NAROPA BOYFRIENDS
______________________
Naropa Boyfriends
Boulder Diary
How I Write Poetry &
Who I Learned From
Writing Poems
Family Portrait
Scrap Book
Another Day
Julius My Brother
Mirror
Morning Poem
_________________
NAROPA BOYFRIENDS
“nothing like a hot dish
of warm lips”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
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Naropa a big Marketplace—
everybody is writing poetry
Allen says to his classes—
poetry is by itself nothing
_____________
I’m always at the mercy—
of cute young Rimbaud boys
I know what that means—
the great come-on routine
______________
All these young guys—
hangin around Allen
Each night in Boulder—
goin to bed with some kid
__________________
BOULDER DIARY
“Talk we Split it’s—
all right, goin ways”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
_______________
Allen’s apartment becomes—
a youth hostel every night
They want to get in bed—
with the great queer poet
____________
It’s okay with me cause—
I’ve been there done that
It’s okay with me cause—
by now it’s all pretty boring
___________
I’m not turned on by—
Allen’s old ugly cock
Young guys can do him—
I could give a shit
____________
They’re not interested—
in poetry just being famous
“Look at me, I went to bed—
with the great poet Ginsberg!”
_____________
HOW I WRITE POETRY &
WHO I LEARNED FROM
“In 1957 Paris hotel room
I wrote my first 2 poems”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
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I learned from Allen—
to always write it down
Always carry a notebook—
so you can drop it on paper
___________
I get a kick jotting down—
spontaneous flashes
Corso taught me to recognize—
funny speech word idea combos
_____________
Catullus natural talk about love—
Rimbaud for lightening action
Lorca for finding my duende—
WC Williams for reality track
__________
Allen for spontaneous verse—
“First word, best word”
______________
WRITING POEMS
“Writing poems is
a sacred thing”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
____________
Writing poems scary business—
sacred & yet profane too
A diary or a novel—
would make a lot more sense
____________
One family all I ever want to know—
what good another soap opera?
The same old memory ramblings—
another bunch of normal lies
____________
To breathe is just to sigh—
roll my eyes is all I can do
Rain & snow my only clock—
watching it thru the window
__________
Grinding my teeth for lack of love—
the world a cold stove cathedral
______________
FAMILY PORTRAIT
“I love the foot steps—
of my family when
they walk thru the
house at night”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
_____________
I don’t like sorrow to hang—
down from my family tree
So I try to visit them—
as much as I can
____________
I’m just a nameless asshole—
but they’re still my family
Looking into each other’s loopy eyes—
it’s sad but still we’re still here
____________
Old age is a heart stab—
see what it does to faces?
No wonder they pull down—
the window shades so that
____________
None of the neighbors—
can see what I see
All families are the same—
it’s just so fuckin sad
_____________
SCRAP BOOK
“beauty lies deep like
the little speck of dirt”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
______________
Heaven’s closet—
what’s in there anyway?
I use my teeth and fingers—
to pry it open, saliva dripping
_______________
My broken fingernails—
flinging the closet door open
Spooks spillin out—
a rush of rumors too
_______________
What did I think was—
in there anything to know?
Then he comes out—
my idiot kid brother Julius
_____________
ANOTHER DAY
“a hungry rose cloud
will eat us up”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
__________
The smiling shadow—
in my broken heart is
An unseen face—
hidden in some clay
__________
Always a little stillness—
when I stop and think
What am I all about—
standing, sitting here alone?
____________
A monument to fate is—
being erected in my pants
Getting on the bus—
everybody sees it
___________
JULUS MY BROTHER
“No tears for Julius tonight
brother that left me young”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
_______________
He’s only 18—
goodlooking with a mop of hair
Gone, gone down the road—
such a strange crazy kid
_______________
He sits alone in the corner—
that faraway look in his eyes
I’ve worked in mental hospitals—
know the gloomy horror of it
_______________
At least he’s home with mother—
even tho she’s a zombie too
It runs in our family—
years pass, it just gets worse
______________
MIRROR
“All I need is a mirror
for the rest of my life”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
____________
Shaving in the morning—
my hairy ugly werewolf face
My eyes just empty holes—
only hoping to understand
______________
Blinking neon sign shines—
down thru my bedroom window
Reminding me once again—
life is just a Grade-B movie
______________
My life here in NYC—
another American beatnik
Thank god I’m not a hustler—
selling my bod on Times Square
_______________
MORNING POEM
“Morning again,
nothing has to
be done”
—Peter Orlovsky
CLEAN ASSHOLE POEMS
_______________
Morning comes—
don’t feel like doin nothin
Maybe I’ll write a poem—
or let a poem write me
______________
Time for another joint—
let the show begin
There’s this elevator—
from my bed to the floor
_______________
Isn’t that paradise—
your own dream room-land?
