Overtime

by Whalen, Philip

• ISBN13: 9780140589184
• ISBN10: 014058918X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Summary

Like his college roommate Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen took both poetry and Zen seriously. He became friends with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Michael McClure, and played a key role in the explosive poetic revolution of the '50s and '60s. Celebrated for his wisdom and good humor, Whalen transformed the poem for a generation. His writing, taken as a whole, forms a monumental stream of consciousness (or, as Whalen calls it, "continuous nerve movie") of a wild, deeply read, and fiercely independent American--one who refuses to belong, who celebrates and glorifies the small beauties to be found everywhere he looks. This long-awaited Selected Poems is a welcome opportunity to hear his influential voice again.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	xv
The Road-Runner	1	(1)
Homage to Lucretius	2	(1)
"Plus Ca Change..."	3	(2)
If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?	5	(3)
The Slop Barrel: Slices of the Paideuma for All Sentient Beings	8	(7)
Sourdough Mountain Lookout	15	(6)
Further Notice	21	(1)
Souffle	22	(5)
Literary Life in the Golden West	27	(1)
10:x:57, 45 Years Since the Fall of the Ch'ing Dynasty	28	(1)
For My Father	29	(1)
Metaphysical Insomnia Jazz. Mumonkan xxix.	30	(1)
20:vii:58, On Which I Renounce the Notion of Social Responsibility	31	(1)
Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis	32	(1)
Complaint: To the Muse	33	(2)
Prose Take-Out, Portland, 13:ix:58	35	(1)
Self-Portrait Sad, 22:ix:58	36	(5)
Something Nice About Myself	41	(1)
Take, 25:iii:59	42	(1)
A Distraction Fit	43	(1)
Haiku for Mike	44	(1)
Address to the Boobus, with her Hieratic Formulas in Reply	45	(2)
Boobus Hierophante, Her Incantations	47	(1)
To the Moon	48	(1)
Song for 2 Balalaikas on the Corner of 3rd & Market	49	(1)
Since You Ask Me	50	(1)
To a Poet	51	(1)
An Irregular Ode	52	(1)
Haiku, for Gary Snyder	53	(1)
A Vision of the Bodhisattvas	54	(1)
Dream	55	(1)
Historical Disquisitions	56	(4)
Dream & Excursus, Arlington Massachusetts	60	(2)
For Albert Saijo	62	(1)
Homage to Rodin	63	(6)
The Daydream	69	(1)
That One	70	(1)
Vector Analysis	71	(1)
One of My Favorite Songs Is Stormy Weather	72	(1)
Friendship Greetings	73	(1)
Early Autumn in Upper Noe Valley	74	(1)
The Chariot	75	(1)
Song to Begin Rohatsu	76	(1)
Spring Musick	77	(1)
For Brother Antoninus	78	(1)
Life and Death and a Letter to My Mother Beyond Them Both	79	(6)
Plums, Metaphysics, an Investigation, a Visit, and a Short Funeral Ode	85	(5)
Three Mornings	90	(1)
Raging Desire &c.	91	(1)
The Fourth of October, 1963	92	(1)
Inside Stuff	93	(1)
Native Speech	94	(1)
Composition	95	(1)
The Lotus Sutra, Naturalized	96	(1)
Early Spring	97	(1)
The Metaphysical Town Hall and Bookshop	98	(1)
The Ode to Music	99	(4)
Goddess	103	(1)
True Confessions	104	(1)
The Preface	105	(1)
Bleakness, Farewell	106	(7)
Homage to William Seward Burroughs	113	(2)
Dear Mr President	115	(1)
Japanese Tea Garden Golden Gate Park in Spring	116	(1)
"A Penny for the Old Guy"	117	(1)
Mahayana	118	(1)
Love Love Love Again	119	(1)
April Showers Bring Rain?	120	(2)
A Morning Walk	122	(1)
"The Sun Rises and Sets in That Child," so my grandmother used to say	123	(1)
"California Is Odious but Indispensable"	124	(1)
Imagination of the Taj Mahal	125	(1)
T/O	126	(2)
That Eyes! Those Nose!	128	(1)
M	129	(1)
The Life of Literature	130	(1)
