Chimes Street Journal

Chimes Street Journal VII-XII
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“the poem progresses
with my own life and pulls
me along with it”
—John Wieners,
July 20, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

the tarot deck—
she picks one every
day, sets the tone

unleashing a chain—
of events that she
lives on, lies about

the hanged man—
he’s got a giant
nasturtium crotch

well hung kid—
his secret groin
narcotic unnatural

she can smell it—
smegma in the car
then the bedroom

she writes herself—
out of it, renewing
the continuous flesh

it’s unknown to her—
each time they make
love, it’s different

he reveals himself—
she practices compulsions
without any words

she does him—
“okay, take it” he sayz
his words are erect

Chimes Street Journal VIII

“but in the poem,
there has to be black”
—John Wieners,
July 22, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

it’s mutant meat—
he calls it sweetie,
my baby, mr. squeeze

it’s not a poem—
he’s just playing with
himself, letting me

it’s what comes—
outta him that’s the
poem pushing shame

shame, shame, shame—
the supremes singing
on the lewd radio

it’s not make it new—
it’s just c’mon baby, get
down and make me

her brain cells don’t—
open up like a dream
he sprains a boner

he tries to hold it—
back, not revealing
himself going spaz

but he can’t help it—
the tide pulls him down
it’s a desperate act

how a man gets off—
it’s different each time
fabled labyrinthine

spermy sustenance—
subterranean and
sophisticatedly male

there’s no stereotype—
it prowls down thru all
the layers of a goner

Chimes Street Journal VIII

“mudpies in the
sky of my eye”
—John Wieners,
July 22, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

how can it be done—
life beneath the surface
face, gait, eyes…

street lights coming—
down thru the window
eccentric shadows

streetwalkers, perverts—
late business men, clerks,
tourists, college boyz

poet with a pale face—
stoned in his apartment
dressed like a girl

neighborhood laugher—
negro flash and glamour
the university district

cars circling down there—
constantly cruising for some
piece of prey, some dope

surreal southern fantasy—
deep south surviving down
there, on hands & knees

no doubt about it—
her very existence depends
on huey p. long’s dick

it rushes in with power—
old ghosts whispering smutty
prayers, distant hurrahs

there’s no consistency to it—
it’s the edge, reef of blue and
aqua marine lavender campus

Chimes Street Journal IX

“at night when
there’s only one eye”
—John Wieners,
July 22, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

closets, garages, lofts—
crime crawls the street
it’s gone one eyeball

plantation life’s still here—
it never left the deep south
jefferson davis in drag

dressed as a woman—
to escape his cold yankee
captors, confederate drag

so much for dixie jive—
the nocturnal antebellum
dream seemed outta place

but the drag-act continued—
returning to haunt delta
bourbon burlesque times

living their dream at night—
dreaming it during the day
miss scarlet wised-up fast

blonde voodoo got down—
the down-low jungle dance
during the dinge diaspora

you can still hear it—
morse code from the goddess
jingle bells in the jungle

sitting on the front porch—
on the rotting verandah bored
reminiscing about phantoms

gone with the wind lies—
ghosts of miscegenal agonies
compulsively telling the story

Chimes Street Journal X

“what to do next?”
—John Wieners,
July 23, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

and so she sits alone—
in the house with the
lights off, listening…

listening to the drums—
beating in her blood, dinge
jax on the radio

she feels it in the night—
the tempo of the evening
star, black venus over delta

it’s not the sea at night—
it isn’t the gulf of mexico
it’s not down my the levee

it’s down past the cane—
stretching like bamboo back
to the jungles of africa

it makes her blue—
mississippi delta dinge
mandingo sluggish flow

it makes her wanna—
be free as the evening
breeze and go somewhere

she feels her spirit—
moving thru the apartment
the young man in bed

she’s sucked him dry—
now she’s sobbing like a
whore dying for more

she’s addicted to it—
it’s flowing in her veins
oozing outta her boyfriend

dixie never really died—
it’s enslaved down there
black creole dixie dick

Chimes Street Journal XI

“waves lapped
at the pilings”
—John Wieners,
July 23, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

the apartment house—
was on a hill at the end
of chimes street by campus

the hippies, ex-students—
called the little bunch of shacks
along chimes “cat fish row”

sometimes she heard—
waves lapping outside the
window like last night

other times she felt—
like an egyptian mummy
or a faggy rip van winkle

it all depended mostly—
on how much she smoked
how much she’d got him off

he was like liquid quicksand—
she’d sink deep inside him
each squirt sucked her down

the sweat on his thighs—
the way he wanted seconds
pulling his foreskin back

shooting his sinus mucous—
slimy down her fuckin throat
she liked the taste snotty

it was good together—
he treated her like his woman
she made him feel at home

why not be sensualist—
she even sucked his runny nose
caressing his black creole cock

a couple of semesters—
who knows how many pints
of creole cum inside her

she was queering quentin—
doing to herself what butchy
dalton ames tried to do

not jumping off the bridge—
not consumed with southern
virginity or caddy’s pussy

doing the down-low dinge—
doing what henry sutpen
did to bon the beautiful…

Chimes Street Journal XII

“a poem for
the storyteller”
—John Wieners,
July 23, The Journal of
John Wieners Is to Be
Called 707 Scott Street
For Billie Holiday

it was tres laissez-faire—
she had lots of paradise
on her hands back then

she painted a map—
of living africa with dark
living colors each day

mostly she hung around—
allen hall and the library
her english professor

he was very astute—
a scholar from brown
born in mobile alabama

she took all his classes—
she loitered beneath the
nostalgic wpa murals

she found solace with—
mostly faulkner’s novels
and yoknapatawpha lit

she published maudlin—
poems in the student
journal called “delta”

she rode a raft—
above the shallow gay
despairs of dinge love

a delta dilettante—
she squandered her
inheritance on whatever

she was very passive—
she waited for love to
come its way demurely

and jungle love did—
but savagely more dinge
than she expected

she was tres romantic—
she strolled highland drive
late at night stoned