THE BOOK OF GALAHAD

  l.
  Backyards and barnlots
  If he only could have stopped talking for a minute he could
      have understood the prairies of American
  Whitman, I mean, not Galahad who were both born with the
      same message in their throats
  Contemplating America from Long Island Sound or the Grail
      from purity is foolish, not in a bad sense but foolish as if
      words or poetry could save you.
  The Indians who still walked around the Plains were dead and
      the Grail-searchers were dead and neither of them knew it.
  Innocent in the wind, the sound of a real bird's voice
  In-vented.

  2.
  Galahad was invented by American spies. There is no reason to
  think he existed.
  There are agents in the world to whom true and false are
  laughable. Galahad laughed
  When he was born because his mother's womb had been so
  funny. He laughed at the feel of being a hero.
  Pure, For as he laughed the flesh fell off him
  And the Grail appeared before him like a flashlight.
  Whatever was to be seen
  Underneath.

  

  3.
  "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,"
  Damned Austrailians marching into Greece on a fool's errand.
  The cup said "Drink me" so we drank
  Shrinking or rising in size depending how the bullets hit us
  Galahad had a clearer vision. Was an SS officer in that war or a
  nervous officer (Albanian, say), trying to outline the cup
  through his glasses.
  The Grail lives and hovers
  Like bees
  Around the camp and their love, their corpses. Honey-makers
  Damned Austrailians marching into Greece on a fool's errand.

  4.
  To drink that hard liquor from the cold bitter cup.
  I'll tell you the story. Galahad, bastard son of Elaine
  Was the only one allowed to find it. Found it in such a way that
      the dead stayed dead, the waste land stayed a waste land.
      There were no shoots from the briers or elm trees.
  I'll teach you to love the Ranger Command
  To hold a six-shooter and never to run
  The brier and elm, not being human endure
  The long walk down somebody's half-dream. Terrible.

    5.
  Transformation then. Becoming not a fool of the grail like the
    others were but an arrow, ground-fog that rose up and
    down marshes, loosing whatever soul he had in the shadows
  Tears of ivy. The whole lost land coming our to meet this
    soldier
  Soldier in a land of those who had to stay alive,
  Cheat of dream
    Monster
  Casually, ghostlessly
  Leaving the story
  And the land was the same
  The story the same
  No hand
  Creeping out of the shadows.

  6.
  The Grail was merely a cannibal pot
  Where some were served and some were not
  This Galahad thinks.

  The Grail was mainly the upper air
  Where men don't fuck and women don't stare
  This starling at dawn
  That shatters the earth with her noisy song
  This Galahad thinks.

  But the Grail is there. Like a red balloon
  It carries him with it up past the moon
  Poor Galahad thinks.

  Blood in the stars and food on the ground
  The only connection that ever was found
  Is what rich Galahad thinks.
  

  7.
  The Grail is as common as rats or seaweed
  Not lost but misplaced.
  Someone searching for a letter that he knows is around the
  	House
  And finding it, no better for the letter.
  The grail-country damp now from a heavy rain
  And growing pumpkins or artichokes or cabbage or whatever
  	They used to grow before they started worried about the
  	Weath. Man
  Has finally no place to go but upward: Galahad’s
  Testament.



End of Book of Galahad