(First published in City Lights Review: Ends and Beginnings. Edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1994.)
1.
Writing poetry is like a disease with no cure.
You let it run its course
and one day the fever breaks.
I’ve had the fever for twenty years.
I wrote hordes of wild, passionate poems.
I wrote square poems for square editors.
Radical poems for the revolution that does not exist.
Poems that begged for wine and music.
This is my last poem.
No American has written a decent poem
In twenty years and I’m tired of trying.
Poetry readings are boring. Real boring.
I’ve read flocks of my poems at poetry readings.
Jazzy poems. Shocking surreal poems. Boring poems.
The New Yorker prints shitty poems.
Poetry journals are filled with shitty poems.
I’ve written lots of shitty poems
And this is my last one.
My magnum crappus. Grand finale. Final exit.
Exodus el poetus. Exile from poetic bondage.
Ode to the ultimate farewell.
My last poetic words. My last words on poetry.
My omega of poetry. My dirge of poetry.
My eschatology of poetry. My poetic coffin.
My shovel of dirt on poetry’s grave.
This is my last poem and I feel better already.
Poetry sucks.
Most poets are O.K
Until they take themselves too seriously.
Then they turn into thirsty insects.
Poetry sucks poets dry. Really dry.
Anyone have a glass of water? Cold beer?
Leave the bottle, because this is my last poem.
I’m tired of chasing verbs
through fields of bloodthirsty images.
No more swimming in swamps of syllabic scum.
No thanks.
This is my last encounter of the poetic kind.
I’m sick of hunting for metaphors
in the oozing stench
of bottom-feeding human perversions.
Poetry loves perversion and vice-versa.
Poetry is perversion and this is my last one.
The final arrow in my poetic quiver.
My swan poem. My poetic nightfall.
Finito del poeto. Endsville.
Total poetic Zeroland.
I’m tired of getting high and trying to have visions.
I’m really tired of trying to remember visions
and write them down.
I’m not going to write them down any more.
I’m as serious as cancer: this is my last poem.
Poetry has no value in America.
Everyone in America writes a poem in the fourth grade
and gets a license to practice poetry
and knows just how valuable poetry really is
in the fourth grade they know
they really know everyone is a poet in America.
In Russia poetry readings
are performed in soccer stadiums.
100,000 comrades moved all at once
by a few good poets.
That’s real value. Who needs the Marines.
I would consider moving to Russia
but this is my last poem and I will remain in America
where life is easy
where tattooed teenage rock stars with fake names
get paid millions of dollars to masturbate and scream
songs they don’t even write
songs written twenty years ago, before they were born
while magnificent, visionary poets
go homeless and hungry and in jail.
Even the president is a poet in America.
Every judge is a poet in America.
Every cop is a poet in America.
Every dog is a poet in America.
Imagine this: everyone in America sells real estate.
We have marvelous stadiums
in which to hold poetry readings
while realtors go homeless and hungry and in jail.
Imagine this: everyone in America has an eyeball
next to his asshole so he can clearly see
all the shit he puts out
so he can clearly see his poetic output.
This is my last poem and I’m sorry
but I have to say these things.
Even this, my bottom poetic dollar
has no value in America.
This 12-gauge shotgun to my poetic head.
This 12-inch curved dagger
to the fair-skinned throat of poetry.
A lethal injection of viral torture.
A shy kiss from a blue ring octopus.
A gentle push over a jagged cliff.
A terminal dose of instant karma.
This has got to be my last poem.
Once I believed my poems proved my existence.
Once I believed my poems were immortal.
But all my poems combined have no value in America.
No value in the free world.
No value unless accompanied by sex or money.
Yet this is it.
The Great White Light growing closer in the distance.
The poetic glow fading away
as if from the eyes of a dying monkey.
Once I believed my poems made a difference.
I believed that writing poems
made the world a better place for everybody.
Now I believe there are too many poems in America.
There’s women’s poetry
and gay poetry and black poetry.