THE TALKING ASSHOLE
“Did I ever tell you about the man
who taught his asshole to talk?”
—William Burroughs, NAKED LUNCH
____________________
Did I ever tell you about the man—
who taught his asshole how to talk?
Actually it was the other way around—
his asshole taught him to talk instead
_____________
He was really good at it—
farting away grand speeches on TV
It was unlike anything ever heard—
or smelled before such a shitty syntax!!!
______________
His asshole talked with such fluency—
his colon was tres intelligentsia
He worked for this traveling carnival—
at first a novelty ventriloquist act
________________
After awhile he started talking to himself—
his ass would ad lib & toss out gags
But his asshole got bored with all that—
eating through his pants out on the street
__________________
Shouting out it wanted equal rights—
all pouty & puckered up in farting jags
Bitching that nobody loved it & wanted—
to be kissed like any other pair of lips
______________
The guy couldn’t stop his talking asshole—
it went on & on ranting day and night
You could hear it for blocks away—
people screaming for it to shut the fuck up
___________________
The guy threatened his asshole saying—
I’ll stick a fucking dildo in you, then what?
You’re the one that’s gonna shut up—
the talking asshole said back to the guy
______________
I don’t need you anymore because—
I can talk and eat and SHIT if I want to!!!
After that the dildo shut him up good—
but when the guy had to shit, WATCH OUT!!!
________________
So anyway, the talking asshole shut up—
cause one thing it needed was a pair of eyes
It trapped the guy though one day—
getting an organ transplant on the sly
_________________
Viola!!! The first talking asshole with an eye—
It walks!!! It talks!!! It can even see!!!
That’s when the asshole squeezed its cheeks—
and ran for an office in local politics
____________
It started out just being Mayor of Shitville—
but you know ambitious Assholes can be…
Jaysus christ, pretty soon he was on TV—
CNN & FOX-News went hog-wild over him
__________________
He even stooped to conquer—
letting Rachel Maddow kiss his lips
Lady Gaga couldn’t wait to finger him—
getting her forefinger all the way up there
_________________
He bit it off with his razor hemorrhoid teeth—
Justin Bieber was gonna be fuckin next
The end result was simply horrifying—
all the world’s assholes suddenly revolted
______________________
A whole new bourgeois bunghole Bureaucracy—
had to be quickly invented right then & there
No time for any more dithering diarrhea—
after all, who’d been sitting there forever?
__________________
There on the THRONE day after day—
Kings, queens, peons, the usual gangsters
But who really knew the fine red line—
between life and death at the final end?
_______________
It was the worldly humble meek Asshole—
constantly taking care of the dirty shit
Empires come & go, States collapse—
but it’s the Asshole who rules in the end
_________________
Proud & tall & built like old Shit-houses—
lonely out there on the lonely prairies
Prim & proud, sleek marble rims for the—
Emperor Caligula’s fine wicked tender ass
______________
Ah yes, it’s an altogether different history—
once you start seeing things differently
So you ask me whatever happened—
to this guy’s troublesome Talking Asshole?
__________________
Listen closely, cause I’ll only fart this once—
it’s tres secret and truly hush-hush
Welcome to my ASSHOLE PLANET—
guess who sits on the Throne now?
CUT-UP POETICS
http://www.gotpoetry.com/Sections/op=viewarticle/artid=23.html
“Members of Burroughs’s “Beat” generation
had drifted from place to place, always moving
and their writing was similarly disjointed.”
—Sarah Smarsh, It Happened in Kansas
_______________
So it only makes sense that Burroughs’—
writing and visual art deal with motion
Setting paint flying at explosive speed—
one way of doing motion on canvas
______________
Sitting there in Lawrence—
and writing it is one thing
But trying to write what’s moving—
that’s a totally different artform
________________
Old representational methods—
didn’t work with Kansas landscapes
He turned to cut-up collages—
a new narrative technique was needed
THE PRIVATE ASSHOLE
A private asshole. As a private investigator I run
into more death than the law allows. I mean the law of averages. The guy inside
is about ready to reach a crescendo of amorous noises. I always find that if
you walk in just as he gets off he can’t take a swing at you. My name is Clem
Williamson Snide. When me and the house dick finally open the door with a
passkey, the smell of shit and bitter almonds blows us away. We wait outside
the hotel room for the cyanide capsule fumes to air out. They’d fucked until
the capsules dissolved. A real messy love death. Another time I’m working on a
routine case and have to take away twenty-three dead people. These things
happen. I am a man of the world. Going to and fro and walking up and down in it.
