you're
absolutely right . . .
I'm all that
and more; a teeter
totter from outer space
robert d. wilson
Ever since I returned from Nam, nothing's been the same. It's gotten worse, living a life viewed through the eyes of egotistical poets who don't give a shit about Buddhism, Jesus Christ, or Japanese short form poetry . . . living in a world where women, co-workers, spouses, I'm on number four, and my two oldest children think I'm self serving, arrogant, a con artist, a manipulator, the masturbator of trusting people's minds.
i'm a
goddamned mirror,
a fried
chicken gizzard boiling
in two day old lard?
robert d. wilson
Either I'm fucking mad, socio-pathic criminal mind with a hard on for getting whatever I want regardless of who I hurt, or . . . I'm not. And if I listen to most people, I'm forced to opt for the "fucking mad, sociopathic" label, which means, I'm related to one of the angels who fell from Heaven to earth with Satan, when the Devil said, "No way, Jose" to God; and Michael Dylan-Welch blew a gasket.
"Oh little Cody Pomeray if there had been some way to send a cry to you even when you were too little to know what utterances and cries are for in this dark sad earth, with your terrors in a world so malign and inhospitable, and all the insults from heaven ramming down to crowd your head with anger, pain, disgrace, worst of all the crapulous poverty in and out of every splintered door of days, if someone could have said to you then, and made you perceive, 'Fear life, but don't die; you're alone, everybody's alone. Oh Cody Pomeray, you can't win, you can't lose, all is ephemeral, all is hurt.'."
Jack Kerouac
"Let us learn to appreciate
there will be times when
the trees will be bare, and
look forward to the time
when we may pick the fruit."
Anton Chekov
I went to Nam a person who had friends, didn't take drugs, hated the taste of alcohol, loved to dance, surf, and make out with girlfriends, and, believe it or not, I was still a virgin, having never learned a thing from the videos they showed us in high school assemblies of a bull and cow coupling, and my parents never told me about the bird and the bees, though like all guys my age, my hormones were on hyper-drive without a driver, and I'd learned on my own how to masturbate (and a few other things). The only sex education I knew was the advice of my parent's childhood friend who called me aside after a gin rummy game with my parents and his wife, and whispered, "Remember to wear a rubber, Bob, whenever you do it with a girl." Wow, I was set. I now held the key to the chest of sexual knowledge!
she hustled
me, knowing i was
a virgin . . .
taking my money
that night in saigon
robert d. wilson
On your mark, get set, go! My first night in the dragon's belly, hot and humid isn't the word for the weather AND the emotional tension in the air there one week before the TET Offensive, and I was going past every titty bar in downtown Saigon with my fellow
naval lab test rats, on the prowl to prove to myself and the world that Bob Wilson was a real man. Half dressed babes in sexier clothes than anything I'd seen in the States, we're clawing at me, grabbing me by the balls, putting their blouses over my head (bra-less, of course), and no parents to say "No, no, son!" The first girl who asked me out right to fuck her, I fucked, after she took me for $50 instead of the usual $5, having me tip the bartender, the janitor, the girl who led us to our room, where she laid there without emotion or movement like a dead, light brown Patty Play Pal Doll, after telling me to stick it in her pussy, and oops, I was so sexcited I forgot to use a condom, and I cummed 10 seconds into the act, thinking I'd died and gone to heaven, when in reality, I was the Saigon's biggest sucker that night, the prince of fools, getting, as I learned the next day, nothing for the money, and paying her a giant fee after I'd blown my jets, without entering airspace. My first night as a stranger in a strange land, and that was just the beginning of what became the wild toad ride through hell, and when I got out of the toad's jalopy eleven months later, hell followed me home disguised as a psychedelic dragon.
girl-child
you make me wild!