There’s Afro-American lesbian Christian poetry.
Hispanic poetry, Croatian poetry.
The poetry of Viet Nam vets.
the poetry of Vietnamese refugees
of Nicaraguan refugees
of psychedelic refugees
the surreal poetry of the American dream
the homeless poetry of a two-bedroom dumpster
the bankrupt poetry of global economies
the nuclear poetry of propulsion and trajectories
the melting fission poem of ground zero
the inevitable poem of lost continents
the poem that is spoken only at death
the only poem that counts.
2.
Why did I start writing poems?
Why does anyone write poetry?
I believe poems choose someone to write them.
I believe poems choose someone to give them form
just like this poem chose me
to give it a place on this paper
to give it a voice in this room.
I believe that in the beginning there really was the Word
and when the Word sought beauty
the first poem was created
and it was a perfect poem
that reached deep into your soul
every phrase so clear and sublime
that just one line made you weep
reading the whole poem could blind the strongest men
or rejuvenate the weak of heart.
It was a powerful poem that created
every amoebic alliteration
every allegorical allegation
every juvenile juxtaposition
every synaptic simile
every monad of hyperbole
every molecular rhyme
every gang of cells
making goo-goo eyes in the plasmic night.
The perfect poem moved entire hemispheres
shifted the earth’s axis
altered the orbits of galaxies
and inspired the first true love and madness.
Every poem that has called man to action
every poem that has stirred a generation
incited a riot and started a revolution
every poem that has actually reached out
and changed the course of history
every great poem is part of the perfect poem
every Song of Myself and Season in Hell
every Howl and Coney Island of the Mind
all of William Blake’s poems
are born of that first perfect poem.
And all poets, whether they know it or not
search for the perfect poem
and want to caress it and hold it down
and call it their own.
I have stalked the perfect poem many times.
Yes, I saw it once.
It came to me like a seizure
and just a few words made me dizzy.
It is the Holy Grail of poems
the Emerald Tablets of poems
the Great Pyramid of poems
the Philosopher’s Stone of poems
the ancient Cabala of poems
the Skull and Roses of poems
its truth and necessity crushed me
like the weight of the solar system.
I reached for a pen and paper.
I wanted to cage the magic words
but they escaped me like smoke
from an open window.
I never saw them again.
I hunt the almighty poem no more.
My quest for the great mover has expired.
But I do believe the perfect poem will be found
or maybe another piece of it will appear
and we’ll know it when we hear it.
Yes, everyone in America will know the perfect poem
as if it was a rock star.
I hope nobody is waiting for my next poem
because it does not exist.
But all my poems are better than this one.
Take my word for it.
This is my last poem and that’s all that matters.
Does it matter if the kamikaze
performs an exquisite final descent?
Does it matter if the paisley parachute almost opens?
The spitting cobra misses your eyes before it strikes?
Does it matter if a legal overdose is unintended?
Imagine this: a friendly missile
traveling at the speed of light
lands right on top of your head.
You never heard it coming.
You never saw the flash.
Does it matter if a mushroom cloud is not symmetrical?
Some things just run their course.
Close up shop. Cease and desist. Hang up the fiddle.
I grab the ragged curtain of poetry with my teeth
and pull it through the floor.
I burst the elite bubble of poetry with my dick
and set the whole played out mess to rest
a soft, satiny pillow smothering poetry’s sweet face.
It’s easier than you think to write your last poem.
It’s not like writing Revelations
or the knock-out poem of eternal blackness
and unconditional love.
It’s not like being part of anything cool
like the Beat Generation.
Nothing at all like that.
And it’s definitely not like jumping headfirst
off the top of the Mark Anthony Hotel
or drinking two quarts of whiskey a day
at your mom’s house.
It’s just my last poem.
The butt, the tail, the crack of doom
fait accompli, hosta la vista, baby, adios.
A simple sionara of pennies shining on my poetry’s eyes.
A little something for the ferryman: keep the change.
