The second batch of poems is from the period, 1980-1982. Encouraged by our Lynchburg poet friends Mary Molyneux Abrans, Cornelius Eady, and the great Anselm Hollo, I self-published my poems as a chapbook Light Fuse And Get Away<\/em> (Carp Press 1983). Eventually I reprinted the poems in my anthology Transreal <\/em>(WCS Books, 1991), now long out of print. So here they are again, with some photos from those times.<\/p>\n By the way the \u201ccambridge room\u201d\u009d in the first poem was my frigid home office in a nook behind our kitchen in Geneseo. Where it all began.<\/p>\n a cambridge room \u2014April, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n President Discharged in Storm \u2014July, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n Winter Weekends <\/em><\/p>\n The baby crawls after me crying I had the last beer my thoughts are a little numb We\u2019ll watch TV straight We\u2019re knotted into now Last weekend something happened, though, All the children are outside the dripping cave \u2014September, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n Bosch\u2019s St. Anthony<\/em><\/p>\n I go into the woods I find a hollowed tree, Occasionally picking myself out in the haze<\/p>\n \u2014October, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n Kurt G\u00f6del<\/em><\/p>\n I phoned him up the other day, Gave me a shot of the old-time religion, \u201cOne pushes upwards into an empty city.\u201d\u009d \u201d\u02dcs what After the call I smoked a reefer and But which is empty?<\/p>\n \u2014November, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n At dancing school \u2014December, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n Winter Wastes \u2014December, 1975<\/em><\/p>\n Drunken-Hearted Man<\/em><\/p>\n She softens –February, 1976<\/em><\/p>\n She Got a Phonograph<\/em><\/p>\n In the \u201cclassical limit\u201d\u009d It\u2019s winter once or again, here or there, Yeah, written off, still alive, \u2014February, 1976 I fell through frozen time to this parched island.<\/p>\n The beach night of eternal star To continue I wanted to go undersea. Waiting Island time dilates and now The sun\u2019s a glint a shot away \u2014March, 1976<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n i)<\/em><\/p>\n This poem proclaims the odor of ii)<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe universal rain moistens all creatures\u201d\u009d iii)<\/em><\/p>\n I was on the iv)<\/em><\/p>\n After the muse left \u2014February, 1977<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thirty-One At some point, near the dump, I leave the road Standing under a bare tree I can look up to see A rock, a bend in the stream . . . I stand dissolving The flaw, the source, the singularity, I push on it and in the afterimage of the pain I walk off in the pouring rain, thirty-one years old.<\/p>\n \u2014April, 1977 The 1976 Circus<\/em><\/p>\n The circus was great. For the \u00ef\u00ac\u0081nale of the Bicentennial Parade While the band plays and sparklers go off and Outside, somewhere in the straw, April, 1977<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n White Saturday & Sunday Morning<\/em><\/p>\n Its comfortable to be here with &<\/p>\n I feel pretty good, considering. \u2014May, 1977<\/em><\/p>\n This Year<\/em><\/p>\n Last week I got off the thruway Benjamin Paul Blood was his name a hundred years ago All I found where that crow landed was On the one hand you have the One The secret, \u201cAll is One,\u201d\u009d is readily expressed. Me, I was out in those drifts the night of the big storm, In the world, the ashes of my neighbor\u2019s house sift by. I live in Geneseo. I go to church. I have a family. \u2014May, 1978 For Sylvia on Our 11th Anniversary<\/em><\/p>\n Yelling and laughing \u2014June, 1978<\/em><\/p>\n Repatriate<\/em><\/p>\n They\u2019re all asleep. Father, wife, children . . . I wander \u2014December, 1980 Causes of Blindness<\/em><\/p>\n A champagne cork \u2014December, 1981<\/em><\/p>\n The New Office<\/em><\/p>\n boxes of books and papers packed \u2014July, 1982 The Aether \u2014September, 1982 new ream Your letter came today\u2014 October, 1982<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These poems were my way of beginning to be a writer. I wrote them in two batches. The first batch came during 1975-1978 while I was teaching math at the state college of Geneseo, in upstate New York\u2014the five of us: Sylvia, me, and our three kids. I’d read my poems at English department readings. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13685"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13713,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685\/revisions\/13713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1970_setsburroughs_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nelectric fires gone burning
\nand the cord is too short
\nand the plastic is gone
\nall this
\nall
\nthis in my filthy mind<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1976_30th_bday.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/em>
\nThe night Nixon made his resignation speech I was staying at my friend Greg\u2019s place in
\nGloucester. Greg\u2019s one appliance was his tiny portable radio which
\nplugged into the wall. There was
\nan electrical storm and we heard
\nSferics
\nWhistlers
\nFrequency modulated by and large
\nOn a three-day snake-thru, check your local papers,
\nUnprintable!
