Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 224

Karme-Choling, April 4, 1983, 12:15 A.M.

221 Syllables at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center

Headless husk legs wrapped round a grass spear, an old bee trembles in sunlight.

Since yesterday noon two Brown-eyed Susans stand before the outhouse door.

Tail turned to red sunset high on a spruce crown one lone chickadee tweets.

Moonless thunder—yellow dandelions flash in fields of rainy grass.

Mad at Oryoki in the shrine-room—Thistles blossomed late afternoon.

Put on my shirt and took it off in the sun walking the path to lunch.

A dandelion seed floats above the marsh grass with the mosquitos.

Empty clouds drift above me, birds chirp, a plane roar falls down through blue sky.

Electric noon—pine bough cicadas buzz outside the machineshop door.

At 4 A.M. the two middleaged men sleeping together hold hands.

In the half-light of dawn a few birds warble under the Pleiades.

Sky reddens behind fir trees as larks twitter and sparrows cheep cheep cheep.

July 1983

Caught shoplifting ran out the department store at sunrise and woke up.

August 1983

Fighting Phantoms Fighting Phantoms

Fighting phantoms we have car wrecks on Hollywood Freeway

Fighting phantoms th’Egyptians mummified Pharaohs & rich businessmen

Fighting phantoms a young Scotsman wore tennis shoes on the battleship deck

Fighting phantoms William S. Burroughs wrote umpteen novels

Fighting giant phantoms David picked up his sling

Fighting phantoms Chogyam Trungpa Vidyadara founded Shambhala Kingdom

Fighting phantoms pay federal taxes few write tax refusal forms

Fighting phantoms a Son of God ascended his wooden cross

Fighting summer phantoms muscular young musicians jumped up screaming in the twilit movie theater

Fighting phantoms Siddhartha meditated under a Bo tree

Fighting phantoms mysticism entered into the Catholic Church of Hollywood

Fighting phantoms a hundred thousand kids ordered purple Mohawks

Fighting phantoms various fairies chased adolescent athletes through steam bath locker rooms

Fighting phantoms the ruling class blew up the military budget, 244 Billion dollars 1985—of the tax pie 63% if past military debt interest & pensions’re added in

Fighting phantoms Ronald Reagan sent cocaine armadas to Central America

Fighting phantoms poets who smoked cigarettes denounced cigarettes—

Fighting phantoms New York Times printed thousands of editorial pages

Fighting phantoms Adolf Hitler shot more Methamphetamine & chewed the Bunker rug

Fighting phantoms thousands of poets become rather good at acid satire

Fighting phantoms Jimmy Dean stepped on the gas, Orson Welles ordered another cheesecake

Fighting phantoms Ernest Hemingway shotgunned his brain

Fighting phantoms Ezra Pound hated some Jews some hated Pound

Fighting phantoms Truman dropped two Atom Bombs

Fighting phantoms Einstein invented the theory of relativity

Mid-August 1983

Arguments

I’m sick of arguments

“You threw the butter in the pan”

“I did not you let it melt on the stove”

“You invaded Turkey and killed all the Armenians!”

“I did not! You invaded China got them addicted to Opium!”

“You built a bigger H Bomb than I did”

“You used poison gas in Indochina”

“Your agent orange defoliated ? the landmass It isn’t fair”

“You sprayed Paraquat”

“You smoke pot”

“You’re under arrest”

“I declare war!”

Why don’t we turn off the loudspeakers?

September 5, 1983

Sunday Prayer

An itch in the auditory canal scratches for years, use unguent,

Back pain a little, turn my head neck hurts

Balding long ago, gray whiskery hair inside ears

Eyes closed lying in bed, smart on my tongue, delicate

raw gums sore round some tooth roots—

From nineteenth year College chronic active Hepatitis

affects my kidney stones & high-blood pressure

Right cheek paralyzed slightly, eye squints tired,

lethargy dumps, no one’s abdomen to kiss,

cock skewed and lumpy erection aches—

Why show myself these sicknesses? Show anyone?

Wisdom & senescence, sickness and Death come

legended from Buddha to Kerouac—Myself

suddenly older—I made a mistake long ago.

September 25, 1983

Brown Rice Quatrains

Those high lunches needn’t matter

If you’re of businessman’s age

Anyway he enjoyed creating food

drifting across the Fragrant Nation

Who was it that began mouth talk

Gave the citizens thoughtful Saliva

Nature boy came close to Government

but secret police maintained ham & eggs

What tragedy for multiple Chickens

Think how pigs dream butcher night!

Sheep squawked nightmare, goat

fish sent regrets from meadow and sea

If he only could’ve made new Congress

We wouldn’t breathe so much sulfur smog

Sugar dances at the movies, coffee tells you on TV

and Sodium Nitrate & Nicotine Cholesterol

have nothing to do with Foreign policy.

Nature boy drifts into Central American oblivion

with Seminole Patchwork and Albert Einstein,

nobody thought heat rays would end the world.

September 25, 1983

They’re All Phantoms of My Imagining

I needed a young musician take off his pants sit down on the bed and sing me the blues

I needed a teacher could nail me to the Unborn

needed a stepmother’d accomplish my natural mother’s tears

a scared friend of fame wearing locks and T’fillin by the Wall of Tears

I needed a brother was gentle, suffered to protect me from anger

needed a nephew lost, left his rice in the refrigerator with a cold spoon

Comrade farmer cook with me & study Banjo Dharma

Needed Presidents mad so I could write the Nation sane

I needed a father a poet would die

Needed the great companion dark eyes wearied brow tender heart in the grave

needed an intelligent junkie rebuke my shallow thought with dirty wit