George Dowden
I do not leap out of bed eager to do things this day--
mindless enthusiasm--to do something or be 34
with smiling, chattering wellwishers I cannot
say "Be silent" to--"Be silent on the day I
have outlived Jesus!"
because I have not written or spoken well enough to lose
speech freedom, be eliminated in America--because
I have been a slow-starter--because I have hidden
my power--because I have hidden my violence--
because I wish to understand, to forgive, to heal,
because that is my work--because I hate everything
I would heal and because I know better but will
not stop trying--because I wake on my birthday
with clenched teeth for the black Things leaping
upon one another and clinging, adhesive, mindless,
by their hideous nature, choking off space in my
head, bulging the brain cells, stretching the
skin--not verifiable, but not an image; it is
Brain Pressure--Swift's slobbering and ravings at
end--Pound's mouth twisted open in Francis Bacon
soundless scream when "they" released him with
the usual platitudes--Artaud Le Momo's
wasted and toothless face after massively uncom-
prehending Roez--(etc.)--IF you survive to be old--
where do I end in fierceness?--it is all Energy--for
heaven or hell the same--I would be more home
locked brain to brain with hated and (though in
most evil of mesomorphic way) GREAT Johnson
even--never with bland underlings, never!--but
they too might be free if ALLOWED to be free...
see, this ranting--this sense of Reality thwarted in
men while birds sing--that is one of "their"
weapons!--
and recent SHOCK to discover my once (sometimes still)
beautiful face getting fiercer--strain to LOOK
gentle--
natural need for my work to be recognized very soon, or
what?--need for a shaman's place to work--need for
some pay for my profession, a building where poet-
priest may give good what he's been granted to
give--need for an ashram of rooms, plural!--one
room for writing and teaching--one for Pauline's
painting--one for a graceful bread breaking--one
for white chapel incense, yoga, nonsymbolic, smoking
together--one where guests may have free vision
and be delighted--and we are being shown high-priced
one-room "flats" with Victorian wallpaper!--not
even our place among English, Irish, West Indian,
African, Indian, Chinese children of backlands Notting
Hill, where it would do our own Spirits most good to
live--
and the businessman, clerk, policeman, mechanic has a place
to go to do his work (for which he is "respectable")
so also the professors also "respectable", as I was
when professor--
but I have no place to go to do mine now, far more
ancient, and also "respectable"--
Energy backing up--WILL find its outlet--
Pauline crying out yesterday in the Underground (subway)
train, "Somebody help me, he's going to hurt me...
please help me..." I twisting her arm and
neck, threatening to twist her face off--for
what?--for the pain in my head, for someone to
receive my Energy to relieve me--incredulous
faces around us, gaping "average" riders held
against any rescue by the Wolf in my eyes, I
could have mangled cautious charge of them with
strength, coordination and lucidity of madness
they subdued me--Pauline breaking away
from my explaining..my explaining..running
out when the train stopped--I continuing in it
to Waterloo--waiting there for the next train--
she on it--approaches me--I am finished, empty--
takes my arm, leads me, near-catatonic, to next
train, home, her soft child-mother body in bed--
understand this, my friends who laugh and drink beer
with me at poetry readings and afternoons in the
streets and so easily say "Love...the world needs
Love"...friends who love me, too, then, and whom
I have spared this--understand now what is in
me and "Love" yes but love is COSTLY
before spoken with Power in the poem--the
deja vu purer-than-thou "Love Poem" WHO'S self-
expression!--
O, forgive me!--so much at stake here--understand Love
has put me in danger on my 34th birthday--because
THIS Love burns with ambition of Love more than
poetry--but by poetry not sainthood given, so chosen...
this morning--my birthday--hot bath--immobile still
after subway happening--first Purple Heart of my
life--from her mother--
now 6:00 pm--on my way to see Paul and Rhiannon Evans,
having first baby any day now, maybe today on my
birthday--an hour's writing of this in nice Lyon's
tea room shelter from rain in Notting Hill Gate
Rd., flat hunting--out--into Notting Hill Under-
ground--alone and quiet--7:30 sky darkening behind
toylike English chimneypot houses seen through
Underground skylight--going to Stamford Brook to
sit with Paul and Rhiannon, then home to Pauline--
gone out alone to concentrate on this poem that
had to be written--
get out at Stamford Brook--blonde girl in red panties
only, back to me, posing for somebody in third-
floor window on Paul's street--just there in
window as I walk by and see--retreat, watch her
Beauty from behind parked cars for 5 minutes--
walk on, thankful
Paul's father, the Vicar, greets me at door in HIS collar--
beautiful face--church group meeting in sitting
room--that's something
Rhiannon cheerful and busy--still big with baby--we are
all gentle together--they glad I've come--we
read poems to each other (not this one to impose
on the milk of her baby)--they love me
Paul walks me back to the Underground
4 funny little shopgirls in train--"discussing" me--
stealing glances--they like me
this poem writ from fierceness to calm now
"Headache? This is What Happens..." / "With a Bottle of
Sparkling FOLIES BERGERES!"--ads side by side and
across from me who have drunk nothing all week
we pull into Wimbledon--all doors banging open--dark--10:30-
-
cold wind running back and forth through the station--
get on train to Surbiton and bus to home--hot milk--
and I'll be in bed again with Pauline, where warmth
has its reasons
NOTE: this poem must finally be read in sequence with
the long RENEW JERUSALEM poem, which was completed a week
before it and which in fact determined what had to rise to
the surface as rightly here, on my thirty-fourth birthday.
Neither this nor the earlier poem makes me, or anyman,
"this" or "that"; with the Energy there, the hope is that
the best, not the worst, in these poems, in me--also in
society--will prevail, till the Work prosper more fully,
more simply, more truly and beautifully some day in Light--
after the ever more fearsome dark nights that will come. A
third poem, THE MURDER OF CHRIST, must also finally be read
in sequence with these two poems.
Continue to I L(o)ve NY by George Dowden
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