I suppose I
should be writing about William T. Vollmann’s
THE DYING GRASS or ‘I’ by
Wolfgang Hilbig or again about THE WALL by H.G. Adler but a few weeks
ago I was talking with Laurie Callahan at New Directions about the man who
owned the red wheel barrow, Thaddeus Marshall.
Of course we all know that red wheelbarrow because of the poem by
William Carlos Williams:
so much
depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with
rain
water
besides the
white
chickens
I would suggest that you will find out
who MICHAEL J. PETERS is by reading these three letters which I have
transcribed from his handwritten versions:
ONE
10.18.68
Dear Tom
The fault of not continuing our, at
best, broken line of correspondences is entirely mine. Your letter written in Dublin arrived here
some months back. I shall pledge myself
to more discipline in the future and hopefully purge myself of my
shortcomings. Please forgive this
horrible red [the letter is written in red ink] but it’s all I have. Perhaps it’s symbolic of many things--- but
that would really be too heavy to write about!!
I
haven’t written anyone since last spring when I wrote a Syrian girl about her
body and how much her armpit had meant to me while suffering the adversities of
Oriental life. In that particular letter
I overextended myself, totally exceeding my fondest expectations and proving
what I’ve always suspected; that words are nearer to me than pubic
stubble. So anyway my letters comes
someplace between Theŕeśe’s smooth belly and just plain words
My
family forwarded your letter (I spent the first two months of summer north of
Seattle) but I didn’t receive it until after your proposed induction date of 1
June. However I can vaguely recall being
terribly drunk at about that date so I must have communed with you
somehow. I’m confident that you did
avoid the messy business in some manner--- hopefully it will end soon and
civilization can redeem her soul.
‘Merkan’
intelligence is beautifully characterized by Wallace, Nixon, and to a lesser
extent H.H.H. The idea of a national
political platform essentially based on beating Black-Americans into submission
and giving young people haircuts is particularly appalling in the face the real
issues: poverty, capitalist economy , etc. (Before I forget--- I’ve a stack of
back issues to the ‘Helix’ Seattle’s underground. It’s established and heads above most such
papers. Drop a card with your new
address and I’ll forward them immediately!!)
A
close friend wrote a few weeks ago from Big Sur about living and dying and he
idea of somehow reaching a decision as to the validity of life. It was really quite abstract. Implicit was the suggestion that he might die
soon by his own hand. I mention it only
because I think about it at times and I’m sure you also do.
I’ve
been reading a lot of late, mostly heavy academic books but some Gíde, Hesse
and Greek tragedy too. In an attempt to
make myself more comfortable I’ve change majors again--- transferring to the
NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES & LITERATURE DEPT.
was easy. It seems to be more a challenge. I think my field may eventually be Islamic
art
At
any rate, Tom—write me of your condition and of your wife. As I proposed--- a simple card with your
address would be adequate. In return I
promise a stack of ‘underground’ sheets’ as well as long coherent “think
letter.”
Michael.
TWO
SEATTLE November
68
Thomas-
I must say how pleasant it was to receive
your letter. My blatant procrastination
had left me worried that Elbie J. and the boys had grabbed you in London and
somehow thrust you into the War Machine.
Like all Crusades, ours kills, rapes, pillages and sloganizes in the
name Good. If it weren’t so sad we could
chuckle until the piss runs down our legs.
But alas it is most serious and profitable!! By the way—did you see Chicago (Pig City,
USA)?? A totally beautiful and
predictable exercise in ‘Merikan’ democracy. Ah, for the good old days when
pigs were pigs and not cops.
I’m glad to see you have returned to
the States if for no other reason than to fill your belly with unescapable crud
of ‘Merikan” civilization and your nostrils with the stench of our hypocrisy. Beware!! The spirit of 76 corrupts.
Can your believe Nixon?? Absolutely disgusting!! The man is a Turkey!! The imagination can easily see a new era of
Brown Shirts and Black Boots. By the
way—did the good people of Wisconsin erect a monument to good old Joe Mc. They must have; it would be only proper to
have done so.
University continues--- it drones on
and on with the rhythm of a palpitating whore.
It’s a game that I’ve to pay for a while. Still I look for the warm lady dressed in
brown, cloaked in darkness, but that’s a game I play with myself and hardly as
significant as the scholarly thing with books.
A friend who sits on the fence and gets despondent over things like
spring mornings at the [Big] Sur and Leningrad snows wrote that but I had to
destroy his letter because it caused me to think about things and that’s somewhere
near the end. I like the idea of making
love on dirty sheets in your Venetian slum house. I beg to be your guest paying or otherwise. Venice is good to those who know her., Where else the ecstasy of days measured in
the downy armpits and the dry rasps of rending spirits. Which reminds me--- did you see the latest
issue of NOVA? (It’s an English (British) mag.
Of doubtful quality). It has an
etching of Twiggy with an arm extended to God doing her toilette with a trusty Gillette
super blue blade. God was it
laughable!!!! They must have invented
that splendid cover for me--- an exclusive thing designed solely to evoke a
licentious chuckle from those who care about such trivia.
