1st Canto

I-MAKING IT

                                  Prologue

 

Out of Discipline
Came Ratface   assassinator of angels
Herod of us all

Twenty broken-throated angels are here
                     digging the scene
Sweetface    out from the late shows   walks by

No one watches Ratface
No one ever watches Ratface
He's there    stayed through three shows
Sat right behind Sweetface
Is there now    walking behind him    up to something
Look his mouth is yowwwwwed
Sweetface   watch out

(a)   It all has to do with angels

                                                                       Not Italian angels
                                                                       Or cannonized idols
                                                                       Unquarrelled angels
                                                                       . . . cool and unpolitic

ANGEL-SAX:       Sweetface    dead by Ratface   lies before us
                              And was never the twenty we hoped him for
                              But seventeen    rat-bitten at seventeen
                              And no Chatterton    he

                              
ANGEL-CAT:       Sweetface   the mostest   scourge of drags
                              Now himself a drag    back to haunt us
                              Crewed-cut   upright   unhip   Death's number-one fuzz
                              Back to bug us

ANGEL-DOWN:  What are you doing up there    Sweetface
                              Can't see you rolling in and out of the shades
                              Like make it in the light
                              Man   what you doing with Saint Francis under your arm