Mercy

anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;

there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y

friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black

Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing

the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me

poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f

encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I

wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the

problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the

press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to

see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the

revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place

in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and

old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and

women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.

H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for

the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it

helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can

see that, it makes his simple language look strong and

purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that

whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have

words. I can’t tell if raped is a word he knows or not; if he

thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;

because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each

other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is

taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great

thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy

and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f

revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for

m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance

and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past

sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this

apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write

without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so

and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it

happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough

confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or

maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to

us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it

happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We

w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the

blood that was spilled and smear it in public w ays so it’s art and

politics and science; the fisherman w o n ’t like the book so

w hat’s new; he’ll say it ain’t art or he’ll say it’s bullshit; but

here’s the startling part; the bait’s got a secret system o f