y see it, it aint just words" but now it's "Ah the keselamaroyot you rot" -- Till when dawn finally comes my mind is just a series of explosions that get louder and more "multiply" broken in pieces some of them big orchestral and then rainbow explosions of sound and sight mixed. At dawn also I've almost dimmed into sleep three times but I swear (and this is something I remember that makes me realize I don't understand what happened at Big Sur even now) the little boy somehow thumped his foot just at the moment of drowse, to instantly wake me up, wide awake, back to my horror which when all is said and done is the horror of all the worlds the showing of it to me being damn well what I deserve anyway with my previous blithe yakkings about the sufferings of others in books. Books, shmooks, this sickness has got me wishing if I can ever get out of this I'll gladly become a millworker and shut my big mouth. 38 Dawn is most horrible of all with the owls suddenly calling back and forth in the misty moon haunt -- And even worse than dawn is morning, the bright sun only GLARING in on my pain, making it all brighter, hotter, more maddening, more nervewracking -- I even go roaming up and down the valley in the bright Sunday morning sunshine with bag under arm looking hopelessly for some spot to sleep in -- As soon as I find a spot of grass by the path I realize I cant lie down there because the tourists might walk by and see me -- As soon as I find a glade near the creek I realize it's too sinister there, like Hemingway's darker part of the swamp where "the fishing would be more tragic" somehow -- All the haunts and glades having certain special evil forces concentrated there and driving me away -- So haunted I go wandering up and down the canyon crying with that bag under my arm: "What on earth's happened to me? and how can earth be like that? " Am I not a human being and have done my best as well as anybody else? never really trying to hurt anybody or halfhearted cursing Heaven? -- The words I'd studied all my life have suddenly gotten to me in all their serious and definite deathliness, never more I be a "happy poet" "Singing" "about death" and allied romantic matters, "Go thou crumb of dust you with your silt of a billion years, here's a billion pieces of silt for you, shake that out of your shaker" -- And all the green nature of the canyon now waving in the morning sun looking like a cruel idiot convocation. Coming back to the sleepers and staring at them wild eyed like my brother'd once stared at me in the dark over my crib, staring at them not only enviously but lonely in human isolation from their simple sleeping minds -- "But they all look dead! " I'm carking in my canyon, "Sleep is death, everything is death! " The horrible climax coming when the others finally get up and pook about making a troubled breakfast, and I've told Dave I cant possibly stay here another minute, he must drive us all back to town, "Okay but 1 sure wish we could stay a week like Romana wants to do, " -- "Well you drive me and come back" -- "Well I dunno if Monsanta would like that we've already dirtied up the place aplenty, in fact we've got to dig a garbage pit and get rid of the junk" -- Billie offers to dig the garbage pit but does so by digging a neat tiny coffinshaped grave instead of just a garbage hole -- Even Dave Wain blinks to see it -- It's exactly the size fit for putting a little dead Elliott in it, Dave is thinking the same thing I am I can tell by a glance he gives me... We've all read Freud sufficiently to understand something there -- Besides little Elliott's been crying all morning and has had two beatings both of them ending up crying and Billie saying she cant stand it any more she's going to kill herself -- And Romana too notices it, the perfect 4 foot by 3 foot neatly sided grave like you're ready to sink a little box in it -- Horrifying me so much I take the shovel and go down to dump junk into it and mess up the neat pattern somehow but little Elliott starts screaming and grabs the shovel and refuses I go near the hole -- So Billie herself goes and starts filling the garbage in but then looks at me significantly (I'm sure sometimes she really did aspire to make me crazy) "Do you want to finish the