Harry Crosby: Verses about Crazy

What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit ofyour age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism?
  The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness) is a hot firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world.
    In Nine Decades
  a Mad Queen shall be born.

I am the criminal whose chest is tattooed with a poinard above which are graven the words 'mort aux bourgeois'. Let us each tattoo this on our hearts.
I am the soldier with a red mark on my nakedness-when in a frenzy of love the mark expands to spell Mad Queen. Let us each tattoo our Mad Queen on our heart.
I am the prophet from the land of the Sun whose back is tattooed in the design of a rising sun. Let us each tattoo a rising sun on our heart.

I would you were the hollow ship
fashioned to bear the cargo of my love
the unrelenting glove
hurled in defiance at our blackest world
or that great banner mad unfurled
the poet plants upon the hill of time
or else amphora for the gold of life
liquid and naked as a virgin wife.
Yourself the prize
I gird with Fire
The Great White Ruin
Of my Desire.
I burn to gold
fierce and unerring as a conquering sword
I burn to gold
fierce and undaunted as a lion lord
seeking your Bed
and leave to them the
burning of the dead.

(Self-Portrait) Omens and Astrology. A desert flat and undisturbed, stupid and forlorn. Sunless. a caravan of failures. Pons Asinorum and the Feast of the Ass and revolt against standardized American childhood.
War and Violence.
Catapults and Torches and the first stray thrusts of Sun into the Soul. Bombardments and Bordels. Heraldry and High Walls. Too rigid to crumble but not too strong to fracture.

Post-War Depression.
Extensive swamps formed by alcohol stagnating in the brain. Away from the gregariousness of the elephant towards the singleness of the hawk.

Omens and Astrology.
From Fog to Sun. Leaves and Inflorescence. Four columns of red marble. The scorification method. Love-Madness. Torchbearer and the complete entrance of Sun into Soul. Sunfire.

Boa Constrictor
through the thick grass. Red Skeletons. Silver Scar by Silver Image and Cicatrix. Reculer pour mieux avancer. The beaten forces were at last withdrawn safely into the Island.

The Primitive Method
of strengthening the soul by dropping red-hot sunstones into it. Rimbaud and Van Gogh. Counter-Attack. Turbulence. Chariot of the Sun.

The Mad Queen.
The violent state of fusion. Her Sun tattoed on my back. The bold progressive march to the Sun. Multiplication of Madness. anarchism. I lay siege to the Sun.

I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen.
The mirror crashes against my face and bursts into a thousand suns. all over the city flags cracle and bang. Fog horns scream in the harbor. The wind hurricanes through the window. Tornadoes are unmuzzled as I begin to dance the dance of the Kurd Shepherds.
I stamp upon the floor. I whirl like dervishes. Colors revolve dressing and undressing. I lash them with fury stark white with iron black harsh red with blue marble green with bright orange and only gold remains naked. I roar with joy.
Black-footed ferrets disappear into holes.
The sun tattooed on my back begins to spin faster and faster whirring whirring throwing out a glory of sparks. Sparks shoot off into space sparks into shooting stars. Shooting stars collide with comets. Explosions. Naked colors explode into Red Disaster.
I crash out through a window naked wide-spread upon a Heliosaurus. I uproot an obelisk and plunge it into the ink-pot of the Black Sea. I write the word SUN across the dreary palimpsest of the world. I pour the contents of the Red Sea down my throat. I erect catapults and lay seige to the cities of the world. I scatter violent disorder throughout the kingdoms of the world. I stone the people of the world. I stride over mountains. I pick up oceans like tin cards and spin them into oblivion. I kick down walled cities. I hurl giant firebrands against governments. I thrust torches through the eyes of the law.
I annihilate museums. I demolish libraries. I oblivionize skyscrapers.
I become hard as adamant strong as battleindurated with solid fire rigid with hatred.
I bring back the wizards and sorcerers the necromancers the magicians. I practice witchcraft. I set up idols. With a sharp-edged sword I cut through the crowded streets. Comets follw in my wake. Stars make obeisance to me. The moon uncovers her nakedness to me.
I am the harbiger of a New Sun World. I bring the seed of a New Copulation. I proclaim the Mad Queen.
I stamp out vast empires. I crush palaces in my rigid hands. I harden my heart against churches.
I blot out cemetaries. I feed the people with stinging nettles. I resurrect madness. I thrust my naked sword between the ribs of the world. I murder the world!