Gorilla Poets

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Don't worry Spiders
I keep house
casually-

Issa

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



"Beware the Jabberwock, my son

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"



He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought--

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.



And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!



One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.



"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.



'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Fragment XLIII (AL 478)
Petronius
Trans. J.P. Sullivan

If there’s no haste to die, to force the fates
To break the tender threads with eager hands,
Then test thus far the anger of the deep.
Look where the ebbing tide flows back and bathes
One’s feet, still safe, with gentle waves.
Look where the mussel rolls in seaweed green
And the slipp’ry shell with raucous whorl is trapped.
Look where the tides toss back the rolling sands,
And coloured pebbles end on rippled flats.
Whoever can tread here, here let him play,
Safe on the shore, and think just this is sea.

Ball & Chain Record Store
by Ellyn Maybe

Someone came into the ball and chain
record store I work at
and said no bags
a waste of plastic.

I said yes,
You must be a granola-eating, left-wing,
dig-gothic, post-modernist, watch a lot
of Billy Jack movies, Arlo Guthrie type.

He said yes.
I smiled.
I dream of Tom Waits fingerpainting
lightbulbs on my holiday wreath
and I’m Jewish, pretty weird huh?
I celebrate Tiny Tim’s birthday
with a parade of dancing deadheads
some who never sleep and some
who never go to the bathroom.

His T-shirt said have you hugged
a rainforest today?

I said I love the planet
but its unrequited love.

He told me babe, you’re bringing me down.
When I was born my first word was ohmmm . . .

In kindergarten I organized the pacifists
to demand we didn’t have to read
from Dick, Jane and Spot books.
Too generic.
I demanded we get American Indians
to talk about what’s real.
And I gave them my nap mat
cause it’s their land and
I gave them my peanut butter
and jelly sandwich cause
the buffalo have been murdered
and they need protein.

He blushed with passion and said
tell me you.

Well, the first 15 years of my life
I thought Barry Manilow was a sex symbol..
Needless to say I got a sort of late start
at being at one with the cosmic heartbeat.

He gave me on of those looks
like I better get this girl
some Jack Kerouac books to read fast
before she suffers the confusion
of not knowing there’s other existences
beside the banal.

I put my hands on my hips and squealed
I read On th eRoad
and the letters of Allen Ginsburg to Neal Cassady
and vice versa.

He said on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday
I’m a part time Marxist.

He took out a beanie
put it on his head
and began to chant.
This definitely turned me on.
All of a sudden he began to sing
the minimum wage workers’ song
“the walls are full of faces
the mini’malls are full of neon
the bitter bite the hands that feed them
the food is a mixture of bone, blood
and snails
man is a cannibal.”

I said wow! you are the sort of guy
who says right on and really means it.
You probably only drink the milk
of socially conscious cows
who voted Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
for president.

He screamed, oh chick, my life changed
in 1962 when I realized the Constitiution
was written without women, blacks,
Indians, and poor white men in mind.
That was not o.k.

I became the Jackson Pollack of feminism.
I threw paint of outrage everywhere.
I was a man who identified
with Billie Holiday and Ernest Hemingway.
I was a traveler.

So what brings you into this
San Fernando Valley air conditioned
intellectually malnourished record store
with the exactlys?
We open exactly at 10:00
Close exactly at 10:00
No matter what our karma
Damn it’s so crass,
you can’t even rent The Last Waltz here.

He said I’m in a competitive mantra makers
bowling league.
We have weavers, chess players,
avant-garde stamp collectors
and Hell’s Angels.
Inventors all.
We bowl whenever the fuck
the spirit moves us.
With any luck we’ll be playing the
New Age/lawyers/used car salesman league
again real soon.

Hippies and New Age people are like
the difference between Bob Dylan and Bob Hope.

He smiled and said do you want to bowl?
We are definitely into strikes
for the betterment of the worker.
We need someone who looks
like she could walk into the woods
and find incense without getting poison ivy.
You look like Van Morrison
when you pout your lips.
You could be a part of the father, son and
the holy ghost meshuganeh athletic league.
Besides I love you.

I started to weep.
Tears of Bas Mitzvah cake
and tears of being the last kid picked
for field hockey in gym class.
Authentic tears.
Nobody ever said all that to me before.
I guess I kind of do have Van Morrison’s mouth.
Why hadn’t anyone ever noticed?

I said I love you.
But every free moment I mootlight at
Hairy Krishna Organic Coiffures
and Tea Salon.
We use
no chemicals
no dyes
no sprays
no combs
no brushes
Hell, you look pretty much the same going out
as going in.

He said what’s a nice girl like you doing
living in a Republican administration
like this?

The manager of the record store comes over
and says
You know the movie Fahrenheit 451?
Corporate has ordered us to burn it.
Get to it!
Don’t give me your damn whimpering
Joan of Arc eyes.
Lots of people would love to have your job.
I scream pig! PIG!
You are giving barnyard animals a band name.
Cops are Pigs!
Intolerants are Pigs!
Bigots are Pigs!
Everybody who does it and says
they’re just doing their job is a Pig!
Everybody who does it to someone else
knows what they are.

