Edward Dorn - Gunslinger 1 & 2

.daeha sa kcab emas eht si I exnis

There’s an excellent review of Edward Dorn’s Westward Haut by Steve Spence at the excellent poetry blog Stride – find here: http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/

Reading this encouraged me to re-read Edward Dorn’s Gunslinger 1 &2, published together in 1970 when I got my copy and read aged 16. I’m not sure I’ve read it since, but loved revisiting and perhaps understanding much more this morning. At 16 I think I will have revelled in its surreal vision, as I perceived it then, and the comedy of the Horse Claude Levi Strauss that rolls joints with its hooves, the inquisitive narrator I, and the anti-hero Gunslinger/Slinger who is even cooler than another character Cool Everything who appears in Part 2.

This modern epic poem is many things: it is a poetic quest in search of the meaning of life in the 60s, a capitalist life embodied by and thus the story’s physical search for Howard Hughes, and Dorn adorns [a pun he would have playfully used himself, not flinching at its naffness] this ontological, existential and surreal exploration with many layers of satire. The narrative is at its most poetic and philosophical in Part 2, beginning

      This tapestry moves

as the morning lights up.

And those who are in it move

and love its moving

from sleep to Idea

born on the breathing

of a distant harmonium, To See

is their desire

as they wander estranged

through the lanes of the Tenders

of Objects

who implore this existence

for a plan and dance wideyed

provided with a schedule

of separated events

along the selvedge of time.

      Time does not consent.

This is morning

This is afternoon

This is evening

Only celebrations concur

and we concur To See

                    The Universe

is One

Its contemporary and counter-culture reference points – not necessarily endorsements – get reflected in, for example, the character Cool Everything who is met in Part 2 by the travellers from Part 1. He is carrying five gallons of ‘acid’ [LSD] which is quite quickly transferred to the by now dead body of I, and thus the journey continues. I’s death, however, is as uncertain as the reality being sought/explored,

      Life and Death

are attributes of the Soul

not of things. The Ego

is costumed as the road manager

of the soul, every time

the soul plays a date in another town

I goes ahead to set up

the bleechers, or book the hall

as they now have it,

the phenomenon is reported by the phrase

I got there ahead of myself

I got there ahead of my I

is the fact

which now a few anxious mortals

misread as institution. The Tibetans

have a treatise on that subjection.

Yet the sad fact is I is

part of the thing

and can never leave it.

This alone constitutes

the reality of ghosts.

Therefore I is not dead.

But I makes a perfect receptacle for Cool Everything’s acid!

When the travellers arrive at their destination, Universe City [Vegas], Dorn moves from the ontological above to his satirical mode - but it’s no less intriguing,

      We’re inside

the outskirts, announced the Horse,

a creature of grass and only marginally

attracted to other distortions.

Here we are in the sheds

and huts of the suburbs. There are

some rigid types in here.

It’s kinda poignant

but that doesnt move it any closer to the centre.

Yup! empty now of all but a few

stubborn housewives

and disturbed only by the return

of several husbands known to be unable

to stay away during this celestial repast

called lunch. Thats where youre out

before you leave. Theres a man

turning on his sprinkler, it should be illegal

a small spray to maintain the grass, the Edible

variety no one doubts.

But I see none of my friends grazing there

these green plots

must be distress signals to God

that he might notice

their support of one of his minor proposals

He must be taken by these remote citizens

to be the Patron of the Grass

Holy shit, Lawn grass...

from the great tribe

they selected something to Mow

Not the defining indictment of a capitalist culture just yet, but a comic musing on a twentieth century urban worship of the trivial, and perhaps appearance over reality and worth.  

As I’m writing this I’m realising how much more I am trying to explain, and therefore quote as illustration, when this wasn’t my intention! However, as I’ve travelled this far –

As a conclusion/key point in the journey of sorts [the poem is carried on into other Parts that I haven’t read yet and which I need to find], the group arrive in the ‘city’ where, as I see/read it, the citizens greet the explorers as the Establishment [the Right/the rednecks] would greet the counter-culture [the Left/the hippies] in the 60s,

     A band of citizens had gathered.

They blocked the way. They too

were meshed with the appearance of I

Tho their interest was inessentially

soldered to the surface, and tho

they had nought invested, an old appetite

for the destruction of the Strange

governed the mass impulse of their tongues

for they could never comprehend

what the container constrained.

What’s That! they shouted

Why are his eyes turned north?

Why are his pants short on one side?

Why does his hair point south?

Why do his knees laugh?

Why does his hat stay on?

Wherez his ears?

The feathers around his ankle!

What does his belt buckle say,

What do his shoes say,

we cant hear them!

Why don’t his socks agree!

Theres a truckpatch in his belly button

does he have a desire to grow turnips?!

He hasn’t bought a licence for his armpits!

Look! they shouted,

his name is missing

from his shirt pocket

and his managers name

is missing from his back,

He must be a Monster! Look

His pocket meters show Red

and they all laughed ans screamed

This Vagrant, they shouted,

has got nothing, has no cash

and no card, he hasn’t got a Pot...

and the absurdity of the citizens’ questioning and conclusions mirrors in its dark comedy the clash of cultures and generations at that time, a darkness realised for example in the filmic representation of Easy Rider, my own experiences in Michigan [see Scott McKenzie review and elsewhere on this blog], Kent State, and much worse.

That’s probably where I connected most aged 16, and remarkably it still resonates. The political dimension is explored further in the ‘Literate Projector’ conclusion to Part 2 and I need to read yet again and consider further, trying to understand. But what a morning it has been, having read a review last night!