(no subject)
O’Ryan 1
Overall, mover of the unnumbered
___________
Who did twelve labors, rose
at 4 AM. And when I complained
that I could not do as much,
she turned it on me this way,
that if he went to bed at 2
and rose at 4, you
rise at 2
and go to bed at 4. I thinking,
how neat. And necessary, we
who don’t have God to encourage us
at least that aim
in the business. Or think women
We love em, we do not do without em
our necks are bent, we do see
who’s who, how what we ride
rides us, how there are twelve houses
to be got through: what one are you at
fellow fellow? My purpose
is to invoke you, not at all any
muse. Or at least none
that you are beholden
to, that you know
by taking sight, by merely
looking up. No zodiac
neither the one which comes after
pleasure, nor that one
after labors. The cincture now,
the emblem of the championship,
is care-by your mother’s fire
And sleep-sometimes sodden sleep.
I don’t read your face. Or you mine.
By looking up or down. Neither
the light nor the dark do we brawn
by. We do it all, I take it, my
fellow.
Will you join me
in one on the house?
Shall we drink
to the ladies?
O’Ryan 2
Tell me something, tell me
how you got that way
how’dya lose your
what stuck you in the pants
why did they ask you
to take on so much
Tell me something, tell me
what made you do it
why did you buy
so much shit
how come you got so far off
the rail
tell me, where are you
nowadays, what makes you
look so warm in the eye, who
told you your flesh is
as rosy as your
baby’s, as rosy as
Rosy, as, your
moth-er’s, as who got you up
in the morning
in the morning
Tell me, how’dya
get up? how did you
stand up after all
that lying down
what took
that look off
your face, how come you
shine, no shine
at all, all white
and looking all over
hey, bruiser: tell me
something
O’ Ryan 3
I heard they got you
on a rape charge
Or was it mugging
or just minding
your own business, that you looked too much
like your fellow men?
was it they burned you
in the yellow tree?
O’ Ryan 4
The story starts. It’s
cinema
Mah
Or chuck, chuck, I’ll
play with you rosy
Kate’s the girl for a
sail-
or for a
bosun, a gunner, a-
merican (heave me a
sigh, he said, I lost
her, I lost her
by saying too much
by opening my mouth
And who comes along
but a sly guy, a guy
who doesn’t do anything but
sigh-and of course
she was his, of course
We couldn’t love you
if we didn’t love you
with our mouth shut
O’Ryan 5
In other words
there ain’t no villain
in this piece,
none at all.
There isn’t any,
anyway. You find me one.
who isn’t some stinking sonofabitch of a man
O’Ryan 6
Your mother’s. Your
mother’s like they say
in a Chinese novel, to be straight about it
as a sign can
As a sign in a can
We begin
that way.
Virgin.
OK.
And let her rest, let her
if you can give it to her
if you can give it to her soul, if you can find out
what you owe her, what peace
a woman is, how you are all there
or you ain’t, you haven’t
slaked her thirst, you haven’t
What a man has to do, he has
to meet his mother in hell.
O’Ryan 7
Woman is a man’s
all cause
A man don’t have
no other
He can look, he’s got
plenty, its short
he’s got all the sky
to get up into, to get off his
But a woman is a man’s
yes
yes
yes
O’Ryan 8
He was all lit up
like a pinball machine
a son of the working
classes
He came down on her
in the middle of the road
he belted her, he pinned his shoulders
to her
And he scowled
right through his back
O’Ryan 9
It’s that way that’s all
whether you like it or not
even if you can get it
all prettied up
Or you’re that damned fool literate
you buy store bought clothes
Don’t fool yourself
Underneath all them poems
its night
you’ve got a hard on
to be made
O’Ryan 10
He loved a girl
And her name was Woods
He wooed her in the Maytime
he wooed her in the fall
He wooed her after all the others.
he wooed her in his shoes
he wooed her in the creases
between his rotten toes
He wooed her even though
she threw the book at him
he ran as fast as he could run
to keep his first look at her bum
She knew her business like the smartest
one, a female as the poems say
she got him and she slew him, he was that far gone
he couldn’t leave off, she was so much his poison
so mush his dish, he’d turn on a dime
to give her her wish
But the thing they didn’t know
who didn’t know him, was he knew how
she looked when she looked at him
And now you can see, there’s a moral here
It happened in Crete. Or if you’re discreet
I can tell you
more: its no different, just down the street
O’Ryan 11-15
11
Letsuzstayawayfromparades
12
I can’t tell a thing.
Why I let them go!
If you’ll lend me your ear
I’ll send you back a pea
It’s somewhere here
but I’ll bite my arse
how does one slip
on the fucking grass
There’s a way thru rime,
there’s a way ain’t verse
but o, poor fellows:
would you try to pass
what isn’t anywhere
back up your mother’s
or hers, or whose, or
even your own?-parse
that one
13
They were so realistic
shooting the King of Babylon
after Tamurlaine made him
his Asia fool
that they killed a pregnant woman
who was there to see
what the play was all about,
a real live bullet
just went astray
13
There was Ericson’s Isle
off the Vineyard shore
had a 3-ton boulder
was supposed to say
the Norski’s had been here
900 years before
-only Captain Brandt
in 1903
with a cook and some kittens
has wintered there
And they had much time on their hands
As well, of course, that they both knew
Norwegian
14
a clowder of cats
in the city backyard
fed by the neighbors
in the block about
on dout
and on destruction
15
Joe Ball
got too tall
too quick
like Wallace corn
-and now the American left
is shorn,
one raises eggs,
the other sub-si-dies
And all you union men,
don’t you snicker
at these millionaires
you got so many
irons in your refrigerators
you better not sneeze
you better get down on your knees
and ask forgiveness for your
corn
And you Sim-mons-beds