or the unBeat
~the room was full of drunk poets and I don’t know what. (fr. Jonas Mekas NYdiary1958)
Right before I met Vincent
in 1959
the year Billie Holiday died
whose last performance I attended and
whose lifeand death hangs me out still.
I lean against the outcry mourning
the death of jazz singing
Pissed off and absurd we of
the Mercury lounge reading.
I hate NY readings when it turns into a bloodsport.
but we swigged it out
Jacko was there and
gCorso,
and Allen, of course, Burroughs (who invited
me) They were with me on
that stage back to front 7:30Read read read
by 7:40 (what is that line in AllAboutEve)
about there being a ‘MacBethish air.’7:45, my body, my heart, my flask.
TJean was past soused/Corsosososo,
& Gerald was doing the Malanga all night long, & had the best beats though everyone was too smashed to really drink it except Allen
diagonally always there was Allen
breathing heavy presided over the fallout
was the voice of wetbrain sobriety
& Leroi knew when to exit
a Columbia celebrawl/div>
some even took it as livingdead theater
more like a pissing match
it got ugly loving each other’s work
of loving each others work
we took off our dukes and
found out that we hated each other
after all. I was called a fouffyfaggot
repeatedly, and Allen kept laughing
he lives for stuff like that.
Hardly a put down, he was penciling
in the holes for Howl

Oh, those Beats
They really can be crashing bores
not to mention act like a bunch of pimpless whores

Kerouac yells to me
“You’re ruining American
Poetry O’Hara”
and I yell back
“That’s more than you fuckin’ ever did for it.”
So TiJean love, I’m not going to Frisco
…
I’m staying here
It’s going to be a bubonic plague of a summer
To say that
I hate everybody almost
as much as I hate myself would
be too dramaqueeny.
And
then John said fuck off you poseur
I stumbled over Allen’s busted sandal,
then dropped my shot and attempted an escape Gerald kept frugging as Edie looked on then I met Vincent there swaying on the sweaty threshold
Anyway and fell out the door with Gerald’s last verse flying in our ears like a bolt from Mercury he asked me to dance
Anyway and fell out the door with Gerald’s last verse flying in our ears like a bolt from Mercury