411 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
411 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^
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from POLAND/1931
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by JEROME ROTHENBERG
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"The Wedding"
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my mind is stuffed with tablecloths
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& with rings but my mind
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is dreaming of poland stuffed with poland
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brought in the imagination
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to a black wedding
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a naked bridegroom hovering above
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his naked bride mad poland
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how terrible thy jews at weddings
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thy synagogues with camphor smells & almonds
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thy thermos bottles thy electric fogs
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thy braided armpits
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thy underwear alive with roots o poland
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poland poland poland poland poland
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how thy bells wrapped in their flowers toll
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how they do offer up their tongues to kiss the moon
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old moon old mother stuck in thy sky thyself
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an old bell with no tongue a lost udder
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o poland thy beer is ever made of rotting bread
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thy silks are linens merely thy tradesmen
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dance at weddings where fanatic grooms
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still dream of bridesmaids still are screaming
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past their red moustaches poland
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we have lain awake in thy soft arms forever
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thy feathers have been balm to us
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thy pillows capture us like sickly wombs & guard us
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let us sail through thy fierce weddings poland
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let us tread thy markets where thy sausages grow ripe & full
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let us bite thy peppercorns let thy oxen's dung be sugar to
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thy dying jews
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o poland o sweet resourceful restless poland
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o poland of the saints unbuttoned poland repeating endlessly
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the triple names of mary
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poland poland poland poland poland
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have we not tired of thee poland no for thy cheeses
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shall never tire us nor the honey of thy goats
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thy grooms shall work ferociously upon their looming brides
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shall bring forth executioners
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shall stand like kings inside thy doorways
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shall throw their arms around thy lintels poland
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& begin to crow
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^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^
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"COKBOY Part One"
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saddlesore I came
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a jew among
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the indians
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vot em I doink in dis strange place
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mit deez pipple mit strange eyes
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could be it's trouble
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could be could be
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(he says) a shadow
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ariseth from his buckwheat
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has tomahawk in hand
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shadow of an axe inside his right eye
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of a fountain pen inside his left
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vot em I doink here
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how vass I lost tzu get here
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am a hundred men
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a hundred fifty different shadows
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jews & gentiles
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who bring the Law to Wilderness
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(he says) this man
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is me my grandfather
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& other men-of-letters
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men with letters carrying the mail
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lithuanian pony-express riders
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the financially crazed Buffalo Bill
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still riding in the lead
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hours before avenging the death of Custer
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making the first 3-D movie of those wars
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or years before it
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the numbers vanishing in kabbalistic time
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that brings all men together
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& the lonely rider
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saddlesore
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is me my grandfather
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& other men of letters
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jews & gentiles entering
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the domain of Indian
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who bring the Law to Wilderness
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in gold mines & shaky stores
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the fur trade heavy agriculture
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ballots bullets barbers
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who threaten my beard your hair
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but patronize me
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& will make our kind the Senator from Arizona
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the champion of their Law
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who hates us both
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but dresses as a jew one day an indian
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the next a little christian schmuck
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vot em I doink here
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dis place is maybe crazy
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has all the letters going backwards
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(he says) so who can read the signboards
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to the desert
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who can shake his way out of the woods
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ford streams the grandmothers
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were living near
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with snakes inside their cunts
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teeth maybe
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maybe chainsaws
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when the Baal Shem visited America
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he wore a shtreiml
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the locals all thought he was a cowboy
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maybe from Mexico
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"a cokboy?"
