![Such a Birthday, Marie-France (2006)
Birthdays? Who counts them?
Too many? Who cares?
Troubles? Surmount them!
No elevator? Take stairs.
Pebble hurts you in your shoe?
Shake it, take it home with you.
Maybe it’s a thing you need
(for some necklace came this bead).
Birthdays? They’re one way to know
why your life has taught you so.
“Taught me what?” did you ask?
POOpaTApik! That’s your task!
[*The Bard of Montparnasse strikes again. 21.02.2006*]](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/c/f/4/cf4414d5-770d-47e8-9e35-de574d0b280c/attachment/aa1e942b1e24bf7263dce9176fd9c1b7.jpg)
Skip to main content
All Project Resources
58 resources. Showing results 41 through 50.
Uploaded 
PARTY-POOPER
![Poem begun at 3, rue du Midi, B 129, Toulouse, 7 July 1980, 8:55 p.m.—10:25.
(Idea from drive from le Barry to Toulouse yesterday afternoon.)
Revised in Bulgaria, 14 Jul 1980, 3:14 p.m.—4:28 (Preslav notel, Near Vana, in Zlatni Pjasaci, 15-19 July
Title changed 17 July.
SCARECROW, U.S.A.: THE ROAD TO TOULOUSE
A man, hanging stiffly from [the] the roadside tree,
[smeared] dyed my eyes awake with [dying] smears of sunlight,
burst my after-luncheon calm [against the] into some rolling scream
our tires must have sucked into the road
[turning] [curving] twisting out of sight [the] that dangling arm.
“What’s the French word for scarecrow?”
[was] strung out the [rope I climbed to stay aboard] rope I clung to. She steadied it with words,
drove slower till I [heard] understood “Some famers over here
[*19 July. Not like America, I guess?]
[hang] put them in [the] trees. They get in cherry trees”--
and the birds, she meant--“and chuk-chuk-chuk:
all you get is holes.”
I felt the cutting of the beak. The man’s head
Was [missing] gone, back there in the leaves, the limbs
I hadn’t [seen] caught it. The other arm, yes,
[a twist] its tendons of straw clinched for [the] his signature:
[* 16 July: indent 5 spaces or more]
[the] his bled-out warming
[that] from the tinsel-threaded legs, [*Put on line by itself (15 July)*]
the [blowing] [flashing] ravaged vest
the [flap-fringed] [undecipherable] flapping space [*Put on line by itself (16 July)*]
[imagination spun and scoured around/above the broomstick neck
all clarified/signified a matching face
imagination spun and scoured so hopefully
above the splintered broomstick neck
(oh, how imagination spun there, and scoured so hopelessly
to cast a human face!)
15 July, 11:50 a.m.—12:33
16 July, 11:56 a.m.—12:35, 2:10 p.m.—2:48; 3:55—4:27; 5:52—6:48
17 July 11:52 a.m.-12:28
below the bludgeoned [undecipherable] hat,
above the splintered broomstick neck,
(oh, how imagination spun around it,
scouring hopelessly to raise a human face!)
illiterate even, an X, any breathing scar,
some sign enforceable, acknowledging [a past,] people-past, a debt to pay, a surname [dragging] tracing back to wilderness
where family of outlaws, musketry [and]/or cannonball
blazed legacies through [undecipherable] tents and huts, and wild birds witnessing
[and] while wild birds witness[ing]es [undecipherable] and exchanged their chaos in the trees
19 July, 9:25 a.m.—10:10 a.m.
his personal X is last spasm, he marked [*replace “an X... line*]](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/8/0/c/80cf460b-3b3f-4e87-84fd-50c513e2ecc0/attachment/bfc18ee3ddc46c090e188aabcf02f76c.jpg)
Draft, SCARECROW, U.S.A.: THE ROAD TO TOULOUSE
![190
But dusty roadware, glassy gadgets waiting--
three sign-bound piggies bearing olives
at the border of Seville serve up forgetfulness
of killer tusks and bristly hides;
[*used in an early poem, “Beyond the Clearing”, p.331*]
three desk-borne, tiny monkeys
joined for paperweight, in blotter,
are all we dare of King Kong raging in his pain;
[*road signs in Span and elsewhere*]
and everywhere the dragon selling gasoline,
his black and yellow tongue bereft of sting
(Oh, Toro, Toro
who shrank you down
and drank your blood?).
[*Reference to my abhorrence of viragoes who are also like Dame Van Winkle.*]
Was it lovely Eve, the bullring lady at home the shrew,
who hid her widowed eyes when knives dug at your hearth?
Was it the pinch-faced Leather Duke
who fled the gang fight, left his befriender bleeding,
and ghoulish grew to curse the backs of strangers?
[*See autobiog “A Force in the Field” for this bothersome confrontation with fascist law and courts in Spain of the early 1970’s.*]
Was it the Algeciras judge who held his cigarette like a torch
and stumble-followed it from room to room
holding his court? More likely, then, his tribe of tribers?
those gunhipped, grim-beaked motorcyclists
prick-eared and powered by hornhats aping El Toro?
Or was it the ones who snipped his mighty tail
or lopped his signal ears
or beat the horses to drag his body across the sand?
[Oh, Toro, Toro](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/4/5/7/457a0bf0-c34a-4b01-9947-25acf5c60efe/attachment/17573d9ac26b0cfaa27cac1e8a78331f.jpg)
El Toro (with annotations) 5
![191
why so hard to pull into the light
a drinker of blood?)...
