Corey, Jim

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FAMOUSI'm famous because famous people know me I'm famous because I'm always just a few decibels louder than the rest I'm famous because I'm ruthless I'm famous because strangers seek my company I'm famous because invisible television cameras follow me to the drugstore & back(whatever's playing on my Walkman's the soundtrack for this movie)I'm famous enough to wear stupid hats w/impunity I'm famous enough to hold my head high & sigh at the ridiculous actions of others I'm flush with fame, feverish w/it!I'm eagerness mixed w/languor I'm so famous cars slowI'm so famous ladies kibbitz in my direction The Johnstown Flood & San Francisco Earthquake have nothing on my notorietyI am renowned celebrated noted distinguished & illustrious At receptions people I don't know call me "Mr." & offer to share their cheese I slide by tickettakers w/a wink Customs officials bow & whisk me past lines On the street waiting limosines fling doors open for me I have never even seen a restaurant check nor do I wish to My name is writ large in fireworks that never cease explodingIts syllables descend w/sulfurous vapor trails from every tongue in every coffeebar in Berkeley How could I be so famous? celebrated? spectacular? fabulous?I am as famous as any fool who ever livedSUNGLASSESso the ultraviolet doesn't fry away my corneas so assholes I know won't recognize me so assholes I don't know won't recognize me so that I may be taken for the Beatles, say, or Belmondo so I may lust after ass freely 4 as long as it passes the range of my vision so the whole beach is a photograph so strangers don't burglarize my imagination so I can roll my eyes during endless insipid conversations w/out the interlocutor becoming aware so I may be safe in each necessary dishonesty so every distance is lunar, every person a traveling statue so in my drunkie days no one would know so I can hide a black eye17so I can use them for mirrors to fix my hair on commuter trainsso the night holds no surprisesso the assassin & the bodyguard may change places at willEVERYTHING & EVERYONE VS. RICHARD BRAUTIGANhe died with his novels stories & poems in jaundiced paperbacks stacked on the shelves of every used bookstore in Americahe died with an empty wallet a typewriter layered in dust he died & tidal waves of pumpkins washed ashore on the Oregon coasthe died & every trout in Montana knewhe died & the winos of Potrero Hill lifted 5ths of Tokay in salutehe died with his work —  widely hailed abroad —  derided by all but a handful of U.S. critics he died predeceased by the quality of mercy at the center of all his enterprisehe died with a ghostly answering machine acting as spokesman so the maggots could do their work he died an officially listed suicide but was poisoned by the alchemy of fame & a strange & terrible incomplete­ness without which it's impossible to experience failure's bottomless fallings he died the angriest man in the world & the loneliest & what he died from guns have nothing to do with—  Jim CoreyPhiladelphia PASWEPT AWAY—  in memory of James SchuylerHe sat quietly in his little apartment,weeping. James had been dead exactly one year,and the anniversary was turning outquite rough. He considered drivingto the Atlantic, but decided not to do so —there was all the traffic he would have had to fight.The bookshelves were quiet;Sappho, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe,Dickinson, Moore, Plath, Pound,Auden, Williams, Bishopdid not call out to him. On a table,18

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https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/wormwood/wormwood_a1996v36n1i141/wormwood_a1996v36n1i141p17.pdf

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