Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 206

Rolling Thunder Stones

652 WE GIVE THANKS FOR THIS FOOD …: After Snyder/Whalen adaptation of Zen thanks offering for food.

Two Dreams

656 ACID TIDE: Nitrous waste pollution of Jersey-Manhattan waters. A 1966 Los Angeles Free Press Robert Cobb cartoon showed ocean of LSD washing away a pillared fortress-island of Law, God, Self, Good, Evil, etc., seen somewhat as Urizenic Blakean abstractions.

Don’t Grow Old

664 AUNT ROSE: See “To Aunt Rose,” Paris, 1958.

664 NAROPA: Naropa Institute, contemplative college founded 1974 by Chogyam Trungpa; named for Kagyu lineage second patriarch, once rector of eighth-century Buddhist Nalanda International University. Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, codirected by author and Anne Waldman, was founded same year.

Contest of Bards

673 ETERNAL RUNE CUT IN STONE: Rune (Old Norse), character of Old Teutonic or Scandinavian alphabets; magical cipher.

685 EIDOLON: Platonic Image. See Whitman’s poem “Eidolons.”

Punk Rock Your My Big Crybaby

691 MABUHAY GARDENS TO CBGB ’ S: Punk rock/new wave youth clubs, on San Francisco’s North Beach and New York’s Bowery.

X

PLUTONIAN ODE

(1977–1980)

Grim Skeleton

699 RICHARD HELMS: See “Ego Confession” note.

Adapted from Neruda’s “Que dispierte el lenador”

704 QUE DISPIERTE: Adapted Summer 1978-Spring 1981 by Sidney Goldfarb and Allen Ginsberg from Waldeen’s trans. of Let The Railsplitter Awake and Other Poems, by Pablo Neruda (New York: Masses and Mainstream, 1950).

Nagasaki Days

707 ELLSBERG: Daniel Ellsberg (b. 1931) Author, revealer of the “Pentagon Papers,” now-public “secret” Defense Department analysis of built-in futility of U.S. Vietnam War adventure, had also helped design nuclear-strategy practical mechanics, including the failsafe system. The author and scholar Ellsberg were arrested together in Colorado during anti-nuclear peace protest at Rockwell Corporation’s Rocky Flats plutonium-bomb-trigger factory.

708 GOLDEN COURTHOUSE: See Kerouac’s verse “I wanna go to Golden,” i.e., Golden, Colorado, Jefferson county seat, where Rocky Flats anti-nuclear-weapons-manufacture demonstrators were tried.

Plutonian Ode

710 WHITMAN: Walt Whitman.

710 DOCTOR SEABORG: Glenn Seaborg, “Discoverer of Plutonium.”

710 SEA BEYOND URANUS: Pluto, past planets Uranus and Neptune.

710 AVENGING FURIES: Pluto was father to Eumenides, the Furies who return to avenge mindless damage done in passion, aggression, ignorance, etc. Pluto was also Lord of Wealth.

710 DEMETER: Pluto’s mother-in-law, the Earth fertility goddess whose daughter Persephone was stolen for marriage by underworld lord Pluto (Greek: Hades [Aides], brother to Zeus and Poseidon) and kept in his caverns a half year at a time, released to her mother each spring. Demeter gave wheat to man at Eleusis, site of her temple, one place in ancient world where Hades also was acknowledged with ceremonies indicated above.

Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and friends of Rocky Flats Truth Force, meditating on R.R. Tracks outside Rockwell Corporation Nuclear Facility’s Plutonium bomb trigger factory, Colorado, halting trainload of waste fissile materials on the day Plutonium Ode was completed, July 14, 1978. Photo by Steve Groer, Rocky Mountain News.

710 ASPHODEL: W. C. Williams wrote of asphodel, “that greeny flower,” as the blossom of Hades.

710 FISH … RAM … BULL … TWINS … CRAB … LION: Ages of Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo—2,000 years each age.

