Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 236

I write poetry because the Tibetan Lama guru says, “Things are symbols of themselves.”

I write poetry because newspapers headline a black hole at our galaxy-center, we’re free to notice it.

I write poetry because World War I, World War II, nuclear bomb, and World War III if we want it, I don’t need it.

I write poetry because first poem Howl not meant to be published was prosecuted by the police.

I write poetry because my second long poem Kaddish honored my mother’s parinirvana in a mental hospital.

I write poetry because Hitler killed six million Jews, I’m Jewish.

I write poetry because Moscow said Stalin exiled 20 million Jews and intellectuals to Siberia, 15 million never came back to the Stray Dog Cafe, St. Petersburg.

I write poetry because I sing when I’m lonesome.

I write poetry because Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

I write poetry because my mind contradicts itself, one minute in New York, next minute the Dinaric Alps.

I write poetry because my head contains 10,000 thoughts.

I write poetry because no reason no because.

I write poetry because it’s the best way to say everything in mind within 6 minutes or a lifetime.

October 21, 1984

PROLOGUE

Visiting Father & Friends

I climbed the hillside to the lady’s house.

There was Gregory, dressed as a velvet ape,

japing and laughing, elegant-handed, tumbling

somersaults and consulting with the hostess,

girls and wives familiar, feeding him like a baby.

He looked healthy, remarkable energy, up all night

talking jewelry, winding his watches, hair over his eyes,

jumping from one apartment to another.

Neal Cassady rosy-faced indifferent and affectionate

entertaining himself in company far from China

back in the USA old 1950s–1980s still kicking

his way thru the city, up Riverside Drive without a car.

He hugged me & turned attention to the night ladies

appearing disappearing in the bar, in apartments

and the street, his continued jackanapes wasting his time

& everyone else’s but mysterious, maybe up to something

good—keep us all from committing more crimes,

political wars, or peace protests angrier than wars’

cannonball noises. He needed a place to sleep.

Then my father appeared, lone forlorn & healthy

still living by himself in an apartment a block up

the hill from Peter’s ancient habitual pad, I hadn’t

noticed where Louis lived these days, somehow obliterated

his home condition from my mind, took it for granted

tho never’d been curious enough to visit—but as I’d no place

to go tonight, & wonder’d why I’d not visited him recently,

I asked could I spend the night & bed down

there with him, his place had bedroom and bath

a giant Jewish residence apartment on Riverside Drive

refugees inhabited, driven away from Europe by Hitler,

where now my father lived—I entered, he showed me his couch

& told me get comfortable, I slept the night, but woke

when he shifted his sleeping pad closer to mine I got up

—he’d slept badly on a green inch-thick dusty

foam rubber plastic mattress I’d thrown out years ago,

poor cold mat upon the concrete cellar warehouse floor—

so that was it! He’d given his bed for my comfort!

No no I said, take back your bed, sleep comfortable

weary you deserve it, amazing you still get around,

I’m sorry I hadn’t visited before, just didn’t know

where you lived, here you are a block upstreet

from Peter, hospitable to me Neal & Gregory &

girlfriends of the night, old sweet Bohemian heart

don’t sleep in the floor like that I’ll take your place

on the mat & pass the night ok.

                         I went upstairs, happy to see

he had a place to lay his head for good, and woke in China.

Peter alive, though drinking a problem, Neal was dead

more years than my father Louis no longer

smiling alive, no wonder I’d not visited this place

he’d retired to a decade ago, How good to see him home, and take

his fatherly hospitality for granted among the living

and dead. Now wash my face, dress in my suit

on time for teaching classroom poetry at 8am Beijing,

far round the world away from Louis’ grave in Jersey.

November 16, 1984, 6:52 A.M.

Baoding, P.R.C.

You Don’t Know It

In Russia the tyrant cockroach mustache ate 20 million souls

and you don’t know it, you don’t know it

In Czechoslovakia the police ate the feet of a generation that can’t walk

and you don’t know it, you don’t know it

In Poland police state double agent cancer grew large as Catholic

Church Frankenstein the state itself a Gulag Ship

and you don’t know it, you don’t know it

In Hungary tanks rolled over words of Politician Poets

and you don’t know it

In Yugoslavia underground partisans of the Great Patriotic War

fought off the Great Patriotic Army of USSR

and you don’t know it,

you know Tito but you don’t know it

you say you don’t know it these exiles from East Europe complaining about someday Nicaragua Gulag

’cause you don’t know it was the Writers Union intellectuals of Moscow Vilnius Minsk Leningrad and Tbilisi

saying “Invade Immediately” their Curse on your Revolution

No you don’t know it’s not N.Y. Review of Books it’s bohemian Krakow Prague Budapest Belgrade E. Berlin

saying you don’t know it you don’t know it

Bella Akhmadulina in candlelight: “American poet you can never know the tragedy of Russia”