job yourself? " -- "What do you mean? " -- "Cover the earth on, do the honors? " "What do you mean do the honors! " -- "Well I said I'd dig the garbage pit and I've done that, aint you supposed to do the rest? " -- Dave Wain is watching fascinated, there's something screwy he sees there too, something cold and frightening -- "Well okay" I say, "I'll dump the earth over it and tamp it down" but I go down to do this Elliot is screaming "NO no no no no! " ('My God, the fishes" bones are in that grave" I realize too) -- "What's the matter he wont let me go near that hole! why did you make it look like a grave? " I finally yell... But Billie is only smiling quietly and steadily at me, over the grave, shovel in hand, the kid weeping tugging the shovel, rushing up to block my way, trying to shove me back with his little hands... I cant understand any of it -- He's screaming as I grab the shovel as tho I'm about to bury Billie in there or something or himself maybe -- 'What's the matter with this kid is he a cretin? " I yell. With the same quiet steady smile Billie says "Oh you're so fucking neurotic! " I simply get mad and dump earth over the garbage and tromp it all down and say "The hell with all this madness! " I get mad and stomp up on the porch and throw myself in the canvas chair and close my eyes -- Dave Wain says he's going down the road to investigate the canyon a bit and when he comes back the girls will have finished packing and we'll all leave -- Dave goes off, the girls clean up and sweep, the little kid is sleeping and suddenly hopelessly and completely finished I sit there in the hot sun and close my eyes: and there's the golden swarming peace of Heaven in my eyelids -- It comes with a sure hand a soft blessing as big as it is beneficent, i. e., endless -- I've fallen asleep. I've fallen asleep in a strange way, with my hands clasped behind my head thinking I'm just going to sit there and think, but I'm sleeping like that, and when I wake up just one short minute later I realize the two girls are both sitting behind me in absolute silence -- When I'd sat down they were sweeping, but now they were squatting behind my back, facing each other, not a word -- I turn and see them there -- Blessed relief has come to me from just that minute -- Everything has washed away -- I'm perfectly normal again -- Dave Wain is down the road looking at fields and flowers -- I'm sitting smiling in the sun, the birds sing again, all's well again. I still cant understand it. Most of all I cant understand the miraculousness of the silence of the girls and the sleeping boy and the silence of Dave Wain in the fields -- Just a golden wash of goodness has spread over all and over all my body and mind -- All the dark torture is a memory -- I know now I can get out of there, we'll drive back to the City, I'll take Billie home, I'll say goodbye to her properly, she wont commit no suicide or do anything wrong, she'll forget me, her life'll go on, Romana's life will go on, old Dave will manage somehow, I'll forgive them and explain everything (as I'm doing now) -- And Cody, and George Baso, and ravened McLear and perfect starry Fagan, they'll all pass through one way or the other -- I'll stay with Monsanto at his home a few days and he'll smile and show me how to be happy awhile, we'll drink dry wine instead of sweet and have quiet evenings in his home -- Arthur Ma will come to quietly draw pictures at my side -- Monsanto will say "That's all there is to it, take it easy, everything's okay, dont take things too serious, it's bad enough as it is without you going the deep end over imaginary conceptions just like you always said yourself -- I'll get my ticket and say goodbye on a flower day and leave all San Francisco behind and go back home across autumn America and it'll all be like it was in the beginning -- Simple golden eternity blessing all -- Nothing ever happened -- Not even this -- St Carolyn by the Sea will go on being golden one way or the other... The little boy will grow up and be a great man... There'll be farewells and smiles -- My mother'll be waiting for me glad -- The corner of the yard where Tyke is buried will be a new and fragrant shrine making my home more homelike somehow -- On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars -- Something good will come out of all things yet And it will be golden and eternal just like that -- There's no need to say another word. "SEA' Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur 'Sea' Cherson! Cherson! You aint just whistlin Dixie, Sea Cherson! Cherson! We calcimine fathers here below! Kitchen lights on... Sea Engines from Russia seabirding here below... When rocks outsea froth I'll know Hawaii cracked up & scramble up my doublelegged cliff to the silt of a million years... Shoo -- Shaw -- Shirsh... Go on die salt light You billion yeared rock knocker Gavroom Seabird Gabroobird Sad as wife & hill Loved as mother & fog Oh! Oh! Oh! Sea! Osh! Where's yr little Neppytune tonight? These gentle tree pulp pages which've nothing to do with yr crash roar, liar sea, ah, were made for rock tumble seabird digdown footstep hollow weed move bedarvaling crash? Ah again? Wine is salt here? Tidal wave kitchen? Engines of Russia in yr soft talk... Les poissons de la mer parle Breton... Mon nom es Lebris de Keroack... Parle, Poissons, Loti, parle... Parlning Ocean sanding crash the billion rocks... Ker plotsch... Shore... shoe... god brash... The headland looks like a longnosed Collie sleeping with his light on his nose, as the ocean, obeying its accommodations of mind, crashes in rhythm which could & will intrude, in thy rhythm of sand thought... ... Big frigging shoulders on that sonofabitch Parle, O, parle, mer, parle. Sea speak to me, speak to me, your silver you light Where hole opened up in Alaska Gray -- shh -- wind in The canyon wind in the rain Wind in the rolling rash Moving and t wedel Sea Sea Diving sea O bird -- la vengeance De la roche Cossez Ah Rare, he rammed the gate rare over by Cherson, Cherson, we calcify fathers here below ... a watery cross, with weeds entwined -- This grins restoredly, low sleep -- Wave -- Oh, no, shush -- Shirk -- Boom plop Neptune now his arms extends while one millions of souls sit lit in caves of darkness ... What old bark? The dog mountain? Down by the Sea Engines? God rush -- Shore... Shaw -- Shoo -- Oh soft sigh we wait hair twined like arks -- Pissit -- Rest not ... Plottit, bisp tesh, cashes, re tav, plo, aravow, shirsh, -- Who's whispering over there -- the silly earthen creek! The fog thunders -- We put silver light on face -- We took the heroes in -- A billion years aint nothing... O the cities here below! The men with a thousand arms! the stanchions of their upward gaze! the coral of their poetry! the sea dragons tenderized, meat for fleshy fish... Navark, navark, the fishes of the Sea speak Breton... wash as soft as people's dreams -- We got peoples in & out the shore, they call it shore, sea call it pish rip plosh -- The 5 billion years since earth we saw substantial chan -- Chinese are the waves -- the woods are dreaming No human words bespeak the token sorrow older than old this wave becrashing smarts the sand with plosh of twirled sandy thought -- Ah change the world? Ah set the fee? Are rope the angels in all the sea? Ah ropey otter barnacle'd be... Ah cave, Ah crosh! A feathery sea Too much short -- Where Miss Nop tonight? Wroten Kerarc'h in the labidalian aristotelian park with slime a middle ... And Ranti forner who pulled pearls by rope to throne the King by the roll in the forest of everseas? Not everseas, be seas ... Creep Crash The woman with her body in the sea -- The frog who never moves & thunders, sharsh ... The snake with his body under the sand -- The dog with the light on his nose, supine, with shoulders so enormous they reach back to rain crack -- The leaves hasten to the sea -- We let them hasten to be wetted & give em that old salt change, a nuder think will make you see they originate from the We Sea anyway... No dooming booms on Sunday afternoons -- We run thru the core of cliffs, blam up caves, disengage no jelly or jellied pendant thinkers... Our armies of anchored seaweed in the coves gives of the smell of jellied salt... Reach, reach, some leaves havent hastened near enuf -- Roll, roll, purl the sand shark floor a greeny pali andarva ... Ah back -- Ah forth... Ah shish -- Boom, away, doom, a day -- Vein we firm... The sea is We... Parle, parle, boom the earth -- Aree -- Shaw, Sho, Shoosh, flut, ravad, tapavada pow, coof, loof, roof,... No, no, no, no, no, no... Oh ya, ya, ya, yo, yair... Shhh... Which one? the one? Which one? The one ploshed... The ploshed one? the same, ah boom -- Who's that ant that giant golden saltchange ant magnifying my mountain of feet? "Tis Finder, finding the change in thought to join the boomer hangers in the cave a light -- And built a house above it? Never fear, naver foir, les bretons qui parlent la langue de la Mar sont espanol comme le cul du Kurd qui dit le maha prajna paramita du Sud? Ah oui! Ke Vlum! Glum sea, silent me... They aint about to try it them ants who wear out tunnels in a week the tunnel a million years won -- no -- Down around the headland slobs for weed, the chicken of the sea go yak! they sleep... Aroar, aroar, arah, aroo... Otter me otter me daughter me sea ... me last blue lagoon inside of me, the sea -- Divine is the substance all over the Sea... Of space we speak & hasten -- Let no mouth swallow the sea -- Gavril... Gavro... the Cherson Chinese & Old Fingernail sea -- Is ringin yr ear? Dier, dee? Is Virgin you trying to fathom me Tiresome old sea, aint you sick & tired of all of this merde? this incessant boom boom & sand walk -- you people hoary rockies here to Fuegie & never get sad? Or despair like a German phoney? Just gloom booboom & green on foggy nights... the fog is part of us... I know, but tired as I can be listening to all this silly majesty... Basho Lao! Pop! Who is this fish sitting unsunk? Run up a Hawaii typhoon smash him against his rock... We'll jelly you, jellied man, show you essential jello of the sea... King of the Sea. No Monarc'h ever Irish be? Ju see the Irish sea? Green winds on tamarack vines Joyce -- James -- Shhish... Sea -- Sssssss -- see ... Varash ... mnavash la vache ecriture -- the sea dont say muc'h actually... Gosh, she, huzzy, tow, led men on, Ulysses and all them fair headed moin... Terplash, & what difference make! One little white spark of light! Hair woven hands Penelope seaboat smeller -- Courtiers in Telemachus "sguise dropedary dropedary creep -- Or... Franc gold rippled that undersea creek where fish fish for fisher men -- Salteen breen the wet Souwesters of old Portugee Prayers Tsall tangled, changed, salt & drop the sand & weed & water brains entangled -- Rats of old Venetian yellers Ariel Calibanned to Roma Port... Pow -- spell... Speak you parler, in this my mother's parlor, wash your undershoes when you come in, say thanks to foggy moon Go brash, Topahta offat, -- we'll gray ye rose -- Morning primord creeper sees the bird of paravision dying tweet the yellow mouthroof! How sweet the earth, yells sand! Xcept when tumble boom! O we wait too for Heaven -- all in One... All is there in fair & sight I'm going to wash now old Pavia down, & pack my salt to Either Town... Cliffs of Antique aint got no rose, the morning's seen the ledder pose... Boom de boom dey the sea is me... We are the sea... It ain't all snow We wash Fujiyama down soon, & sand crookbird back... We hie bash rock -- ak... Long short... Low and easy... Wind & many freezing bottoms and luckrock... Rappaport... Endymion thou tangled dreamer love my thigh ... Rose, Of Shelley, Rose, O Urns! Ogled urns in fish eye Cinco sea the Chico sea the Magellan headland sea ... What hype sidereal did he put down bending beatnik sea goatee over old goat manuscripts to find the other side of Flat? See round, see the end of me? Rounden huge bedoom? Awp hole cave & shwrul... sand & salt & hair eyes ... Strong enuf to make coffee grow in your hair... Whose plantation Neptune got? That of Atlas still down there, Hesperid's his feet, Sur his sleet, Irish Sea fingertip & Cornwall aye his soul bedoom Shurning -- Shurning -- plop be dosh -- This sigh old learning's high beside me -- Rough old hands have played out pedigree, we've sunk more boats than dreamer'll ever ever see ... Burning -- Burning -- The world is burning & needs waaater ... I'll have a daughter, oughter, wait & see... Churning, Churning, Me... Panties -- Panties... these ancient fancies are so girling... You've not seen mermaids in my actual sea ... You've not seen sexless babies with breasts of Majesty... My wife -- My wife... Her name is Oh so really high life The low life Kingdom where we part out tea, is sea side Me... Josh -- coof... patra... Aye ee mo powsh... Ssst -- Cum here read me... Dirty postcard... Urchin sea... Karash your name...? Wanta swim, sink or swim? Ears ringing again? Sea vibrate rhythm crash sets off cave hanger blowers whistling dog ear back -- to sea Arree... Gerudge Napoleon nada Nada Pluto eats the sea... Room... Hands folded by the sea... 