\nMister Presidents piece, though,
\nAll down in yesterday\u2019s paper<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1975_easterkids.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nthe others are screaming in the yard, it\u2019s cold and dirty outside, and in,
\nyellow electric light crumbs broken things, broken things.<\/p>\n
\nthere\u2019s no money for more
\nwinter weekends<\/p>\n
\ntonight, together, the
\nevil fuzzed images using
\nus, using our silence<\/p>\n
\nrules and hot anger
\nin the cold
\nred knuckles white
\nwinter weekends
\nit\u2019s the same difference.<\/p>\n
\nI went to the hospital
\nfrom eating a mushroom
\nfrom the yard\u2019s cracked plastic, paper scraps, yellow light
\nmushroomed to an echoed memory
\nfrom nowhere<\/p>\n
\ncalling to the crumbling, puffy boy inside
\ncrumbs of mushroom sweet on my lips,
\nthe children are calling.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rudysalami.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nacross a road, a fence, a field.
\nCow paths, mud, cloven hooves.
\nI shit in the bushes.
\nIt smokes in the fall air.
\nThere are holes in the ground.
\nI walk deeper in, get scared.
\nGuess I\u2019ll climb this oak.
\nI have no control and fly right up.
\nThe tree runs out in rot at the top.
\nLeathery leaves cover my face, mouth and eyes\u2014
\nWhy am I here?
\nWalking silent again, something
\ncatches my eye. A head askew,
\nGray face watching me.
\nLined, eyes slit. I can\u2019t see that.
\nSo it profiles back in a knothole
\nand I miss it . . . the goblin
\nWho chased me up the oak
\nis in the world for sure, I saw.
\nBut what sees me for real in indifferent thicket?<\/p>\n
\nthe leaves fall, I sit<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/momsmilingarmchair.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nAnd we talked about Set Theory,
\nHe proved all the big theorems during the Depression.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou should do real <\/em>mathematics,
\nThe true scientist must believe in the Absolute.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
\nThe Ching had remarked when
\nUrging me to call him.<\/p>\n
\nWondered what to do in the empty city\u2014
\nReal mathematics does not apply to the world.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1981_louisvillecycle_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nMy brother would rub his stiff dick
\nOn their legs\u2014
\nMe, I never got as much as him,
\nBut I got by\u2014
\nTalking about group theory, say,
\nOn a train to the Seattle World\u2019s fair\u2014
\nOnce there I threw one penny at the paint spots and won, incredibly,
\nA Space-Needle lighter,
\nShiny, a foot tall, worthless\u2014
\nthey had a nice exhibit on General Relativity,
\nI lied my way into a tit show\u2014
\nCurved space
\nCurved space<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rudygeorgiaizzyonfloor.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/em>
\nI\u2019m looser,
\nWe\u2019re back in love
\nThick pucker.
\nBird blows his ax and it\u2019s
\nYellow light here. There\u2019s time.
\nLast night I dreamed I tripped\u2014
\nThe crowd thinned out around dawn.
\nThe washer\u2019s working, and the sink too,
\nI\u2019m playing my new 1.99 Charlie Parker record,
\nIt\u2019s a jazz-track movie in here\u2014
\nMy role is still unclear.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1973_rogerhouse_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nPaved with dizzy pics I drive
\nDeep into Egypt\u2014
\nUnca Scrooge & Donald have the
\nTreasure wing-tucked and we
\nFuck again the winter\u2019s ending.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1973_flamecar_B1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nLife is lived like books, like movies
\nWe do our funky chicken\u2014flour and wine,
\nSay that really, all the times anyone is
\nIs one time.
\nDo you matter more or less?<\/p>\n
\nMy weak lungs are going up in smoke and
\nSweet green sputum\u2014Zauberberg <\/em>kind of scene,
\nBrains and balls all mixed up in the soft heat,
\nTrying to make it real it gets so weird.
\nRelax.<\/p>\n
\nHi life extras on the set, star-fucked, we live together, its sunny, Outside the Speed museum in Louisville the Thinker sez slide.