those
hard brown titties,
a map
of the park
i'll
call
wonderland
years
later
in
the philippines
after
a road trip
to
hell
with
reverend green
aka
the wild toad
to
the
San Francisco
museum
of
modern art
on a weekday
when frank zappa
and
ferlinghetti
are
sparring
with
chopsticks
in
a
chinese restaurant
serving
green tea
in
plastic
glasses
laced
with
koolaid
robert d. wilson
Here I am again (TODAY), inside the circus mirror, a day dream dream of infant's breath, dangling on a clothesline made in the Philippines which means it'll last two weeks before it snaps, and my wife will blame me for it, because it's the Filipino way to blame another for what you, yourself are doing, and admit it's you, the O po's (yes sirs, yes ma'ams), a self defense mechanism left over from a need to survive during Spanish rule, the American rule three times over, the Japanese occupation, Marco's dictatorship, and the current reign of the "New Spanish," the rich Filipinos (and Chinese) who own 5% of the country's wealth, and keep their compatriots the least educated of anyone in any country world-wide, and so underpaid and void of the ability to adequately feed, house, or obtain medical care for themselves so that they'll willingly bow down and kiss the 5%'s asses for the privilege of existing, although they wouldn't have to if they had a backbone and weren't afraid to look in mirrors . . . and my wife gets pissed off and ignores me for the remainder of the day and night because I noticed on . . .
and in that minute, the circus mirror explodes, shattering every hollow cement block in our subdivision . . . the cards across the street unable to play croquet to the Red Queen's liking, leaving poor Alice unsure if she was ten feet tall or too fat to flee the rabbit hole filling rapidly with shards of flying glass.
"and the walls came tumbling down!"
"Man must evolve for all human conflict
a method which rejects revenge,
aggression and retaliation. The
foundation of such a method is love."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
think me
an asp striking the
dragon that
doesn't exist, a
monk sweeping lies
robert d. wilson
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
-Jack Kerouac
The world is mad and only the mad can comprehend and feel their way around the Wonderland Amusement Park, finding kindred spirits in those unable to afford mouse ears, who parrot the wind, and sing with crickets under logs felled by puppets working for greedy lumber companies. . . those living in the wild west and east of the night, fighting dragons adults don't believe exist because thy lay still after dusk under semen scented sheets, afraid to look into their own closets where skeletons wait patiently to reveal what they don't want to hear, because the walls will come tumbling down, without a chariot to come forth and carry them home.
and still,
the dredges of
wonderland . . .
scales clinging to
to autumn's tail
the east . . .
a sun dining
on teas leaves
troll with me
for feelings we haven't
felt before . . .
our critics, cartoon ducks
with empty captions
shadows
stare anxiously . . .
dawn vespers
you insist
i am normal,
labeling
me a mumu
caught between moons
the patter
of handmade drums
. . . rain song
made, insane,
building square flower
beds for
the obese, and
. . . staring through them
mute, the
egret's swipe over
quilted mirrors
she too will
die because of the
dark colors
i paint on clouds
used in restrooms
he paints the
backs of cows chewing
summer's tail
autumn dawn . . .
a young girl in torn
clothing
watching playmates
parade like camels
toddler, the
shadow you sculpt into
. . . a cockroach
henna
tattoos, the talon trail
on my arm . . .
to convince me
i'm not crazy
deep thought . . .
nudging clouds in
transit
think me
an asp striking the
dragon that
doesn't exist; a
monk sweeping lies
her skin, and
the snails picked
for lunch
haiku
isn't zen, a piece
of play dough
stretched across
gasping chasms
it could be
anyone, clacking
bamboo
tarry on
the "t" in moments
spent with you
shedding me into
a thousand pieces
jump with me,
alice, into the
march hare's mouth
savor the
sick crunch of a hen's
neck, her bowels
gargling syllables
you pawned on me
madness, your
fingers trace what mine
wouldn't
that voice
again this morning . . .
my smile
replaced with an
emmet kelly yawn
sanity,
if only your finger
touched clouds
as if
i can do something
about their
being late, the
clinic, jousting toadstools
toad, where
is the lab you make your
poison in?
side windows . . .
balinese puppeteers
cough up
phlegm with their pants down
this starless night
why should
i hit you, scattering
blossoms?
i hate the
dance of rice when
jeepney's sing . . .
her beef jerky arms;
the slouch of bridges
robert d. wilson
