Necropolis
for Allen Ginsberg:
"...and thou shalt not let any of thy seed
pass through the fire unto Moloch...."
(Leviticus 18:21)
I
....On meat market streets of slaughterhouse cities, in stockyard towns, in Golem subdivisions of suburbs Saturnian around cities' rings; in smokestack Golgotha of factories' suck and blow - of industrial shit smell on Indiana Toll Road through Gary and Hammond, approaching Chicago, of Oakland railyards, of dark Fritz Lang machinery and smell of motor oil on Cleveland flats;
in Sister Midnight of Amputations; on meat hooks, the animal is led to the slaughterhouse;
in New York on battlements of gargoyle skyscrapers, cathedrals to Mammon beneath which catacombs of phantom subway tunnels lie as burial-places for the dead;
on streetcorners of liquor stores - think of New Orleans - graveyard soup-kitchens of ribcage xylophone jazz, of boneskinny stray cats tap-dancing voodoo on fire escapes and blind Memphis blues out of poolhalls shouting down rainwet tenement alleyways of stiletto night;
along L.A. sidewalks where dark pools of piss run fingering out from buildings' walls; fingers of piss along sidewalks where old winos sit scratching bug-infested privates and where homeless ones, ejected from 1970s nuthouses by Governor Reagan now sit, screaming in filth and solitude;
in soup lines of methadone, of benefits paid for disability due to chronic alcoholism and deteriorated state of mental health; of young-bull manhood destroyed by prisons, by caseworkers, by Thorazine hospital wards;
in scratching rat-tunnels of razor blade hotels, burrowing small comfort - S.F. Eddy St., Tenderloin, $65/wk. incl. bed & sink in rm. w/cigarette burn & smell of piss, toilet & telephone down the hall, TV extra, cockroaches are free-of-charge + $5 key deposit buys ambience sound of farting, moaning from old man through the wall next door, radiator banging, windows 1930s painted shut;
in motel echo-chambers of solitude; at cigarette sunrise on Tucson South Sixth Avenue, skidrow walking lonesome under yellow naked sky;
in rooms where spiders drop from ceilings like tiny paratroopers; where for entertainment cockroach friends may be impaled on the ends of toothpicks, tiny legs waving in the air; may contemplate nosehair of other occupants, their bellybuttons; dream of nasty little furryfuzzies climbing into bed w/you; DTs, tremors, harpies descending;
in Chinatown teahouses of despair - sweatshop Stockton St. of fishhead-on-pavement market stalls and eyes darkened from nightmare China; on Mission St. from El Salvador of decapitations and Pol Pot skull-mountains of Cambodia; on Ellis St. of Vietnamese refugee families packed six to a room, where children now go to school in America, stepping over sleeping winos on the doorstoop;
in stairwells of glue-sniffing teenage boys; of 13-year-old armed and dangerous w/semi-auto 9mm cliploaded in schoolbag armies of night, defending small nation-states of streetcorner and tone of skin, claiming eastside westside crips bloods norteno sureno us and them;
in jailcells on bedsprings of incarceration, of lamented face-washings in celblock sinkholes of regret; before the Pharisees of Judgement, in temples whitewashed of doom subjected;
among the lonely, who in their heartless rooms contemplate death from self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; death from Golden Gate's or Brooklyn Bridge's leaping, to fall arms reaching skyward, feet madly bicycle-pedalling thin air; death from head wrapped in cellophane; from lamp-cord electrocution or from light fixture's hanging by the neck w/shoelaces, dancing tip-toe, string-puppet pirouette just inches from the floor;
in livingroom parlors of discontent; in mirrors blind-eyed of faith, disembodied shuffling nervous down the hall; on sad hometown marriage-beds lying sleepless awaiting death;
in Rat Kingdom alleyways of grime winebroken parking lots and dimlit recesses of methamphetamine doorways, where young girls on their knees provide lip service to strange men - on Sunset, on Santa Monica, on Hollywood where there are no faces and no broken hearts, only eye-level patches of pubic hair as service is performed and until such time as to be found throat-cut wrists-bound-by-electrical-cord and panties-around-ankles for police photographers on trashpile w/other used and discarded items needful of disposal; to sleep toe-tagged and unclaimed in refrigerator drawer as Jane Doe #1306, County of Los Angeles; cut open on examining table to reveal stomach contents large quantities of semen/evidence of intravenous drug use/frequent and long-term physical abuse prior to time of death then deposited by authorities in an unmarked grave without flowers, where no one will know - not anyone - not mommy not daddy not anyone will ever know what happened;
in meathouses of murder mayhem and dismemberment; of smokestacks, the animal is led to the slaughterhouse....
