Howl III

Carl Söderman
I'm with you in Rockland where you're madder than I am
I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange
I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother
I'm with you in Rockland where you've murdered your twelve secretaries
I'm with you in Rockland where you laugh at this invisible humor
I'm with you in Rockland where we are great
Writers on the same dreadful typewriter
I'm with you in Rockland where your condition
Has become serious and is reported on the radio
I'm with you in Rockland where the faculties of
The skull no longer admit the worms of the sexes
I'm with you in Rockland where you drink the
Tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
I'm with you in Rockland where you pun on the
Bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx
I'm with you in Rockland where you scream in a straitjacket that
You're losing the game of the actual ping-pong of the abyss
I'm with you in Rockland where you bang on the
Catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal
It should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return
Your soul to its body again from
Its pilgrimage to a cross in the void
I'm with you in Rockland where you accuse your
Doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew Socialist
Revolution against the Fascist National Golgotha
I'm with you in Rockland where you will split the heavens of Long
Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb
I'm with you in Rockland where there are twenty-five thousand mad
Comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale
I'm with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss the
United States under our bedsheets, the United
States that coughs all night and won't let us sleep
I'm with you in Rockland where we wake up electrified out of
The coma by our own soul's airplanes roaring over the roof
They've come to drop angelic bombs
The hospital illuminates itself
Imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside
O star-spangled shock of mercy
The eternal war is here
O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping
From a sea journey on the highway across America in
Tears to the door of my cottage in the western night