The Vandals Took the Handles (An Opera)

to South Duchess County comes Them & Woolworth's Fool & triumphant alice toklas, the National Bank in short sleeves & the regulars — the sincereful regulars —House on its final kick — still breeding & a cellarful of imaginary Russian peasant girls holding triangles — the triangles are real — House on Doomstown, an academy — a priest with his winnings from Reno coming in on a parachute. . ."integrate the house!" "only if you wish to live where youre not wanted" "then bomb the house!" "only if you wish to live mere by yourself' "what do you suggest then?" "it's a pointless house — leave it alone — it is not happy within itself— it breeds disaster — it forces you to learn things that have nothing to do with the outside world & then it kicks you out there — the house dont need you —why should you be so low as to need it — leave — go far away from the house" "no, my friend, your way of thinking is called giving up" "do as you wish, your way is called losing — it's not even a way of thinking" the priest leaves with his eyes downward — he is examining the rocks but he's forgotten that his parachute has already been used once. . .alice toklas lays on a grassy knoll & blesses a flower "oh the enemy — beware of the enemy — the enemy is santa claus!". . .the flower doesnt need her — the flower needs rain

we sat in a room where Harold, who called himself "Lord of dead animals," was climbing down from a ladder & he said "friend or doe? friend or doe?" he wore a black shawl & someone said that the experimented in the depth of mirrors — Poncho was very startled & screamed "i'll give you a friend or doe, you freak!" & banged him with a judo chop & stuck his head thru the ladder — "shouldnt done that" said a very manly girl who came down the chimney "he's very sullen but he's a good cat — does anybody want a piece of bread?" Poncho said that he wanted a piece of kidney —i said i wanted — of separate...the girl began to cry into the photographs — you see the sand at Nice & Tangier & all the medicine men looking elegant & then out come the radar slaves — each one wanting to be an apostle & they carry the electrograms — we call them Employment & each one says things like "haul away ho" & Hefty Bore, a leftover horror from the beat generation & a dubious health freak saying to his bewildered birdgirl, Wee Wee the Dyke, "oh, c'mon —it wouldnt cost you nothing to tell everybody that i'm the hippest person you every met — c'mon — i do lots of things for you!" & Wee Wee saving "but i never see anybody — you never let me see anybody!" & then Olive, who once started a streetfight over Carl

Perkins' eyes & now builds laugh machines for rich democrats — he brings in the equipment & you get taken across a narrow bridge where hundreds of tourists follow & sail lead weight records at your feet & they place you in a giant bus horn & voices yelling "i want that one— i want that one!" Madame Remember appears & she takes away your photographs & all that's left in the outside world is your hand — little babies bite it & mothers are screaming Screaming "yes — he can have my vote — i'll vote for him any day". . .now youre a plastic vein — youve vanished inside of a perfect message — historic phone calls come thru to your belly & curious tabernacles move slowly thru your mind — hitchhiking — hitchhiking unashamed thru the goofs of your brain — your ideals are gone & all that remains are the cutup photographs of you standing in the supermarket — the bus still runs but now you take cabs with the jungle boys. . .Egotist shows you his diary & he says "i've learned to be silent" & you say "youve learned nothing — youve just said something"

the good folks around here, they got plenty of questions — they beat elephants to death with candy sticks — "a white bear is a crazy bear" say the thieves who really are not thieves but rather plain people who dont expect their friends to get sick so they'll need them — there is an illness on the mountain & a polio lily grew out of a green purse last Sunday — a dangerous nickel lays on the town square. . .everybody watches to see who'll pick it up. . .To Search e to Neglect & Violent Luck is Stampede & there's a bunch of us around here but we only pick up dollars

here lies bob dylan
murdered
from behind
by trembling flesh
who after being refused by Lazarus,
jumped on him
for solitude
but was amazed to discover
that he was already
a streetcar &
that was exactly the end
of bob dylan

he now lies in Mrs. Actually's
beauty parlor
God rest his soul
& his rudeness
two brothers
& a naked mama's boy
who looks like Jesus Christ
can now share the remains
of his sickness
& his phone numbers
there is no strength
to give away —
everybody now
can just have it back

here lies bob dylan
demolished by Vienna politeness —
which will now claim to have invented him
the cool people can
now write Fugues about him
& Cupid can now kick over his kerosene lamp —
bob dylan — killed by a discarded Oedipus
who turned
around
to investigate a ghost
& discovered that
the ghost too
was more than one person

example? they can learn from a bad example just as well — they can learn from you as well as me — you cant have me under your thumb anymore— not because i'm too squirmy, but because your hands are made of water. . .when you wish to talk to me, let me know ahead of time— I'll have a bucket waiting. . .just because your wife is pregnant, youve no license to meddle in mine or my friends' affairs — ask your wife if she remembers me