The Poet's Hour

In commemoration of KUNM-FM’s stronger voice, 

which can now be heard in Placitas, I read this,

in part, over the air during the Larry Goodell Show in May 1976.

The Poet took pen to paper. There was a shuffling in the other room but all fell silent. The scratching of the pen echoed down the canyons of immortality. This was what he said or sang as he wrote:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, My pen is big.” The scratching echoed out there to the chickens. “The revulsion I’ve lived through has not passed. So long I’ve hated you and thought you were sheer nylons with me trying to fill your bag. I’ve blown you & blown you and still not blown you down. You’re bigger than me by a long shot. You have toes – and ears – and fights. You fight me. You jam your nylon stocking over my head. I love it. I wish I had one on my head now. I wdnt look at you. I’d eat you. You eat me up. You gag on my face, but you’re little. Little than big. Bigger than a toenail. You’re gas stations & the whole rigamarole up to the top. I am the top of the pyramid. Blinking the eye on your goddamn dollar bill. You’re mammon and a preacher. You have free time on Sundays and tend your garden club. Your radio audience isnt fixed, your radio audience is all you’ve got and it’s free. Free to move over and let me take a stand.

“Eat whole foods. This is your radio audience listening. Listening to the Poet give his fireside chat. There is rain in Cambodia. The Communists have fallen and picked themselves up. They are crazy with laughter. They have bifocals too. They’ve heard of Benjamin Franklin. They want him to come over and buddy buddy with them. They’ve restored the locks in the canals. The voices are pulling your head apart. Don’t jam them any more. Don’t screw them in any further. You are totally nuts and I hate your guts. You are the Nazis. You are not this radio audience.

“I have not said anything trivial, that’s why you hate me. You might listen to me but you’re married. You have kids that glue their heads together out of nothing to do. You would let Gertrude Stein die of a miscarriage. Baudelaire is your Uncle. And Edgar Allen Poe. You make sense to me because you’re instant art. You’re constantly echoing in the hills of Congress all over the land. Until you fall silent. You are hung over and don’t know it. I cant destroy you and I love you. I bid you walk for me. Get up and talk for me.

“I am potentially your victory. Your victim and your victory. But reaching out I grab you. There’s peace in the Yucatan. Fighting is calm over Alaska. There are marching girls in Paris. No one wears stocking any more. What a thing to deplore. This is your midnight speech on Sunday. We need more wire fence. To fence ourselves out, away from you. You dogs. You dogs.

“You bottom dogs. Sooner or later you will meet your failure. Failure to do this or that. I will play your game until you play it. Play it all the way up where I'm the floating pyramid. I am all the gurus in the top shelf. I am Carlos Castaneda's hand on backwards. Clapping ass and calling me pardner. You are dissolving in Alka Seltzer, Hadacol & Sal Hepatica. Pow! When hate disappears isnt it great? What a beautiful day this is. Everything is balmy and there isnt any noise. Sometimes somebody forgets to do something but theyre paying me to talk tonight. I'm selling you a bill of goods. Vote for Crazy Horse the Doctor of Medicine. Be kind to your families and try to include a Poet in your social acquaintance. Ask him a question about God. or grass. Promote the use of useless electricity? Use the electricity that is to be used. And no more. Make garbage bags your grab bags and give them away in public. Sit down at somebody else's plate and eat his food every disgusting drop of it. Smell your own manure wastes and don’t heap scorn on somebody else's plate. But you will do this anyway. Dear God let us pray.

“We pray and we pray and pray. And still the plants come up. We cant wish them away so we pray and we pray and we pray. Dear God how we pray. We play and we pray. Don’t you fig come up. I want only weeds in my garden. Social weeds. Weeds that fuck each other while I can stand by and catch fire. This is your poet talking to you, your small town farmer poet. The poet tilling the soil and turning the soil under your feet. While you march along together. Trampling it down. You stepped on my bind weed. I am your living weed. I am the history of natural flowers. I stop where your nylon stocking starts. I am the You of the nation. A living legend in trees. I am your walking Campus. I am your inspired parts. I wait for the wave of inspiration. It comes and comes and comes, and makes me the prize winner. The winner of your Emmy Poet Award. Nineteen Seventy Sixty Two. I am the you of the me of the sea. The sea is talking tea tonight. Salty teardrop tea. I am the puff in you’re a Bomb smoke. I am making your money, I am giving you all the angles, I am half again a man. A man on top of man is stronger too. The woman of my dreams passes through. Through here! Right here this minute you filthy scads. Try out my dreams. I'll hand you the box that contains them. Sniff well.

“Your mind reaches out to shake my hand. Here is the ten bucks. Call me again when you want to write a poem. I'll pay you a decent wage for services rendered. I am your public. This is a musical interlude. I am your employer. John Q Public.

“You write me a poem for my wedding and we'll give you a crisp new dollar bill. I love you, Peggy Sue. I take the woman on my left. To be my hip and sway. To be the one I live today to love and wish away and dine and dine and dine. Dine. And day. A dime a day keeps the apple away. Avoid doctors unless they read a poem every day. Sometime. Read this poem Doctor and read this poem Doctor AMA, your heart is not in the right position. We will move it over here and beat against the rib cage our message here tonight. Avoid white sugar. Fill up your stomachs with praise. Read more. Do more outside work but not of too regular a fashion. Or youll get in the rut of your stereotype and become sane. You want to remain a weed. A weed in my very special garden. Yes you are you, and you are you. Listen to the cloud forming above you. Try out your sixth sense but not in any organized way. Rotate the voices inside you. Listen to me I am you, in me the way I am. This is the way I am youre paying for inspiration. Constantly risk and youll be extending with me. More more more is not necessarily fattening. By demanding more you are extending yourself into a thin presence.

“Don’t ever say what has been said before. Let me repeat. Don’t ever allow yourself not to listen when you ask me a question. Listen to your answer, but in my head. And we truly will become partners. I will report the news as I see fit. I will announce the presence of the iceberg, or pyramid, as you wish. The solid object of my voice falls like a lump at your feet. A furry body. You pick it up. It sings. It says, there is value in my voice while I'm still alive. Don’t kill me in order to pick my guts. Show me how we can think a thought together. I can be your synapse, because you are listening. You are listening to me tonight. Thank you for listening to me listen.”

Friday 28th of May, 1976

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico from NB #23