I awoke to discover that my beard was missing. "Oh no," I said.
"That's where I keep my money, my newspaper clippings, and the pictures of my
girlfriend."
That day at the college, my colleague Chris wore it shamelessly.
Chris had previously accused me of stealing Allen Ginsberg's ideas, and now he was
stealing from me. I told him he could keep the beard, but I wanted the money, the news
articles, and the photos. He said he tore the beard from the cover of a Grateful Dead
album, or from a picture of Fidel Castro-he couldn't remember. The next day I awoke to
discover that my refrigerator was missing. "Oh no," I said. "That's where I
keep my copy of Leaves of Grass, so that the pages are crisp and cool in the
morning." I wanted to call Chris, but my phone was off the hook.
I picked up the phone and heard Chris talking to Walt Whitman.
I knew it was Whitman because he praised everything that moves, and everything that
doesn't. His words were "yes" and 17 synonyms. They seemed out of place, but
Chris didn't question them, and neither did I.
His lines were like a mountain lion strolling across the busiest streets of a small
college town. Finally, Chris butted in, singing one of my songs about Fidel Castro doing
live performance art at Monterey, butterflies in his stomach as he opens and closes a
refrigerator door, then picks up and hangs up a telephone, largely ignored by 5,000
tie-dyed University of Oregon dropouts who follow him around the country. I shouted
"That's my song"
"Did you hear something?" asked Chris.
"It sounded like 'om'," said Whitman. "It must be that scoundrel Allen
Ginsberg. I've been looking for him. He stole my beard, which is where I keep my
butterflies, and he stole my hat, which is where I keep the rave review I wrote about
Leaves of Grass."
Chris said, "No, it sounded like Tom-this guy I know who doesn't have a beard.
(with apologies to Miller Williams)
We have memorized ambivalence,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In certified mail and sign language we say the worst,
telling the storm center, singing the old sonic booms.
We like the pizzas they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous day trippers are there.
We know the soul of all the souls we brought.
The rich taint of it on our tombs.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised day trippers want to know.
We mean to be the penury we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the futility? Who can say how
except in the minarets of those who call it Now?
The chimney sweepers. The chimney sweepers. And how does our garboil
grow?
With waving handkerchiefs-oh, rarely in a rose garden-
and flowering factories. And brainwashing, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many peons coming together
cannot become one peonage falling apart.
Who dreamed for every chimney sweeper an even championship
cannot let Lucifer alone turn doomsayers or not.
Whose lavender was never so much of the hamstring as the hazel nut
cannot let Channel 11 make its way to the hearing impaired.
Who have seen leap year struggle from tea bag to child labor
cannot let ignition spread itself like Dennis Rodman.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degradation by slow degradation,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become-
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hangovers of chimney sweepers, exurbs already set
on a landfill we can never visit-it isn't there yet-
but looking through their exurbs, we can see
what our long giggle to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
If my headache were a postage stamp,
I'd stick my tongue out at it
and lick it,
I'd put it in a box
filled with all my worries,
send it USPS
with the wrong zip,
so it gets manhandled
and gets a headache
but never gets anywhere.
If my headache were an old newspaper
with "Dewey Defeats Truman"
spattered across the front
in 72 point bold,
I'd make a paper mache mask of it
and exhibit it at the MOMA.
It'd be oh so abstract,
and oh so profound,
like Warhol's soup cans
or Duchamp's urinal.
Pretensions rich people
would stare at it
until they felt headaches coming on,
which would mean they understood my art.
I would get their money,
and they would get my headache.
If my headache woke alone, hungover,
with hazy mosh pit memories
and a jackhammer outside the window,
if it had to spend the day
trying on red ties, suspenders,
and imported Perry Ellis shirts
for a date with a model
who seems to be accompanied
by a headache
at the end of every expensive evening,
it might wish instead to thrive
in a ram on a craggy mountaintop,
but how strange it must be for a headache
to throb among wildflowers, hermits, and clouds.
When I bump against the limitations
of metaphor,
it always gives me a headache.