\nHey\u2014the ant-farm is open!<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_2005_emrudiving_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nLucifer
\n<\/em>
\nOn my thirtieth birthday I got Helen-Keller drunk
\nIn the scaffolding of that tower of Babel
\nI\u2019d planned to fuck god with my old gang Of mind assassins who did melt (from)<\/p>\n
\nSea of possibility and infinite spacetime
\nMists on the Earth\u2014What a laugh,
\nTo sell answers in paperback,
\nWhen you see god
\nOnly piss to mark the spot.<\/p>\n
\nsuicidal and hungover alone in the sun\u2019s blare,
\nFuck-ups, fuck-ups\u2014aaaahhh
\nWatching my watch.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m 120 feet down
\nIn the gray blue brown invertebrate kingdom<\/p>\n
\nMy bubbles are like eyes like saucers
\nSatan\u2019s laughter sounds in my inner ear
\nAgain
\nThe guide swims deeper.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nAre there any <\/em>smells you like?
\nAntarctica could melt.<\/p>\n
\nB B B B dddddrrrrrrt ttttt t
\nThis hick burg\u2019s got no train you dig
\nI\u2019m trapped here with Patty Hearst
\nWe should leave, but
\nThere\u2019s no<\/p>\n
\nIND and the
\nLSD had shot me up with
\nCIA
\nBrother it was
\nAOK coming down in my
\nBVDs.<\/p>\n
\nI kept on
\nthe party got rough
\noh . . . it\u2019s a new day
\ngrey\u2019n\u2019brown
\nold turds out from under the snow
\nsing, \u201cWe love you.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/elephant-lice.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/em>
\nSpring vacation, and rain turning to sleet.
\nA perfect day to walk down the Court Street hill,
\nSmoking this three-dimensional day.<\/p>\n
\nand the cars and their drivers and their thoughts,
\nAnd splash through the reeking meadow.<\/p>\n
\nDrops gather on the undersides of high branches
\nThen follow spacetime geodesics of visual growth.<\/p>\n
\nMore and more merged, less and less there and
\nI put my finger on the clit, fovea, itch or pain,<\/p>\n
\nThe lurking fear, the shotgun blast, the mad-house,
\nThe scream, the knot, the egg I never saw.<\/p>\n
\nfind surcease. It feels good.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/cyberkids.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nThey had 15 elephants and on them was, alternating,
\nmen dressed like clowns and
\nwomen dressed like strippers just
\nbumping along to that elephant gait, hands on hips and
\nShuf\u00ef\u00ac\u201ain\u2019 Sam the elephant loose in his baggy skin hauls ass<\/p>\n
\nthey had a liberty bell hanging down.
\nAnd this gorgeous thing in one of those
\nfantastic gold circus suits all tucked into the
\ncrack of her powerful acrobat\u2019s ass bites
\nthe clapper of the Liberty Bell and
\nis pulled up to a height of some 30 feet spinning!<\/p>\n
\nthe midget dressed like Benjamin Franklin does a jig.<\/p>\n
\nthe Human Caterpillar tosses \u00ef\u00ac\u0081tfully.
\nThe girl is still spinning.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/popbabyrudychamp.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nordinary words
\nIt gives a feeling that there is a way out of me
\nLook
\nI can tell you, dreamer,
\nlonesome dreamer,
\nLast night on the railroad
\nIn New Brunswick cafeteria
\nZooted roast-beef edges
\nSwitch train back switch
\nSparks
\nthe bodies drop
\nSpirits you can\u2019t see are
\nTransmuting horribly out of the innocent flesh
\nA snake that flies
\nDeath is a snake that flies.
\nBut they never quite get me\u2014And if they did?
\nIs it already over?
\nVoices in the white
\nI saw the Stones last week
\nVoices in the white
\nI could hear them past the music
\nwhited out
\nwhited out
\nTo go beyond these things, more dead than alive,
\nTo go beyond<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s warming up and
\nI threw out the neighbor kids.
\nMine are lying on the yard blanket &
\nBaby\u2019s upstairs for her nap.
\nI will be there in the morning if I live.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rudyrabbitgeorgia.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nat Amsterdam. Postoffice and Cityhall were closed,
\nI found the graveyard near a wedding.<\/p>\n
\nGREETING\u2014IF THOU HAST KNOWN! \u2019s what
\nhe wanted on his headstone<\/p>\n
\na mass grave, pitiful tiny markers clustered,
\nnumber 521 . . . if thou hast known.<\/p>\n
\nOn the other hand, the hand & body & other bodies.
