Peter and the Poet for Peter Orlovsky by david e. patton
Scene apple orchid spring Peter is looking at the blossoms up state NY the Poet only speak lines from Ginsburg’s poetry Painter only speak words from Oscar Wilde Dorian Grey
Scene One
Beauty has its place and found its home in you fair face Stanza One Peter: I am on my death bed today it is May and I shall go my way the way of the poet well I remember when we met the painting undone but done by beauty clear artiest caught in my fairest year the Poet came and he drew near then whispered to woo me with poetry a lady I will game to know but that was years upon years upon years ago now I am old my locks gray the play of youth about my bones gone such joy to show slow life down with age to quite the daily rush looking for a a way out all my doubts of life is lived and kept beneath the skin there will be apples come fall I’ll not live to see the harvest of them all I have seen my last fall without knowing it isn’t it funny how time sneaks upon up on you run you down it have a mind to time is blind in its bat like ways no sooner born then in the grave but such is the grace of nature’s ways here comes a licker any ways some moore nature’s way. The stage grows dim and when the lights comes up again old Peter is sitting in a chair while a younger Peter age 21 is posing nude on a bed a painter is painting him the Painter only speaks words spoken in Oscar Wilde story Dorian grey Peter and the wolf is playing in the back ground
Scene Two
I love the Poet dearly but Peter he is a wolf Old Peter: He will not smother me his breath is much too sweet O his poet’s breath so sweet Peter: I love a challahs challenge I dig him his fat belly like jelly jello he might be drunk on coolly juice what I want to see (he leans up on one elbow) if the carpet matches the drapes you think that he will be my woman the lady Allen I like the sound of that I bet his cock toast taste like carrot root vegetable I love his fat belly root vegetable Peter Ginsburg a bit Jewish but I like it is he coming today. Painter: But beauty real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins Intellect is in itself a mode of expression and destroys the harmony of the face the ugly and the stupid have the best of it. The Poet bust into the room and shouts Poet: I have seen the best minds of my gradation‌ Peter gets up and runs over to the Poet and hung him wildly the Poet embraces him and rub peter ass up and down. Peter: Poet my love I am your lover boy your boy of love your supermarket in California check me out at the register of cum come my dear lover Poet. He lead the Poet over to the bed. Poet: What thoughts I have of you tonight hungry fatigue and shopping shocking images. Painter The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of
my own soul. Poet: Will we walk all night through solitary streets. He goes to the window and shouts out of it Poet: Garcia Lorca what was you doing down by the watermelon Peter goes to him and presses his body against the Poet Stanza Tow Old Peter: I was born July, 8, 1933 a high school drop out I did my Army time as a medic much like Whitman in the Korean way O me have we immortalized Immoral the world with my open ended love affair of words and apple. Peter: Look Allen a rainbow comes pouring into my window I am electrified with love of the breath of the air Painter: The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself Poet: After kissing the Painter Ah dear Father gray beard lonely old courage-teacher what Americus did to you have when Charon quite policing his ferry‌ Painter: My dear boy no woman is a genius woman and decorative sex they never have anything to say history humanity takes itself to seriously original sin knows all the secrets of life one voice stirs jealous as Romeo of the world to here laughter. Old Peter:
O those days none of us knew that the Painter will be pigeon holed into being a Poet trapped by his own penetration only I was free and unfetter by being the emanative exaggeration me. Peter goes over and looks at the painting that the Painter is working on. Peter: Am I that handsome does my body lies green upon the bed shall I be trapped like some Dorian Grey in my head Prometheus Unbound by fame all I wanted to do was grow apples Poet you was always the apple of my eyes and I your Johnny Appleseed to spy no lie by. Peter: My mother showed her watch face in the night and told stories of blue beards my dreams lifted me right out of bed I dreamt I lump jump into the muzzle of a gun to fight it out with a bullet Poet: What have I done but wander with my eyes or I perish of lonesomeness of wandering. Peter: Poet will you woo me will you move me will you woman me will you wide eyed wish to fuck the butt bit bite the bare back bidder with bliss my love my late life is never done within your love we boys we men there gather to make history. Painter: I know what conscience is to begin with it is not what you told me it was it is the divinest thing in us don’t sneer at it anymore at least not before me I want to bee good I can’t bear the ideal of my soul being hideous. The old Peter comes center stage a spot light in on him as the stage dims and grows dark in the background there is also a blue spot light on Old Peter. Scene Two
