Thursday, February 15, 2018

HOWL for Parkland High School


Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Parkland
where you’re madder than I am
I’m with you in Parkland
where you must feel very strange
I’m with you in Parkland
where you imitate the shade of my mother
I’m with you in Parkland
where you’ve murdered your seventeen students
I’m with you in Parkland
where you laugh at this invisible humor
I’m with you in Parkland
where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I’m with you in Parkland
where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio
I’m with you in Parkland
where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses
I'm with you in Parkland
where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Boca Raton
I’m with you in Parkland
where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of Orlando
I’m with you in Parkland
where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss
I’m with you in Parkland
where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse
I’m with you in Parkland
where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void
I’m with you in Parkland
where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha
I’m with you in Parkland where you will split the heavens of Tallahassee and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb
I’m with you in Parkland
where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I’m with you in Parkland
where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep
I’m with you in Parkland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re free
I’m with you in Parkland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night
San Francisco, 1955—1956

No comments: