Brion Gysin told everyone at the Beat Hotel that he could make William Burroughs vanish.
He rigged up a frame with cords, and he placed Burroughs behind it. Then he projected a photo of Burroughs on to Burroughs. The cords blocked some of the projection.
Gysin rolled the focus on the projection for a few minutes, which was hypnotic to the hotel residents.
Burroughs slipped away from his seat and left the room. It looks like he had disappeared.
The audience was stunned. Gysin smiled.
But Burroughs was annoyed. Applauding his disappearance?
He packed his things and left the hotel.
Category: William S. Bogus
I Killed The Moon
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Look at this knife.
This knife is mine.
I threw it at the moon.
And killed it.
Its blood raining down.
Dead.
Police station.
Jail. Behind bars.
Arrested for murder.
Other cells hold drunks. Hookers. Thieves.
I am the only murderer.
“Why did you do it?” asks the cop.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I had a knife. It was there. It followed me home.”
This angers him.
“Why did you do it?” he shouts.
I really don’t know. All I know, is that I killed the moon.
Every night, my victim up there in the sky.
Still following me.
America
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Here lies America, and all of America’s lies.
All the lies we told the world and all the lies we told ourselves.
In the home of the brave, we move the fences in and jog the bases to thunderous applause.
In the land of the free, we doubled the price so we could buy one and get one free.
A thumb in every balance pan, a fox in every henhouse.
Eat chicken for dinner too many times and you will discover there are no eggs for breakfast.
Don’t scream at the fox to lay eggs. He has eaten and left.
Happy Birthday
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Happy Birthday, America. So, how old are you now?
We’ve baked you a cake. A country-sized cake.
I know, we didn’t have to, but we had all this food lying around in silos and warehouses and store shelves.
It would have just gone to waste. Or food aid to people that hate us anyway.
We’ll dig a gigantic hole and call it your mouth.
Go ahead. Make a wish. Blow out the candles.
Then, thousands of bulldozers will push the cake into your mouth.
Earthquakes will chew it up. Grind it into a sugary mush.
And swallow the cake down.
The Kids
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The children play in the woods despite our warning them repeatedly it’s not safe out there.
The kids say they’re safe. Don’t worry about us. We’re fine.
Kids can be stupid.
Henderson came up with a plan to knock some sense into them.
We all put on animal skins and wore scary masks, then we went to the forest to wait for the kids.
The moment the kids showed up, we’d jump out and scare them.
Kids can be stupid.
Instead, when we jumped out, the kids shot at us with their guns.
I guess parents can be stupid too.
The Hamburger
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Condiments slipping, sliding from a sesame seed bun, flowing down a white shirt like a tidal wave, staining pants with yellow and red.
Brion Gysin was eating a hamburger in a manner no mortal man had eaten a sandwich of any kind, and the consumption of said hamburger was an experience I had the pleasure of witnessing in its entirety.
Like an Aztec war bib, that shirt became, a river of color.
It was no less than religious epiphany, a communion that I daresay has not been repeated since, not even by Jack Kerouac and his legendary overstuffed Chicago-style frankfurters.