Tragedy tawdry and tarnished life must think itself fresh and new. Stanza One All are in India the Painter is still painting the Poet have a full beard and wire framed glasses they are at a leper colony
Old Peter: What moot I love of you is how forever in my nudity I smoothed and there-by unaware wooed the Poet in you Peter: Such suffering such misery where is mercy forgiven can poetry save some small part of the soul can poems move us to be bold toward goodness and where is the love of man to prove that we can withstand the slap of the warring hands of vigorous wars the flesh is eaten away open sores full of maggots eating the skin leprosy disease mosses hounds bisemde O pr spatle unel & pahte lepruse. A man walks unto the stage he is a leprous and walks with two man made canes Tzaraathi can cut off my dick I can put out my eyes I can hear the burning of the fires of desires burning deep within side what treatment do you have for me what curable cause do you bring the letting of blood of the dead the blood of Anabas snakes its way in my veins once they castrated me with common Chaulmoogra oil and the Athav-veda in 150 AD the Galen of Pergamun I am a 4,000 years old skeleton I struck Baldwin IV and Saint Danen alike and Elisha’s servant. Peter: Before the mirror I look like a Sahara desert ghost almost a Moor of make believe religion thoughts of the doubts that pled me like a flag without its winds a sin to other men for how I love to slip into the Poet’s hole and be bold in my thrush foreword and withdraw to push the pull again. Poet: Now mind is clear desolation will build and maybe make an image shine wandering wilderness roadside. Peter: The noble passion lull the moral sense to sleep but here was a visible symbol of the degrading of sin here was an ever-present sign of the rune men brought upon the soul go no go no way that holds the day and play with sea waves and no more the parted pit grows into a tree seen in the garden of Eve unreal and shellfish love would yield to some higher influence would be transformed into some nobler passion and portrait that Basil Hawward has painter of him would be a guide to him through out the fear of God to us all. Old Peter: O peter me my youth full of juice and zest and zeal and would be fears of growing old O my old soul my make of man I will as I can bestowal upon you the love of the bold blue and little reds in
the Poet’s head and mind to drink from a common well the open sink what flows O old Peter me O the Os of orange and gold Gods not this is apart from the cold winds that blows it bounty of yellow snow O he said it better be it true that I love me as I love you. Scene Three To live at the crossroad of fame and infamy is to live your life to its fullest. Stanza One Old Peter: God can not get the light right and the shades are much too blue true the Painter only copies his work new but a copy of the thing he sees of what is true we men of paint and loaded brushes and boy’s beauty bold as a blowing of the skin flute songs of Sam and I am the copy of the new you. Stand up against government and against God stay reasonable say only what we know and imagine absolutes are coercion; Painter: Humanity takes itself too seriously it is the world’s original sin if the cave-man had known how to laugh history would have been different. Peter: O Julius creed more can not contain your man mind or find where the madness lies in LaFcadio morning again nothing has to be done for this drop of time on the eyelid of my bath bed I know if I could shave myself the bags around my world’s face would disappear forever. As the two walks news paper men begins to gather around them the news paper person crowl grows thick and Peter is pushed outside of the circle that surrounds the poet. Peter alone: What most is there to fear when the Poet’s ears can not hear the growing of the apples am I plucked or did I pluck elephant dreaming and demanding fresh pancakes in their cages of cigarettes evolution on the lam like lambs lead to the slather saunter slaughter great fruit paint it pink sink within the one you love loved by many who wishes to replace you paint it blue to be true to you a hard yet easy thing to do I am of such youthful boyish beauty as to woo the silk from the worm the web from the sliders slender the nest of birds from the nest never to change you with wooing the Gods from the church building, Old Peter:
O Peter did they leave you along A young boy comes on stage and Old Peter disappears the boy is Old Peter he goes over to Peter. Boy: Hi mister what you doing Peter: O just waiting for the fame to die down The boy frowns Boy: Fane fame it is rather then love then money then fame gives me truth. Peter: What is fame the advantage of being known by people of whom you know you yourself know nothing and for whom you care as little. Boy: Fane and riches and youth are fleeing stupidity is eternal. Peter: Fame is vapor popularity an accident and riches take winds only one thing endures and that is character. Boy: To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are. Peter: We have no right to ask when sorrow comes “Why did this happen to me� unless we ask the same question for every joy that comes our way; Boy: I love a dick that meets my hole with a grip that causes some same sensation given. Peter:
He lives the poetry that he can not write the other he can not write poetry that you dare to live. Boy: Religion is an insult to human dignity with or without it you’d have good people doing good deeds of things and evil people doing bad things it take religion. Peter: In this holy city of Varanasi Lord Shiva takes her rule the golden temple the Durga and Kathwala too young boy do I know you. Boy: I can know you for you grow in me by degrees but time’s line of decent prevent you from knowing me. The boy disappears and Old Peter returns Scene Four You never know that you have been taught until your teacher died. Old Peter The dance of Shiva symbolizes the dancing universe itself expressed in the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into another of the cosmic flow to know God you must first understand the form of the thing without form it is not enough you know the evident of gravity that things fall but it is when you can feel it pressing against you when you can taste it on your tongue when you and it are undivided will the true hidden in plain sight the pure consciousness of the world’s splendor be revealed. Poet: We will take a place in the Lower East side we will travel the Middle East Africa and Europe they will talk of our love the two poet boys grown into full men’s skin and the madness of my mother and your two brothers will be revenged. Painter: I know that I had come fce to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that if I allowed it to do so it would absorb my whole nature my whole soul my very art. A group of Jewish Nazi loving hamsters cross the stage. Old Peter:
The face we meet in the mirror of all our personalities are wholly fascinating to the one we love as self loved absorption nature the very heart of my love is whole soul of art. Scene Five
What the baby teaches is that you need not know how to spell love to embrace it. Stanza One Peter is now half way through his life Peter talking to the Poet in their apartment yes there is something very deep behold things Einstein knew this well but the Atomic Age hints at a failed permanence it is the nature of art that some artiest will pass through life unknown and others if the fates that be allows will be discovered long after their bodies have rotted in the coffin holding bones in out of date clothing; Poet: When they pull the white shroud over my face it shall be as pulling the ends together of all my poems. Peter: Your body of work is just one long poem. Poet: Yes Peter well said but what of you what do you long to be your legacy. Peter: Dear Poet fame is not my game I leave that up to you but say of me that I dug deep and planted in earth poems in trees clothing that shall out live me say that with each apple eatended that I enter your body not to do you harm but just to sat in your stomach an old formulae familiar song the first poem the second poem the one that you loves best so take me to my rest when my mission is done. Old peter: O I was wise for my age have spent years with my hands in the dirt (he looks at his hands) O hands composer of poems cutting grass and running errands for the one I love O hands harvester in fall of apples on the bough and all in all you have served me well these hands that did the work of Gods broken and battered blusterous blisters and tender you comb the bread of your
poet-lover well do I remember my my hands the curve of a woman’s back side the softness of flesh that puts men to shame the voices of one million women rolled into one and she chased me as her lover. Peter talking to the Poet: Sometimes I think that as older me is looking over my shoulder I would like to meet that fellow to see what he has been up to in the coming years (he pass a joint to poet( blowing out the smoke) Smoke of the holy hemp Holy Ghost write me a perfect poem of lovely boys from the foirst time I was about to come bold back boys of riot and rhymes that tell the passing of time and young girls grown mature in their skin to let the painter/poet into their sweet lair with tender pricks hard cares with hands to guide me in when lust covers my eyes and I spy the holy mother. Poet: Peter the dreamer of all things that are green and the growing of brown beside a running stream that calls our name will you come to teach with me at a school for art the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetic is planted with my heart. Scene Six
Memory is like smoke it fads as dreams and all that we see is never really seen
In Boulder CO. at 1111 pearl st. on the mall inside a class room but you can see people walking the mall Peter ia older and teach the class tome full of young student but there is only one black one. Peter: This class is on the dharma-maverick at karma Choling Meditation Center this is a class of poetry for dumb students if you’re not one then you don’t belong here A few students gets up and leave Peter: has anyone here heard of Nikolai Klyuev he batted the chew with blood his mother Russia over salted the soup if I was a man I would ware no five stitched dress when the heaver whole I’ve been working on the farm so long I have never had time to read the snow are let the cat of mountains peaks and the dreams of thoughts bear breath beloved child a coffin covers all sins my young memories perish under iron and my fair body makes forest remembered the funeral feast in my wooden doubts the crimson grain is a gun new to murder new to the ruffled icon limp I
