I — A Pleasant Afternoon for Michael Brownstein and Dick
One day 3 poets and 60 ears sat under a green-striped Chau- tauqua tent in Auroralistening to Black spirituals, tapping their feet, appreciating words singing by in mountain windson a pleasant sunny day of rest — the wild wind blew thru blue Heavensfilled with fluffy clouds stretched from Central City to Rocky Flats,
Plutonium sizzled in its secret bed,hot dogs sizzled in the Lion's Club lunchwagon microwave mouth, orangeade bubbled over in waxen
Traffic moved along Colefax, meditators silent in the Diamond Castle shrine-room at Boulder followed the breath going out of their nostrils,
Nobody could remember anything, spirits flew out of mouths & noses, out of the sky, across Colorado plains & the tent flapped happily open spacious & didn't fall down. June 18,
II — Peace
Cumulus clouds float across blue sky over the white-walled Rockwell Corporation factory — am I going to stop that? Rocky Mountains rising behind us Denver shining in morning light— Led away from the crowd by police and photographers Middleaged Ginsberg and Ellsberg taken down the road to the greyhaired Sheriff's van — But what about Einstein?
What about Einstein?
Hey,
Einstein Come back!
II — Golden
Waiting for the Judge, breathing silent Prisoners, witnesses,
Police — the stenographer yawns into her palms. August 9,
IV — Everybody's FantasyI walked outside & the bomb'd dropped lots of plutonium all over the Lower East
There weren't any buildings left just iron skeletonsgroceries burned, potholes open to stinking sewer
There were people starving and crawling across the desertthe Martian
Os with blue Light destroyer rayspassed over and dried up all the
Charred Amazon palmtrees for hundreds of miles on both sides of the river August 10, 1978V — Waiting Room at the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant"Give us the weapons we need to protect ourselves!" the bareheaded guard lifts his flyswatter above the desk — whap! *A green-letter'd shield on the pressboard wall! "Life is fragile. Handle with care" —My Goodness! here's where they make the nuclear bomb triggers. August 17,
VI — Numbers in Red Notebook2,000,000 killed in Vietnam13,000,000 refugees in Indochina 1972200,000,000 years for the Galaxy to revolve on its core24,000 the Babylonian Great Year24,000 half life of plutonium2,000 the most I ever got for a poetry reading80,000 dolphins killed in the dragnet4,000,000,000 years earth been born Summer 1978