America!	131	(1)
Giant Sequoias	132	(1)
L'Enfant Prodigue	133	(1)
Good News and Gospel	134	(1)
Palimpsest	135	(1)
Labor Day	136	(1)
Sad Song	137	(1)
Lemon Trees	138	(1)
EAMD	139	(1)
Walking	140	(1)
3 Days Ago	141	(1)
5th Position	142	(1)
Ginkakuji Michi	143	(1)
Sanjusangendo	144	(1)
Crowded	145	(1)
White River Ode	146	(2)
A Revolution	148	(1)
The War Poem for Diane di Prima	149	(6)
The Garden	155	(2)
Confession and Penance	157	(1)
The Grand Design	158	(5)
Success Is Failure	163	(1)
The Winter	164	(1)
The Winter for Burton Watson	165	(5)
"NEFAS"	170	(1)
All of it went on the wrong page	171	(1)
The Dharma Youth League	172	(1)
Failing	173	(1)
A Romantic & Beautiful Poem Inspired by the Recollection of William Butler Yeats, His Life & Work	174	(1)
International Date Line, Monday / Monday 27:XI:67	175	(1)
America Inside & Outside Bill Brown's House in Bolinas	176	(2)
Life in the City. In Memoriam Edward Gibbon	178	(2)
Allegorical Painting; Capitalistic Society Destroyed by the Contradictions Within Itself. (Second Five-Year Plan.)	180	(1)
To the Revolutionary Cadres of Balboa, Malibu & Santa Barbara	181	(2)
Duerden's Garage, Stinson Beach	183	(2)
Walking Beside the Kamogawa, Remembering Nansen and Fudo and Gary's Poem	185	(1)
Behind the Door	186	(2)
Life at Bolinas. The Last of California	188	(3)
Birthday Poem	191	(16)
Excerpts from "Scenes of Life at the Capital"	207	(14)
Many Colored Squares	221	(2)
"Up in Michigan"	223	(1)
"Old Age Echoes"	224	(1)
The Letter to Thomas Clark 22:VII:71 from Bolinas where He Sat beside Me to Help to Write It	225	(1)
"Horrible Incredible Lies": Keith Lampe Spontaneously	226	(1)
Imaginary Splendors	227	(1)
Public Opinions	228	(1)
Monument Rescue Dim	229	(1)
The Turn	230	(1)
Look Look Look	231	(1)
"I Told Myself": Bobbie Spontaneously	232	(1)
Growing and Changing	233	(3)
October First	236	(3)
Occasional Dilemmas	239	(1)
Ode for You	240	(2)
Alleyway	242	(1)
In the Night	243	(2)
"Stolen and Abandoned"	245	(2)
Tassajara	247	(1)
The Universal & Susquehanna Mercy Co. Dayton, O.	248	(2)
Message	250	(1)
High-tension on Low-pressure Non-accomplishment Blues	251	(1)
Mask	252	(1)
Detachment, Wisdom and Compassion	253	(1)
Money Is the Roost of All Eagles	254	(1)
"The Conditions That Prevail"	255	(1)
The Talking Picture	256	(1)
Dream Poems	257	(1)
Murals Not Yet Dreamed	258	(1)
The Vision of Delight	259	(1)
Luxury in August	260	(1)
How to Be Successful & Happy Without Anybody Else Finding Out About It	261	(2)
Compulsive Obligatory Paranoia Flashes	263	(1)
For Clark Coolidge	264	(1)
The Radio Again	265	(1)
Somebody Else's Problem Bothers Me	266	(1)
Bead	267	(1)
Defective Circles	268	(1)
Obsolete Models	269	(1)
Many Pages Must Be Thrown Away	270	(1)
The Congress of Vienna	271	(2)
To the Memory Of	273	(1)
"Past Ruin'd Ilion"	274	(1)
Tears and Recriminations	275	(1)
Discriminations	276	(1)
Homage to St. Patrick, Garcia Lorca, & the Itinerant Grocer	277	(1)
What About It?	278	(1)
Treading More Water	279	(1)
Treading Water	280	(3)
What? Writing in the Dining Room?	283	(1)
What's New?	284	(2)
Violins in Chaos?	286	(1)
The Bay Trees Were About to Bloom	287	(1)
Dying Tooth Song	288	(1)
Rich Interior, After Thomas Mann	289	(1)
Chanson d'Outre Tombe	290	(1)
Hot Springs Infernal in the Human Beast	291	(1)
Homage to Hart Crane	292	(1)
What Are You Studying, These Days?	293	(1)
Dharmakaya	294	(1)
Some of These Days	295	(5)
Epigrams & Imitations	300	(2)
For Allen, on His 60th Birthday	302	(1)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	303

