The Soft Machine

out in the spectral smell of birdcalls and howler monkeys like gentle ghost-people, slow movement of brown rivers. The boys in speed-up and barracks toilet smell of the mud flats and the white youths fuck brown with excrement under a static red sky. smell of subway dawns and turnstile, tarnished pub mirrors jungle sound of frogs, army of trees killed by the improbable hyphenated name, tendril movement in white light.

UNIT V: BLUE: 'The initiate awoke in other flesh the lookout different.' Cool blue casual youth check Board Books of the world finger light and cold as Spring wind. Little high blue notes drift through slate-blue houses. Street gangs Uranian born in the face of appalling conditions. Fade-out in 'Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin' down the flash funnel of copy faces out in summer dawn we made it in a smell of carbolic soap and rectal mucus, slow green tendrils through the hair and the purple fungoid gills breathe empty green house, plaintive monkey phallus on the grave of dying peoples, red mesas cut by a blue wind. Copper youths languidly masturbate, coming in puffs of blue smoke cross the translucent red stone buildings and copper domes of the city a white tooth sky cut with vapor trails, flash bulb of urgency train whistles fade in black finger and basement pot. cool blue light in stale streets of cry. In the hyacinths green boys of a green flute music sigh out birdcalls and howler monkey like: 'You wanta screw me?' slow movement of rivers, the boy's unit green with shit smell of the mud flats. Jelly substance like excrement flares under static red sky. Like smell BED: 'Breathe in Johnny. Here goes.' Twisting over a brass bed in Mexico. The boys slow fucking shift old photos and 1910 movie of the two bodies, merge in blue smoke rings loosen you up out drift away slate-blue Northern sky water, limestone cave fades in blue drum of gentle ghost-people, draft youths with indentical erection in speed-up barracks orgasm, pub mirrors green fade movie club, under the faces improbable names, green boys formed the fuck drum message lights a blue flame inside phallus (boy ear, blue sky). The initiate awoke in the city of red stone different train whistle masturbate with fingers light as Spring smoke, cross road of the world the high blue domes of the city and blue children born in the face of white battle, bulb of urgency train war unit. Mr.

Bradly cool blue down the flash funnel out in stale summer dawn smell, black drum talks mucus.

The youths twist flowers and sewers of the world, drum puffs of paint flesh, 'flesh diseased dirty pictures how long you want us to fuck very nice Mister? To cheat and betray us been sent?'

We got to untalking on question studying the porch noise home from work used to be me Mister diseased waiting face return various bits and pieces of the picture: that he coin a 'nice-guy-myth'

the bastard dirtier than Coin Smell Dorm.

'What you trying to unload on somebody Mister? radioactive garbage?'

Where You Belong

My trouble began when they decide I am executive timber—It starts like this: a big blond driller from Dallas picks me out of the labor pool to be his house-boy in a prefabricated air-conditioned bungalow— He comes on rugged but as soon as we strip down to the ball park over on his stomach kicking white wash and screams out 'Fuck the shit out of me!'—I give him a slow pimp screwing and in solid—When this friend comes down from New York the driller says 'This is the boy I was telling you about'—And friend looks me over slow chewing his cigar and says: 'What are you doing over there with the apes? Why don't you come over here with the Board where you belong?'

And he slips me a long slimy look Friend works for the

Trak News Agency—'We don't report the news—We write it.' And next thing I know they have trapped a grey flannel suit on me and I am sent to this school in Washington to learn how this writing the news before it happens is done—I sus it is the Mayan Caper with an IBM machine and I don't want to be caught short in a grey flannel suit when the lid blows off—So I act in concert with the Subliminal Kid who is a technical sergeant and has a special way of talking. And he stands there a long time chewing tobacco is our middle name '—What are you doing over there?—Beat your mother to over here—Know what they mean if they start job for instance?—Open shirt, apparent sensory impressions calling slimy terms of the old fifty-fifty jazz—Kiss then-target all over—

Assembly points in Danny Deever—By now they are controlling shithouse of the world—Just feed in sad-eyed youths and the machine will process it —After that Minraud sky—Their eggs all over—

These officers come gibbering into the queer bar don't even know what buttons to push—('Run with the apes? Why don't you come across the lawn?') And he gives me a long slimy responsible cum grey flannel suit and I am Danny Deever in drag writing 'the news is served, sir.' Hooded dead gibber: 'this is the Mayan Caper'— A fat cigar and a long white nightie—Nonpayment answer is simple as Board Room Reports rigged a thousand years—Set up excuse and the machine will process it—Moldy pawn ticket runs a thousand years chewing the same argument—I Sekuin perfected that art along the Tang Dynasty—To put it another way IBM machine controls thought feeling and apparent sensory impressions—Subliminal lark—These officers don't even know what buttons to push—Whatever you feed into the machine on subliminal level the machine will process

— So we feed in 'dismantle thyself' and authority emaciated down to answer Mr of the Account in Ewyork, Onolulu, Aris, Ome, Oston—Might be just what I am look'—

We fold writers of all time in together and record radio programs, movie sound tracks, TV and juke box songs all the words of the world stirring around in a cement mixer and pour in the resistance message 'Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift lin-guals—Free doorways—

Vibrate 'tourists'—Word f ailing —Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room.'

So the District Supervisor calls me in and puts the old white smaltz down on me:

'Now kid what are you doing over there with the niggers and the apes? Why don't you straighten out and act like a white man?—After all they're only human cattle—You know that yourself—Hate to see a bright young man fuck up and get off on the wrong track— Sure it happens to all of us one time or another—Why the man who went on to invent Shitola was sitting right where you're sitting now twenty-five years ago and I was saying the same things to him—Well he straightened out the way you're going to straighten out—Yes sir that Shitola combined with an ape diet—All we have to do is press the button and a hundred million more or less gooks flush down the drain in green cancer piss—

That's big isn't it?—And any man with white blood in him wants to be part of something big—You can't deny your blood kid—You're white white white—And you can't walk out on Trak—There's just no place to go.'

Most distasteful thing I ever stood still for—Enough to make a girl crack her calories—So I walk out and the lid blew off—

Uranian Willy

Uranian Willy the Heavy Metal Kid, also known as Willy the Rat—He wised up the marks.

'This is war to extermination—Fight cell by cell through bodies and mind screens of the earth—