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no a cowboy
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I will be more than a credit to my community
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& race
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but will search for my brother Esau among these redmen
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their nocturnal fires I will share
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piss strained from my holy cock
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will bear seed of Adonoi
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& feed them visions
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I will fill full a clamshell
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will pass it around from mouth to mouth
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we will watch the moonrise
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through each other's eyes
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the distance vanishing in kabbalistic time
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(he says) the old man watches
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from the cliffs a city
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overcome with light
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the man & the city disappear
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he looks & sees another city
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this one is made of glass
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inside the buildings stand
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immobile statues
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brown-skinned faces
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catch the light
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an elevator
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moving up & down
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in the vision of the Cuna _nele_
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the vision of my grandfather
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vision of the Baal Shem in America
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the slaves in steerage
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what have they seen in common
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by what light their eyes
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have opened into stars
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I wouldn't know
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what I was doing here
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this place has all the letters going
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backwards a reverse in time
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towards wilderness
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the old jew strains at his gaberdine
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it parts for him
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his spirit rushes up the mountainside
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& meets an eagle
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no an iggle
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captains commanders dollinks delicious madmen
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murderers opening the continent up to exploitation
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cease & desist (he says)
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let's speak (he says)
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feels like a little gas down here (he says)
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(can't face the mirror without crying)
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& the iggle lifts him
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like an elevator
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to a safe place above the sunrise
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there gives a song to him
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the Baal Shem's song
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repeated without words for centuries
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"hey heya heya" but translates it
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as "yuh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-bum"
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when the Baal Shem (yuh-buh) learns to do a bundle
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what does the Baal Shem (buh-buh) put into the bundle?
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silk of his prayershawl-bag beneath
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cover of beaverskin above
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savor of esrog fruit within
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horn of a mountaingoat between
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feather of dove around the sides
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clove of a Polish garlic at its heart
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he wears when traveling
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in journeys through kabbalistic forests
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cavalry of the Tsars on every side
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men with fat moustaches yellow eyes & sabers
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who stalk the gentle soul
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at night through the Wyoming steppes
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(he says) vot em I doink here
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I could not find mine het
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would search the countryside on hands & knees
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until behind a rock in Cody
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old indian steps forth
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the prophecies of both join at this point
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like smoke a pipe is held
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between them dribbles through their lips
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the keen tobacco
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"cowboy?"
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cokboy (says the Baal Shem)
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places a walnut in his handkerchief & cracks it
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on a boulder each one eats
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the indian draws forth a deck of cards
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& shuffles
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"game?"
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they play at wolves & lambs
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the fire crackle in the pripitchok
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in a large tent somewhere in America
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the story of the coming forth begins
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"COKBOY Part Two"
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comes a brown
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wind curling from
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tense tissue sphincter
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opened over the whole continental
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divide & shot the people up
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plop plop a little girl emergeth
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she with the beaver tits nose furry
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eyes of the Redman's
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Sabbath
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gropes down the corridor
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(sez) hallo doctor
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got a hand to spare?
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doctor sez hokay
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--yas doctor
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hand up her bush
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he pulls
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a baby howling
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in lamplight a little Moses
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now the Cacique's daughter laugheth
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--oh doctor not so-o hard
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so hard America is born
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so hard the Baal Shem dreams about it
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200 years later
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in Vitebsk
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(he was in correspondence with Wm Blake
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appeared on Peckham Rye
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--yes fully clothed!--
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& was his angel)
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angel says his mother
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smiling proud
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she sees his little foot
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break through
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her crotch an itching
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races up her ribs
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America is born
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the Baal Shem is a beaver
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(happened while the Indian talked
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chanted behind Cody
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the mad jew slid to life
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past pink styrofoam snow of her body's
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channels
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the freaky passageways
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unlit unloved
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like gums of an old woman
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teeth were ripped from
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ages gone) into
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another kind of world
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he hurtles
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does reawaken in the female swamp
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a beaver amongst the rushes
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--momma!--calls the Baal Shem
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--mommeleh!
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vot em I doink here
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I hev become mine beard
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(he says) the blind world shines on him
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water runs through his mouth
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down belly it is dark
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a darkness (fur is dark
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& hides the skin & blood
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a universal fur
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but leaves one hole
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to open from the body's
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darkness pushing
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into light)
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erupts
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like great cock of the primal beings
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red & smooth like copper
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of the sun's red eye at night
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old Beaver lugs it in his hand
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I am myself my grandfather
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(he sings) my name is Cokboy
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--COKBOY, understand?