II
...Silvery angel of night, hollow-eyed and halo'ed, hallowed be thy name, thy face, thy belly full of worms - once in highschool by quarterback fucked on backseat of abandonment, now in L.A.;
thine eyes along streetlight boulevards of Gethsemane, searching into windows of passing cars - having run away from home in teenage smalltown boredom and distress w/dreams of beachfront pop-star Malibu home in L.A.;
thy softness un-wifely suppleness of earthly form, tenderness and tightness of holy sheath; thy knees bent in sacristies of toilet-wall kneelings, head bowed in sacrament, anointed in L.A.;
thy saintliness of public cunt, upon altar of the holy abattoir laid bare; thy legs flung open in rooms of businessman hotels, flesh now by needlepoints pierced and jackhammered in L.A.;
ploughed under on harrow-fields, left buried in L.A.-
-in L.A. of all ends and no beginnings; L.A. of forgetting, L.A. of letting go; L.A. where fingertips of greed stroke the flaxen hair of young girls, where everything is nothing and everywhere is nowhere and everyone is no one and therefore all are equal under the sun....
III
...In boxcars, the animal is led to the slaughterhouse;
cruel knives, shiny are drawn;
head-hung, the animal stupid unknowing proceeds into the Valley of Steel;
in the killing-room, all are in place as the animal eyes cast downward is brought forth for the slaughter;
at bladefall, neck, jaw, shoulders are cut; the animal honking, gurgling in sudden pain and distress; eyes swimming in failure to understand as blood orbits, whirling, spiralling out through drainhole beneath; legs tremble, give way underneath and great body topples to the floor; strength gone, power to resist gone; huge muscles, useless now relax; head turned to one side, room spinning in final spasm of surrender;
the killing completed, the animal's flesh is stripped from its body - steam rises from belly cavity as sheets of flesh are ribbon-cut into strips and piled onto conveyor belt for the packing plant; heart, kidney are extracted for Breughel meat pies and intestine for sausage casing; muscle stringpulled and ripped from bone; limbs torn, wrenched from sockets and head severed, bone of braincase chipped away to reveal brain and thinking mind for stewpot's boiling; waste products, genitals and eyes, entrails' mucous-jelly and fibrous viscera are thrown aside onto trashpile with matted hunks of fur, bone chips and blood-pools for disposal as the next in line is brought forth;
and the next in line is brought forth....
IV
...Oh tears, oh trail of shattered souls, oh ghost-armies of dead teenage girls mad winos and children, marching endless in solid formation to oblivion;
oh nocturne, sad nocturne of creeping refrain and of limitless sleepless dreamless pitiless night;
oh City: prideful and arrogant beast, grinning stupid insane; oh neon Dionysus, mad god-king of excess, who sits fattened and obscene upon his throne among the dead - his Bacchae dancing skeletal through the woods of Central Park; his testicles as fiery orbs exposed; his tongues as seven lashing snakes; his blind Necropolis of tombstone skyscrapers, uplifted as to Heaven; his Hollywooden boulevards of cock-in-mouth loneliness, spanning, spanning, ever-outward from his feet; his spasms of gluttonous laughter amid the sobs of those less fortunate than himself; his table piled high with smoking heaps of human meat but hungry, always hungry for ever and ever more; his fat-drippened chins and quivering rolls of belly; his stench as mountain-tops of excrement and piss; his breath of cheap whiskey and stale cigarettes; his smokestack mind of waste and decay, of endless madhouses and jailcells and graves; his ignorance-
-his ignorance, eyeless and bloated in exhaltation of himself:
"Unrepentant, I ask not for forgiveness; but for more wine, virgins, and fresh horses for my men...."
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