have swept up the flagging birds unwashed it was not soaked. Young Peter goes on here the director of the playette fills in while ole Peter talks over him. Old peter: Ny teeth are hard of wild horses as mocking the sailors of the lost souls as a swallow neck of necks and fly off into the deep festering of off color tears you are the often candle of my lament Einstein is dead and flickered with cold and drank the gold hanging off my self to live is nothing new dying is always new to the dying with birch white hair flooding the wheels that casted poems into the air. Poet: There was more freedom… Old peter: …in the garden resting like a present hut in the… Peter: ,,,yellow sands the kitten Old Peter: …falls into empty poems that… Old Peter: …wander like a death song with… Peter: …the gorge that gives an evening of… Old peter: …what we have forgotten the… Old peter: moonlit by Satan forest as trees high-hollow looking into… Peter: …the willow of the precious child in vain
Old Peter: …of sorrow of 17th century in spring of words as holy water of bitches seen peter: the impearl bell fall from the darkness and… Old peter: ..the fluff from an farm of old nerves of news paper… Peter: …that flung open its door of lit light but… Old peter: …I heard the hard houses of horses speaking unprintable poems as if they were Peter: …birds of doubts birds of hanging men birds of found feather in which to hang the poem by. Scene Seven If you seek God look no farther then a leaf or an ant or the sun’s beams into your life for life is a journey to no-where buy living to grow old. Stanza One Painter: How sad it is to grow old if it was only the other way we grow old as dirt and give everything to the whole world woody as stall stale growth talks about as if it is not in the room those who are faithful to light rays of tragedies. Old peter: Castrate the poem cut off its foreskin and seed it in earth you will win the wooing of a hanged man who whole in the middle of the right night blue sky a lady of the east he woke of the dawn and done down so far as fine fire as blue to good for the likes of man as blue sky a jet black of handles and laughter waiting to be born in the mojo that sing and sling slink and till the clouds for pains of rain.
Poet: Your lapping heels says that beauty speaks from the grave of Peter weaker then no strength known buffalo of writing pen wins the boys of lost loves lost to the demand Peter is dressed as a shadow of inspiration to be true to himself coming on like a calliope nerve he sings long his appetite of apple songs lost in the garden where misery is white as fear and tears are rivers of answers. Scene Eight
It is a waste of perilous time your and mind to be prolific if you are not better then avenge. Peter: The painful truth is that fleeing is youth but with wisdom to obtain I’ll play the game I’ll play the main man to a man fat of belly and round and full beard a said of intellectual poetic as me I’ll play the woman sweet to say and have them sex me. Old Peter: Open people clothed in skin the skeletons bet brave dogs die or lie about the closet as some pink elephant of AIDS Africa American obvious as some something somewhere somehow sometime we open people abstract attitude abreaction of action abulis and lost to accalcailia we open people closing the bas alganlia door because the bestiality beta-blocker of whites tells us so. Peter: It is you who underline me you my process of procreation of being me this thing you that shall become me as I you you woo to me to be you are we the performance of our physique all my compulsions to be is still in the seed of poetry recognize my excessive reasoning my reduces ritualistic distress. Scene Nine The sparrow nest is feathered with rat’s hair The snow stops Painter still painting He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain there is a luxury in self-reproach when we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us it is the confession not to priest that gives absolution people fashion their God after their own understanding they make their God first and worship him afterward education is an admirable
thing but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Poet: Follow your inner moonlight don’t hide the madness Old Peter: Poet is it enough for your heart to break because everybody is heart broken now. Poet: Whoever controls the media the image control the culture. Peter: My own experience is that a certain kind of genius of the burden of solitude is best brought out in bed. Poet: Poetry is not expression of the party line it’s that time of night laying bed thinking what you really think making the private world public that’s the poet does. Peter: Fortunately art is a community effort a small but selected community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh. Scene Ten On the back wall of the stage is the painting of Peter done by the Painter All: Middle knowingness informed the poet as painter and beat bop blow a cold butt cool low blow on the Trumbo tan the tip tired to time and rhyme the rhythm of the rhythm streets St. Louis Burroughs is sleeping with his naked lunch and Ginsburg howls from the grave at the moon Jack in fine form and he is jacked up in his deadly laughter the stage grows dim too soon Peter walks up stage Old Peter goes over to him and takes off his clothes he is nude and he handed them over to Peter Peter puts them on
Old Peter: This all belongs to you first end.