O glorious muse that bore me from the womb,
          {this interjurisdictional headquarters}
Think it's all a dream!

What is this Universe but a lot of waves
thundering from my floor to heaven
heavier than a volcano at night in Mexico!

One must see the Great Man
and the Emperor's white page
and the last of the Bulls—

Let elevators creak and speak,
ascending and descending in awe—
delicate steelwork of unfinished skyscrapers

leading nowhere—Zipzap—the cars
and the lights from little tinkly Washington St.
The whole populace fed by News.

Old moon my eyes are now New Moon With Human Footprint
Who's ever going to know the world before it goes?
Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess!

Not merely the yellow skull pounding
bitter lemon wind over sheaves of rock—
Look at that motherfucking smokestack!

O Lord burn me out of existence.
Sitting here in limbo—
there are people walking through my head

hearing the marvelous strange chime
with its blunt cornucopias and horn—
the patience of small lawns, small hedges.

O foot tired in climes so mysterious,
Napoleon Buddha pacing will find heaven in hell!
I wake up in the morning with a dream in my eyes:

America, after all
it is you and I who are perfect
not the next world.

Old words echoing what the physical can't—
O Harpo! When did you seem like an angel?
God's only way of building the rickety structure of Time.

—I clearly saw the skeleton underneath
some primordial woman
sunk underground—

Keep the physical literal—
The simple division of a ditch between people
In use of words—use words!

O Mercy, Destroyer of the World,
O Mercy, Creator of Breasted Illusions,
O Mercy, Cacophonous Warmouthed Dovely

Come like the Lion coming into the room with two heads—
We'll all end up in heaven anyway,
together in that Golden Eternal Bliss.

Come on home, brother!
Bring me home
to the Eternal Mother—

Holy the lone juggernaut!
Holy the vast lamb of the middle class!
Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion!

Robert Creeley, So There-Poems 1976-83, New Directions, 1998
Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems 1947-1980, Harper & Row, 1984
Jack Kerouac, Scattered Poems, City Lights Books, 1971, Pocket Poet Series #28

title is a line by Jack Kerouac