The Ghost of the City of New York Appears in California, May 25, 1971

It's all in a day's work   the door from Life to Death Muhammed Ali comes in one door   and Russ Meyer comes in t' uther     While Ali Stages a CONFAB at 11.00 AM but doesn't show all the cameras and tape-recorders are left With their tongues hanging out in the heat Under the veranda I just recoveredd from food-poisoning & look up AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND SHAKE HANDS How'd you doo It is prophetic I meet a child born at the same hour and day as my oldest child I learn   your Anglo   grandfather became the ArchArchimandrite Of Alexandria “for all the Greeks downunder” MOHAMMED ALI GIVES his speech finally “On the Intoxications OF LIFE” (That's for Real, Folks) and tells one girl sitting up near the stage to pull her dress down because it was “showing” above her knee   That's it it's all Over wham boom! Now Russ MEYER must be the “greatest” genius of America (?) His “genius” lies   in that he is the only one to successfully make blood spurt from a victim on the silver screen like a slide trombone carying a hilarious note .... So many things have happened   The People's Liberation Army has seized the Israeli Ambassador ('Ray'.)   Bedford- Stuyvesant exploded again   (I wonder what's happening on Killens' block?)   and lava has overflowed on  (Mt) Aetna (again) Can't keep upt with it all This Hermaphrodite   running up and down the stairs with a sword   Hey! The doors slam open  the crowds emerge Like an age ashamed of itself Like an elephant with a  caulifflower ear      Some are doing A St. Vitus dance and shooting fireworks out of cactus-launchers You come toward me like a diffident haystack I'm talking to you all the time you pretend not to hear me You're with your two pals   (One of them the “returned” of the Boogey Woogies)   the road parts us   like a part in the hair of the whole Earth   and splits me with it The stars make a sound like a tuning-folk Maybe I'm learning anew lanaguage to speak a newlanguage Maybe What is this   Cult of the Fedora hat and the jalopy of the heart Rose of Lima   Unbeliever that I am  I believe in you so much “Plebiscite”              “Dolores” .... “Quitting Time” Washerwomen in the elephant grass   're listening Once again I come upon an evening 5,000 mi. away from (New York) the mirage of “The City” become so obsessive I see Skyscrapers appear moving through the fog on horses' legs! “With no interjection...,oh?” New York  my poems are always an elegy to you The horses see me coming the horses smell the sunset wing Zapata...in whiteshadow still rides on it Gold-club-headed exorcized Jewish demons happily hopping backwards May 25, 1971 2405 Alpine Road, Ca.