^morepoetryfromthenightssincewe’relockedin&Aprilispoetry& jazz month~
Right Before I met Vincent
or the unBeatbeating
“the room was full of drunk poets and I don’t know what. (fr. Jonas Mekas NYdiary1958)
then Right before I met Vincent
in 1959
the year Billie Holiday diedwhose last performance I attended and
whose life and 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 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 in AllAboutEve)about there being a ‘MacBethish air.’
7:45, my body, my heart, my flask.
TJean, my luv
was past soused/Corsosososo,
& Gerald was doing the Malanga frug offstage & still
reciting his poetry all night long,
Gerald had the best beats
though everyone was too smashed to really drink it in
except Allen
diagonally there was always there was Allenbreathing 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
yep, 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 fouffyfaggotrepeatedl by some hidden
voice & of course Allen kept laughing
he lives for stuff like that.
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’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 you poseur I stumbled over Allen’s potsandals
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 he asked me to dance, and so anyway
fell out the door with Gerald’s last verse
flying in our ears like a bolt from Mercury
Alternatetakes2 