710 GREAT YEAR: Platonic, or Babylonian, or Sidereal “Great Year”—24,000 years—half life of Plutonium radioactivity. This fact, pointed out to me by Gregory Corso, inspired this poem. Cf. W. B. Yeats, A Vision.

710 ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-SEVEN THOUSAND: The 24,000-year span of the Great Year—167,000 cycles—4 billion years, supposed age of Earth.

710 BLACK … DISILLUSION: Six senses, including mind.

710 SABAOT … IALDABAOTH: Archons of successive aeons born of Sophia’s thought, according to Ophitic and Barbelo-Gnostic myths.

710 SKY OVER SILENT MILLS AT HANFORD … MASON: Plutonium factories, whose location by state and whose function in bomb-making are here described. Plants in Pantex, Texas, and Burlington, Iowa, managed by Mason & Hanger-Silas Mason Co., Inc., assemble the finished components of the nuclear weapons.

711 TWO HUNDRED FORTY MILLENNIA: 240,000 years the supposed time till Plutonium becomes physically inert.

711 TEN POUNDS: Ten pounds of Plutonium scattered throughout the earth is calculated sufficient to kill 4 billion people.

711 SIX WORLDS: Six worlds of Gods, Warrior Demons, Humans, Hungry Ghosts, Animals, and Hell Beings held together in the delusion of time by pride, anger and ignorance: a Buddhist concept. See notes to “Thoughts Sitting Breathing,” p. 796.

711 DIVINE WIND: Kamikaze, typhoon, wind of Gods.

711 THREE HUNDRED TO NS: 300 tons of Plutonium, estimate circa 1978 of the amount produced for American bombs.

711 I SING YOUR FORM: “The Reactor hath hid himself thro envy. I behold him. But you cannot behold him till he be revealed in his System.”—Blake, Jerusalem, Chap. II, Plate 43, lines 9–10.

712 HONEY … WATER: Traditional libation to Hades poured at Temple of Eleusis, and by Odysseus at the Necromanteion at Acheron.

712 DIAMOND TRUTH: Reference to Buddhist doctrine of Sunyataa, i.e., existence as simultaneously void and solid, empty and real, all-penetrating egoless (empty void) nature symbolized by adamantine Vajra or Diamond Sceptre.

712 FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR: Estimated world military budget; 116 billion, U.S. share, October 1978.

713 TAKE THIS INHALATION … THOUGHT-WORLDS: Four characteristics of Buddha-nature activity: to pacify, enrich, magnetize & destroy.

713 GONE OUT … AH!: Americanese approximation and paraphrase of Sanskrit Prajnaparamita (Highest Perfect Wisdom) Mantra: Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.

Blame the Thought, Cling to the Bummer

717 DUDJOM LINEAGE: Dudjom Rinpoche, contemporary head of Nyingma “old school” Tibetan teachings founded by Padmasambhava.

717 BEDROCK MORTAR …: Cottage built by author and friends in California Sierra woods adjoining Kitkitdizze, at site of original Indian inhabitants’ mortar holes. See “Sad Dust Glories” note.

“Don’t Grow Old”

718 DON’T GROW OLD: See poems on the death of Louis Ginsberg, January 12-July 11, 1976.

December 31, 1978

724 LINDY HOP: Peculiar quick dance step popular late 1920s.

Brooklyn College Brain

725 BODHICITTA: Seed of enlightenment stuff, enlightened essence of Buddha mind, or awakening aspect of mind.

Garden State

727 HARRISBURG HYDROGEN BUBBLE: In Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear accident, March 28, 1979, unit #2’s reactor core was badly damaged. A pressure relief valve in the main cooling system had jammed while the reactor was operating at full power. Thousands of gallons of water unexpectedly drained from the core. At this pass, operators mistakenly turned off pumps designed to flood the reactor in such emergency. Consequent overheating resulted in damage to the reactor, and release of radiation.