Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 171

Opened Midnight, New York, September 4, 1976

“You Might Get in Trouble”

Opening a bus window in N.Y.

     with the left hand in front of

     Bellevue you might get a

                    hernia.

Walking across First avenue

     you might stumble in a

                    pothole

& get your head run over by

                    taxicab

Plowing the field by Cherry

     Creek your trailer might

     turn over & fall on your ear

you might get your ear cut off

     arresting a junkie

or having an angry conversation with

     a speedfreak on E. 10 street

or arguing your case before the

     supreme court

someone might shoot you in

     the brain

There’s nothing you can do to

     keep your nose clean

taking baths plunging in the

     ice & snow

you might catch cold, the

     flu Swine epidemic’s

     “in” this year

according to the Authorities.

September 18, 1976

Land O’Lakes, Wisc.

Buddha died and

left behind a

big emptiness.

October 1976

“Drive All Blames into One”

It’s everybody’s fault but me.

I didn’t do it. I didn’t start the universe.

I didn’t steal Dr. Mahler’s tiles from his garage roof for my chicken coop

where I had six baby chicks I paid for so I could attract

my grammar school boyfriends to play with me in my backyard

They stole the tiles I’m going across the street to the candystore

and tell the old uncle behind the glass counter I’m mad at my boyfriends

for stealing that slate I took all the blame—

Last night I dreamt they blamed me again on the streetcorner

They got me bent over with my pants down and spanked my behind I was ashamed

I was red faced my self was naked I got hot I had a hard on.

New York, October 25, 1976

Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin: Vajrayana Seminary

Candle light blue banners incense

aching knee, hungry mouth—

any minute the gong—potatoes and sour cream!

Sunlight on the red zafu,

clank of forks & plates—

I’ll never be enlightened.

*

Did you ever see yourself

a breathing skull

looking out the eyes?

*

Under wooden roof beams

a hundred people

sit

sniffling, coughing, clearing throat

sneezing, sighing

breathing through nose

shifting on pillows in clothes

swallowing saliva,

listening.

November 11, 1976

For Creeley’s Ear

The whole

weight of

everything

too much

my heart in

the subway

pounding

subtly

head ache

from smoking

dizzy

a moment

riding

uptown to see

Karmapa Buddha

tonight.

New York, December 13, 1976

Haunting Poe’s Baltimore

I     POE IN DUST

Baltimore bones groan maliciously under sidewalk

Poe hides his hideous skeleton under church yard

Equinoctial worms peep thru his mummy ear

The slug rides his skull, black hair twisted in roots of threadbare grass

Blind mole at heart, caterpillars shudder in his ribcage,

Intestines wound with garter snakes

midst dry dust, snake eye & gut sifting thru his pelvis

Slimed moss green on his phosphor’d toenails, sole toeing black tombstone—

O prophet Poe well writ! your catacomb cranium chambered

eyeless, secret hid to moonlight ev’n under corpse-rich ground

where tread priest, passerby, and poet

staring white-eyed thru barred spiked gates

at viaducts heavy-bound and manacled upon the city’s heart.

January 10, 1977

II HEARING “ LENORE ” READ ALOUD AT 203 AMITY STREET

The light still gleams reflected from the brazen fire-tongs

The spinet is now silent to the ears of silent throngs

For the Spirit of the Poet, who sang well of brides and ghouls

Still remains to haunt what children will obey his vision’s rules.

They who weep and burn in houses scattered thick on Jersey’s shore

Their eyes have seen his ghostly image, though the Prophet walks no more

Raven bright & cat of Night; and his wines of Death still run

In their veins who haunt his brains, hidden from the human sun.

Reading words aloud from books, till a century has passed

In his house his heirs carouse, till his woes are theirs at last:

So I saw a pale youth trembling, speaking rhymes Poe spoke before,

Till Poe’s light rose on the living, and His fire gleamed on the floor—

The sitting room lost its cold gloom, I saw these generations burn