Wakening as she passed by I thought, she’s improvising street doggerel epic popular song cackling in everyone’s Immortal brain Anything comes to mind’s the right politics to ruin Police State.

February 13, 1988, 7:30–9:00 A.M.

Salutations to Fernando Pessoa

Every time I read Pessoa I think

I’m better than he is I do the same thing

more extravagantly—he’s only from Portugal,

I’m American greatest Country in the world

right now End of XX Century tho Portugal

had a big empire in the 15th century never mind

now shrunk to a Corner of Iberian peninsula

whereas New York take New York for instance

tho Mexico City’s bigger N.Y.’s richer think of Empire State

Building not long ago world empire’s biggest skyscraper—

be that as’t may I’ve experienced 61 years’ XX Century

Pessoa walked down Rua do Ouro only till 1936

He entered Whitman so I enter Pessoa no

matter what they say besides dead he wouldn’t object.

What way’m I better than Pessoa?

Known on 4 Continents I have 25 English books he only 3

his mostly Portuguese, but that’s not his fault—

U.S.A.’s a bigger country

merely 2 Trillion in debt a passing freakout,

Reagan’s dirty work an American Century aberration

unrepresenting our Nation Whitman sang in Epic manner

tho worried about in Democratic Vistas

As a Buddhist not proud my superiority to Pessoa

I’m humble Pessoa was nuts big difference,

tho apparently gay—same as Socrates,

consider Michelangelo da Vinci Shakespeare

inestimable comerado Walt

True I was tainted Pinko at an early age a mere trifle

science itself destroys ozone layers this era antiStalinists

poison entire earth with radioactive anticommunism.

Maybe I lied somewhat

rarely in verse, only protecting others’ reputations.

Frankly too Candid about my mother tho meant well

Did Pessoa mention his mother? she’s interesting,

powerful to birth sextuplets

Alberto Cairo Alvaro de Campos Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares &

Alexander Search simultaneously

with Fernando Pessoa himself a classic sexophrenic

Confusing personae not so popular

outside Portugal’s tiny kingdom (till recently a second-rate police state)

Let me get to the point er I forget what it was

but certainly enjoy making comparisons between this Ginsberg &

Pessoa

people talk about in Iberia hardly any books in English

presently the world’s major diplomatic language extended throughout

China.

Besides he was a shrimp, himself admits in interminable “Salutations to

Walt Whitman”

whereas 5?7?? height

somewhat above world average, no immodesty,

I’m speaking seriously about me & Pessoa.

Anyway he never influenced me, never read Pessoa

before I wrote my celebrated Howl already translated into 24 languages,

not to this day’s Pessoa influence an anxiety

Midnight April 12 ’88 merely glancing his book

certainly influences me in passing, only reasonable

but reading a page in translation hardly proves “Influence.”

Turning to Pessoa, what’d he write about? Whitman

(Lisbon, the sea etc.) method peculiarly longwinded,

diarrhea mouth some people say—Pessoa Schmessoa.

April 12, 1988

May Days 1988

As I cross my kitchen floor the thought of Death returns,

day after day, as I wake & drink lemon juice & hot water,

brush my teeth & blow my nose, stand at toilet a yellow stream

issuing from my body, look out curtained windows, across the street

Mary Help of Christians R.C. Church, how many years

empty the garbage pail, carry black plastic bags to the sidewalk,

before I boil the last soft egg,

day after day glance my altar sitting pillow a sidelong look & sigh,

pass bookcases’ Greek lyrics & volumes of Military Industrial Secrecy?

How many mornings out the window Springtime’s grey clouds drift over a wooden owl

on the Rectory roof, pigeons flutter off the street lamp to an iron fence, I return to kitchen

oatmeal cooking in an iron pot, sit in a wooden chair, choose a soupspoon, dreaming out the window eat my gruel