RONATHON! The Umapine Tetralogy: TOKYO ANNEX

The third book in Ronald H. Bayes' Umapine Tetralogy is TOKYO ANNEX (St. Andrews Press, 1977).


PASSUS 11

"Only one teacher ever had much interest in me
before, when I was a student @ the academy
in Albuquerque & was just a tough
ornery little bastard. He thought I had some
ideas," sd Les Porter
on our way to the Pendleton airport.
"He was a young poet, too, I
don't remember his name,
I
wonder if he made it."

BY ANY CHANCE HAVE ONE EYE? "Yes."
WEAR A BEARD? "Yes."


1957-8
1964-Now.                (...7 days later, Creeley
                                                    @ Pendleton, "yes.")

                                                   Flagellante
                                                   Penitente
                                                   the craft
                                                   the craft
                                                             (Agnes Martin
                                                             @ Taos & the Crews'
                                                             --her painting &
                                                             Les @ the academy...



PASSUS 12
(For William Carlos Williams)

"There is more to a man than the content of his jock-strap."
                                                                                            -Whalen


You knew we knuckle under to politics
as acceptable excuse; inexcusable
                               if there be virtue.

Why       ever
this      compulsion
to

               flee
               the places
               the people
we love!


The answer is historical
                              "political," (supra)
                              NOT economical if we are
                                                                      men

          fear
          of ourselves
our fickleness           change
their hy/
pocracy           & ours
& grasping
                    (gasping "We? Any more? Men?")

                    Some stick it out:
the neck, the heart, the while,
          aware of where the front is,
          even now:      Logistica.
                                   Love.
                                   Williams.
                                                  America.