RONATHON! A BEAST IN VIEW

1985 saw the publication of Ronald H. Bayes' A BEAST IN VIEW: SELECTED SHORTER POEMS 1970-1980.

Black Mountaineer Joel Oppenheimer wrote,

"the poetry of ron bayes has always been rich, perceptive, witty, moving. "A Beast In View" keeps extending the limits he deals with while maintaining the strengths. in other words there's always more to tell me about that i need to hear. i'm jealous and delighted at how real language, puns, and "lit'ry" merge, touch, shy away from each other to make this good music."



          GEOGRAPHIES OF THE MORAL BRUTE

Lawyer: Look, she's left hairpins all over the floor again.
Officer: So he has discovered the hairpins too.
                               --Strindberg: "A Dream Play"

I. (Northern Virginal)

"Kiss me
til I bleed,"
she said.

I did.
She bled.

II. (Southern Virginal)

She pled
"Hump me
til ah faint."

Ah trahd.
Ah kaint.

III. (Universal Virginal)

Our only health
is our disease?

Heaven help us to the
Sulpha, please.




          THAT DAY IN THE SHADOW OF APOLLO

Yukio, you in the garden were looking at the roses.

Suddenly,
the boy was there again. You noticed him--in his school
uniform.

Not as you or I would have it. Grungy, middleclass,
kind of ugly.

Not rich-cut or sharp, not threadbare, boneclean
and sharp.

Came back four days in a row. You knew now
it would go on.

Holy Pinter! So: five strides eye-to-eye
you put it:

"Ask any single question. I'll answer it if
you'll go away."

And then, finally, you gave him--the odd kid--
your smile, your incomparable smile.

"OK," he said (no smile).
"When are you going to kill yourself?"




          ALONE

Cats
& chickens.
My fingers are
bamboo.

Ah, Parishoners,
one gropes months
in the hours
before dawn.

We are like
the osage orange
between Umapine
& Wallula.




          MME DeSADE'S
          BINGO PARLOR

I, John Letsome, purges, bleeds & sweats 'em
& if after that they wants to die, then I John, letsome.
                               --from an essay by John Parramore

If it had been a razor,
Dear, my hand and pen hastening on
to underline that kiss-off line
of yours
would have left me a
pointer finger poorer and
blood all over these pages.

Baffoon, ne?
All, all over
the ice.

---------------

The back of my head
striking against the bars.

Somebody saying
"Poor Baby."

Such
is the victory.

---------------

The cosmic laughter
Har har hars.




          BAMBOO MAP

I.
"& yours my wrestler
is the soul of a
musician.
& I so obtuse
in all the ways."

II.
What did you think?
          "I
admired him."




          WELL I LOST

everything you gave me--
the pen in Dublin
at the Post Office,

your letter back in
London,
your address in
Philadelphia.

You poor bastard,
you'll never hear
from me again.