Ray

LX

OVER Hanoi. Hendrix coming in clear. Coming down from high nowhere to blue somewhere to spy the water and the Bonhomme Richard in the luminous China Sea. There was a certain spirit that had the controls and guided me in to make the deck. It was the last of the last if you didn’t. God bless America. At the last moment it is all spirit, because five things could go wrong before the hooks catch you and you are climbing out of the cockpit.

Oh, Captain, my Captain.

I saw the hospital in Hawaii. It turned my heart. I saw and heard them interviewing the wounded. The doctor goes in and asks a boy who’s just lost a leg: “Do you feel different about life now?”

I need to hear Sister’s voice.

Sister. Sister.

Ray is lucky. Ray can walk, think, and be a fool in his poems. I am lucky and I feel like fornication. Fellow doctor told me that there is some change and refreshment of hormones when you are with a lady overnight. Never knew that, but I will definitely study it for my long paper on the Nervous Anxiety of the Age.

Oh, God, my shirt isn’t ironed! Etc.

Let us meet again, we with our gray and forward hats on a million horses. Pushing the attack toward Washington, D.C. Our loves have evaporated. We run counter to them. Looking at the vista, there are cavalrymen of every race and creed. There is the beauty of the horses, with a steam like cumulus rising from their nostrils. Are we in line?

“Raise sabers!” says the general.

Eventually every man’s a sword. I’m riding down the lines and see Commander Gordon looking downcast. On myself I have the wool short jacket with every color of the rainbow on the breast.

“You haven’t your saber, Commander. Raise it and you will see your men raise theirs.”

“Sorry. I was thinking about my ex-wife. Brings you down. I know I’m going to die and that brings me down.”

“If you use the new pistol correctly, I don’t think you’ll die. We are about to launch the Air Force. Shoulders up, Commander! We’ve got every horse ready on its feet. We will race on water and then bring out the pistols. Every bullet is a heat-seeker. There’s no use of my going through the book with you.”

“Sabers up!” Commander Gordon says.

Behind him five thousand silver sabers rise.

“What do they have? What do their hired soldiers have?”

“We caught them short. All they have is the old lead. The machine guns. The air will bring down the potency of our jackets.”

Christ, here we go. Not a chance, but what a territory to gain!

Their cannon just missed me as my horse started running on the water. We are high on our horses and laughing and I can hear the shrill Rebel yell behind me. They are throwing out phosphorus bombs, and I see some of the men go down. My men just laugh and the horses climb the banks. What an open field. We are laughing and screaming the yell.

It is an open field.