as “all the news that’s fit to print.”

May 18, 1996

Multiple Identity Questionnaire

“Nature empty, everything’s pure; Naturally pure, that’s what I am.”

I’m a jew? a nice Jewish boy?

A flaky Buddhist, certainly

Gay in fact pederast? I’m exaggerating?

Not only queer an amateur S&M fan, someone should spank me for

          saying that

Columbia Alumnus class of ’48, Beat icon, students say.

White, if jews are “white race”

American by birth, passport, and residence

Slavic heritage, mama from Vitebsk, father’s forebears Grading in

          Kamenetz-Podolska near Lvov.

I’m an intellectual! Anti-intellectual, anti-academic

Distinguished Professor of English Brooklyn College,

Manhattanite, Another middle class liberal,

but lower class second generation immigrant,

Upperclass, I own a condo loft, go to art gallery Buddhist Vernissage

          dinner parties with Niarchos, Rockefellers, and Luces

Oh what a sissy, Professor Four-eyes, can’t catch a baseball or drive a

          car—courageous Shambhala Graduate Warrior

addressed as “Maestro” Milano, Venezia, Napoli

Still student, chela, disciple, my guru Gelek Rinpoche,

Senior Citizen, got Septuagenarian discount at Alfalfa’s Healthfoods

          New York subway—

Mr. Sentient Being!—Absolutely empty neti neti identity, Maya Nobo-

          daddy, relative phantom nonentity

July 5, 1996, Naropa Tent,

Boulder, CO

Don’t Get Angry with Me

for Chödok Tulku

          Don’t get angry with me

          You might die tomorrow

I’m an empty hungry ghost

Any spare change I can borrow?

          Don’t get angry with me

          Full of God tomorrow

Could get sorry you got mad,

wanna be the God of sorrow?

          Don’t get angry with me

          War starts tomorrow

I’ll get bombed You’ll get shot

in the eye with Interdependent Arrow

          Don’t get angry with me

          Hell’s hot tomorrow

If we’re burned up now inflamed

Could pass aeons in cold horror

          Don’t get angry with me

          We’ll be worms tomorrow

Both wriggling in the mud

cut in two by the ploughman’s harrow

          Don’t get angry with me—

          Who’ll we be tomorrow?

who knows who we are today?

Better meditate & pray,

          Tila, Mila, Marpa, Naro.

August 27, 1996

Swan Songs in the Present

“Swan songs in the present

moon systems in gleeps

Don’t hang on to the essence

the refrigerator’s for keeps

the Hot house vernacular

Sets up on the moldy hill

you and I climb the ribcage

& look for a heart to kill

you can do whatcha want with Europe

Eat Bananas with your dung

Whistle while you wonk the Pope

Breathe out of a spastic lung

but you’ll live forever anyway

in birds’ beasts hungry ghosts

& various Boddhisattvas

Drinking morning coffee

eating loxes & toasts

Hypnogogi Twaddle

anytime I can

But 70 years I’ll sleep

like other old men

October 29, 1996, 3:50 A.M.

Gone Gone Gone

“The wan moon is sinking under the white wave

and time is sinking with me, O!”

—Robert Burns

yes it’s gone gone gone

gone gone away

yes it’s gone gone gone

gone gone away

yes it’s gone gone gone

gone gone away

yes it’s gone gone gone

it’s all gone away

gone gone gone

won’t be back today

gone gone gone

just like yesterday

gone gone gone

isn’t any more

gone to the other shore

gone gone gone

it wasn’t here to stay

yes it’s gone gone gone

all gone out to play

yes it’s gone gone gone

until another day

no one here to pray

gone gone gone

yak your life away

no promise to betray

gone gone gone

somebody else will pay

the national debt no way

gone gone gone

your furniture layaway

plan gone astray

gone gone gone

made hay