When Robert Frost was twenty years old
he proclaimed he would become a real poet
by the time he was thirty
or he would find another profession.
I heard that story when I was seventeen
and it sounded very noble.
I am thirty-seven years old now
and it sounds like public relations.
Either way, the poetic journey is more sweet than cruel.
And because I believe poetry is a good investment
in one’s soul
and because this is the sunset of my forevering
and because I have no choice
I will always see poetry
in the wrinkles of my bed sheets.
I will seek unspeakable adventures
I may even chance upon the perfect poem
but I will never write another poem.
I take a very deep breath
and consider the death of a close friend.
The incredible loss and suffering we must endure.
The fear and loathing.
I am lucky I am only losing my last poem.
I take a very deep breath and remember Allen Ginsberg.
“Listen to the silence between your breaths,”
he said, “that is the source of pure poetry.”
I sit very still and listen to the silence
between my breaths. I listen for a long time
and hear only silence
as if nothing really does add up to nothing
and that’s really all there is.
It is time to rest a while and shut up.
I close my eyes, cut the cord
and watch my last poem take its final, quiet breath
as all the poems I’ve ever written flash before my eyes.
3.
Cutting the cord that feeds your last poem
is like slashing your wrists.
If you cut in the wrong direction
if you miss the artery
if you misjudge the geometry of death
you will not ring the silver bell.
You will not send your victim to sleep with the angels.
You will not let her go.
Poetry is like a woman who won’t go away
like a woman who sends me to the moon.
Poetry is like a woman who is horribly good
like a dark, spooky woman
a soft-spoken, strong woman
a vivacious, voluptuous woman
who knows the ultimate secret
a vicious vampire woman
who is on close personal terms with pain
a woman who knows how to dance the lambada
a woman who knows how to fake it
a woman who doesn’t know what she wants
a woman who knows how to get it anyway.
Poetry is like a woman who wants to see me bleed.
A heroic woman, a generic woman
an exotic woman, an erotic woman.
She is every poets sweetheart
she is every poets whore.
She opens her arms, spreads her legs
and wiggles her toes.
She double flips off the high-wire
and lands in a bed of soft wet kisses.
Locker room incense burns the air.
The deep pulse of heavy breathing
rises from her soul: the soul of poetry.
I cannot kill this poem.
I cannot harm the gentle bird that wakes me.
I cannot will this poem to die.
I cannot click my heels and make it go away.
This poem is like the Elvis who keeps showing up.
I can only abandon this poem
like my first car
like immortal childhood friends.
I can only abandon this poem like old skin.
I buy my last poem a one-way ticket to Graceland.
I take it to the bus station.
I watch it fade away into the blue sequin sunset.
I imagine my last poem
kicking and screaming in the back seat
its sad face pressed to the window.
Maybe I should have sent it to Las Vegas.
I watch to make sure it doesn’t come back
And feel my last poem in the silence all around me.
No blame. No regrets.
Gratitude and happiness in every direction.
4.
Losing my last poem is more like losing a finger
than like losing an appendix.
Losing my last poem makes me queasy.
The nausea of happiness
is the first symptom of creative madness.
Disaster is an energy source.
Hallucinations bloom under stress.
Painters knew this and to prove it they cut off their ears
and every painter started their own schools of painting.
Painting has been fifty years ahead of poetry ever since.
I started my own school of poetry
and tried to catch up with all those painters
and I found out the photographers
had already shot the cans out from under the painters.
I am the only student in my school of poetry.
Painters and photographers are welcome to attend.
My school of poetry will close forever
when I abandon this poem once and for all.
Who is this “I” that writes this poem?
Whose voice do I really hear
when I close my eyes and listen?
When I close my eyes and try to find
the next lines of this poem
when I try to find the perfect ending for this poem
when I try to find the words
that say everything that must be said
the beautiful words that will make you shiver.
Where does this poetic voice come from?
Oral hallucinations come from the right side of the brain
but how’d they get there? I don’t know.
