Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen. Страница 241

bus to bus, cameras moving behind me. What was my role?

I hardly knew these faded heroes, friendly strangers

so long on the road, I’d been out teaching in Boulder, Manhattan,

Budapest, London, Brooklyn so long, why follow me thru

these amazing Further bus party reunion corridors tonite?

or is this movie, or real, if I turn to face the camera I’d break

the scene, dissolve the plot illusion, or is’t illusion

art, or just my life? Were cameras ever there, the picture

flowed so evenly before my eyes, how could a crew follow

me invisible still and smoothly noiseless bus to bus

from room to room along the caravan’s painted labyrinth?

This wasn’t cinema, and I no hero spokesman documenting friendship

scenes, only myself alone lost in bus cabins with familiar

strangers still looking for some sexual angel for mortal delights

no different from haunting St. Mark’s Boys Bar again solitary

in tie jacket and grey beard, wallet in my pocket full of

cash and cards, useless.

                                   A glimmer of lights

in the curtained doorway before me! my heart leapt

forward to the Orgy Room, all youths! Lithe and

hairless, smooth skinned, white buttocks ankles, young men’s

nippled chests lit behind the curtain, thighs entwined

in the male area, place I was looking for behind

my closed eyelids all this night—I pushed my hand

into the room, moving aside the curtain that shimmered

within bright with naked knees and shoulders pale

in candlelight—entered the pleasure chamber’s empty door

glimmering silver shadows reflected on the silver curtained veil,

eyelids still dazzling as their adolescent limbs

intangible dissolved where I put my hand into a vacant room,

lay down on its dark floor to watch the lights of phantom arms

pulsing across closed eyelids conscious as I woke in bed

returned at dawn New York wood-slatted venetian blinds over

the windows on E. 12th St. in my white painted room

April 30, 1987, 4:30–6:25 A.M.

When the Light Appears

Lento

You’ll bare your bones you’ll grow you’ll pray you’ll only know

When the light appears, boy, when the light appears

You’ll sing & you’ll love you’ll praise blue heavens above

When the light appears, boy, when the light appears

You’ll whimper & you’ll cry you’ll get yourself sick and sigh

You’ll sleep & you’ll dream you’ll only know what you mean

When the light appears, boy, when the light appears

You’ll come & you’ll go, you’ll wander to and fro

You’ll go home in despair you’ll wonder why’d you care

You’ll stammer & you’ll lie you’ll ask everybody why

You’ll cough and you’ll pout you’ll kick your toe with gout

You’ll jump you’ll shout you’ll knock your friends about

You’ll bawl and you’ll deny & announce your eyes are dry

You’ll roll and you’ll rock you’ll show your big hard cock

You’ll love & you’ll grieve & one day you’ll come believe

As you whistle & you smile the lord made you worthwhile

You’ll preach and you’ll glide on the pulpit in your pride

Sneak & slide across the stage like a river in high tide

You’ll come fast or come on slow just the same you’ll never know

When the light appears, boy, when the light appears

May 3, 1987, 2:30 A.M.

On Cremation of Chogyam Trungpa, Vidyadhara

I noticed the grass, I noticed the hills, I noticed the highways,

I noticed the dirt road, I noticed car rows in the parking lot

I noticed ticket takers, I noticed the cash and checks & credit cards,

I noticed buses, noticed mourners, I noticed their children in red dresses,

I noticed the entrance sign, noticed retreat houses, noticed blue & yellow Flags—

noticed the devotees, their trucks & buses, guards in Khaki uniforms

I noticed crowds, noticed misty skies, noticed the all-pervading smiles & empty eyes—

I noticed pillows, colored red & yellow, square pillows and round—

I noticed the Tori Gate, passers-through bowing, a parade of men & women in formal dress—

noticed the procession, noticed the bagpipe, drum, horns, noticed high silk head crowns & saffron robes, noticed the three piece suits,

I noticed the palanquin, an umbrella, the stupa painted with jewels the colors of the four directions—

amber for generosity, green for karmic works, noticed the white for Buddha, red for the heart—

thirteen worlds on the stupa hat, noticed the bell handle and umbrella, the empty head of the white clay bell—

noticed the corpse to be set in the head of the bell—

noticed the monks chanting, horn plaint in our ears, smoke rising from atop the firebrick empty bell—

noticed the crowds quiet, noticed the Chilean poet, noticed a Rainbow,

I noticed the Guru was dead, I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa,

noticed mourning students sat crosslegged before their books, chanting devotional mantras,

gesturing mysterious fingers, bells & brass thunderbolts in their hands

I noticed flame rising above flags & wires & umbrellas & painted orange poles

I noticed the sky, noticed the sun, a rainbow round the sun, light misty clouds drifting over the Sun—

I noticed my own heart beating, breath passing thru my nostrils

my feet walking, eyes seeing, noticing smoke above the corpse-fir’d monument

I noticed the path downhill, noticed the crowd moving toward buses

I noticed food, lettuce salad, I noticed the Teacher was absent,

I noticed my friends, noticed our car the blue Volvo, a young boy held my hand

our key in the motel door, noticed a dark room, noticed a dream

and forgot, noticed oranges lemons & caviar at breakfast,

I noticed the highway, sleepiness, homework thoughts, the boy’s nippled chest in the breeze