by Ed Sanders

Some Glyphs from The History of Peace Eye
     This selection of nine comes from a 221–glyph manuscript,
          “History of Peace Eye.”

early April, 1969

I left the Peace Eye Bookstore one early evening
and walked up Avenue A to our apartment
an old dental office with a marble fireplace
at 12th street

I unlocked the door
and then I was rushed from behind
by 2 guys who tossed me to the floor
and one of them pushed a knife
against my throat
chanting, “Where’s the amphetamine,
Where’s the amphetamine?”

I told them I never used amphetamine,
much less sold it
and I swore to God
I wasn’t the one who’d burned them.

Finally, the one in the blue trenchcoat said,
“Hey man, the guy that burned us didn’t have
no red boots on.”

And so my stylish red rock and roll boots
may have saved my life

by Ed Sanders

Some Glyphs from The History of Peace Eye
     This selection of nine comes from a 221–glyph manuscript,
          “History of Peace Eye.”

I had learned from my mentor
Allen Ginsberg
to clip articles non-stop
& store them subject
by subject in manilla folders

so I became a Clipper

& began opening files on
the Manson group
& those they were charged with
killing

I decided to close Peace Eye
I’d thought of keeping it open,
or bringing in a partner, but in the end
jusy gave away thousands of books.

Wow, did they flock into the store to get Free!
It was like the old Digger Free Store of ’67
around the corner from Peace Eye
but only for a couple of days.

by Ed Sanders

Some Glyphs from The History of Peace Eye
     This selection of nine comes from a 221–glyph manuscript,
          “History of Peace Eye.”

Nancy had a boy friend named Dick. He was a very nice boy except that he wouldn’t let Nancy see it. “Let me see it,” she said.

by Ed Sanders

Some Glyphs from The History of Peace Eye
     This selection of nine comes from a 221–glyph manuscript,
          “History of Peace Eye.”

I paused by a meat-store
on 2nd Avenue
near 9th

In the meat-store window
there was
a cow’s face
devoid of skin
but its eyes intact

A vision occurred
I didn’t realize it at the time
but it was probably Hathor
the Celestial Cow
of the Egyptian hieroglyphs

I pictured
a cosmic eye
which I instantly named Peace Eye

and a huge sky-Lake overhead
I named Crotch Lake

& then a fast-moving river
flowing out & down
from the Great Lake

leading to Peace Eye

all this
from the vision
inspired

by the skin-less cow’s face
in the window