Poems by Charles, Pt. 1

At the end of feat, the blackbird walks
Shocked by palisades of ice and worn out shoes
Shocked by nerve gas
Shock by pinnacles of spinach
Shock by the broken-wing bluebird

Ol' Notre Dame football teams run through my room, sands whirl inside stovepipes
Never getting a Pulitzer prize
Shakespeare is 401, Joe Lewis is 51
A young boy stands outside throwing dust dry rocks against the garage
"THAP! THAP! THAP!"
Shocked by the body's limpid drag disease flab
Shocked by tourniquets of music and elevators
Not shocked to learn that Beethoven was a drunkard
The angular daydream huddles against the fence like an old man
"Jesus Charlie," it says, "Jesus Charlie they surely got us now," Hm

Then, night fear
Fear of never sleeping with a young girl who'd never heard of Rimbaud
Fear of platitude and poverty
Fear of a long death
Fear of cameras and landlords and bosses
Fear of children and wives
Fear of cancer and round shoulders
Fear that Sartre's asleep
Fear that [?] is kidding
Fear that there isn't anybody here

In a dozen years, I'll be grey and almost dead
In a dozen years I will be dead
At the end of of feat the blackbird walks
The woman behind me dries her pants on the heater
China and Russia curse at the bar
France sits back holding a small blade in pocket
I wish I were truly gross not this way, the way people say I am
I wish I were truly gross, weighed 366 pounds
And sat at a back table in Paris, six novels behind me
About ready to die and waiting
Eating something out of a pot
A one half-lived rabbit
Regarding the women as soot, the world is soot
Knowing the ground will bring up potatoes, coal, old graves, diamonds
Knowing a joke about the sun and partly about what god is up to
Sitting there, in accumulation
Spooning it down
Glowing pink and famed and not caring under electric lights
And I, with only a temporary will
All the waitresses frightened, trembling in their silly flower panties
All the young boys wanting to know how its done, what the equation is:
And I am, after all, truly gross
I get up and walk out, electric into darkness
And cracked my cane head against the building
(Bang) "THAP!"
And that is it-

Two jet planes passed to left now
I see a white and yellow roof through a dead walnut tree
The shock is in seeing and feeling and never knowing
It is a knowing that makes you gross
There's nothing to know