III
Carl Solomon! 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 senses
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 straightjacket that you’re losing the game of 
          the actual pingpong 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 twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together sing-
          ing 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 souls’ 
          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 starry-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


                                                                       San Francisco 1955-1956