Collected Poems 1947-1997 - Ginsberg Allen - Страница 171
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Opened Midnight, New York, September 4, 1976
“You Might Get in Trouble”
Opening a bus window in N.Y.
with the left hand in front of
Bellevue you might get a
hernia.
Walking across First avenue
you might stumble in a
pothole
& get your head run over by
taxicab
Plowing the field by Cherry
Creek your trailer might
turn over & fall on your ear
you might get your ear cut off
arresting a junkie
or having an angry conversation with
a speedfreak on E. 10 street
or arguing your case before the
supreme court
someone might shoot you in
the brain
There’s nothing you can do to
keep your nose clean
taking baths plunging in the
ice & snow
you might catch cold, the
flu Swine epidemic’s
“in” this year
according to the Authorities.
September 18, 1976
Land O’Lakes, Wisc.
Buddha died and
left behind a
big emptiness.
October 1976
“Drive All Blames into One”
It’s everybody’s fault but me.
I didn’t do it. I didn’t start the universe.
I didn’t steal Dr. Mahler’s tiles from his garage roof for my chicken coop
where I had six baby chicks I paid for so I could attract
my grammar school boyfriends to play with me in my backyard
They stole the tiles I’m going across the street to the candystore
and tell the old uncle behind the glass counter I’m mad at my boyfriends
for stealing that slate I took all the blame—
Last night I dreamt they blamed me again on the streetcorner
They got me bent over with my pants down and spanked my behind I was ashamed
I was red faced my self was naked I got hot I had a hard on.
New York, October 25, 1976
Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin: Vajrayana Seminary
Candle light blue banners incense
aching knee, hungry mouth—
any minute the gong—potatoes and sour cream!
Sunlight on the red zafu,
clank of forks & plates—
I’ll never be enlightened.
*
Did you ever see yourself
a breathing skull
looking out the eyes?
*
Under wooden roof beams
a hundred people
sit
sniffling, coughing, clearing throat
sneezing, sighing
breathing through nose
shifting on pillows in clothes
swallowing saliva,
listening.
November 11, 1976
For Creeley’s Ear
The whole
weight of
everything
too much
my heart in
the subway
pounding
subtly
head ache
from smoking
dizzy
a moment
riding
uptown to see
Karmapa Buddha
tonight.
New York, December 13, 1976
Haunting Poe’s Baltimore
I POE IN DUST
Baltimore bones groan maliciously under sidewalk
Poe hides his hideous skeleton under church yard
Equinoctial worms peep thru his mummy ear
The slug rides his skull, black hair twisted in roots of threadbare grass
Blind mole at heart, caterpillars shudder in his ribcage,
Intestines wound with garter snakes
midst dry dust, snake eye & gut sifting thru his pelvis
Slimed moss green on his phosphor’d toenails, sole toeing black tombstone—
O prophet Poe well writ! your catacomb cranium chambered
eyeless, secret hid to moonlight ev’n under corpse-rich ground
where tread priest, passerby, and poet
staring white-eyed thru barred spiked gates
at viaducts heavy-bound and manacled upon the city’s heart.
January 10, 1977
II HEARING “ LENORE ” READ ALOUD AT 203 AMITY STREET
The light still gleams reflected from the brazen fire-tongs
The spinet is now silent to the ears of silent throngs
For the Spirit of the Poet, who sang well of brides and ghouls
Still remains to haunt what children will obey his vision’s rules.
They who weep and burn in houses scattered thick on Jersey’s shore
Their eyes have seen his ghostly image, though the Prophet walks no more
Raven bright & cat of Night; and his wines of Death still run
In their veins who haunt his brains, hidden from the human sun.
Reading words aloud from books, till a century has passed
In his house his heirs carouse, till his woes are theirs at last:
So I saw a pale youth trembling, speaking rhymes Poe spoke before,
Till Poe’s light rose on the living, and His fire gleamed on the floor—
The sitting room lost its cold gloom, I saw these generations burn
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