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| Gregory Corso |
BOMB by Gregory Corso
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Budger
of history Brake of time You
Bomb
Toy
of universe Grandest of all snatched
sky I cannot hate you
Do
I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the
jawbone of an ass
The
bumpy club of One Million B.C. the
mace the flail the axe
Catapult
Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah
and the sad desparate gun of Verlaine
Pushkin Dillinger Bogart
And
hath not St. Michael a burning sword
St. George a lance David a sling
Bomb you are as cruel as man makes you and you're no crueller than cancer
All
Man hates you they'd rather die by
car-crash lightning drowning
Falling
off a roof electric-chair heart-attack
old age old age O Bomb
They'd
rather die by anything but you Death's
finger is free-lance
Not
up to man whether you boom or not Death
has long since distributed its
categorical
blue I sing thee Bomb Death's extravagance Death's jubilee
Gem
of Death's supremest blue The flyer
will crash his death will differ
with
the climbor who'll fall to die by cobra
is not to die by bad pork
Some
die by swamp some by sea and some by the bushy-haired man in the night
O
there are deaths like witches of Arc
Scarey deaths like Boris Karloff
No-feeling
deaths like birth-death sadless deaths
like old pain Bowery
Abandoned
deaths like Capital Punishment stately deaths like senators
And
unthinkable deaths like Harpo Marx
girls on Vogue covers my own
I
do not know just how horrible Bombdeath is
I can only imagine
Yet
no other death I know has so laughable a preview I scope
a
city New York City streaming
starkeyed subway shelter
Scores
and scores A fumble of humanity High heels bend
Hats
whelming away Youth forgetting their
combs
Ladies
not knowing what to do with their
shopping bags
Unperturbed
gum machines Yet dangerous 3rd rail
Ritz
Brothers from the Bronx caught in the A train
The
smiling Schenley poster will always smile
Impish
death Satyr Bomb Bombdeath
Turtles
exploding over Istanbul
The
jaguar's flying foot
soon
to sink in arctic snow
Penguins
plunged against the Sphinx
The
top of the Empire state
arrowed
in a broccoli field in Sicily
Eiffel
shaped like a C in Magnolia Gardens
St.
Sophia peeling over Sudan
O athletic
Death Sportive Bomb
the
temples of ancient times
their
grand ruin ceased
Electrons Protons
Neutrons
gathering
Hersperean hair
walking
the dolorous gulf of Arcady
joining
marble helmsmen
entering
the final ampitheater
with
a hymnody feeling of all Troys
heralding
cypressean torches
racing
plumes and banners
and
yet knowing Homer with a step of grace
Lo
the visiting team of Present
the
home team of Past
Lyre
and tube together joined
Hark
the hotdog soda olive grape
gala
galaxy robed and uniformed
commissary O the happy stands
Ethereal
root and cheer and boo
The
billioned all-time attendance
The
Zeusian pandemonium
Hermes
racing Owens
The
Spitball of Buddha
Christ
striking out
Luther
stealing third
Planeterium
Death Hosannah Bomb
Gush
the final rose O Spring Bomb
Come
with thy gown of dynamite green
unmenace
Nature's inviolate eye
Before
you the wimpled Past
behind
you the hallooing Future O Bomb
Bound
in the grassy clarion air
like
the fox of the tally-ho
thy
field the universe thy hedge the geo
Leap
Bomb bound Bomb frolic zig and zag
The
stars a swarm of bees in thy binging bag
Stick
angels on your jubilee feet
wheels
of rainlight on your bunky seat
You
are due and behold you are due
and
the heavens are with you
hosanna
incalescent glorious liaison
BOMB
O havoc antiphony molten cleft BOOM
Bomb
mark infinity a sudden furnace
spread
thy multitudinous encompassed Sweep
set
forth awful agenda
Carrion
stars charnel planets carcass elements
Corpse
the universe tee-hee
