The Soft Machine

pleasure— The whole structure of reality went up in silent explosions—Paper moon and muslin trees and in the black silver sky great rents as the cover of the world rained down—Biologic film went up.. . 'raining dinosaurs' 'It sometimes happens. . .just an old showman' Death takes over the game so many actors buildings and stars laid flat pieces of finance over the golf course summer afternoons bare feet waiting for rain smell of sickness in the room Switzerland Panama machine guns in Bagdad rising from the typewriter pieces of finance on the evening wind tin shares Buenos Aires Mr. Martin smiles old names waiting sad old tune haunted the last human attic.

Outside a 1920 movie theater in East St. Louis I met Johnny Yen—His face showed strata of healed and half- healed fight scars—Standing there under the luminous film flakes he said: 'I am going to look for a room in a good naborhood'—Captain Clark welcomes you aboard this languid paradise of dreamy skies and firefly evenings music across the golf course echoes from high cool corners of the dining room a little breeze stirs candles on the table. It was an April afternoon. After a while some news boy told him the war was over sadness in his eyes trees filtering light on dappled grass the lake like bits of silver paper in a wind across the golf course fading streets a distant sky.

WAS WEIGHTLESS—NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE PARIS APRIL 17, 1961—'One's arms and legs in and out through the crowd weigh nothing— Grey dust of broom in old cabin—Mr.

Bradly Mr. I Myself sit in the chair as I subways and basements did before that—But hung in dust and pain wind—My hand writing leaning to a boy's grey flannel pants did not change although vapor trails fading in hand does not weigh anything now—Gagarin said grey junk yesterdays trailing the earth was quite plain and past the American he could easily see the shores of continents

—islands and great rivers.'

'Captain Clark welcomes you aboard.'

Dead Fingers Talk

Glad to have you aboard reader, but remember there is only one captain of this subway—Do not thrust your cock out the train window or beckon lewdly with thy piles nor flush thy beat benny down the drain— (Benny is overcoat in antiquated Times Square argot) —It is forbidden to use the signal rope for frivolous hangings or to burn Nigras in the washroom before the other passengers have made their toilet—

Do not offend the office manager—He is subject to take back the keys of the shithouse—Always keep it locked so no sinister stranger sneak a shit and give all the kids in the office some horrible condition—And Mr. Anker from accounting, bis arms scarred like a junky from countless Wassermans, sprays plastic over it before he travails there—I stand on the Fifth Amendment, will not answer the question of the Senator from Wisconsin: 'Are you or have you ever been a member of the male sex?'—They can't make Dicky whimper on the boys—Know how I take care of crooners?—Just listen to them—A word to the wise guy—I mean you gotta be careful of politics these days—Some old department get physical with you, kick him right in his coordinator—'Come see me tonight in my apartment under the school privy—Show you something interesting,' said the janitor drooling green coca juice—

The city mutters in the distance pestilent breath of the cancerous librarian faint and intermittent on the warm Spring wind—

'Split is the wastings of the cup—Take it away,' he said irritably—Black rocks and brown lagoons invade the world—There stands the deserted transmitter— Crystal tubes click on the message of retreat from the human hill and giant centipedes crawl in the ruined cities of our long home—

Thermodynamics has won at a crawl—

'We were caught with our pants down,' admits General Patterson. 'They reamed the shit out of us.'

Safest way to avoid these horrid perils is come over here and shack up with Scylla—Treat you right, kid— Candy and cigarettes—

Woke up in a Turkish Bath under a Johannesburg bidonville—

'Where am I you black bastards?'

'Why you junky white trash rim a shitting Nigger for an eyecup of paregoric?'

Dead bird—quail in the slipper—money in the bank —Past port and petal crowned with calm leaves she stands there across the river and under the trees—

Brains spilled in the cocktail lounge—The fat macho has burned down the Jai Lai bookie with his obsidian-handled .45—Shattering bloody blue of Mexico—Heart in the sun—Pantless corpses hang from telephone poles along the road to Monterrey—

Death rows the boy like sleeping marble down the Grand Canal out into a vast lagoon of souvenir post cards and bronze baby shoes—

'Just build a privy over me, boys,' says the rustler to his bunk mates, and the sheriff nods in dark understanding Druid blood stirring in the winds of Panhandle—

Decayed corseted tenor sings Danny Deever in drag:

They have taken all his buttons off and cut his pants away For he browned the colonel sleeping the man's ass is all agley And he'll swing in 'arf a minute jor sneaking shooting fey.

'Billy Budd must hang—All hands after to witness this exhibit.'

Billy Budd gives up the ghost with a loud fart and the sail is rent from top to bottom—and the petty officers fall back confounded—'Billy' is a transvestite liz.

'There'll be a spot of bother about this,' mutters The Master at Arms—The tars scream with rage at the cheating profile in the rising sun—

'Is she dead?'

'So who cares.'

'Are we going to stand still for this?—The officers pull the switch on us,' says young Hassan, ship's uncle—

'Gentlemen,' says Captain Verre 'I can not find words to castigate this foul and unnatural act whereby a boy's mother take over his body and infiltrate her horrible old substance right onto a decent boat and with bare tits