My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

THEY MURDERED YOU: AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF KENNETH REXROTH

THEY MURDERED YOU: AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF KENNETH REXROTH To be accompanied by five jazz flutes and a contrabassoon I will never again climb a mountain, read St. Augustine or go to bed with a woman Without wishing that you were there, Kenneth Rexroth Sharing my experience. I will find you now in the leaves and in the sunsets, Yes, and in the saxophones and peyote buttons Wherever God and Nature make it quietly together And the murderous squares don’t try to stop their experience. When you died last month at the age of 52 of stomach ulcers It was as if we young men had lost the last hope of a libertarian revolution A society where poetry, jazz, sex, politics, and religion could function together like a giant gong Each of whose tones perfectly overlays the other. A society where Bohemians wouldn’t starve and predatory men wouldn’t lynch Negros and kill Jews and Hungarians A society where wars would be abolished A society where men and women would be perfectly free to do, say, think, feel what they wanted Under your leadership. When Christopher Smart Went to bed in the meat market You were there Kenneth Rexroth Giving encouragement to the best minds of his generation When Jakob Boehme Was busted by ten Christ-hating policemen You were there Kenneth Rexroth Breathing comfort. Sacco and Vanzetti will never forget Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 64 64 The sound of your rough voice Or Rosa Luxemburg Or Allen Ginsberg. Yes, you have taught the youth of our generation to write political poetry That does not really offend the F.B.I. And yet is unsquare, mystical Firmly in favor Of God, physical exercise, and companionate marriage. A POEM TO THE READER OF THE POEM I throw a naked eagle in your throat. I dreamed last night That I was wrestling with you on the mountainside. An eagle had a dream over our heads. We threw rocks at him. I dreamed last night— This is false in any poem Last night never happened Couldn’t Make you feel the meaning so quickly That I could tell you what I dreamed last night That I could tell you that I dreamed I was wrestling With the reader of this poem. Dreamed— Was it a wet dream? Or dry Like a dream is When boys in a dream throw rocks at it? I heard myself sobbing in a wet dream Don’t worry I will tell you everything. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 65 65 ...