finger-in-the-mouth hop
over
its long long dead Nor
From
thy nimbled matted spastic eye
exhaust
deluges of celestial ghouls
From
thy appellational womb
spew
birth-gusts of of great worms
Rip
open your belly Bomb
from
your belly outflock vulturic salutations
Battle
forth your spangled hyena finger stumps
along
the brink of Paradise
O
Bomb O final Pied Piper
both
sun and firefly behind your shock waltz
God
abandoned mock-nude
beneath
His thin false-talc's apocalypse
He
cannot hear thy flute's
happy-the-day
profanations
He
is spilled deaf into the Silencer's warty ear
His
Kingdom an eternity of crude wax
Clogged
clarions untrumpet Him
Sealed
angels unsing Him
A
thunderless God A dead God
O
Bomb thy BOOM His tomb
That
I lean forward on a desk of science
an
astrologer dabbling in dragon prose
half-smart
about wars bombs especially bombs
That
I am unable to hate what is necessary to love
That
I can't exist in a world that consents
a
child in a park a man dying in an
electric-chair
That
I am able to laugh at all things
all
that I know and do not know thus to
conceal my pain
That
I say I am a poet and therefore love all man
knowing
my words to be the acquainted prophecy of all men
and
my unwords no less an acquaintanceship
That
I am manifold
a
man pursuing the big lies of gold
or
a poet roaming in bright ashes
or
that which I imagine myself to be
a
shark-toothed sleep a man-eater of
dreams
I
need not then be all-smart about bombs
Happily
so for if I felt bombs were
caterpillars
I'd
doubt not they'd become butterflies
There
is a hell for bombs
They're
there I see them there
They
sit in bits and sing songs
mostly
German songs
And
two very long American songs
and
they wish there were more songs
especially
Russian and Chinese songs
and
some more very long American songs
Poor
little Bomb that'll never be
an
Eskimo song I love thee
I
want to put a lollipop
in
thy furcal mouth
A
wig of Goldilocks on thy baldy bean
and
have you skip with me Hansel and Gretel
along
the Hollywoodian screen
O
Bomb in which all lovely things
moral
and physical anxiously participate
O
fairylike plucked from the
grandest
universe tree
O
piece of heaven which gives
both
mountain and anthill a sun
I
am standing before your fantastic lily door
I
bring you Midgardian roses Arcadian
musk
Reputed
cosmetics from the girls of heaven
Welcome
me fear not thy opened door
nor
thy cold ghost's grey memory
nor
the pimps of indefinite weather
their
cruel terrestial thaw
Oppenheimer
is seated
in
the dark pocket of Light
Fermi
is dry in Death's Mozambique
Einstein
his mythmouth
a
barnacled wreath on the moon-squid's head
Let
me in Bomb rise from that pregnant-rat corner
nor
fear the raised-broom nations of the world
O
Bomb I love you
I
want to kiss your clank eat your boom
You
are a paean an acme of scream
a
lyric hat of Mister Thunder
O
resound thy tanky knees
BOOM BOOM
BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM
ye skies and BOOM ye suns
BOOM
BOOM ye moons ye stars BOOM
nights
ye BOOM ye days ye BOOM
BOOM
BOOM ye winds ye clouds ye rains
go
BANG ye lakes ye oceans BING
Barracuda
BOOM and cougar BOOM
Ubangi
BOOM orangutang
BING
BANG BONG BOOM bee bear baboon
ye
BANG ye BONG ye BING
the
tail the fin the wing
Yes Yes
into our midst a bomb will fall
Flowers
will leap in joy their roots aching
Fields
will kneel proud beneath the halleluyahs of the wind
Pinkbombs
will blossom Elkbombs will perk their
ears
Ah
many a bomb that day will awe the bird a gentle look
Yet not enough to say a bomb will fall
or
even contend celestial fire goes out
Know
that the earth will madonna the Bomb
that
in the hearts of men to come more bombs will be born
magisterial
bombs wrapped in ermine all beautiful
and
they'll sit plunk on earth's grumpy empires
fierce with moustaches of gold