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I leave my grandmother in the female swamp
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will be the Great Deliverer someday yuh-buh-bum
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even might find a jar of honey might stick my prick in my
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prick might tingle might it not tickle me the bees
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find out about it & sting the knob it grows a second
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a dozen or so knobs along its length are maybe 30 knobs
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so what's the use I ask maybe will try again I drag it red &
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sore behind me so vulnerable I have become in this hot
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climate shitting & farting shooting marbles was opening
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my mouth & coming in it
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the blackbird shits o not so fast love into my hat my eyes
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turn white wood-lilies are growing from them a slavic
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birth I can't deny so tender in my eyes tender the
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native turds come floating
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& across America in an outrage uselessly I shout against the
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Sun you are no longer my father Moon you are no longer
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my mother I have left you have gone out jaunty with cock
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slung over shoulder this is the journey your young men
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will take
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(says Beaver) makes it to the hut where that old woman lives
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apron over her belly carp in oven maybe fried bread fat
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fat little mother don't mind if I drop a stone onto your
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brains your daughters be back later little hot girls I
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ride on pretending I was you I suck their ears & scream
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o put me lower down love o my cock inside
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& have to cool it
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I cool it
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in waters where a princess
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daughter of a chief
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went bathing
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lethal & innocent the cock
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has found its mark
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(his train has reached Topeka
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Custer is dead)
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& enters the bridegroom's quarters
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darkness her flesh prepared for it
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by new moon
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in her abdomen a sliver
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grows
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a silver dollar over Barstow
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lighting the Marriage of America
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in kabbalistic time
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(says Cokboy) you are the daughter of
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the mountain
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now will I take thee to my father's tribe
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to do the snake dance
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o jewish feet of El go crazy
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in his mind
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o
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El
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o
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Him
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I carry in my knapsack
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dirty pictures land grants
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(but further back her people
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gun for him
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how should they feel
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seeing their daughter in arms of
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Cokboy
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--C-O-C-K, understand?--)
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thou art become my Father's bride
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are wedded to (ug) Christian god
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forever
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bye bye I got to run now
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engagements await us in Salt Lake City
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industry riseth everywhere
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arrows strike concrete
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never shall bruise my sweetie's flesh
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(says Cokboy) on horse
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up river he makes his way
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past mining camps Polacks were panning gold in
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& other pure products of America
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o prospectors o Anglo Saxons
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baby-faced dumplings who pacified the west
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with gattling guns with bounties for hides of babes
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mothers' vulvas made baseballs to their lust
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o bringers of civilization heros heros
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I will fight my way past you who guard the sacred border
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last frontier village of my dreams
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with shootouts tyrannies
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(he cries) who had escaped the law
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or brought it with him
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how vass I lost tzu get here
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was luckless
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on a mountain & kept from
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true entry to the west true paradise
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like Moses in the Rockies who stares at California spooky in
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the jewish light
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of horns atop my head great orange freeways of the mind
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America disaster
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America disaster
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America disaster
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America disaster
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where he can watch the sun go down
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in desert
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Cokboy asleep (they ask)
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awake (cries Cokboy)
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only his beard has left him
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like his own his grandfather's
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ghost of Ishi was waiting on the crest
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looked like a jew
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but silent
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was silent in America
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guess I got nothing left to say
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^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^^//\\^^^^^^^
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"The Wedding" and "Cokboy" are the first and last poems
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in the book, _POLAND/1931_, by Jerome Rothenberg, published
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by New Directions, New York. Copyright (C) 1974 and 1986 by
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Jerome Rothenberg.
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An audio tape of Jerome Rothenberg reading _POLAND/1931_ is
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available from New Fire Tapes, Light and Dust Books,
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Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A. The tape may be ordered through
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the Grist On Line Bookstore. Other titles by Rothenberg are
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also available through Grist.
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