The sky never seems to be more than
pale green, an opaque continuum that leaves some doubt about the exact moment
when heaven meets mother earth. The November
sky is for those who think about
communion and black flags and tortured genius of sensitive people—
I hope you find some value in the
copies of Helix---it’s our ersatz journalism draped in the filigree of OP-POP
culture.
Well at least they try.
About your letters and things--- a
catholic school. Really, Thomas!! A
bastion of radical, irrational dogma.
Can you make it?? I had hoped you
could find something in Europe away from all the hassle of concerned
parents. I’m looking closely at teaching
in Roberts College, Istanbul my next trip over. However with an M.A. in NEAR EASTERN
LANGUAGES & LITERATURE it is will be
a tight fit to meet their requirements. I
understand they prefer English M.A.’s with teaching experience.
Of course I remain interested in your
writing, anxiously awaiting an opportunity to read your work. What are the chances of publication?? If things get too slow, I could work for a
printing at this end. If you’re truly satisfied with your novel, now in London,
and assuming it is turned down, you might try Grove Press in NYC or Lighthouse
Books in San Francisco.
I’ll shortly begin working for the Post
Office in an attempt to work off my indebtedness--- I was forced to buy a car…
V.W. and will in the next month rent a beach cottage on the Sound. I’ve to get away from my family they are
stunting my personality. It will be
limited freedom allowing me to be more eccentric in my existence. Somehow I’ll manage to keep up my studies at
[University of] Washington while working.
You should strongly consider visiting me or moving out here. We have the mountains and the sea and a
radical political climate. (We were the only western state to tell Nixon to get
screwed). Because of certain regrettable
obligations I can’t truly consider Mexico this spring. But I’m sure you would find the Northwest
rather enjoyable and my cottage would be yours and your wife’s We are provincial, but nevertheless very
good people. The music is sweet as is the beer and the grass is abundant in the
children’s pipes. I can confidently say
there would be good times for all.
Consider it, Tom. We could open a
commune in the wastes of eastern Washington or in the nearby mountains.
I couldn’t find the issue of the Evergreen
Review that you requested but I did meet an interesting cunt that led me to
several café-au-lait in the district and a near fuck. I’ll keep looking!
When I gather my wits I’ll write you a
long ‘think’ letter… Should be around the New Year. Let me know of your plans, Tom, I want to
share conversation and beer with you before time passes and things are lost. As
for God’s blessing--- I’m sure he would if he could.,
MICHAEL
THREE
29/11/68
[29/12/68]
Thomas McGonigle:
My bed has been empty for weeks and
it’s cold. God it’s cold—the frost is
fixed on the window till well past noon and my feet stay bare through it
all like Ransom’s frozen parsnips in the
snow. The hot bath at 2:00 brings me
back; things focus much better with lemon scented suds soaking my crotch. Tom,
I’m glad you have at least tenatively agreed to share the northern wilderness
this summer—It’ll be good for both of us.
My disordered mind needs company and you need inspiration before returning
to ‘academia.’
Through the ordeal of autumn with the
death and all I managed to rise above it all be placed on the “President’s List
of Scholars” at the University. Janet
said is showed how well adjusted and established I was--- I grabbed her tits in
front of her mother, she cried, and now in their minds I’m not nearly as well
adjusted as they had contemplated. An
unfortunate outburst for all concerned but it was the easiest way to make my
point. Anyway it’s all returned to the
back of my foggy consciousness and it’ll
not return until I rattle.
I read Donleavy’s Saddest Summer of
Samuel S. last evening--- it was naturally impressive but not the same magnitude
as The Ginger Man. Also have a short
story copied ifn the bourgeois anti-sexuality monthly Playboy--- The Beastly
Beatitudes of Balthasar B. but it is the same Dublin/Trinity thing and it will
probably be bit as well received as the others. It seem better suited to those
of us for whom the divine light of perversion has long since descended and dimmed. Anyway my shadow seems larger and my
body-mind more lustful. Read this morning
where a G-man (FBI) gunned down a hippie in Istanbul. Seems be less safe than before. It all sounds ultra-somthing.
They’ve taken all the plastic
Christmas to the rubbish heap thank God.
It becomes unbearable after a while.
I’m always suspicious of prophets and apocalyptic visions anyway, it
strikes me as a business man’s hoax. Can
you imagine your wife telling you that your child was conceived in heaven let
alone the Immaculate Conception---but I mustn’t offend the R.C.s and the lessers. Skepticism is my cross! To bear it on my slightly stopped shoulders
for the sake…….?
I don’t feel like continuing ,
Tom. An inspiration is about to send me
to the Conservatory to look at the tropical flora captive behind steamy windows. The idea of brightly blooming things behind and forced birth while even the
worms are frozen in their slime is curious.
I’ll post this then write within a few days, enclose any journals I’ve
accumulated since the last and if you like talk about Phédra or send some of
Doneavys that you’ve not read.