Imagine this: the poetic voice inside my head is a recording.
All the poems I ever wrote were prerecorded
and I just listen to them inside my head
and believe they belong to me.
Maybe this poem will not end with a bang.
Maybe it will end with a
hiss.
Imagine this: the poetic voice inside my head
Is the voice of God
Spoken long ago and received by my brain
Like my brain is a cheap radio
and God is a heavenly DJ
and His show ricochets around the universe
and lands inside somebody’s head purely by chance.
Maybe the poetic voice inside my head is recorded by God.
Maybe poets only transcribe God’s message machine.
Maybe the poetic voice inside my head
is not recorded by God.
Maybe it is recorded by regular angels.
Maybe bad guys regularly hijack the poetic airwaves.
Imagine this: insects are really the best poets.
Their antennas tune in to primo airwaves.
Cockroach poetry must be really intense.
Imagine the frantic poems of their colonies.
The magnificent love poems ants write for their queen
the rich, sweet poetry of the hive
the humble, melancholy poem of the praying mantis
the unquenchable, high-voltage poem of the cicada
graceful midnight poems of fireflies
annoying little mosquito poems
gorgeous poems of corpse-eating blowflies.
My last poem is like a centipede
crossing a busy street
and every car just misses it by a breath
until finally it gets to the other side
and a boy on a bicycle squishes its rear end
and it is just able to drag itself to a safe haven
when a hubcap flies off the last Yugo in America
and lands right over of my centipede
like a rusty mausoleum
like a roadside memorial
like a requiem for what might have been
like a rhapsody for the next world.
5.
My name is J.T. Gillett
and I just want to know why I’m really here.
My name is J.T. Gillett
and there are lots of people out there
telling me I’m here for different reasons.
They tell me I’m somebody I don’t always know.
They tell me I’m somebody I don’t always like
but sometimes I don’t know or like my own poems.
My name is J.T. Gillett
and I just want to know why I am writing this poem
when invisible viruses
have declared war on my species
when slate-wiping viruses
are spreading in the jungle
when entire tribes are wiped out by viruses
that make you bleed to death through your eyes
when these viruses are one day away via air express
when millions of viruses fit on the head of a pin
like Manhattan at rush hour
everybody shopping for a gracious host.
Bill Burroughs says language is a virus from outer space.
I just want to know why I’m writing about viruses
when I could be watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island
or reading Mondo 2000.
I just want to know why I am writing my last poem
when there is so much beginning to do.
So many do-do birds swallowed by extinction.
Every day so many absolute fade aways
creation is precious, every moment so complete
endless moments in every minute
all dying
all sentient beings
all dying
all things (including those that don’t exist)
all dying
Ashland dying
Oregon dying
San Francisco dying
redwoods dying
Pacific ocean dying
good clean air dying
ozone dying
Grateful Dead gone
I’m dying
you’re dying
this poem is slowly dying
rock ‘n roll says it’s not dying
but I’d double-check the pulse.
There are so many ways to prove I am alive
so many ways to use my body
these hands, ears, tongue and eyes
there are so many ways
to feel the music
and fall from the window
there are so many ways
for my last poem to hit the ground.
I can almost hear its final word
A whisper reflected upward
From an empty sidewalk.
I can almost hear its final echo
Just after it hits the concrete.
6.
How should I spend my last poem?
Should I aim my last poem at some heavenly bulls-eye?
Should I try to save a rain forest?
Or is my last poem an aimless assassin
Stalking a nonexistent enemy
My drive-by shooting poem
Taking lazy pot-shots at random targets.
My armed and dangerous kamikaze poem
my kamikaze poem that never misses.
My kamikaze poem can’t go down alone.
My kamikaze poem wants to settle some scores.
