

Always a playground instructor, never a killer,
Always a bridesmaid on the verge of fame or over,
He maneuvered two girls in to his hotel room.
One a friend, the other, the young one, a newer stranger
Vaguely Mexican or Puerto Rican.
Poor boys thighs and buttocks scarred by a father's belt,
She's trying to rise.
Story of her boyfriend, of teenage stoned death games,
Handsome lad, dead in a car.
Confusion.
No connections.
Come 'ere.
I love you.
Peace on earth.
Will you die for me?
Eat me.
This way.
The end.

I'll always be true
Never go out, sneaking out on you, babe
If only you'll show me Far Arden again.

I'm surprised you could get it up.
He whips her lightly, sardonically, with belt.
Haven't I been through enough? she asks,
Now dressed and leaving
The Spanish girl begins to bleed;
She says her period.
It's Catholic heaven.
I have an ancient Indian crucifix around my neck,
My chest is hard and brown.
Lying on stained, wretched sheets with a bleeding virgin,
We could plan a murder,
Or start a religion.

I'll tell you this...
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.

Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused.
One summer night, going to the pier,
I ran into two young girls.
The blonde was called Freedom,
The dark one, Enterprise.
We talked and they told me this story:
Now listen to this...I'll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat.
Soft driven, slow and mad
Like some new language,
Reaching your hand with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger.
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god,
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night.
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars,

Out here we is stoned
Immaculate.

The movie will begin in five moments,
The mindless voice announced,
All those unseated will await the next show.

We filed slowly, languidly into the hall.
The auditorium was vast and silent.
As we seated and darkened, the voice continued:

The program for this evening is not new,
You've seen this entertainment through and through.
You've seen your birth, your life and death,
You might recall all of the rest.
Did you have a good world when you died?
Enough to base a movie on?

I'm getting out of here!
Where are you going?
To the other side of morning.
Please don't chase the clouds, pagodas

Her cunt gripped him like a warm, friendly hand.

It's all right, all your friends are here.
When can I meet them?
After you've eaten.
I'm not hungry.
Uh, we meant beaten.

Silvery stream, silvery scream
Oooooh, impossible concentration.

Curses, Invocations
Weird bate-headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you to rise.
Large buxom obese queens
Garden hogs and cunt veterans
Quaint cabbage saints
Shit hoarders and individualists
Drag strip officials
Tight lipped losers and
Lustful fuck salesmen
My militant dandies
All strange order of monsters
Hot on the trail of the woodvine
We welcome you to our procession.

Here come the Comedians
Look at them smile
Watch them dance an Indian mile.
Look at them gesture
How aplomb
So to gesture everyone.
Words dissemble
Words be quick
Words resemble walking sticks.
Plant them they will grow Watch them waver so.
I'll always be a word man
Better than a bird man.