Death backs into you that way. Seems they always smell like cyanide, carrion,
blood, cordite or burnt flesh. It’s like opium. Once you smell it you never
forget. Industrial sabotage when a factory burns down is worse. I can walk down
a street and get a whiff of death. It’s like opium smoke and I know someone is
kicking the bucket. It smells. I mean
it has a special smell.
FLINT HILLS EVENING
“The shadow crawls
up canyon walls”
—Badger Clark
“The Sky Blue Plains,”
SUN AND SADDLE LEATHER
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The Flint Hills evening—
comes slowly down ravines
The rim rocks flush pink—
crawling night shadows
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The cottonwood leaves—
quiver shiver like me
Do they anticipate—
what I know will happen?
_____________
The wind break sways—
knows what night brings
The Flint Hills get still—
more blue shadows come
________________
After dinner we smoke—
drink some Johnny Walker
The stillness out there—
singing the same old song
____________
Blow out kerosene lamp—
then to bed together
If only I say to myself—
it’ll be this way forever
GAY COWBOY POETRY
He was hard to get to know—
but then that’s the way it was
The harder the better—
a quiet kind of prairie love
__________
Mostly just him & me driving—
out there on Kansas nights
Bought me a nice Stetson hat—
a pair of expensive boots
__________________
I never made a decent cowboy—
he didn’t seem to mind tho
He wanted somebody to—
know & love him way out there
_______________
OUT THERE different than—
livin in town back home
I can’t even describe it—
it’s like livin on the moon
________________
Cowboy songs comin up from—
OK City on the radio
Cowboy commaraderie—
him & me out there
______________
Turnin me on to country music—
comin up from Oklahoma City
Hank Williams especially—
YOUR CHEATIN HEART
________________
Out there in his ranch-house—
quiet Chase County nights
Kinda spooky like Z-Bar Mansion—
listenin to prairie wind outside
_____________
Lived with him for a year—
stoic Kansas cowboy dude
Rented the range out to—
young ranchers with families & kids
STRONG CITY
I didn’t much want to—
but like I couldn’t help it
Him waitin for me—
in his Chevy pickup truck
___________
Waitin for me there in—
the high school parking lot
Smokin a cigarette—
after all that boring shit
____________
The shit they put us thru—
punchin a fuckin clock
Gettin us ready for it—
shitty working class crap
___________
There I stood lookin—
at him like I always did
He didn’t look away—
he said “Get in, baby”
_____________
We drove west outta—
town real slow on Sixth
Hank Williams on the—
radio from OK City
________
Suddenly I realized—
I was never gonna
Gonna be the same—
not with him anyway
__________
Out past Hwy 50—
past the Truck Stop
He reached over—
grabbed my leg
___________
Jaysus christ I—
fainted then & there
Talk about angels—
descendin' outta heaven
______________
I was ready for it—
some wings to fly
Ready for anything—
he wanted me to be
STRONG CITY STUD
I got bored waitin around for it—
not knowin if he was comin back
So I started cruisin Strong City—
kinda Slim Pickens tho dontchaknow
________________
Mostly older retired folks—
not ranchin much anymore
Then one Sat night I met this—
guy at the Longhorn Lounge
___________
Started hangin around with him—
kinda the lonesome type
Young & discouraged—
divorced with ex-wife & kids
___________
Strong City rodeo kid with—
tight fuckin bronco hips
Could go all night long—
bitin' me hard on the neck
COWBOY PEE POEM
The say a picture is worth—
a thousand words
This one says it all—
that & another inch more
______________
Skip the usual flowery—
old fashioned Cowboy verse
Nostalgic, closeted, coy—
shy cowpokes from Texas
______________
My Strong City stud—
barely surviving Viet Nam
Scorched by the vision—
ever-dying youth slaughtered
______________
Over there in the goddamn—
fuckin rotten SE Asia jungles
So when he got back—
nothing really surprised him
___________
He wasn’t bashful about men—
what he wanted I gave him
GAY COWBOY POETRY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=0qzMsJ-tmJY
Well, what can I really say—
without getting all you know what
It’s embarrassing to talk about it—
knowin how most Kansas folk feel
____________
I can’t really blame them—
it’s kinda shockin to me too
It never had happened to me—
fallin in love that cowboy way
___________
But it did happen way back then—
right outta the clear blue sky
Falling with grace for him & me—
he gave me the wings to fly
OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS
Q: What frightens you?
