right before I met Vincent
“and everyone and I stopped breathing.” (Frank O’Hara)
then
in 1959 right before I met Vincent
the day Billie died
her last performance at Birdland hangs me out still.
I lean against the brink mourning
the death of jazz singing
later that night
Pissed off and absurd we of
the Mercury lounge reading.
I hate NY readings when it turns into a poetry brawl.
but we swigged it outJacko was there and
gCorso,and Allen, of course, Burroughs (who invitedme) They were with me onthat stage back to front 7:30Read read readby 7:40 (what is that line from Orlovsky that silenced everyone when
you needed him to say it
but he was already gone uptown
7:45, my body, my heart, my flask. Jean, my luv
was past soused/Corsosososo fine,
& Gerald was doing the Malanga~bonga offstage & still
reciting his poetry all night long,
Gerald carving iam~angles into the best flatted fifths which of course said everything,
though everyone was too smashed to really drink it in
except Allen sitting diagonally
breathing heavy recording the fallout/the voice of peyote
sobriety&
meanwhile, Amira knew when to exit
before the versey brawl
Yeah, it got ugly loving each other’s work
of loving each others work enough to find out we hated each other after all.
I was called a fouffy faggoty FrankO’ by some hidden
voice
& of course Allen
kept laughing at this
our Cassandra
(before he nods poetically)
Hardly a put down, he was penciling
in the holes for Howl
aumaumaum, those Beats
They really can be crashing bores
not to mention act like a bunch of pimpless whores
Kerouac yells to me“You know 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 dramaqueeny.
then John said fuck off poseur I stumbled over Allen’s tie-stick sandals
then dropped my shot and attempted an escape Gerald kept dancing as Edie looked on
then I met Vincent there swaying on the sweaty threshold
he asked me to dance, and so anyway
we fell out the door with Gerald’s last lines
something about ‘pulling in the nightshade, your full silhouette’
his voice flying in our ears like thunder from Mercury
Alternatetakes2 