The Book of Joy. American Haijin - послесловие

Afteread: "The Book of Joy: American Haijin"
(из книги "Паломничество к звуку", осень 2022)


Op. 1. Polonaise m;lancolique

In memoriam of Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

Go to sleep, fall asleep,
time will be a blur
till Your morning.

Are you flying? continue
arcing separation -
pilots doesn't get a letter.

From the poet will be left
A table of notebooks,
two-thirds of what is said.

Kissing and drunk on tequila,
and not think of Hawaii
while the nightfall over Denver.

To drown, never sail out of the sea,
become fish, become bones,
make no sound, be silence.

Packed boxes,
discarded reading glasses,
the relocation, the trying Satori.

Sailors leave for the front.
The media leave for the front.
Poets leave.

Violets in her hair,
and eyes smell of death -
Move over, it's tight.

Night is descending,
a seagull, a distraught howl.
Massachusetts has no entrance.

Existence between gas stations,
benzedrine and immortality -
With Neal Cassidy on the road.
Being and loving.
To be and get disappointed.
           and to be absent.

I gazed at the Moon with a shudder,
it's not the Moon,
it's the Form of Death.

The salty air,
pier and a few niggers –
all need work. Being themself.

September in the night.
Autumn and leaves.
It's snowing against the view.

To love poetry
in this day and age -
is to be a homosexual.

To write poetry
in this day and age -
is to confess to sucking cocks.

The Sea is My Brother.
Where are you, fine Allen?
It's lonely here.


Op. 2. Accidental Songs for Rurik

To the last «beatniks» Gary Snyder (1930) and Bob Dylan (1941)

While the cigarette burns
on the table crawls
A little yellow ladybug

It's snows in Oklahoma -
Catch it till you die
Like the idiot wind.

Cold coffee.
The dance of literature.
William Faulkner's house.

I didn't believe in Fate,
but the light in the darkness
lit a match

To embrace my daughter,
making the law,
shooting in Vietnam.

Love's great poem.
The search for an alternative.
A mind like compost.

Singing for people,
to learn the solitude -
Never Ending Tour.

Whitman blesses,
Pound turns away confusedly -
you have not failed America.

Whisper of sand.
California beach.
Gone, never to return.

Night souls
Throwing themselves headlong
From bridges - nothing to do.

Shuffle with idols.
Burying their best friends.
Become imbecile.

Sipping vodka.
Peyote drop.
All for Her.

On Ginsberg's grave
smiling.
It was fun, dude.

"Beatniks" never were
ever. There were
us. Were...

Silent Corso
stands in the shadows.
He laughs at us.

Do you remember the songs
That were still
True? About you and me.

God, so many dead people,
so many familiar faces,
so much dead time.


Op 3. …as an Edification

To Lion the Blind, friend and publisher of my books

The circle is over,
over is circle the -
the cycle is complete.

I have nowhere
to go back to.
And so farewell.

Pain teaches me many things,
it teaches you a lot -
it beats the hell out.

Dawn and lyrics.
Is it a dream?
Is it for good?

The obscurity is the
worst of all frost -
A trap of loneliness.

I do not wish to die,
but rather not
to return.

Do not grumble, Opiy!
The city is not your
pillow!

After seeing the Nazarene off,
I go home,
I'm going to die.

Every poem I write,
Every sound that comes out of my throat.
Turn to the sun, let it burn.

Visited Remains,
the fear of being abandoned,
skin prickling with Self.

Running at a race with
the Universe, with Eternity -
to lose to space.

Time in waves.
In the eyes of the Big Heart.
It does not pulse, it howls.

The dog yelled
at the gas station:
"Don't kill Don't kill! Don't... "

My Eurydice,
forgive me my trespasses.
Blackness. A Sea of Darkness.

Suicide in America -
cheeseburger and cola.
Nobody and Nobody Nowhere.

Getting out of the antique plays.
Escape from the shadows to the Exaltation.
Pilgrimage after the Capital of Ruin.

Holy Ginsberg!
you taught me Breath,
but not Faith.


Op.4. CUT-UP: Tragic Consciousness, or Imagination of Disaster

In Memoriam to W.S. Burroughs (1914-1997) and Neal Cassidy (1926-1968)

Life is one party where you
throw up under the table. Both
good and bad at the same time.

A butterfly sits on the glass.
Pull out your finger.
Made contact.

Doing - all all life.
Walking the rails.
Fortune's Shaman sings.

Language is given for words.
Hands for work.
Feet for freedom.

Burning in the pubs -
You're thrown out on the street,
kicking your, you laugh back.

Between America and Mexico
our best days, Jack. 
A bastard summer.

The cat I regularly
feed sardines hisses:
Go away, cops!

Al, you're the poet and
I' m the sneaky one, living on $3.
Who's the poet among us?

The heat is blinding,
it's hot as Ohio. Cleaning
toilets, staying proud.

Who'll turn me in to the cops?
Who'll take my father's watch to
the pawnshop? Who's my Judas?

The syringe. Ammonia. Mac.
Buttercups in my eyes.
Alone with literature.

Blood makes us
stronger. Blood makes
us writers. Blood - makes.

The supermarket is closed.
Bashing into storefronts is frosty.
America, where's the exit?

Ties, ties, ties. Cold
winds. So that's what
you are, Ending.

Guanajuato, waving
your hat: "Bitter! Bitter!"
A mosquito kills the rain.

To think you're in a box.
Dust and creatures.
Can't get out.

Muse of Time goes,
feeling Everything,
on rails - to Eternity.


Op.5. Color of Decay

In Memoriam to Carl Solomon (1928-1993)

Insomnia. Morning. At night
particulars are noticeable,
Reason is wider than Reality.

Notebooks and poems,
a great deal of rags, hallu-
cinations and anxious shudders.

Our ship is going down.
A snowflake has fallen on the grate.
You can't cry, they'll hear you.

A second, a minute,
an hour - does it matter?
This place has no time.

Looking for your glasses.
Stumbling and falling.
Fingers are stepped on by madmens.

Windmills and me.
Winter will come,
revolution will not.

Instead of smoke breaks
in the closet under the stairs,
reading poetry while hide-behind the radiator.

A spider is like
a best friend in
solitary confinement.

To shake the murderer's hand,
to smile at the rapist. Thet are
more honest than wall-to-wall people.

Shouting prophecies,
poems composed to the mind,
being strapped to a bunk.

Shadows around every turn.
Murderers lurking around
the corner. Be quiet.

Take out the belt
hidden beforehand.
No one. A suicide attack.

A meeting with friends.
Sunshine and Peace.
You are miserable.

Sleeping on the street,
running away from home,
the emptiness is when you are loved.

Going through a crazy house
makes you want to go back
for more. Shock therapy is a suicide drug.

Krasnovodskaya. Orchestra
in the waiting room. I scream
into my pillow, orderlies carry straps.

Depression, poetry, homosexuality,
loneliness, schizophrenia, drug addiction.
Any other synonyms for Life?

Немель, октябрь 2022
Площадь Маркса - Беркли