N a
p a l m H
e a l
t h S p
a : R e
p o r
t 2 0
1 2
DAVID COPE
American
Pewter with Burroughs II: Green is
a Man / To Fill is a Boy
Robert Rauschenberg riffs on two lines by William S.
Burroughs
1.
The
green man leafy head in hands comes back again & again:
I
remember Billy, the son, scapegoat, burdened with the life he found:
cirrhotic,
bleeding out his esophagus, finally in hepatic coma,
“swimming up” to his eyes from within to observe bleak
cartoon
figures going
through motions in the room beyond—saved only
because when
others bardo-prayed he’d go to the light, his father
drove them away—“Dammit, he’s in a fucking coma and he might listen!”
Billy—who
in the end “bid all trees & true persons the clearest of futures.”
2.
Greek
warriors lean together, flowing beards lovely curling hair, fierce eyes
Intent
on the battle to come,
another battle.
Sappho lamented such beauty
one sees in faces like
these, marching to war, full of high phrases, valorous
tongues,
arms bristling with arms, killers with the faces of angels—Sappho,
who cried out to Anactoria that her footstep, the light in her eyes set her
heart thrumming more strongly
than all armed killers others might sing.
3.
The
ironworker spread-eagled high above the city, his billed cap cocked
Like
a statement atop his head, walks
skyward, free, beyond earthbound
Spirits
trapped in the squalor of watches & traffic, appointments, brief
cases loaded with the flotsam
of routine—imagine him now, naked
to the world, human form
at last a swinger in heights
above, godlike,
filled
as a boy is filled to be a man, to green as an earth in season.