This is my first day at the record store.
I guess if they want to have a quiet
complacent yes sir type of employee
they ought to ask different questions
on the application.

Like do you conform?
Like do you care that this is stolen land?
Like do you believe in playlists?
Like do you believe in yourself?
Do you mind waking up alone
rather than being beat up with fists?
Do you see the government is beating us up
as bad as a knife in our elbows
as bad as a slur in our elbows
as bad as a slur in our ears
as bad as a rape
when we just wanted to be held

And all they ask is
can you work part-time?
and what days can’t you work?
and they say whom do we contact
in an emergency?
I said
cause you need to ask what
constitutes an emergency.

The hippie said my name is Hell’s Bells
but you can call me hope.
He said I dug you.
Now I dig your whole being.
It’s strange.
No matter how many nights I wake up unhappy
there is still a possibility of rising
into a change so easily.
The outlaw lives in a world where
when he sees a mirror he sees a hero.
And all heroes put their bellbottoms on
one leg at a time.

Let’s face it.
How can you trust money when
there are politician’ faces printed on it.
Money is sexist.
The only woman on so-called American currency
which is really Turtle Island to the Indians
is Susan B. Anthony and they stopped making those
real fast.

Is money worth killing for?
Is money worth killing for?

I ran through the store singing
about William Blake’s eyebrows
and Walt Whitman’s bellybutton
saying everything is alive
and everything is sort of adorable.
I took paperclips and gave them
to loving vegetarian families
who needed someone.

I took the bathroom sink and gave it a hug.
I freed all the rubberbands!
And I said to all the plastic bags
I will never burden you
with films weighing you down,
Perry Como cassettes,
or even a piece of Jerry Garcia’s beard.
Well maybe.

But I will never staple a bag
for you brought love.

Most people tell me
it was all the pop tarts I ate.
Some people tell me
it was because I was a liar.
And I said I’m too honest
to be anybody’s best friend
But at times nobody belives
this hippie ever even came by.

There are
no lingering peace signs
no incense
no tea bags
no fuck the fuckers pamphlets
Yet I still can’t even believe
Abbie Hoffman is dead.
So my strengths and pains
are in my sense of wonder.
All I know is I don’t believe in
wearing sandals and argyle socks together.
And when I needed it most, hope was there.
Change must not be too far behind.

Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Max Hayward and Stanley Kunitz

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

Revolutionary Letters
Dedicated to Bob Dylan
by Diane diPrima

1
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this Go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines
4
Let to themselves people
grow their hair.
Left to themselves they
take off their shoes.
Left to themselves they make love
sleep easily
share blankets, dope & children
they are not lazy or afraid
they plant seeds, they smile, they
speak to one another. The word
coming into its own: touch of love
on the brain, the ear.
We return with the sea, the tides
we return as often as leaves, as numerous
as grass, gentle, insistent, we remember
the way
our babies toddle barefoot thru the cities of the universe.

12
the vortex of creation is the vortex of destruction
the vortex of artistic creation is the vortex of self destruction
the vortex of political creation is the vortex of flesh destruction
flesh is in the fire, it curls and terribly warps
fat is in the fire, it drips and sizzling sings
bones are in the fire
they crack tellingly in
subtle hierglyphs of oracle
charcoal singed
the smell of your burning hair
for every revolutionary must at last will his own destruction
rooted as he is in the past he sets out to destroy

29
beware of those
who say we are beautiful losers
who stand in their long hair and wait to be punished
who weep on beaches for our isolation

we are not alone: we have brothers in all the hills
we have sisters in the jungles and in the Ozarks
we even have brothers on the frozen tundra
they sit by their fires, they sing, they gather arms
they multiply: they will reclaim the earth

nowhere we can go but they are waiting for us
no exile where we will not hear welcome home
‘goodmorning bother, let me work with you
goodmorning sister, let me
fight by your side’

36
who is the we, who is
the they in this thing, did
we or they kill the Indians, not me
my people brought here, cheap labor to exploit
a continent for them, did we
or they exploit it? do you
admit complicity, say ‘we
have to get out of Vietnam, we really should
stop poisoning the water, etc.’ look closer, look again,
secede, declare your independence, don’t accept
a share of the guilt they want to lay on us
MAN IS INNOCENT & BEAUTIFUL & born
to perfect bliss they envy, heavy deeds
make heavy hearts and to them
life is suffering. stand clear.

Illicit
by D.H. Lawrence

In front of the somber mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow
And between us and it, the thunder;
And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers
Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,
And through the scent of the balcony’s naked timber
I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber
Lighting falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats
A dark boat through the gloom – and whither?
The thunder roars. But still we have each other.
The naked lightnings in the heaven dither
And disappear. What have we but each other?
The boat has gone.