[*large social implication intended*]
No matter. Your ghost will stomp back up in the hills,
seed phantoms need the roads, the high spots
where the crown is hid.
And when mosquito prancers ride in pairs, in scores,
and force you down into their trumpety, their ring of sand,
[*Main theme again*]
stay terrible; feel only their glutting fair--
lest the burn of your blowing saliva,
the scald of your nosebleed fan,
the bloomful silence of your impossible fall
teach
nothing.
1978
1980
Tomorrow [*Perhaps the second poem I ever published (in a college anthology, America Sings). It did not take long for me to desert this kind of diction.*]
This day makes sport of my desire
And laughter echoes my lament.
My joy is ransomed by tomorrow,
To whose embrace my toil is bent.
Tomorrow will descent a queen
From this day’s own pure atmosphere,
Diademmed and royal gowned,](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/4/2/0/420c9776-c4b8-48d8-9fe0-40ebe7adde44/attachment/af526d6b2e7f2811eb75bf55bbf13a53.jpg)
El Toro (with annotations) 6
![188
in flicking his cape, turning his back to bow
(Oh, Toro, Toro,
who has heard you fall?”
[*I did not like this toy at all.*]
I heard him lying twitching on the street,
or fancied Toro sound could come from such a toy,
a fist-sized bullock, cuddly black,
with bandalero-figured winding pin sewed into his back,
vulnerable to any childish thumb
or eager vendor like this one of left Café Colón,
unslung his ragged cardboard box
and loosed his hopping ware down to the stones
(Oh, Toro, Toro
what have they done to you?_
Yet, even Andalusian hills, spike-fruited, thorned,
had worn the course of the bravest always run:
Sierra Nevada access, high testing-ground where weakest fail;
Granada, the middle prize where beauty stays;
the climb and glide to Córdoba,
ancient Roman praise, still wise in Arab skill;
and then Seville,
from clever Santa Cruz to deep-eyed beggars on the squares
a capital worthy to fix a crown, command the river
that ties the see to hills El Toro roams,
and give him king-spot, eminence](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/6/5/8/658adb16-5dcb-4198-b128-952e433e31a2/attachment/3b9f879880c862fdf4ecbe347a3f797c.jpg)
El Toro (with annotations) 3
El Toro (with annotations) 1
![189
above the cypress, bamboo, orange,
and palms he surveys wild
(Oh, Toro, Toro,
who cut you down
into a toy?).
Stay wild and black; [*main theme of poem, of course*]
burn my eyes like weird-streaked sunset
where I drove into your heartbeats
poured like pellets whipping through the hillside trees,
my knuckles wheeling slow into those twilight spears
your devil-snorting horns flashed out;
gore from my mind each clinging phantom fact
those close-up ghosts near Andalusian roads thrust up
as I incredulous drove nearer, saw heroic blood
that minutes before had blazoned all your side
dull down to “Osborne Sherry & Brandy,” pink words for sale;
and I stiffened stupefied to glimpse you pointed at my side,
your frightful, glossy bulk reduced to tin-lid frailty:
[*My first view of roadside signs using a whole-bull image — a surprise and disappointment.*]
a momentary, nail-thin, signpost creature
breeze-blown and slapped askew
if not for humping metal stays and dingy studs
and rusty little props
(Oh, Toro, Toro
what have they done to you?)
Some silent ones could answer: not only Andalusian toys,](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/e/e/6/ee6d4f3c-13d4-4453-881a-2e3386c57596/attachment/da9cd2a48a280b263447a6adc5466855.jpg)
El Toro (with annotations) 4
![169
“wash your face”
though dried to somber at the sign
of white so deftly brown again.
Final sip was “All depends
which room you’re in I guess;
just don’t come up behind me;
makes me nervous since the war”;
but didn’t say when the war began
nor dare count all those faces,
clean and white,
that came up from behind
1969
1970
169
A View from the White Helmet
[*”A View from the White Helment”: Written at the start of the 1960’s, when the African nations were beginning to become free. Note that some African leaders received their education at oxford.*]
[*Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the USA, FDR, liked this poem, according to a City College colleague who knew her, William Turner Levy.*]
A glittering thing,
Africa-long
Approaches,
Gliding through legendary leaves,
Traversing ancient rivers.
A clattering thing,
Africa-long
Echoes,
Like bracelets of ivory](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/3/3/8/33889ae5-b46a-4ac4-a06e-48fe3e7015ef/attachment/15a456791f027855d0ffaeff2e29126a.jpg)
Black Humor in France: for Etha (with annotations) 2
![168
When this white though healing hand
Trespasses and takes command.)
(Hate for friends and hate for foes
Who have not endured hate’s blows
Digested with the crumbs of years.
What can stop these ancient tears
Burning in a little face
So captive in a starched embrace?)
(cs. 1963)
1964
168
Black Humor in France: For Etha
[*Written in Seyssins about a real incident, circumstances that show how humor can help heal the psyche. See my autobiographical essay “A Force in the Field, CAAS, Vol. 18, on this poem.*]
Outshouting bathwater,
whitefaced with soap,
behind me doorbursting,
“BOO!” right at my ear you jumped,
hopping to crouch and grin as
“DAMN!” went coffee sloshing.
“White folks scareya, hunh?”
Black only growled,
but soapface pranced and crowed
“think white!” “think snow!”
till sip of coffee made the chuckle](https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/system/resource/d/a/9/da98e393-0736-41da-a393-b1a6ca4080a2/attachment/91f4690eadf544ea3a7a53c78dff419a.jpg)
Black Humor in France: for Etha (with annotations) 1