“The moon is made by some lame cooper, and you can see the idiot has no idea about moons at all. He put in a creosoted rope and some wood oil; and this has led to such a terrible stink all over the earth that you have to hold your nose. Another reason the moon is such a tender globe it that people just cannot live on it any more, and all that’s left alive there are noses. This is also why we cannot see our own noses – they’re all on the moon.”
this autumn
a cloud and a bird
as reason for growing old
“I’d prefer to remain a mystery. I never like to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I’m asked. It’s not just that it’s part of my image not to tell everything, it’s just that I forget what I said the day before, and I have to make it all up over again.”
for one touched by monkey cries
how is it when a child’s abandoned
in autumn winds
“Bukhstav is meant to look similar to runic alphabets and—like them—is designed to be cut into wood. Therefore it is composed entirely of straight strokes, which must be either vertical or diagonal – the stroke must cross the grain of the wood, as cutting along the grain would result in less readable marks and might risk splitting the wood. As with Fuþark, the first seven letters spell out the name of the script.”
secretly at night
a worm under the moon
bores into a chestnut
“Because it could blow my cover sooner or later.”
“I suppose it could,” she said, “but that’s the least of it. The last thing we want is people thinking a top New York hit man will kill dogs for chump change.”
on a bare branch
a crow has settled
autumn dusk
“An Albemarle County court index book shows two summonses issued for Allen in 1974, but supporting documents were destroyed long ago.”
after the flowers
all there is left for my haiku
wisteria beans
“The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.”
grabbing at straws
the strength to bear
our parting
with my thanks to mme levy
In his works Burroughs developed with painter Brion Gysin a ‘cut-up’ method, that employed cutting and blending several random texts into one hybrid narrative. Thus Burroughs has attempted to avoid conventional language patterns and to restructure readers consciousness.
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