Edward Dorn, “The Cosmology of Finding Your Place”
The Resistantism of all other places
On the floor among filters and the Spillings
The cosmology of the floor of the Nation
The cosmology of finding your place
The cosmology of smelling and feeling your Natural place inside the place,
feeling the filters
feeling the rock, feeling the roll
feeling the social spray at that level
low down, with the filters and the feet
feeling the place you can fold all four legs
and be man’s best friend to the End, among the filters and the feet,
in the rock, and in the roll
in the clock and in the roll, in the hole
of the social bilge The Great White Dog
of the Rockchalk, seeks his place Seeks
The place for Him there, tries every scrap of Space The Great White Dog of
The Rockchalk Cafe
moves under the Social seeking his own Place
in the constant present snap of eternity
listening with the german dislocated castenet
His Nose Is under the great pin ball rolling in heaven above
thru the barren terrain of feet He moves
from place to place seeking his place
The resisters the dogs seek their place
WAYNE KIMBALL told me all this
WAYNE KIMBALL sits in the booths, WAYNE KIMBALL
knows about the Great White Dog of the Rockchalk
The Great White Dog of The Rockchalk doesn’t The Great White Dog has been there
Western Civilization is Beer
The Great White Dog of The Rockchalk
went thru the door of Western Civilization
Which is north of the Barbershop
and north of the sailor pants incense shop
The Great White Dog went between all that
and the Gaslight, The Great White Rockchalk dog shakes hands
with both paws indiscriminately
For he Seeks his own true place on the floor
He disregards the social He seeks the Place
he seeks The Space his soul can occupy
In His restless search he looks only for the Place
Where he can come to rest in his own true Place
and that might be on the floor of the rockchalk
The great White Dog is not Interdicted by opinion
He accepts the floor of the Rock Chalk as an Area,
like any other, he will test that space
He is preoccupied only with the Search
The Great White dog of the Rockchalk is not social
WAYNE KIMBALL told me all this, WAYNE KIMBALL
is social, he knows only persons, he doesn’t
give a shit for the floor of the Rockchalk
WAYNE KIMBALL is neurotic like us, he wants
to smoke Grass, WAYNE KIMBALL sits in the booths
WAYNE KIMBALL drinks beer, has a part time job
pretending to be literate, WAYNE KIMBALL uses
the telephone and all other public Utilities
including Cocaine, The Great White Dog
of the Rock Chalk is full of shit and can’t shit
until he finds his place, WAYNE KIMBALL has diarrhea
WAYNE KIMBALL hasn’t got a driver’s license
WAYNE KIMBALL is thin and knows everything that happens
He has ears, He is a corrupt little mongrel like us
turned on to everything hopeless and bullsIiit
The Great White Dog of The Rockchalk is dumb
and doesn’t know anything but his instinct for the search
for his place somewhere in the litter
of the filters and tile literally dropped dreams
of the Great Rock Chalk, he smells the dreams on the floor
dropped from between the legs
of young English majors, ejected from between the
Dual Spraycans of the fraternizers
He seeks his place on top of this matter
among tile feet of the privileged nation on the floor
of the Great shit, Rock Chalk Rock Chalk White Rock Chalk Dog,
And WAYNE KIMBALL
Smokes cigarettes and Thoreaus them onto Onto Onto Onto the floor
already predicated by cancer, the slow movement of Cancer
and I love these dogs because
they are us and more us
than we are and they seek their places as do the true
whether they are Resisters or just scared or both
They are the twin dogs of creation in our image
and I give them both the floor as I give the Resisters This Poem
from the throne of Belief as the
Egyptians Gave and took from the Dogs Their access to Heaven
That we may all be Gods and seek our Place.
Edward Dorn, The Collected Poems 1956-1974
Notes: The Rockchalk Cafe ca. 1969 was a seedy bar at the north end of Oread Avenue in Lawrence, Kansas, much favored by hippies, yippies, bikers, and radical KU students. When I last visited Lawrence in 1988, the Rockchalk was still there, under a different name, but it apparently closed altogether in 2007. Wayne Kimball was a dog and probably belonged to George Kimball.