A prosperous new year full of goodies
MICHAEL
[I
have no further letters from Michael]
POST
POST SOMETNING
In
September, 1967 I was in Trieste staying at a youth hostel on the Adriatic with
the Castle of Miramare to the right and the city to the left… I met Michael J.
Peters there. I remember a drunken evening and being forced to stay during a
heavy rainstorm in a seaside cabana with him and two South African girls as we
were locked out of hostel which closed at 10PM.
The next day Michael and I went to a hotel in the Via Diaz in Trieste,
thinking of Joyce writing Ulysses in this city now hollowed out and no longer
important… we took a ferry along to Pula in what was then Yugoslavia and then
by train to Zagreb where I last saw
Michael as he was leaving for Athens and on to look at the Cedars of Lebanon as
he said while I was going to Belgrade and eventually to Sofia where my life
changed when I walked up in the dark Hristo Botev Boulevard to eventually marry
Lilia, the first girl I talked to, who was then minding her mother’s kiosk. We left Sofia just before Easter, 1968 for
Dublin by way of Venice, Paris and London.
In October we went to Menasha, Wisconsin where my parents were living in
exile from Patchogue.
I have a carbon of a letter I must
have sent to Michael during this time written on the back of a mimeo of a
history quiz I had given in the 7th grade class I was teaching at
St. John’s Polish Catholic School in Menasha, Wisconsin. I began teaching in November after Lilia and
I came from Dublin at the end of October.
The teacher had quit and they needed someone desperately. I was a lousy
letter writer but…
Michael: Thank
you ever so much for the Helixs they are a piece of food in this cold night
that is lived through with little sign of the morn… could you send more if possible
in fact any you don’t need?
The reverse is a test… it is all
arbitrary and that but I had to find out if they knew any facts at all…these poor
students already their minds are warped by the American death, they talk with
glib fascination of the Vietnam death,, about the orgasm of killing (we have had deer hunting the last two weeks)
have you this great festival? About the
refined brutality of death that is American football American style…the
previous teacher used to give them no homework if the Green Bay Packers won
also no homework on days they might play.
About Joe McC his spirit was exorcised by Allen the G last
year…the RCs have a mass over his grave each year hoping to bring back his body
from the worms.
From the newspapers I could imagine
that you should be able to find some nice pair of breasts to bury your nose in,
I wouldn’t want the armpit of American civilization for the stubs might spear
your tender,,,
The RCs quite good compared to other
places and quite progressive very little
control over what I do no outside exams in the 7th grade the religion is opening their eyes at least
that is what it will be for me… I also teach
American history. Monday they debate
resolved THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE WAS NOT JUSTIFIED perhaps we could go on IT WAS ALL A WASTE OF
TIME
You must realize these kids have never
seen a slum, they have never seen a Black.
I was going to write negro but that is taboo and I only use the b in
class.
Are you able to work and study full
time. I am going to back for night
courses at the u in languages as anything serious up here would be a waste of
time I just want the basics and any
idiot can teach that
Are you developing the Lowery bit?
I think we will come in June if it is
at all possible. I will get paid for
that month and but won’t have to work
Spring in Mexico is impossible anyway
there is no holiday given for that
The near fucks (Evergreen search) deserve head split open
In fact as I write this letter I have
made my mind definite to come up on the
hill with the beautiful long haired women
all mingling and gentle no news now on
novel but sent it to Hollins College in
Virginia in the hopes of a full fellowship to do an MA in creative writing a nice gentle way of spending a year
Hollins is a girls undergraduate
school with an integrated sexually grad school of 30. The main thing I just do is over awe that them
with talent suck’em down socially and then I can sit and type to my heart’s
content for a year.
Washington state radical even with
Boeing?
You have a nice hand writing the symbol of good breeding that is more important in this world gone to seed, now or a few seconds I shall turn my upper
class properly aristocratic
I might mention in this context that Mr Donleavy has a new book out
Roberts should not be difficult if you
could pick up a methods course in teaching eng. as a foreign language what about the place in Beirut also there is an American college for some
religion in Alexandria also working for
the oil companies also the British
Council has good jobs in Saudi Arabia $7600 plus travel insurance cheap housing etc
etc you would save 5 at least
If you ever want anything from this place
I will try and comply I will send the
Milwaukee rad sheet if I can get some copies
a trip to Mil is more than 100 miles
Swimming through the vomit is bad
enough
Let me end there
Christmas we realize is coming,,,
I hope you find nice things in
stocking but remember it’s what between that counts
And god bless your undertaking to
introduce a note of necrophilia into this…
FINALLY
Michael J. Peters is alive in your
reading of his letters. Or have I lurched too far from the example of William's trusting in his red wheelbarrow? Am I supposed to tell you what I make of Michael J. Peters in these letters. One last detail we exchanged books in Zagreb. I do not remember which book I gave him but I still have the small Grove Press paperback version of Alain Robbe-Grillet's THE VOYEUR
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