My kamikaze poems knows this is its last blast
And it wants its money’s worth
It wants somebody big to get what’s coming
It wants to lay the smoking guns on the broken table
it wants to put some ex-presidents in jail
it wants Nixon to pay for the Kent State massacre
it wants Reagan to dig up some mass graves
in the jungles of El Salvador
it wants George Bush to share a cell with Manuel Noriega
it wants Dan Quayle to share a cell with Charles Manson
it wants Obama on Fox News 24/7
it wants to dig up J. Edgar Hoover live on CNN
while the latest famous newspeople
read and endless list of atrocities.
We are harasses by cops
every time we look in the rear view mirror
every time we park our car on a city street
every time they hide behind bushes with radar guns
we are harassed by cops.
We are harassed by a defense industry
That wants to kill us all.
Harassed by governments that want to watch
every move we make
we are harassed by maniacs
who want to put bombs in space.
We are harassed by an IRS that wants to take our money
To create more devices to kill us from greater distances.
By governments that know what’s best for you and me.
By governments that want us to buy more TVs
So we can watch it all go down from safe, digital distance.
Bagdhad bombed after dark so we can enjoy fireworks
But we can’t see the maimed babies
We can’t see the innocent bodies piled high in the streets.
We are harassed by governments
that want us to buy more hamburgers
and more booze and more guns.
Our government keeps ghettos full of crack and smack
throws everybody else in jail for smoking pot.
Jails are filled with pot smokers and victimless criminals.
These are political prisoners, these are political prisoners
There are more political prisoners in America
Than in any other country in the world.
There are more people in American jails
than in Russian jails.
There are more people per capita in jail in America
than in any other country in the world.
They are building more jails all the time.
Prisons are already a commercial enterprise in America.
There are more cases of mistaken identity than ever before.
You could be next. Your sons and daughters. Or mine.
This is my last poem and I want to spend it on freedom.
Not freedom in the theoretical or absolute sense.
Not any Platonic ideal or categorical imperative.
Not even constitutional freedom (ha ha ha).
I would like to spend my last freedom
doing exactly what I am doing.
That’s the freedom I want to buy with my last poem.
The freedom I can feel in every pore of my body.
It’s not much.
Just buying a little time.
A temporary state of grace.
My last poetic wad blown without reservation
blazed with total disregard for rules and regulations
total disregard for friendly suggestions
total disregard for the possibility of publication
my last poem dancing with total abandon until it drops.
7.
My last poem may be the humble beginning
of a manic explosion of last poems
all diving headfirst into oblivion
a slithering orgy of last poems
thrusting themselves out of this world
waking up out of their bodies.
Yes, yes, I invite all poets to join me
and let your last poems bloom.
Let there be last poems about sitting on the couch
eating tofu hot dogs
watching intelligent cheerleader movies
betting on metaphysical football games
running for mayor of unknown cities
and plotting sweet revolutions.
Imagine this: vast gardens of last poems
veining around skyscrapers
like whirling Babels of last poems
colossal brambles of last poems
taking over the White House.
Armies of young republicans
cutting down forests of last poems
but the last poems strip them naked
and slap their white asses.
They try to poison their roots
but they just slap harder
and grow back stronger.
Glorious hallelujahs of last poems.
Platoons of last poems
marching in tight formation.
Wild bands of last poems
running crazy in every direction.
Last poems taking over TV stations.
Last poem trading cards available everywhere.
Multi-national alliances of last poems.
Coalitions of last poem cartels.
Interstellar conspiracies of last poems.
Last poems coming back from the dead.
Yes, yes, I invite all poets to join me
and write their last poems!
Even if you’ve never written a poem before!
(don’t hesitate, start right now!)
It’s never too late to write your last poem.
May all poems be last poems
may last poems gush forth
may last poems never end
may streets overflow with last poems!
Last poems will bury police cars.
Last poems will eat the rich and rewrite history.
Last poems will make the world a better place.
They will accurately forecast
the consequences of hear and now.
They will always tell the truth.
They will bring heaven to earth
just like in the old days
when we believed the world
was going to end very soon
and poetry would live forever.
To be continued.
Last Poems--Outsider Art 