Salt in the Pudding

Henry out of bed early on  Sunday grazing about— the usual stuff— pancakes, coffee,  Mescal shots, and The Times literary section.

Sean O’ Casey stuff in The Times, hardly a Yeats,  Yeats modern, new wave and industrial. O’Casey, old fashioned sitting room stuff to be read while wearing a quilted smoking jacket.

Later Henry rolls a joint and does a few lines of cocaine. In front of his computer he is off in a flash, spurred on by the dope, it (the dope) lifts the artist out of the rough into reverie.

In a dream, awake in benign and gentle climate as wind massages and wakes his senses. Laying in a rice paddy like Whitman in grassy field at one with the higher stuff, alive again.

Sounds taking on a deeper dimension,  offshoots and boughs fluttering  in  wind, crickets and grasshoppers rubbing wings chirping dry pit-a-patter rhythm in the mix.

Whitman in reverie of  “Leaves” then  talking  politics,  Jesus what a setback for the serenity of hour, like adding salt to pudding sweet.

Like taxing sacred nature of life, like taxing peace and serenity…

Henry with his head in the clouds, apolitical, ignoble, poor....

Nanno's Last Recitation

Henry hadn’t sold a copy of “Mescaline Sombrero” On Amazon.  He felt successful in an anti-social way. 

Henry  on an old bus late at night going somewhere in Mexico.  To his wonder every seat occupied by howling witches with matted raven hair. Their evilness didn't come from covens or curses, it radiated from inside. 

In the morning the bus still on the way,  to Puerto Vallarta maybe. Henry opens the window for air and sees Hemingway passing the bus at break neck speed driving a Black Corvette as he waved a bottle of Mescal about wildly, looking as though he wanted to get there.

Hemingway in the end suicidal and empty,  Henry a blank page as well,  all glory would't bring them back. 

Henry's body hurt all the time,  never a break from the pain. The bus stopped for diesel fuel and Henry dropped a few Oxycontin, washing them down with Mescal.

Henry’s  lap-top an AK 47,  words as bullets,  it didn't feel safe as evil radiated from witches brew was leaching through,  a foul oder on the bus,  he would do anything to get a story out. 

Maybe it was the last exit,  Henry going  to the abandoned movie set of  “ The Night of the Iguana ,” Seaside on the coast of Puerta Vallarta.  He would find the terrace on which Nanno recited his last poem.  When the moon crossed overhead he would read Nanno's Poem to the night sky,  that would fix Henry all right. 

Nonno's Poem

How calmly does the olive branch  Observe the sky begin to blanch  Without a cry, without a prayer  With no betrayal of despair  Some time while light obscures the tree  The zenith of its life will be  Gone past forever  And from thence  A second history will commence  A chronicle no longer gold  A bargaining with mist and mold  And finally the broken stem  The plummeting to earth, and then  And intercourse not well designed  For beings of a golden kind  Whose native green must arch above  The earth's obscene corrupting love  And still the ripe fruit and the branch  Observe the sky begin to blanch  Without a cry, without a prayer  With no betrayal of despair  Oh courage! Could you not as well  Select a second place to dwell  Not only in that golden tree  But in the frightened heart of me

Nanno's Poem most likely written by Tennessee Williams.

The Saloon (Just Checking In)

Two Centaurs doing Yoga in the Black Forest, flip-flapping,

standing on their heads, causing the blood to flow from their feet to their heads, making them feel like men.

It was the birth of the scene behind the scene. 

Circa 1969 Golden Gate Park the dead was playing, Henry gives Alva Ginsbrook a hit of acid, the scene behind the scene unfolds.

Alva composed Howl, the dead heads still trance, it goes something like this…old traces.

“Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind”, 

And so on—

Later that night Henry on Grant Street walking towards the Saloon Bar  heading down hill, he sees  James Baldwin face to face. Baldwin a cranky Negro author on speed and booze allot. Baldwin looks at Henry and punches him in the face, a weak punch. Henry laughs knowing he could kick the gay Negroe’s ass. Baldwin was schizophrenic, he might have thought Henry was a dragon or a spider.

Henry makes it past Baldwin and ducks into the Saloon Bar, Janis Joplin is holding court with Hells Angel Terry the Tramp, she was a jerk when drunk and drunk most the time, the regulars avoided her. She bought acid from Terry the Tramp and hit the bricks real fast.

Max the failed sculpture, ashen beard down to his waste in overalls at the bar, same corner everyday.  After a successful show of his work in Rome circa Fifties, he never worked again. 

Max asked Henry if he believed in God? Henry says—

“ I really don't think there is anything there and a spirit with consciousness that answers prayers, I doubt it.”

And— 

“ If God is there Max better not cross him or get on his bad side.”

Max says—

“ OK Henry just checking in.”