Crossing Nation
Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below—Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball—Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno,
Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken—Leary out of action—"
a public menace…
persons of tender years…immature
judgement…pyschiatric examination…"
i.e.
Shut up or Else Loonybin or
Leroi on bum gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years'
CK
TY headlined temporary,
Joan Baez'
paramour husband Dave Harris to
Dylan silent on politics, & safe—
having a baby, a man—Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon's sidewalks—Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served—Eyes up to the Image—What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