To Pyrrha
Horace

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?
Cui flavam religas comam,

simplex munditiis? Heu quotiens fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens

qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea,
qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
sperat, nescius aurae
fallacis. Miseri, quibus

intemptata nites. Me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestima maris deo.

Translation by Katya Maslakowski
Horatian Ode 1.5

What slender boy seeped in perfume
amid many a rose
Pyrrha, drives you beneath
the welcoming cave
For whom do you gather up your golden hair
Simple in your adornments?
Alas, how often shall he weep
for changing faith and changing gods
and how many times will he
inexperienced
wonder at the seas
made rough by dark winds
he who now easily believing enjoys
golden you
Who expects you to be
always free, always lovable
ignorant of the deceitful wind
Miserable, are they, for whom
you, untried, shine.
But for me
a sacred wall – by a vowed tablet demonstrates
that I have hung as an offering
damp clothes to the god of the sea.

Dialogue
Adrienne Rich

She sits with one hand poised against her head, the
other turning an old ring to the light
for hours our talk has beaten
like rain against the screens
a sense of August and heat-lighting
I get up, go to make tea, come back
we look at each other
then she says ( and this is what I live through
over and over) – She says: I do not know
if sex is an illusion

I do no know
who I was when I did those things
or who I said I was
or whether I willed to feel
what I had read about
or who in fact was there with me
or whether I knew, even then
that there was doubt about these things

Rockabye
by Shel Silverstein

Rockabye baby, in the treetop.
Don’t you know a treetop
Is no safe place to rock?
And who put you up there,
And your cradle too?
Baby, I think someone down here’s
Got it in for you.

Scheming in the Snow
by Jack Gilbert

There is a time after what comes after
being young, and a time after that, he thinks
happily as he walks through the winter woods,
hearing in the silence a woodpecker far off.
Remembering his Chinese friend
whose brother gave her a jade ring from
the Han Dynasty when she was hurrying up
the steps of a Hong Kong Bridge, she fell,
and the thousand-year-old ring shattered
on the concrete. When she told him, stunned
and tears running down her face, he said,
“Don’t cry. I’ll get you something better.”

From the Dark Tower
by Countee Cullen (poet from the Harlem Renaissance)

We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made eternally to weep.
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark
White stars is no less lovely being dark,
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall.
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs-
Emily Dickinson

I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs –
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading – too –

Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace –
Unto supremest name –
Called to my Full – The Crescent dropped –
Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.

My second Rank – too small the first –
Crowned – Crowing – on my Father’s breast –
A half unconscious Queen –
But this time – Adequate – Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown –

A un poeta menor de la antologia
Jorge Luis Borges

Donde esta la memoria de los dias
que fueron tuyos en la tierra, y tejieron
dicha y dolor y fueron para ti el universo?

El rio numerable de los anos
los ha perdido; eres una palabra en un indice.

Dieron a otros Gloria interminable los dioses,
inscripciones y exergos y monumentos y puntuales historiadores;
de ti solo sabermos oscuro amigo,
que oiste al ruisenor, una tarde.

Entre los asfodelos de la sombra, tu vana sombra
pensara que los dioses han sido avaros.

Pero los dias son una red de triviales miseries,
y hapbra suerte major que la ceniza
de que esta hecho el olvido?

Sobre otros arrojaron los dioses
la inexorable luz de la gloria, que mira las entranas y enumera las grietas,
de la gloria, que acaba por ajar la rosa que venera;
contigo fueron mas piadosos, hermano.

En el extasis de un atardecer que no sera una noche,
oyes la voz del ruisenor de Teocrito.

Translation by WS Merwin
To a Minor Poet of the Greek Anthology
by Borges

Where now is the memory
of the days that were yours on earth, and wove
joy with sorrow, and made a universe that was your own?

The river of years has lost them
from its numbered current; you are a word in an index.

To others the gods gave glory that has no end:
inscriptions, names on coins, monuments, conscientious historians:
all that we know of you, eclipsed friend,
is that you heard the nightingale on evening.

Among the asphodels of the Shadow, your shade, in its vanity,
must consider the gods ungererous.

But the days are a web of small troubles,
and is there a greater blessing
than to be the ash of which oblivion is made?

Above other heads of gods kindled
the inexorable light of glory, which peers into the secret parts and discovers
each separate fault;
glory, that at last shrivels the rose it reveres;
they were more considerate with you, brother.

In the rapt evening that will never be night
you listen without end to Theocritus’ nightingale.

Mein Kampf
by David Lerner

all I want to do
is make poetry famous

all I want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all I want to do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building

standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building

The literary world
sucks dead dog dick

I’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas

I’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”

I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living


I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s money

this ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t foolin’ a
grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit

this ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down,
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDS

I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the motherfucker can
swim for its life
because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends . . .

there is so much to hate These Days
that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never pay

because they’re after us

they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we got politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glossy magazines
promising that they’ll
fuck us till we shoot blood

if we just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I’ve got mine