(after Peter Dale Scott)

Like something out of an Austen novel,
     An introduction by Dr. Rudd Fleming
To one John Pauker, Esquire,
  
And this son of an immigrant barber
     Was off to the More Funhouse East
On Porter Street, Washington DC, circa 1969.

At Yale, Pauker with the reactionary poet 
     Reed Whittemore and the 
CIA spook-to-be James Jesus Angleton

Published the lit mag, Furioso, which included 
     The fashionable fascist poet Ezra Pound 
And his sentimental alter-ego William Carlos Williams.    

Soon, the barber’s son was sipping martinis
     And holding court with men in tailored suits
With promises of publication and travel.

Men who seemed more of the fifties of his childhood
     Than the 1960s right outside the door.
Catching on what was expected of him,

Voice of America, Eastern Europe, Cold War, 
     He declined their overtures, 
Refused their publications and reading tours.

Jump 47 years to a dive bar in Middletown, CT.
     The Corner Pocket Bar and Grill.
The Beat Poets, our poet’s latest refuge,

That as his wife says, “Get him. 
     His vulgar transgressive energy.”
     That smack of old country pig farmer
That can’t be bred out.
     
It’s hot and crowded, and a bunch of the regulars
     Mid-libation have been trapped by a poetry reading.
The poets read. The barflies grouse.

Then the barber’s son, dressed in a robe and abaya,
   Startles the audience back to the First Century,
The Gospel of Simon Kananaios hot for jihad against Rome.

The time of times of that most infinite asshole, Jesus,
    Who like the folks at the More Funhouse East
Knew nothing of living, proposing nonsense 
    That only made living more difficult.

Dramatic, biting, standup, Lenny Bruce funny, the poet, a dervish
    Wheeling about the bar, pounding on the pool table.
Wild eyed, grabbing startled patrons by the collar.

And spitting literal spit, the words of Oranius – 
   “A golden age a peace and love? 
Seen any a that about?!!”

Or Barabbas – “As Pilato confirms, no more secure his throat
          From me dagger,
Less the barber, takin’ strength from me, 
                   Strike the blow.
           So may the Antipas go the way of Janneus, and  
The Hellenes and Herodians upon a sea of blood
           As they could this day sail on me wounds ta Hell.
       Heathen tutelaries linin’ the temples as they’s stadiums and forums,
                    Base confounded wif good.
Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea Philippi, Caesarea a tergo.
                           Herod leasing Cypriot copper from Rome,
                   And a maritime monopoly in asphalt 
           Wif Antony’s copper bitch. 
I prosper as me people, just as we are.
           What cast out Saul is timely to me.
Who to slay his ten thousands and how ta proceed.
                   No bloody timeless fiction a good will
When none’s ta ground.
            Nor, who sired who, like a painted gall’ry a horse pizzle.
But one father and nation same.
            But one to die for, and many deaths to come.

           Or Gesmas – “And you.
You what make the world an arena.
           You kitts and your bloody mongrel faces
What perch me on high
           What chosen proper I look down on you. 
Here. Here’s me chrism.” (Spits on audience).
       Finishes.

And the barflies at the rail. The barflies rush the poet.
       Embrace him, clutch his hands in theirs.
Slap him on the back. In a boozy tear or two
       They exude their gratitude.

And the barber’s son. 
      He may have not delivered them from evil.
But motherfuck if he didn’t deliver them from poetry.


	

NOTE: kitts = kittim = Romans