Excerpts

Chapter One

The Road-Runner

FOR L. J. REYNOLDS

Thin long bird

      with a taste for snakes' eyes

Frayed tail, wildcat claws

His pinions are bludgeons.

Few brains, topped

By a crown

And a flair for swift in-fighting--

Try to take it from him.

23:iii:5

Homage to Lucretius

It all depends on how fast you're going

Tending towards light, sound

Or the quiet of mere polarity

Objects: Slowness

Screen

      A walking sieve

Wide-open and nowhere

The mountains themselves

Picked up into turnips, trees

Wander as bones, nails, horns

And we want crystals,

Given a handful of mercury

      (Which can be frozen into a pattern vulnerable to body heat)

The notion intimidates us

We can't easily imagine another world

This one being barely

Visible:

      We lined up and pissed in a snowbank

      A slight thaw would expose

      Three tubes of yellow ice

And so on ...

A world not entirely new

But realized,

The process clarified

Bless your little pointed head!

1952

"Plus Ça Change ..."

What are you doing?

I am coldly calculating.

I didn't ask for a characterization.

Tell me what we're going to do.

That's what I'm coldly calculating.

You had better say "plotting" or "scheming"

You never could calculate without a machine.

Then I'm brooding. Presently

A plot will hatch.

Who are trying to kid?

Be nice.

(SILENCE)

Listen. Whatever we do from here on out

Let's for God's sake not look at each other

Keep our eyes shut and the lights turned off--

We won't mind touching if we don't have to see.

I'll ignore those preposterous feathers.

Say what you please, we brought it all on ourselves

But nobody's going out of his way to look.

Who'd recognize us now?

We'll just pretend we're used to it.

(Watch out with that goddamned tail!)

Pull the shades down. Turn off the lights.

Shut your eyes.

(SILENCE)

There is no satisfactory explanation.

You can talk until you're blue

Just how much bluer can I get?

Well, save breath you need to cool

Will you please shove the cuttlebone a little closer?

All right, until the perfumes of Arabia

Grow cold. Ah! Sunflower seeds!

Will you listen, please? I'm trying to make

A rational suggestion. Do you mind?

Certainly not. Just what shall we tell the children?

28:ix:53

1:ii:55

If You're So Smart, Why Ain't

You Rich?

I need everything else

Anything else

      Desperately

But I have nothing

Shall have nothing

      but this

Immediate, inescapable

      and invaluable

No one can afford

      THIS

Being made here and now

(Seattle, Washington

         17 May, 1955)

MARIGOLDS

Concise (wooden)

      Orange.

Behind them, the garage door

      Pink

(Paint sold under a fatuous name:

"Old Rose"

      which brings a war to mind)

And the mind slides over the fence again

Orange against pink and green

Uncontrollable!

Returned of its own accord

It can explain nothing

Give no account

What good? What worth?

      Dying!

You have less than a second

      To live

To try to explain:

Say that light

      in particular wave-lengths

      or bundles wobbling at a given speed

Produces the experience

Orange against pink

Better than a sirloin steak?

A screen by Korin?

The effect of this, taken internally

The effect

      of beauty

               on the mind

There is no equivalent, least of all

These objects

Which ought to manifest

A surface disorientation, pitting

Or striae

Admitting some plausible interpretation

But the cost

Can't be expressed in numbers

Dodging between

      a vagrancy rap

      and the newest electrical brain-curette

Eating what the rich are bullied into giving

Or the poor willingly share

Depriving themselves

More expensive than ambergris

      Although the stink

           isn't as loud. (A few

Wise men have said,

      "Produced the same way ...

      Vomited out by sick whales.")

Valuable for the same qualities

      Staying-power and penetration

I've squandered every crying dime.

Seattle 17-18:v:55