'On est tous caches, mange le silence, " disent les poissons de la mer -- Ah Mar -- Gott Thalatta -- Merde -- Marde de mer -- Mu mer -- Mak a vash... The ocean is the mother... Je ne suis pas mauvaise quand j'suis tranquille -- dans les tempetes j'cries! Comme une folle! j'mange, j'arrache toutes! Clock -- Clack Milk... Mai! mai! mai! ma! says the wind blowing sand... Pluto eats the sea... Ami go -- da -- che pop Go -- Come Cark... Care -- Kee ter da vo Kataketa pow! kek kek kek! Kwakiutl! Kik! Some of theserather taratasters trapped hyra tecere thaped the anadondak ram ma lat round by Krul to Pat the lat rat the anaakakalked romon tottek Kara VOOOM frup... Feet cold? wade... Mind sore? sim -- sin -- Horny? -- lay the sea! Corny? try me... Ussens here hang no more here we go, ka va ra ta plowsh, shhh, and more, again, ke vlook ke bloom & here comes big Mister Trosh ... more waves coming, every syllable windy Back wash palaver paralarle -- paralleling parle pe Saviour A troublesome spirit hanging here cant make it in the void... The sea'll only drown me -- These words are affectations of sick mortality... We try to make our way in self reliance, aid not ever comes too quick from wherever & whatever heaven dear may have suggested to promise us... But these waves scare me... I am going to die in full despair... Wake up where? On second breath in life the atmosphere is dearer maybe closer to Heaven ... O Paradise... Is the sea really so bad? Have you sent men here for this cold clown & monstrous eater at the world? whose sound I mock? God I've got to believe in you or live in death! Will you save us -- all? Soon or now? Send illumination to our drowning brains ... We're pitiful, Lord, we need yr help! Save us, Dear... (Save yourself, God man, ha ha! ) If you were God man you'd command these waves to very well Tennyson stop & even Tennyson is dear now dead Leave it to the light Concern yourself with supper, & an eye somebody's eye -- a wife, a girl, a friend, an animal ... a blood let drop... he for his sea, he for his fire, thee for thy desire "The sea drove me away & yelled "Go to your desire! " ... As I hurried up the valley It added one last yell: -- "And laugh! "' Even the sea cant stop me from writing something to read in my old age ... This is the chart of brief forms, this sea the briefest -- Shish yourself... After scaring me like that, Mar, I'll excoriate yr slum -- yr iodine weeds & slime hoops, even yr dried hollow seaweed stinks -- you stink all over... Boom -- Try that, creep... The little Monterey fishingboat glides downward home 15 miles to go, be home to fried fish & beer b'five... It guides the sea its bird routes... ... Silver loss forever outward ... From blue sky of human bridges to the massive mawkcloud sea center heap -- to the gray... Some boys call it gunboat blue, or gray, but I call it the Civil War of Rocks ... Rocks "come air, rocks "come water, & rock rocks... Kara tavira, mnash grand bash ... poosh 1'abas -- croosh L'a haut -- Plash au pied... Peeeee -- Rolle test boulles... Manche d'la rache... The handsome King prevails over boom sing bird head... "Crache tes idees, " spit yr ideas, says the sea, to me, quite appro priate ly... Pss! pss! pss! Ps! girl inside! Red shoes scum, eyes of old sorcerers, toenails hanging down in the barrel of old firkin cheese the Dutchman forgot t'eat that tempest nineteen O sixteen When torpedoed by gunboat Pedro in the Valley of a Million Fees? When Magellan crosseyed ate the Amazonian feet... And, Ah, when Colombo cross't! When Drake sir francised the waves with feeding of the blue jay dark -- pounded his aleward tank before the boom, housed up all thoughts of Erik the Red the Greenland caperer & builder of rockdungs in New Port -- New -- yet... Oldport Indian Fishhead... Oldport Tattoo Kwakiutl Headpost taboo potash Coyotl