Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 198

Patna-Benares Express

308 MAIDAN: Area that contains a horse track and polo field in Bankipore, sector of Patna city.

308 PATNA: Capital, Bihar state on right bank of Ganges, 125 miles from Benares.

Angkor Wat ^*

314 AVALOKITESVERA: The gates to the palaces and some temples of Angkor Wat are made of giant heads of Avalokitesvera (Down-Glancing Lord, Buddha of Mercy) facing in four directions. Principal Bodhisattva of Lotus Sutra pantheon, Chinese Kwan-Yin mercy god, Japanese Lady Kannon, sometimes thousand-armed energetic in compassionate activity.

314 BANYANS: Banyan trees, whose giant roots grow out of ruined walls and temple roofs.

314 SITARAM: Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur, a Vaishnavite guru who told the author in Benares, “Give up desire for children,” and gave other instructions for purity.

316 CHURNING OF THE OCEAN: Bas-reliefs of old Hindu myth “Churning of the Ocean” cover one wall of Angkor Wat (a theme repeated throughout the temple areas).

317 BUDDHA DHARMA SANGHA: Buddham Saranam Gochamee—I take my refuge in the Buddha; Dhammam Saranam Gochamee—I take my refuge in the Dharma; Sangham Saranam Gochamee—I take my refuge in the Sangha. The Three Refuges, which the author interprets as: I take my refuge in my Self, I take my refuge in the nature of my Self, I take my refuge in the company of my fellow Selfs. [Non-Self interpretation.—A.G., 1984.]

317 HARE KRISHNA: This Maha Mantra (Great Prayer) for the Kali Yuga, first recommended to the author by Shivananda, consisting of different names of Vishnu the Preserver, can be sung with ecstatic rock beat.

318 ABHAYA MUDRA: Mudra—Buddhist hand gesture; Abhaya—gesture of calm, stilling stormy waters. Commonly seen on seated Buddhist statuary.

318 LEROI MOI: The American radical poet Leroi Jones, later known as Amiri Baraka.

319 LEARY: Dr. Timothy Leary, an early heroic explorer of Psychedelic Consciousness.

319 AP BAC: Early guerilla battle in Vietnam won by Viet Cong, with many unreported losses of life by S. Vietnam Government soldiers and great confusion of leadership.

320 TA-PHROM … TA-KEO … THOMMANOM: Giant ruined Khmer civilization temple areas near Angkor Wat.

320 GARUDA: God of the Hindu pantheon, bird-headed, aide of King Ram in the Ramayana. [Spontaneously self-born enlightenment, Vajrayana Buddhist view—A.G., 1984.]

320 CHAMS: A northern tribe that conquered and burned the wooden Khmer cities that surrounded the temples.

320 TA-PHROM: Huge temple in giant stone-walled enclosure, unreconstructed by archaeologists, its paths cleaned of small overgrowth to show the Baynan jungle encroachment on the tumbling stone architecture.

322–323 “BLIND … RAIN!”: The entire text of this composition was written in one night half sleeping and waking, as transcription of passages of consciousness in the author’s mind made somnolent by an injection of morphine-atrophine in a hotel room in the town of Siemreap, adjacent to the ruins of Angkor Wat. The passage incorporated in quotation marks was notes taken earlier that day high on ganja (pot) on the roof of the temple of Angkor Thom.

324 LOLEI: A small ruined temple with an active monastery in the same compound, a few miles on the highway out of Siemreap.

325 HUe: S. Vietnamese city on north coast above Saigon, where student protests against suppression of Buddhist radio ceremonies ended in blister-gas riots, reported by telephone to UP office in Saigon, June 1963.

325 RAINY NIGHT AT THE BORDER: “Rainy Night at the Border,” a popular song like “Lili Marlene,” and classic complaint of Oriental soldiers, was banned in the nightclubs of Saigon by Mme. Nhu (wife of Catholic Premier Diem) as being “too pessimistic and demoralizing.”

326 XALOI TEMPLE: Center of Buddhist Association hunger strike, early resistance to Diem government.

326 AFRAID TO PUBLISH: A letter from Jon Edgar Webb of Outsider magazine, apologizing for not publishing a dream of Negroes by the author, for fear of violent white gang reprisals against his office in New Orleans.

327 SUKOTHAI: Very graceful early Thai style of Buddha statues, one hand delicately flowing behind, one hand raised in reassurance, one foot set forward as he steps out into the world of action.

327 LINGAM: Stone phallus universally worshipped in India as basic form of Shiva the Creator.

328 BUDDHA FOOTPRINT: Three fish with one head—a sign of Buddhahood incised in giant stone carving of Buddha footprint found under Bo Tree at Bodh Gaya, mythological Indian site of the Buddha’s realization.

329 RADIOACTIVE DOLPHINS: From a letter from J. Kerouac describing the twentieth-century complaints of his Canuck cousins.

330 10 TINY BUDDHAS: A little fragment of the twelfth-century miniature Stupa carried by the author from broken-down Hindu garden near Bo Tree as a present to poet Gary Snyder in Kyoto.

330 MEA SHEARIM: Orthodox Hasidic section of modern Jerusalem.

331 PEKING’S JEWELRY FEET: See poem “Magic Psalm.”

331 “MAKE ME READY—BUT NOT YET”: A line from W. H. Auden, out of St. Augustine: “O Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.”

The Change: Kyoto–Tokyo Express

333 “… CONVOLUTED …”: See “The Clouds,” part IV, in William Carlos Williams, The Collected Later Poems (New York: New Directions, 1963), p. 128.

VII

KING OF MAY: AMERICA TO EUROPE

(1963–1965)

Morning

345 JULIUS: Julius Orlovsky, brother of the poet Peter Orlovsky, rescued by latter 1958 after twelve years’ residence Central Islip State Hospital, N.Y. See Robert Frank film Me and My Brother, 1966.

Today

353 SWAMI SHIVANANDA: (1887–1962) “Your own heart is the guru.” Spoken to author, Rishikesh, 1962. See dedication, Ginsberg, Indian Journals.

354 BENJAMIN PeRET & RENe CREVEL: Peret—French surrealist poet (1899–1959); Crevel—French dada dandy poet suicide (1900–1935).

355 FAINLIGHT: Harry Fainlight, young British poet active N.Y. underground film literary circles early 1960s. Participated Albert Hall, London, Poetry Incarnation, 1965. Died 1982.

355 ED: Edward Sanders (b. 1939) American poet, classicist, and musician, leader of Fugs rock group, editor Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts.

Message II

356 GOLEM: Artificial man created, in one Hebrew legend, by the Kabbalist Rabbi Low, Prague, end of sixteenth century. Parallel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster.

356 BREUGHEL: Pieter Breughel (1520?-1569) His painting Winter Landscape of Prague (including Vltava panorama) is exhibited in that city.

Big Beat

357 KALKI: Final avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu, appearing at close of Kali Yuga (see “Journal Night Thoughts” note) to destroy world and initiate Maha Yuga, the aeon of greatest spiritual virtue, first Yuga of four in Hindu Kalpa cycle.

357 MAITREYA: Future Buddha, aspect of compassion, personification of love, parallel formation to maitri (Sanskrit), friendship.

The Moments Return

360 SEBASTIAN SAMPAS: Youthtime poet friend of Jack Kerouac, brother of widow Stella, killed at Anzio beachhead WW II a few weeks after sending Kerouac a recording: “I weep for Adonais, he is dead. … Goodbye, Jack.”

360 OZONE PARK: In Queens, N.Y., where Jack Kerouac lived with his family late 1940s and wrote The Town and the City, his first novel.