Posts tagged Allen Ginsberg

 I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and 
          sat down under the huge shade of a Southern 
          Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the 
          box house hills and cry. 
     Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron 
          pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts 
          of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, sur- 
          rounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of 
          machinery. 
     The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun 
          sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that 
          stream, no hermit in those mounts, just our- 
          selves rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums 
          on the riverbank, tired and wily. 
     Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray 
          shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting 
          dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust-- 
     --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, 
          memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem 
     and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes 
          Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black 
          treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the 
          poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel 
          knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck 
          and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the 
          past-- 
     and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, 
          crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog 
          and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye-- 
     corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like 
          a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, 
          soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sun- 
          rays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried 
          wire spiderweb, 
     leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures 
          from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster 
          fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, 
     Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O 
          my soul, I loved you then! 
     The grime was no man's grime but death and human 
          locomotives, 
     all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad 
          skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black 
          mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuber- 
          ance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial-- 
          modern--all that civilization spotting your 
          crazy golden crown-- 
     and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless 
          eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the 
          home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar 
          bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards 
          of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely 
          tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what 
          more could I name, the smoked ashes of some 
          cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the 
          milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs 
          & sphincters of dynamos--all these 
     entangled in your mummied roots--and you there 
          standing before me in the sunset, all your glory 
          in your form! 
     A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent 
          lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye 
          to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited 
          grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden 
          monthly breeze! 
     How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your 
          grime, while you cursed the heavens of the rail- 
          road and your flower soul? 
     Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a 
          flower? when did you look at your skin and 
          decide you were an impotent dirty old locomo- 
          tive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and 
          shade of a once powerful mad American locomo- 
          tive? 
     You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a 
          sunflower! 
     And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me 
          not! 
     So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck 
          it at my side like a scepter, 
     and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul 
          too, and anyone who'll listen, 
     --We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread 
          bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all 
          beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're bles- 
          sed by our own seed & golden hairy naked ac- 
          complishment-bodies growing into mad black 
          formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our 
          eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive 
          riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit- 
          down vision. 
                                

aprettywar:

A Supermarket in California

          What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
          In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
          What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families
shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

          I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
          I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?
          I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
          We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

          Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in
an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?
          (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
          Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be
lonely.

          Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
          Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

— Allen Ginsberg

(Source: onedayonepoem)

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human—
looks out of the heart
burning with purity—
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams of love—
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
—cannot be bitter
cannot deny,
cannot withold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

—must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye—

yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

- Allen Ginsberg

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! 
     Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! 
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! 
     The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand 
     and asshole holy! 
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is 
     holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an 
     angel! 
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is 
     holy as you my soul are holy! 
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is 
     holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! 
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy 
     Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas- 
     sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering 
     beggars holy the hideous human angels! 
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks 
     of the grandfathers of Kansas! 
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop 
     apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana 
     hipsters peace & junk & drums! 
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy 
     the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the 
     mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! 
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the 
     middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell- 
     ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles! 
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & 
     Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow 
     Holy Istanbul! 
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the 
     clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy 
     the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch! 
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the 
     locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina- 
     tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the 
     abyss! 
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! 
     bodies! suffering! magnanimity! 
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent 
     kindness of the soul! 

-Allen Ginsberg

Now that I’ve wasted
five years in Manhattan
life decaying
talent a blank

talking disconnected
patient and mental
sliderule and number
machine on a desk

autographed triplicate
synopis and taxes
obedient prompt
poorly paid

stayed on the market
youth of my twenties
fainted in offices
wept on typewriters

deceived multitudes
in vast conspiracies
deodorant battleships
serious business industry

every six weeks whoever
drank my blood bank
innocent evil now
part of my system

five years unhappy labor
22 to 27 working
not a dime in the bank
to show for it anyway

dawn breaks it’s only the sun
the East smokes O my bedroom
I am damned to Hell what
alarmclock is ringing

1963

-Allen Ginsberg

Blandly mother
takes him strolling
by railroad and by river
—he’s the son of the absconded
hot rod angel—
and he imagines cars
and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among
the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown

to create
out of his own imagination
the beauty of his wild
forebears—a mythology
he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate
his gods? Waking
among mysteries with
an insane gleam
of recollection?

The recognition—
something so rare
in his soul,
met only in dreams
—nostalgias
of another life.

A question of the soul.
And the injured
losing their injury
in their innocence
—a cock, a cross,
an excellence of love.

And the father grieves
in flophouse
complexities of memory
a thousand miles
away, unknowing
of the unexpected
youthful stranger
bumming toward his door.

New York, April 13, 1952

- Allen Ginsberg