potlatch? Old Primitive Columbia.... Named for Colom bus? Name for Aruggio Vesmarica... Ar! -- Or! -- Da! What about Verrazano? he sailed!... He Verrazano zailed & we statened his Island in on deep in on dashun Rotted the Wallower? Sinners liars goodmen all sink waterswim drink Neptune's nectar the zal sotat... Zal sotate name for crota? Crota ta crotte, you aint 'bout to find (Jesus Christian! ) any dry turds here below... Why fo no? Go crash yonder rock of bleak with yr filet mignon teeth & see -- For you, the hearth, the heart, the lock of hair... For me, for us, the Sea, the murdering of time by eating lusty cracks of lip feed wave at aeons of sandy artistry till nothing's left but old age newmorning primordial pain of sitters by the unborn bird of roses yet undone... With weeds your roses, sand crabs your hummers? With buzzers in the sea! With runners in the deep! This Sceptred Osh, this wide leg spanning rock U. S. to rock Ja Pan, this onstable roller roaming all, this ploosher at yr gory dry dung door, this mouth of silverwhite arring to hold thee, this purger of conscience arra for thee... No mouse in here but's got a little glee -- and aft, or oft, the osprey in his glee's agley... Oh purty purty ocean me... Sop! bring the Scepter down! Again you've accepted me! Breathe our iodine, filthy yr drink, faint at feet wet, drop yr profile move it in the sea, float weeded watery Adonais longs for thee -- & Shelley three, that's three -- burn in salt with slow most change... We've had no crack at eternity in a billion years of trying... one grain of sand possesses 3 thousand worlds of glee... not to mention me... Ah sea Ah si -- Ah so... shoot -- shiver -- mix... ha roll -- tara -- ta ta... curlurck -- Kayash -- Kee... Pearls pearls in the yellow West ... Yellow sky to China... Pacific we named here water as always meeting water -- Pacific Pacific Pacific tapfic -- geroom... gedowsh... gaka... gaya... Tatha -- gata -- mana... What sails used old bhikkus? Dhikkus? Dhikkus! What raft mailed Mose to the hoven dovepost? What saved Blackswirl from the Kidd plank? What Go-Bug here? Seet! Seeeeeeeeeee eeeeeee -- kara... Pounders out yar... Big Sur they call this sand these rocks this creek? Raton Canyon by name pours Coyote leaves & old Pomo bones & old dust of Tomahawks into your angler'd maw... My salt maw shall salvage Taylors -- sewing in the room below... Sewing weed shrat for hikers in the milky silt... Sewing crosswards for certainty... Sartan are we of Price Victory in this salt War with thee & thine thee jellied yink! Look O the sea here called Pacific Sea! Taki! My golden empty soul'll outlast yr salty sill ... the Windows of my jelly eye & fish head muck look out on thee, slit, with cigar-a-mouth, some contempt... Yet I hie me to see you ... you hie thee to eat me -- Fair in sight and worn, aright... Arra! Aroo! Ger der va... Silly silent cities in the sea have children playing cardboard mush with eignyard old Englander beeplates slickered oer with scum of histories below... No tempest as still & awful as the tempest within... Sorcerer hip! Buddhalands & Buddhaseas! What sails Maudgalyayana used he only knows to tell but got kilt by yellers screaming down the cliff 'Let's go home! Now! " ... leave marge smashed djamas Maudgalyayana was murdered by the seaBut the sea dont tell... The sea dont murder... The seadrang scholars oughter know that or go back to School Hear over there the ocean motor? Feel the splawrsh of it? Six silly centepedes here, Machree... Ah Ratatatatatat... the machinegun sea, rhythmie balls of you pouring in with smooth eglantinee jn yr pedigreed milkpup tenor... Tinder marsh aright arrooo... arrac'h -- arrache... Kamac'h -- monarc'h... Kerarc'h Jevac'h... Tamana -- gavow... Va -- Voovla -- Via... Mia -- mine sea poo Farewell, Sur... Didja ever tell him about water meeting water...? O go back to otter... Term -- Term -- Klerm Kerm -- Kurn -- Cow... Kow... Cash -- Cac'h -- Cluck... Clock -- Gomeat sea need de deep I see you Enoc'h soon anarf in Old Brittany 21 August 1960 Pacific Ocean at Big Sur California The complete poems written by the sea are to be found at the end of this book, in the appendix entitled "SEA'. Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur. JK.