From CHARLIE CHAPLIN MEETS THE WAR IN VIETNAM (November 1970)

XIV:  Coda

Were you damaged in the Fall?

Weren’t we all?  Weren’t we all?

Do I feel as good as new?

Yes, I do.  Yes, I do.

And who would think to look at a violet’s face

that it had seen, some other place, all the bones

of hell.  And what a great change in the leprous

carcass of one man’s dog to come back laughing

and wagging its tail as another man’s cat.

And to pull free of the earth of sorrow, hatred,

and the hungry dead – and, beginning Now,

any you of you and me of me, to pull ourselves

inside out, and then to step out completely

from what has been, and invite everyone you meet

by whatever means they will understand to walk

through the archways of their dear departed selves.

The final conspiracy is Open to All.  That the Way

is straitened and a thousand voices wail along

the Way, unweaving our hearts, we shall endure. 

That a shadow always falls across the Gate

makes the Gate less difficult to find.

And there is only one true lover for the heart –

the mind.  It leads us ever out through hell

to whatever heaven falls like the grace of morning rain

on the blue beaches of the morning mind.

Everybody, come through here!

The Great “Who, me?” carefully trips

on its stumblingblocks and falls, glad to be caught.

And all the Who‑Done‑Its and the Let‑Me‑Be‑Its

are gathered in the tomb where there has been laid

to rest one late God, alias Jaweh, alias Allahu/Allah,

alias Odin, alias The One.  And a great mechanical

gear raises up the stiff old corpse, and it says,

“You are all  my children!

  You are all  my chosen people!”

And then wheels fly, a scaffolding sinks to its knees,

and a whole contraption dances itself to death,

And all the grimey shrouds fall from the crystal clearings

of Byzantium.  The old way excuses itself for the burp

     of its long grey ghost

          drifting now like a scarf

               down the

                    winding stairwell

                         of time.

XV:  Envoi

This coin I have minted here from my dying

is but to buy bread for the living and not

to be swallowed but exchanged in the language

of fingertips and words, art, work, books, tools;

the language of finding still another reason to touch

and be new‑minted from the hand of the Human.


(November 1970)

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