Crossing Nation
Under silver wing
San Francisco’s towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black—breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine—covered below—
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball—
Sacramento valley rivercourse’s Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north—hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras—past Reno, Pyramid Lake’s
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands’
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken—
Leary out of action—"a public menace...
persons of tender years... immature
judgement... pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam
Leroi on bum gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years’ negotiations—
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez’
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe—
having a baby, a man—
Cleaver shot at, jail’d, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh—heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon’s sidewalks—
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death—chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served—Eyes up to the Image—
What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