A: Real toads in imaginary gardens.
Q: You being the toad?
A: Who else?
Q: And your novels and short stories?
A: The gardens.
Q: When did you first notice it?
A: Just skimming the top of any head I’d say it was LA CÔTE BASQUE.
Q: That’s when you realized…
A: That I was the Toad…
Q: The toad in the imaginary garden?
A: You got it, honey…
Q: How did you feel?
A: It wasn’t pleasant. But what did they expect? The high society ladies. Or even Perry Smith. I’m a writer. I use what I see & hear. Did they think I was listening to them for the fun of it?
Q: What happened?
A: What do you think? I was terribly ostracized—banned from High Society. The very same snobs & upper-crust elite that I’d catered to with The Black and White Ball, the endless hours of boring cocktail confessions that they just couldn’t wait to tell me all about. All the tell-tale gossip about the Rich & Famous.
Q: And?
A: All their kitschy bedroom secrets and smarmy hidden adulteries. The yachts lollygagging in the same old stultifying Mediterranean, the covered-up sex-scandals, the tacky divorces, the hushed-up murders, the inescapable usual boredom, the luxurious day-to-day ennui of it all.
Q: And?
A: That’s how I became the Toad in that Garden. But that wasn’t the first time. I had inklings & hints that I’ve been an evil ugly little Toad for quite a long time, honey.
Q: When was the first time?
A: Well, let’s see. I suppose it all goes back to my first novel—OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS.
Q: Your first imaginary garden?
A: Yes, I be a Toad all the way back then. I just didn’t know it, that’s all.
Q: The way you deal with it, though, it’s always rather intriguingly imaginary, my dear.
A: I suppose so. Deceptively so. But that was the style back then—dontchaknow. Southern Gothic like Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty and Miss Faulkner.
Q: You mean Deep South Decadence?
A: Perhaps I was somewhat of a closet case back then. At least a part of me was. Too pretty to be a boy like the New Orleans voodoo queen said in “DAZZLE.”
Q: It came out in Joel the young kid in OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS didn’t it?
A: Yes, unconsciously I suppose. With Randolph up there in the window too.
Q: Randolph was you?
A: I was both Joel & Randolph. Sometimes a writer can be writing a story — not realizing completely that he’s working out some problem that’s been troubling him.
Q: Like what?
A: That a fictional character isn’t fictive at all. It’s the Writer himself… Like in a nonfictional novel.
Q: Like being too pretty to be a boy?
A: That & everything that goes with it, my dear. I could only hint at it in OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS. If I had kept it up much longer then, none of my future books would’ve sold — not with the tres chilly climate back then.
Q: All the homophobic critics?
A: Well, duh. Look what happened to Gore Vidal.
Q: He blamed the straight critics for him not being as successful as you were.
A: C’mon now, sweetheart. Miss Vidal only had herself to blame — that and the usual sour grapes routine.
Q: Well, if you were a critic today what would you say about what you’ve written so far?
A: Well, I’d probably say that Miss Capote certainly be quite familiar with horse manure, my dear.
Q: “Miss Capote”?
A: Yes, MISS CAPOTE. She sure bitch a lot, honey… Bitch, bitch, bitch. What a fuckin Bitch Queen!!! Moan & Bitch, that’s all she do anymore.
Q: Not a kind word for anybody? Not even herself?
A: Oh, I suppose I could blame it all on Big Daddy. You know like Madame Sylvia “Hammer Films” Plath. Or blame Ted Hughes for not catering to her fucked-up whims.
Q: Are you in a bitchy mood now?
A: What do you think, hmm? I can’t help it if I’m a Drearie Dearie these days. Mere trifles, though really, nothing’s really important anymore. Not after IN COLD BLOOD.
Q: Are you really being honest?
A: Did I ever say I was honest?
Q: All that nonfiction baloney… Didn’t you just to it for the moola? Those IN COLD BLOOD big bucks & film rights?
A: Well…
Q: C’mon, Truman. You couldn’t wait for them to exhaust their appeals & end up deader than doornails! So you could collect a million?
A: It was more than just a million, honey.
Q: Did you really fall in love with Perry Smith?
A: Well, I suppose Perry was more like the Leaper by the River Styx that Saint Julian came across.
Q: How do you mean?
A: I shared my robe with him — because he was cold. And I kissed his rotten diseased lips — to show I cared for him.
Q: And?
A: The hard Kansas rain was coming down on both of us — there in that dark Stygian Death Row Lansing Prison cell. We were both cold, shivering, lonely.
Q: And then what?
A: I couldn’t help myself. I had to comfort him somehow…
