Raster. Jaargang 6

[p. 495]

Jerome Rothenberg
Cokboy
(Part Two)

comes a brown
wind curling from
tense tissues sphincter
opened over the whole continental
divide & shot the people up
plop plop a little girl emergeth
she with the beaver tits nose furry
eyes of the Redman's
Sabbath
gropes down the corridor
(sez) hallo doctor
got a hand to spare?
doctor sez hokay
-yas doctor
-hev ah suck
-yas doctor
hand up her bush
he pulls
a baby  howling
in lamplight a little Moses
now the Cacique's daughter laugheth
-oh doctor not so-o hard
so hard America is born
so hard the Baal Shem dreams about it
200 years later
in Vitebsk
(he was in correspondence with Win Blake
appeared on Peckham Rye
-yes fully clothed!-
& was his angel)
angel says his mother
smiling proud
she sees his little foot

[p. 496]

 

break through

 

her crotch an itching

 

races up her ribs

 

America is born

 

the Baal Shem is a beaver

 

(happened while the Indian talked

 

chanted behind Cody

 

the mad Jew slid to lfe

 

past pink styrofoam snow of her body's

 

channels

 

the freaky passageways

 

unlit unloved

 

like gums of an old woman

 

teeth were ripped from

 

ages gone) into

 

another kind of world

 

he hurtles

 

does reawaken in the female swamp

 

a beaver amongst the rushes

 

-momma!-calls the Baal Shem

 

-mommeleh!

 

vot em I doink here

 

I hev become mine beard

 

(he sez) the blind world shines on him

 

water runs through his mouth

 

down belly it is dark

 

a darkness (fur is dark

 

& hides the skin & blood

 

a universal fur

 

but leaves one hole

 

to open from the body's

 

darkness pushing

 

into light)

 

erupts

 

like great cock of the primal beings

 

red & smooth like copper

 

of the sun's red eye at night

 

old Beaver lugs it in his hand

 

I am myselfmy     grandfather

 

(he sings) my name is Cokboy

 

-cokbOy, understand?

 

I leave my grandmother in the female swamp

 

will be the Great Deliverer someday yuh-buh-bum

[p. 497]

 

even might find a jar of honey might stick my prick in my prick

 

might tingle might it not tickle me the bees find out about it &

 

sting the knob it grows a second a dozen or so knobs along its

 

length are maybe 30 knobs

 

so what's the use I ask maybe will try again I drag it red & sore

 

behind me so vulnerable I have become in this hot climate

 

shitting & farting shooting marbles was opening my mouth &

 

coming in it

 

the blackbird shits o not so fast love into my hat my eyes turn white

 

wood-lilies are growing from them a slavic birth I can't deny so

 

tender in my eyes tender the native turds come floating

 

& across America in an outrage uselessly I shout against the Sun you

 

are no longer my father Moon you are no longer my mother I have

 

left you have gone out jaunty with cock slung over shoulder this is

 

the journey your young men will take

 

(says Beaver) makes it to the hut where that old woman lives apron

 

over her belly carp in oven maybe fried bread fat fat little mother

 

don't mind if I drop a stone onto your brains your daughters be

 

back later little hot girls I ride on pretending I was you I suck

 

their ears & scream o put me lower down love o my cock inside

 

& have to cool it

 

I cool it

 

in waters where a princess

 

daughter of a chief

 

went bathing

 

lethal & innocent the cock

 

has found its mark

 

(his train has reached Topeka

 

Custer is dead)

 

& enters the bridegroom's quarters

 

darkness her flesh prepared for it

 

by new moon

 

in her abdomen a sliver

 

grows

 

a silver dollar over Barstow

 

lighting the Marriage of America

 

in kabbalistic time

 

(says Cokboy) you are the daugther of

 

the mountain

 

now will I take thee to my father's tribe

 

to do the snake dance

 

o jewish feet of El go crazy

 

in his mind

[p. 498]

 

o

 

El

 

o

 

Him

 

I carry in my knapsack

 

dirty pictures land grants

 

(but further back her people

 

gun for him

 

how should they feel

 

seeing their daughter in arms of

 

Cokboy

 

-C-O-C-K, understand?-)

 

thou art become my Father's bride

 

are wedded to (ugh) Christian god

 

forever

 

bye bye I got to run now

 

engagements await us in Salt Lake City

 

industry riseth everywhere

 

arrows strike concrete

 

never shall bruise my sweetie's flesh

 

(says Cokboy) on horse

 

up river he makes his way

 

past mining camps Polacks were panning gold in

 

& other pure products of America

 

o prospectors o Anglo Saxons

 

baby-faced dumplings who pacified the west

 

with gattling guns with bounties for hides of babes

 

mothers' vulvas made baseballs to their lust

 

o bringers of civilization heros heros

 

I will fight my way past you who guard the sacred border

 

last frontier village of my dreams

 

with shootouts tyrannies

 

(he cries) who had escaped the law

 

or brought it with him

 

how vass I lost tzu get here

 

(dot dot dot) was luckless

 

on a mountain & kept from

 

true entry to the west true paradise

 

like Moses in the Rockies who stares at California spooky in

 

the jewish light

 

of horns atop my head great orange freeways of the mind

 

America disaster

 

America disaster

[p. 499]

 

America disaster

 

America disaster

 

where he can watch sun go down

 

in desert

 

Cokboy asleep? (they ask)

 

awake (cries Cokboy)

 

only his beard has left him

 

like his own his grandfather's

 

ghost of Ishi was waiting on the crest

 

looked like a Jew

 

but silent

 

was silent in America

 

guess I got nothing left to say