\nBlood studied interface enlightenment.<\/p>\n
\nThe Manyness of the world is easily noted.
\nIn between is the interface, seen only in passing.<\/p>\n
\nwatching the distant ice-dust wrapping Martian curves.
\nI froze solid except for one electron.
\n2 days later I was lying in a tree in Wadsworth\u2019s field
\nseeing at last how the mind is infinite,
\nImagining a national examination to test this knowledge.<\/p>\n
\nThe leaves of her charred books are blowing around.
\nShe is not coming back.
\nI was the first to see the flames that night
\nwhen we busted the windows with our ladder the smoke was alive and
\nshe was screaming, covered over and over in black.<\/p>\n
\nThese things are real. These things are real.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/1976_sylvia_gorgeous.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nOnstage at the Yiddische
\nVaudeville. It\u2019s mostly
\nLaughter today, a good
\nDay to be here\u2014in the
\nEleventh row, picking a
\nBack tooth with the Ticket stub. Those three
\nUshers are really short. They
\nLean onto the stage reaching
\nTowards the leading lady,
\nVoluptuous and comic by turns.
\nShe\u2019s vamping him
\nYou can see her panties\u2019 outline
\nClear from the eleventh row.
\nHe\u2019s a shabby professor, his
\nHead in the clouds and
\nSlips of paper fall from
\nhis baggy pants billowing
\nAs he walks down the aisle
\nPast those noisy little ushers
\nAnd she lifts her veil\u2014her
\nMouth is wide and friendly, a
\nStrong face, a good face\u2014
\nHis eyes pop and he juggles
\nThree grapefruits he had in those
\nBaggy pants\u2014she palms her hair,
\nHer hip juts\u2014he jerks his
\nUntidy head and the grapefruits
\nDisappear into the fourth dimension
\nOr something\u2014She\u2019s glowing now
\nAnd the ushers can see them smooching
\nAs the curtain slowly falls.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1980_unihd.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\ndown the stairs. Often they cry out, my father the most,
\nmy first daughter . . . they cry out and I act or not.
\nLight purple flames, germany, leather, acid, novels,
\nbeing cool is for itself,
\nmy father: \u201cI always know what people will say.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1984_hallow_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nExploding marijuana seed
\nViewing solar eclipses
\nStaring at the sun on acid
\nBreaking coke bottles with rocks
\nSnowballs
\n(Oh get it over with)
\nSharp sticks
\nFirecrackers
\nOral sex with syphilitics
\nReading in dim light
\nLiving forever in the dark
\n\u201cGeneration by generation the eyes migrate upwards\u201d\u009d
\nToo much light forever in the dark<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1982_newoffice_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nunpacked left alone
\nshe helps me, making it
\nclean as home, the
\nchanging home we move
\nacross the face of the
\nEarth scrubbing it With eyes and hands no
\nplace for the Ruckers or
\nany place at all really,
\njust so\u2019s I can plug in my
\nmachine, my heart, my
\nhome center that Sylvia
\nand I pass back and
\nforth like a glass of
\nwater, carried all over
\nearth, still full.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rudysylvianewlyweds.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/em>
\nIt is nice not to feel your body as a heap of rocks
\na pile of concrete blocks,
\nsloan-kettering cancer research snippets,
\nodds and ends,
\nradio tubes
\nBUT RATHER
\nas a smooth foamy mass,
\na breezy cloud of balloons
\n(tripping people often feel the wind blow through them)
\na ripple on the bosom of Gods sea<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/images10\/rucker_1983_buick_color.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n
\nof paper from downtown office supplies,
\nstepped out again, flaneur<\/em>, vadroilleuse <\/em>Marx
\nBrother in the big city, hully-gee a bank and
\nNext to is coming down a theater
\n– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – thubbbbbb***
\nInertia! The hot sun. On the exposed inner rear wall
\nReveals a scene, millimeters thick, fragile utopia
\n40\u2019s children\u2019s dream-window
\noh, fields and people in robes
\nI guess- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – thubb*
\nTomorrow it\u2019s still gonna be there,
\nThere\u2019s time to take pictures yet.<\/p>\n
\nYes, yes, me too.<\/p>\n
\n